The Core Conflict
Marco Pozza - That day, on the Mount of Beatitudes, the world fixed an appointment with Christ on another mountain: that of Calvary. There isn't anyone in the world who—if you ask them—won't admit that they are chasing their happiness: all human beings tend towards it. What remains to be understood is what is meant by “happiness.” The world has no doubts; it has slogans always ready to be rolled out: “You only live once, old man!” “Enjoy life while you can!” “Who knows: have fun and don't worry about what will happen!” These slogans, every other day, inspire a bit of everything: Friday nights, movie plots, the vanity of the times.
And when these recipes cause some form of allergy or intolerance—problems that will make you feel responsible for what you've done—the old-school justification will always apply: “Why do you give in to lust so much, bro?” The answer lies in my grandfather's genetic makeup: “You know, he suffered from an Oedipus complex; I'm the one who pays the consequences. By the way, Grandma, from what we've discovered while exploring our family history, suffered from an Electra complex.”
These two, Oedipus and Electra, were already famous and endlessly quoted even in the time of Christ. However, he would fly into a rage when he felt that they were to blame for the unhappiness of the time. For this reason, and no other, one fine day he arranged to meet just above the Sea of Galilee—the place of his first loves—to explain his theory on happiness. Not to denigrate Oedipus and Electra—he simply wanted to challenge the social theories that cheated people—without them realizing it—and hindered them from reaching their goal of happiness. Like: “May I explain why your faces are so gray?”
Theories abounded, then as now: bad milk, family background, Toxoplasma due to unwashed salad, poor circulation of money. Sin, in short—what is unhappiness if not the inability to be a saint?—always depends, for the sinner, on external factors. Then, one day, he arrives—the Christ, an apprentice carpenter—and shoots down the pre-cooked justifications: “About happiness, you have always heard this,” he begins. Then, aware of what he was saying, he turned the theories on happiness upside down like grandma turns a freshly washed sock: “Blessed are you!” Which—there were some intelligent people in the audience on the mountain—was the same as “Woe to you!”
That day—which went down in history, which condemned the history of Christ—he had the patience and the time to dismantle, one by one, the worldly myths. The world says: “Wealth makes you happy.” He comes up with: “Blessed are the poor.” The first: “Eat and drink: what's left is lost.” He replies: “Blessed are you, who are hungry now.” To the world that says, “Laugh, everything passes,” he raises the stakes: “Blessed are you who weep now.” The world is a serial fornicator: “Enjoy it, don't think about it: every let-up is lost.” Jesus risks being laughed at greatly: “Blessed are the pure in heart” (cf. Lk 6:17,20-26).
Then, to the world that invites sycophancy—“Make him your friend, he'll be useful soon”—he opposes the challenge of outrage: “Blessed are you when they hate you.” As they say on the news: from the Mount of Beatitudes, for the moment, that's all. Let each one choose what path they want their happiness to take.
You don't need to be a genius to guess that on that day, on the Mount, the world set an appointment for Christ on another mountain: that of Calvary. Try to put a spoke in the wheel of the world's nonsense, and you'll understand why Christ crucified himself that day—with a splendid capacity for understanding and willing. He who expounded the theory on the lake will put this theory into practice on Calvary: “In the end, the essential will win over those who have lost all that is ephemeral.”
The world has the power to pick between the risky happiness of Christ and the convenient happiness of the world. Meanwhile—a time in which people will continue to think, “I might as well give up everything and become happy”—the ways of Christ and those of the world will never change in appearance and taste: the former are like salt and vinegar, the latter are like honey and caramel.
Presently, everything seems ridiculous and exaggerated: in the world, black and white will always be persecuted. Only grays will be given the top places.
The author has not revised the text and its translations.