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Posts Tagged ‘Faith’

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Verbum Domini

In 11 Joanna Bogle on 2013/10/17 at 12:00 AM

Been reading…

… Verbum Domini, the new Papal document on the importance of the Scriptures. It is, obviously, centred on the Scriptures themselves, and also on the Second Vatican Council’s important document, Dei Verbum. This interests me very much, because this, almost more than other documents of Vatican II, has been central to our studies at Maryvale.
Throughout the first half of my adult life, I was often told that the Second Vatican Council had produced nothing of real value, that it would one day be regarded as irrelevant, or that it had been a dreadful mistake. There had been so much post-conciliar muddle that it was easy to accepot this view (although I didn’t).
Wiser voices, which urged the reading and study of the Council’s documents, tended to be drowned out – but when you could hear them, they gave good advice and now we are beginning to see the Council’s true fruits. Chief among these has of course been the Catechism of the Catholic Church – another crucial reference-point in Maryvale studies. But we can also note a fresh approach – a logical one, given the development of the Church’s doctrine in this area – to religious freedom and to the relationships between Christianity and other faiths. And the message offered by Benedict XVI on his recent visit to Britain – which proved so attractive, and which won over so many who had thought they were going to haye him – was soaked in the Vatican II approach…John Henry Newman knew that the Church needed an educated laity: people who could give a good account of what the Church taught and why.
It is interesting to see the opportunities for achieving this increasing, not only through the New Movements in the Church with their programmes of study and action, but also through the various educational institutions, and indeed through the Internet. The women who asked for advice and help from Newman as they sought to know more about the Catholic Faith and apply it to their lives were anxious to serve the Church but were limited in the possibilities open to them. Whereas today…

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Why Faith Prevails Over Doubt

In 04 Fr. John McCloskey on 2013/09/04 at 12:00 AM

A FAITH BRIEF: A LAWYER’S ARGUMENT FOR WHY FAITH PREVAILS OVER DOUBT

It is clear that what was once known as the West–let’s say Western Europe and North America–has largely abandoned its Christian roots and fallen into apostasy. In fact, it has succumbed to neo-paganism–a practical atheism that, similar to 18th-century Deism, relegates God (if he exists) to a peripheral role in one’s life. Increasing numbers do not believe it is rational to believe. The gods of technology, medicine, material security, and entertainment have largely replaced American denominational Protestantism, which fell victim to the cultural explosion of the Sixties. Since then denominational membership has plummeted year after year. Evangelical Protestants cling with good will to their Bibles and born-again encounters but are not stable. They have revolving ministers, no sacraments except Baptism, and no solemnity of worship, often congregating in what appear to be jet aircraft hangers. Such churches give no sign of the potential to create a culture whose hallmark is Beauty, a sign of God’s presence.

Law professor and novelist Patrick M. Garry, however, has written a book explaining why. Entitled: A Faith Brief, A Lawyer’s Argument for Why Faith Prevails Over Doubt, it is published by Kirk House.

Garry writes, “This book is about faith. Actually it is a book about finding faith despite an immersion in a life and culture of doubt, and about by first finding a way to dispel the doubt.”

His book is nondenominational in its approach, relying predominantly on philosophical and reasoned arguments to plead his case. Even though the book-jacket blurbs all seem to be Catholic, Garry’s book does not work to convince the reader by authority or Revelation; rather his aim is to detach the reader from a state of skepticism.

Continue reading…
http://www.catholicity.com/mccloskey/a-faith-brief.html

Fr. John McCloskey

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Sacred Heart

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2013/06/07 at 12:00 AM

One of the most beautiful devotional representations of our Lord is His Sacred Heart. We’re  blessed here at St. Ann’s to have a beautiful statue of the Sacred Heart as well as a stained glass window with this image.

In our window Jesus is revealing His Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. What I love most about images of the Sacred Heart is that they show our Lord’s heart with flames, a sign of His burning love for us.

St. Mary Margaret received several apparitions of our Lord, through which she was given a greater understanding of the infinite and burning love our Lord has for mankind. In one
apparition she even saw our Lord’s heart on fire with love for mankind.

Jesus asked St. Mary Margaret to make up for the coldness and ingratitude of mankind by receiving Holy Communion in reparation for sin, especially on the first Friday of every month  for nine consecutive months.

It was from these apparitions that we now have the First Friday devotion that is so popular and important in our Church.

For those who do receive Holy Communion in reparation for sins on 9 consecutive first Fridays, our Lord promises that they will receive the grace of final repentance, and that they will not die without receiving the Sacraments.

Even though God’s love for us should be perfectly clear from reading Scripture and from any study of salvation history, perhaps this is a truth that we too easily lose sight of.

But our Lord’s heart does indeed burn for us, so much does He love us. I sometimes wonder if we truly understood the depth of God’s love for us, if we would die of love – especially as we consider how sinful and undeserving we are of His love.

Sadly, human history shows that humanity is often unresponsive and even callous to God’s love, which was His complaint to St. Mary Margaret. Even though His love is completely sacrificial and open to all people regardless of race, nationality, or creed, so many turn away from Him.

It is particularly sad because God’s great desire is that all of us share eternally in His love in the glory of Heaven. It is for this reason that our Lord became one of us and died for us.

Indeed, the Father has created us for living with the Trinity eternally in a union of love.

While God’s love is for all people, our Lord had a chosen people: the Israelites, who were given a special role in salvation history. It was to this people that Jesus came and first revealed Himself as Lord.

This is why in the Gospel today our Lord tells the Canaanite woman, a Gentile foreigner, that He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It was later with St. Paul that the Gospel was spread to the Gentiles, something we hear about today in the second reading.

But since the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection, our Lord has a new people whom He calls

His very own: it is the people who love Him in return and who seek to be united to Him.

Our first reading from the Prophet Isaiah speaks about foreigners and their relationship to God. Of course God desires that none of us be foreigners, but that we all be His people as He has created us to be.

But even though all men are created in God’s image and likeness, we must recognize that we are born separated from God in the darkness of original sin. We are all spiritual gentiles and foreigners at birth because of original sin.

But baptism changes all that, for it is only through baptism that we are fully reconciled to God and made His children, His chosen people. • Once we become His children through baptism, we are strangers and sojourners no longer. As St. Paul writes to the people of Ephesus, we become “fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God.” (Eph 2:19)

And so all of us have the capacity to be God’s chosen people, to be members of His family through baptism. For being God’s chosen people is not a matter of belonging to a certain race or class of people. Being God’s chosen people is simply a matter of choosing Him.
Indeed, the only people who are truly foreign to God are those who alienate themselves from Him through sin. It is sin and sin alone that separates us from God.

And so we must be vigilant to root out sin from our lives, even those small venial sins that we think no one sees, for choosing to sin is always a choosing against God rather than for Him.

All sin makes us – at least to some degree – a foreigner in God’s eyes. And, of course, if our sin is mortal, it not only damages our relationship with God, but it completely severs it and puts us in danger of going to hell.

It is for this reason that Isaiah tells us to “observe what is right, do what is just.” To be God’s chosen people, to be His children, we must do our best to constantly choose Him and His will above all else. We must seek to keep His commandments by doing what is right and just.

Alas, our broken human nature is fickle, is it not? Despite our genuine love for God, all of us from time to time turn away from Him through sin. None of us – save our Lady – has lived or ever will live a perfectly sinless life.
Of course our Lord knows this, which is why He gives us the Sacrament of Reconciliation by which we can be made whole from the destruction wrought in our souls through our sinfulness. His burning and infinite love cannot help but forgive the sins of His repentant children.
But in addition to cultivating repentance and making use of the confessional as needed, the Gospel teaches us today that there is something else we must do if we wish to be a member of God’s chosen people rather than a foreigner: we must have faith.

In our Gospel today we have the rather strange story of Jesus calling a Canaanite woman a dog. It’s easy to wonder why our Lord would ever refer to anyone in such an insulting manner.

But Jesus did this in order to elicit faith from this woman. He wants to know if she really does believe in Him, if she really believes He is the Lord. And she passes the test. Not even an insult from Jesus can deter her from Him. And it is at that moment that Jesus commends her for her great faith and heals her daughter.
In healing the daughter of a Gentile, Jesus proves that He was ultimately here on earth to bring salvation to all people, not just the Jews.
But this Gospel also shows us the power of an undeterred faith! Having faith in our Lord, a faith that believes confidently in our Lord’s omnipotence, mercy, and compassion, is proof positive of our love for God – and is therefore one of the best ways we can respond to His love.

Ultimately, believing in God’s love for us is an act of faith (cf. 1 Jn 4), and loving God by having faith in Him is how we are most closely united to Him.

St. John of the Cross teaches us that: “even in this life faith gives us God, covered, it is true, with a veil but nonetheless God Himself” (Collected Works St. 12:4).

My brothers and sisters, our Lord’s most Sacred Heart is burning with love for all of us. It’s a burning that cannot be quenched even by our ingratitude and callousness.

Let us repay His love by practicing the virtue of faith, trusting confidently that He can and will do everything necessary to help us on our path to salvation.

Let us return His love, as well, by gratefully patterning our lives after Him: loving all people generously and without reserve, and by living our Catholic faith without compromise.

Copyright 2011 by Reverend Timothy S. Reid

Reverend Reid is pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NC

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What the Resurrection of Christ Means for Our Lives

In Uncategorized on 2013/04/16 at 6:30 PM

Dear Brothers and Sisters, good day!

 Today I would like to reflect on its meaning for salvation. What does the Resurrection mean for our lives? And why, without it, is our faith in vain? Our faith is based on the death and resurrection of Christ, just like a house built on foundations: if they give in, the whole house collapses.

On the Cross, Jesus offered himself taking sins upon himself our and going down into the abyss of death, and in the Resurrection he defeats them, he removes them and opens up to us the path to be reborn to a new life. St. Peter expresses it briefly at the beginning of his First Letter, as we have heard: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you”(1:3-4).

The Apostle tells us that the Resurrection of Jesus is something new: we are freed from the slavery of sin and become children of God, that we are born to a new life. When does this happen to us? In the Sacrament of Baptism. In ancient times, it was normally received through immersion. Those to be baptized immersed themselves in the large pool within the Baptistery, leaving their clothes, and the bishop or the priest would pour water over their head three times, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Then the baptized would emerge from the pool and put on a new vestment, a white one: they were born to a new life, immersing themselves in the death and resurrection of Christ. They had become children of God. I

In the Letter to the Romans Saint Paul writes: you ” For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father! ‘”(Rom. 8:15). It is the Holy Spirit that we received in baptism that teaches us, leads us to say to God, “Father.” Or rather, Abba Father. This is our God, He is a father to us.

The Holy Spirit produces in us this new status as children of God, and this is the greatest gift we receive from the Paschal Mystery of Jesus. And God treats us as His children, He understands us, forgives us, embraces us, loves us even when we make mistakes . In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah said that even though a mother may forget her child, God never, ever forgets us (cf. 49:15). And this is a beautiful thing, beautiful!

However, this filial relationship with God is not like a treasure to be kept in a corner of our lives. It must grow, it must be nourished every day by hearing the Word of God, prayer, participation in the sacraments, especially the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist and charity. We can live as children! We can live as children! And this is our dignity. So let us behave as true children! This means that each day we must let Christ transform us and make us like Him; it means trying to live as Christians, trying to follow him, even if we see our limitations and our weaknesses.

The temptation to put God to one side, to put ourselves at the center is ever-present and the experience of sin wounds our Christian life, our being children of God. This is why we must have the courage of faith, we must resist being led to the mentality that tells us: “There is no need for God, He is not that important for you”. It is the exact opposite: only by behaving as children of God, without being discouraged by our falls, can we feel loved by Him, our life will be new, inspired by serenity and joy. God is our strength! God is our hope!

Dear brothers and sisters, we must first must firmly have this hope and we must be visible, clear, brilliant signs of hope in world. The Risen Lord is the hope that never fails, that does not disappoint (cf. Rom 5:5). God’s hope never disappoints!. How many times in our life do our hopes vanish, how many times do the expectations that we carry in our heart not come true! The hope of Christians is strong, safe and sound in this land, where God has called us to walk, and is open to eternity, because it is founded on God, who is always faithful.

We should never forget this; God is always faithful! God is always faithful! Be risen with Christ through Baptism, with the gift of faith, to an imperishable inheritance, leads us to increasingly search for the things of God, to think of Him more, to pray more. Christianity is not simply a matter of following commandments; it is about living a new life, being in Christ, thinking and acting like Christ, and being transformed by the love of Christ, it is allowing Him take possession of our lives and change them, transform them, to free them from the darkness of evil and sin.

Dear brothers and sisters, to those who ask us our reasons for the hope that is in us (cf. 1 Pt 3:15), let us point to the Risen Christ. Let us point to Him with the proclamation of the Word, but especially with our resurrected life. Let us show the joy of being children of God, the freedom he gives us to live in Christ, who is true freedom, freedom from the slavery of evil, sin and death! In looking to our heavenly home, we will also have a new light and strength in our commitment and in our daily efforts. It is a precious service that we give to our world, which is often no longer able to lift its gaze upwards, it no longer seems able to lift its gaze towards God.

VIS

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Urgent Need for Dialogue and Cooperation between Science and Faith

In 13 History on 2013/03/13 at 11:11 AM

8 November 2012 – The Holy Father received participants in the plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which is meeting to examine the topic of: “Complexity and Analogy in Science: Theoretical, Methodological and Epistemological Aspects”.

“In your discussions”, said the Pope speaking English, “you have sought to examine, on the one hand, the ongoing dialectic of the constant expansion of scientific research, methods and specialisations and, on the other, the quest for a comprehensive vision of this universe in which human beings, endowed with intelligence and freedom, are called to understand, love, live and work”.

“Such an interdisciplinary approach to complexity also shows too that the sciences are not intellectual worlds disconnected from one another and from reality but rather that they are interconnected and directed to the study of nature as a unified, intelligible and harmonious reality in its undoubted complexity. Such a vision has fruitful points of contact with the view of the universe taken by Christian philosophy and theology, with its notion of participated being, in which each individual creature, possessed of its proper perfection, also shares in a specific nature and this within an ordered cosmos originating in God’s creative Word. It is precisely this inbuilt “logical” and “analogical” organisation of nature that encourages scientific research and draws the human mind to discover the horizontal co-participation between beings and the transcendental participation by the First Being.

“The universe”, the Holy Father added, “is not chaos or the result of chaos, rather, it appears ever more clearly as an ordered complexity which allows us to rise, through comparative analysis and analogy, from specialisation towards a more universalising viewpoint and vice versa. While the very first moments of the cosmos and life still elude scientific observation, science nonetheless finds itself pondering a vast set of processes which reveals an order of evident constants and correspondences and serves as essential components of permanent creation”.

“In the great human enterprise of striving to unlock the mysteries of man and the universe, I am convinced of the urgent need for continued dialogue and cooperation between the worlds of science and of faith in the building of a culture of respect for man, for human dignity and freedom, for the future of our human family and for the long-term sustainable development of our planet. Without this necessary interplay, the great questions of humanity leave the domain of reason and truth, and are abandoned to the irrational, to myth, or to indifference, with great damage to humanity itself, to world peace and to our ultimate destiny”, Pope Benedict concluded.

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The Aim of Ecumenism Is the Unity of Divided Christians

In 07 Observations on 2013/03/13 at 12:00 AM

The close ties between the work of evangelisation and the need to overcome the divisions that still exist between Christians was the central theme of the Holy Father to the members and consultors of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity on the occasion of their plenary assembly dedicated to “The importance of ecumenism in new evangelisation”.

The Pope stated, “We cannot follow a truly ecumenical path while ignoring the crisis of faith affecting vast areas of the world, including those where the proclamation of the Gospel was first accepted and where Christian life has flourished for centuries. On the other hand, we cannot ignore the many signs indicating a persistent need for spirituality, which is made manifest in various ways. The spiritual poverty of many of our contemporaries, who no longer perceive the absence of God in their lives as a form of deprivation, poses a challenge to all Christians”.

In this context, the Pope added, “we, believers in Christ, are called upon to return to the essential, to the heart of our faith, to bear witness to the living God before the world. … We must not forget what it is that unites us: our faith in God the Father and Creator, revealed in His Son Jesus Christ, effusing the Spirit which revives and sanctifies. This is the faith we received in Baptism and it is the faith that, in hope and charity, we can profess together.

“In the light of the primacy of faith we may also understand the importance of the theological dialogues and conversations in which the Catholic Church is engaged with Churches and ecclesial communities. Even when we cannot discern the possibility of re-establishing full communion in the near future, such dialogue facilitates our awareness, not only of resistance and obstacles, but also of the richness of experience, spiritual life and theological reflection, which become a stimulus for ever deeper testimony”.

Benedict XVI emphasised that the aim of ecumenism is “visible unity between divided Christians”. To this end, we must “dedicate all our forces, but we must also recognise that, in the final analysis, this unity is a gift from God, and may come to us only from the Father through His Son, because the Church is His Church. From this perspective we see, not only the importance of invoking the Lord for visible unity, but also how striving after this end is relevant to the new evangelisation.

“It is good to journey together towards this objective, provided that the Churches and ecclesial communities do not stop along the way, accepting the various contradictions between them as normal or as the best they can hope to achieve. It is, rather, in the full communion of faith, Sacraments and ministry that the strength of God, present and working in the world, will find concrete expression”.

The Pope concluded, “Unity is on the one hand the fruit of faith and, on the other, a means – almost a prerequisite – for an increasingly credible proclamation of the faith to those who do not yet know the Saviour or who, while having received the proclamation of the Gospel, have almost forgotten this valuable gift. True ecumenism, recognising the primacy of divine action, demands above all patience, humility, and abandonment to the will of the Lord. In the final analysis, ecumenism and new evangelisation both require the dynamism of conversion, understood as the sincere desire to follow Christ and to fully adhere to the will of the Father”.

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Human Intelligence Can Find Key to Understanding the World in Sacred Scripture

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/03/01 at 12:00 AM

 The Holy Father focused on the phrase “Creator of heaven and earth”, explained in light of the first chapter of Genesis.

“God,” the Pope said, “is the source of all things and the beauty of creation reveals the omnipotence of the loving Father. As the origin of life … He cares for what has He has created with unceasing love and faithfulness. Creation, therefore, becomes the place in which to know God’s omnipotence and goodness and becomes a call to faith for believers so that we might proclaim God as Creator. … In the light of faith, human intelligence can find the key to understanding the world In Sacred Scripture. Particularly … in the first chapter of Genesis, with the solemn presentation of divine creative action … The phrase ‘and God saw it was good’ is repeated six times. … Everything God creates is good, and beautiful, full of wisdom and love. God’s creative action brings order and infuses harmony and beauty into it. In the story of Genesis, it later says that the Lord created with His word and ten times in the text the phrase ‘God said’ is repeated… Life springs forth, the world exists, so that everything might obey the Word of God.”

“But does it still make sense to talk about creation,” the Pope wondered, “in this age of science and technology? The Bible isn’t intended to be a natural science manual. Its intention is to reveal the authentic and profound truth of things. The fundamental truth revealed in the stories of Genesis is that the world isn’t a collection of opposing forces, but has its origin and stability in the Logos, in God’s eternal reason, which continues to sustain the universe. There is a plan for the world that springs from this reason, from the Creator Spirit.”

“Men and women, human beings, the only ones capable of knowing and loving the Creator,” are the apex of all creation. “The creation stories in Genesis … help us to know God’s plan for humanity. First, they say that God formed man out of the clay of the ground. … This means that we are not God; we have not made ourselves; we are clay. But it also means that we come from the good earth by an act of the Creator. … Beyond any cultural and historical distinctions, beyond any social difference, we are one humanity, formed from the one earth of God who … blew the breath of life into the body He formed from the earth. … The human being is made in the image and likeness of God. … We carry within us His life-giving breath and all human life is under God’s special protection. This is the deepest reason for the inviolability of human dignity against any temptation to judge the person according to criteria of utility or power.”

In the first chapters of Genesis, “there are two significant images: the garden with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the serpent. The garden tells us that the reality that God has placed the human being within is not a savage forest, but a place that protects, nourishes, and sustains. Humanity must recognize the world, not as property to plunder and exploit, but as a gift from the Creator … to cultivate and care for respectfully, following its rhythms and logic, in accordance with God’s plan. The serpent is a figure derived from oriental fertility cults that fascinated Israel and that were a constant temptation to forsake the mysterious covenant with God.” That is why, “the serpent raised the suspicion that the covenant with God was a chain that … took away freedom and the most beautiful and precious things in life. The temptation becomes the building of a world of one’s own without accepting the limits of being a creature, the limits of good and evil, of morality. Dependence on the love of God the Creator is seen as a burden to be overthrown. … But when our relationship with God is distorted, when we put ourselves in His place, all our other relationships are altered. Then the other becomes a rival, a threat. Adam, after have succumbed to temptation, immediately accuses Eve. … The world is no longer the garden in which to live in harmony, but a place to exploit, one in which … envy and hatred of the other enter into our hearts.”

The Pope emphasized one last element of the creation stories. “Sin begets sin and all the sins of history are related. This aspect leads us to speak of what is called ‘original sin’. What is the meaning of this reality, which is so difficult to understand? … First, we must keep in mind that no person is closed in upon themselves. … We receive life from others, not only at birth, but every day. The human being is relational: I am only myself in you and through you, in the loving relationship with the You of God and the you of the other. Sin alters or destroys our relationship with God … taking the place of God … Once that fundamental relationship is altered, our other relationships are also compromised or destroyed. Sin ruins everything. Now, if the relational structure of humanity is altered from the beginning, all humans enter the world characterized by the alteration of that relationship; we enter into the world changed by sin, which marks us personally. The initial sin disrupts and damages human nature. … And humanity cannot get out of this situation alone, cannot redeem itself. Only the creator can restore the correct relationships. … This takes place in Jesus Christ follows the exact opposite path of Adam. … While Adam does not recognize his being as a creature and wants to supplant the place of God, Jesus, the Son of God is in perfect filial relation to the Father. He lowers himself, becomes a servant, walks the path of love, humbling himself even to death on the cross in order to restore the relationship with God. Christ’s Cross becomes the new Tree of Life.”

“Living by faith,” Benedict XVI concluded, “means acknowledging God’s greatness and accepting our smallness, our creatureliness, letting God fill us with His love. Evil, with its burden of pain and suffering, is a mystery that is illuminated by the light of faith, giving us the certainty of being able to be freed from it.”

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Man is a Seeker of the Absolute

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/02/28 at 11:11 AM

Benedict XVI, continuing a series of catecheses on the subject of Catholic faith, focused on what, he said, “is a fascinating aspect of human and Christian experience: the fact that man carries within him a mysterious desire for God”.

Such an affirmation, the Pope went on, “may seem provocative in the context of secularised Western culture. Many of our contemporaries could, in fact, object that they feel not the slightest desire for God. For large sectors of society He is no longer awaited or desired; rather He leaves people indifferent, something about which they do not even have to make an effort to express themselves.

“Yet the fact is that what we have defined as ‘desire for God’ has not completely disappeared and still today it emerges in man’s heart in many different ways. Human desire always tends towards certain concrete things which are often anything but spiritual, yet it nonetheless has to consider the question of what good truly is, and this means facing something other than itself, something man cannot construct but is called to recognise. What is it that can truly satisfy man’s desire?

“In my first Encyclical ‘Deus caritas est’ I sought to examine how this phenomenon is realised in the experience of human love, which in our time is most easily recognised as a moment of ecstasy and abandonment, a place in which man has the experience of being overcome by a desire greater than himself. Through love a man and a woman, the one thanks to the other, enjoy a new experience of the greatness and beauty of life and reality. If what I experience is not a mere illusion, if I truly wish the other’s good, also as a way to my own good, then I must be ready not to focus on my own self, to place myself at the service of the other, even to the point of self-renouncement. Thus the answer to the question about the meaning of the experience of love involves the purification and healing of desire, which is a requirement of the love we bear the other.

“We must exercise, train and correct ourselves so that we can truly love others”, Pope Benedict added. Yet “not even the beloved is capable of satisfying the desire that dwells in the human heart. Quite the contrary, the more authentic our love for another person is, the more it raises the question about the origin and destiny of that love, the possibility that it may last forever”.

“Similar considerations could also be made about other human experiences such as friendship, the experience of beauty or love of knowledge. Everything good that man experiences tends towards the mystery which surrounds man himself. Each desire that arises in the human heart is an echo of a fundamental desire which is never fully sated”.

The Holy Father went on: “Man is well aware of what does not satisfy him, but is unable to imagine or define that which would make him experience that happiness for which his heart longs. We cannot know God on the basis only of human desire. Here there is an abiding mystery: man is searching for the absolute, but his search advances with slow and hesitant steps”.

“Even in our own time, which seems so averse to the transcendent dimension” it is possible “to open the way towards an authentic religious sense of life which shows how the gift of faith is neither absurd nor irrational”, said Benedict XVI. In this context he proposed “a pedagogy of desire, … including at least two aspects: Firstly, the acquisition or reacquisition of a taste for the authentic joys of life. Not all satisfactions produce the same effect upon us; some leave positive traces and are capable of pacifying our hearts making us more active and generous. Others, on the other hand, following the initial light they bring, seem to delude the expectations that aroused them and sometimes leave bitterness, dissatisfaction or a sense of emptiness in their wake”.

A second aspect of the pedagogy of desire consists of “never being satisfied with the goals we have reached”, said the Holy Father. “It is the most authentic joys which are able to liberate within us that sense of healthy disquiet which leads us to be more demanding, to desire a more exalted or more profound good, and at the same time to becoming increasingly aware that nothing finite can fill our hearts. Thus will we learn to tend, unarmed, towards that good which we cannot construct or procure by our own efforts, without allowing ourselves to be discouraged by the fatigue or obstacles that come from our sin”.

Finally the Holy Father noted that “desire always remains open to redemption, even when it takes the wrong paths, when it seeks artificial paradises and seems to lose its capacity to desire the true good. Even in the abyss of sin man never loses that spark which enables him to recognise and savour what is truly good, and to start along the path of ascension on which God, with the gift of His grace, will not fail to give His aid”.

“This does not mean, then, smothering the desire that is in man’s heart, but liberating it so that it can reach its true height. When desire opens a window to God this is a sign of the presence of faith in a person’s heart, faith which is a grace of God”, Benedict XVI concluded.

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Transmitting the Passion for Christ to the World

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/02/28 at 11:11 AM

In his reflections Benedict XVI commented on the Gospel reading from St. Mark’s narrative of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.

“The Lord chose to undergo the attack of the tempter so as to defend us with His help and instruct us with His example”, said the Holy Father quoting a text written by St. Leo the Great. This episode teaches us that man is never free from temptation, but we can become stronger than any enemy “by following the Lord every day with patience and humility, learning to build our lives not without Him or as if He did not exist, but in Him and with Him, because He is the source of true life. The temptation to remove God, to regulate ourselves and the world counting only on our own abilities, has always been present in the history of man”, the Pope said.

In Christ, God addresses man “in an unexpected way, with a closeness that is unique, tangible and full of love. God became incarnate and entered man’s world in order to take sin upon Himself, to overcome evil and to bring man back into God’s world. But His announcement was accompanied by a request to respond to such a great gift. Indeed, Jesus said “repent, and believe in the good news’. This is an invitation to have faith in God and to convert every day of our lives to His will, orienting our every action and our every thought towards what is good. The period of Lent is a good time to renew and strengthen our relationship with God through daily prayer, acts of penance and works of fraternal charity”.

Vatican City (VIS)

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Faith Means Believing in the Love of God Which Redeems Us from Slavery

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/02/28 at 11:11 AM

The faith, its meaning and significance in the modern world, were the main themes of Benedict XVI’s catechesis during his weekly general audience held this morning in St. Peter’s Square. “In our time”, the Pope said, “we need a renewed education in the faith. Certainly this must include a knowledge of its truths and of the events of salvation, but above all it must arise from an authentic encounter with God in Jesus Christ”.

“Today, along with many signs of goodness, a spiritual desert is spreading around us. … Even the ideas of progress and well-being are revealing their shadows and, despite the great discoveries of science and progress of technology, mankind today does not seem to have become freer. … Many forms of exploitation, violence and injustice persist. … Moreover, there are growing numbers of people who seem disorientated and who, in their search to go beyond a purely horizontal vision of reality, are ready to believe everything and the opposite of everything. In this context, certain fundamental questions arise: … What meaning does life have? Do men and women, we and coming generations, have a future? What awaits us beyond the threshold of death?”

From these questions, the Pope explained, it is clear that “scientific knowledge, though important for the life of man, is not of itself enough. We need not only material bread, we need love, meaning and hope. We need a sure foundation … which gives our lives true significance even in moments of crisis and darkness, even in daily difficulties. This is what the faith gives us. It means entrusting ourselves confidently to the ‘You? that is God, the which gives me certainty: a certainty different but no less solid than that which comes from exact calculations and science. The faith is not a mere intellectual assent on man’s part to the specific truths about God, it is an act by which I freely entrust myself to God Who is a Father and Who loves me, … Who gives me hope and inspires my trust.

“Of course”, the Pope added, “such adherence to God is not without content. Through it we are aware that God showed Himself to us in Christ. … With the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, God descended to the depths of our human condition in order to draw it to Himself, to raise it to His heights. Faith means believing in this love of God, which does not diminish in the face of the corruption of man, in the face of evil and death; on the contrary, it is capable of transforming all forms of slavery, giving them the possibility of salvation”.

“This possibility of salvation through faith is a gift which God gives to all mankind. I believe we should meditate more often – during our daily lives often marked by problems and dramatic situations – on the fact that Christian belief means abandoning oneself trustingly to the profound meaning which upholds me and the world, the meaning which we cannot give to ourselves but only receive as a gift, and which is the foundation upon which we can live without fear. We must be capable of announcing this liberating and reassuring certainty of the faith with words, and showing it with our Christian lives”.

“Underpinning our journey of faith is Baptism, the Sacrament which gives us the Holy Spirit, makes us children of God in Christ, and marks our entry into the community of faith, into the Church. A person does not believe alone, without God’s grace, nor do we believe by ourselves, but together with our brothers and sisters. From Baptism on all believers are called to re-live this confession of the faith and to make it their own, together with their brethren”.

The Holy Father concluded: “The faith is a gift of God but it is also a profoundly free and human act. … It does not run counter to our freedom or our reason. … Believing means entrusting oneself in all freedom and joy to God’s providential plan for history, as did the Patriarch Abraham, as did Mary of Nazareth”.

In his greetings at the end of his audience, the Pope recalled how “last Monday we celebrated the memory of Blessed John Paul II, who remains alive among us”. In this context, he invited young people “to learn to face life with his ardour and enthusiasm”, and the sick “to carry the cross of suffering joyfully, as he himself taught us”.

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