“The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”
What sensational news today's Gospel gives us! Normally we think that the most important things always come spectacularly and get our attention. Jesus, on the other hand, is telling us that what matters (the Kingdom of God) does not attract our attention when it arrives; rather, it is already here among us.
This means that everything we expect from life is already here, even if we aren’t aware of it yet. We don’t have to wait for another day to love; we can love now. We don’t have to wait for another day to be holy; we can be holy now. We don't have to wait for a certain circumstance to happen to be happy; we can be happy now.
Living with the awareness that we don’t have to project ourselves into the near future, but should value our present instead, could change our whole life. Otherwise we’ll only seek sensational things – things that give us feelings and emotions – because we’ll be lacking in substance. The search for excitement very often hides the emptiness we carry inside.
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Father Luigi Maria Epicoco is a priest of the Aquila Diocese and teaches Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University and at the ISSR ‘Fides et ratio,’ Aquila. He dedicates himself to preaching, especially for the formation of laity and religious, giving conferences, retreats and days of recollection. He has authored numerous books and articles. Since 2021, he has served as the Ecclesiastical Assistant in the Vatican Dicastery for Communication and columnist for the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
