#like a martyr in the context of christianity is a very specific thing

[navree]

you can call anne boleyn many things, good and bad alike. a protestant martyr, however, is not one of those fucking things

[kaleb-is-definitely-sane]

I am CURIOUS what are YOUR favorite modern and historical theologians and specific works you like and why?

You must forgive me for taking ages cause I am very bad at answering these lol. I am also not especially well versed in theologians but even those I haven't read, I am still pretty familiar with their philosophy

Okay so my favorites are

Athanasius: He's first cause he's my new hero. I adore him. Arianism sucks and my guy got exiled repeatedly trying to put a stop to it

Timothy Makie: Yall knew he would be here. The only reason he's not first is because Athanasius is an icon. Tim Mackie is my absolute favorite I watch all their videos, listen to their podcasts, watch his sermons, etc. He has completely changed the way I read and think about the scriptures and he always has great book recommendations. He's also why I want to go into Biblical Studies.

Julian of Norwich: Maybe I'm being fast and loose with the term "theologian" but... I don't really care. She's here because "all is well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be exceedingly well" is something I repeat on an almost daily basis. Her Revelations of Divine Love is marvelous. And the way she manages abstract thought all the while keeping the incarnate view of Jesus in mind is also incredible. Also: the earliest known woman writer in English. Also, also: She's a mystic. Ofc I was gonna mention her

N.T. Wright: Gosh I love this man. He's been very influential on my reading of Paul and of the resurrection of the dead (by which I mean, causing me to realize it was a thing to begin with). I firmly agree with him that we have to ground Paul in his First Century Jewish context to understand what it is he's saying.

Paul: The multi-ethnic family of God. His efforts towards ensuring that Christianity was not just a Jewish religion but a catholic (universal) religion are unparalleled. Now days people love to hate Paul, but no one ever could make me do so. He worked so hard to create peace and order in what was and still is the most diverse religion in the world. Also, the man loved hymns lol. I don't believe he wrote the hymns we find in his letters (something about Paul doesn't give me "hymnographer vibes" iykwim) but he definitely has good taste. "The Image of the Invisible God" is my favorite.

Esau McCaulley: I heard him speak one time and was sold. He thinks very similar to me on quite a few topics but, being schooled and more learned, is able to bring them to levels I had never even considered. I love his use of Revelation in his political philosophy because it is the bedrock of mine lol. Also I loved him laughing at the British for saying that Paul's tone in Galatians was the problem. Like WHAT!? Never have I ever read Paul and went "Oh Paul's problem is his tone." That is THE MOST stereotypically British thing someone could ever say lol. Also Paul talks the way I do-

John: I have an entire tag dedicated to him. John the Apostle. John the Theologian. John the Son of Thunder. John the Witness. John the Undying. John the Visionary. John the Elder. John the Youngest. John the Mystic. John the Poet. John the Beloved. John whose name means "Graced by Yahweh". John who begins and ends his gospel with moments of intimacy. John who's life is like thunder: filled with love and death. John was in Jesus' innermost circle. John who rests his head on Jesus' bosom while he speaks, listening to the heartbeat of the Lord. John who needs to remind everyone that he is the one Jesus loved. John who stayed with the women during the passion and wasn't ashamed of sharing their pain. John who was the only one who wasn't martyred. John who was the one martyred at Jesus' crucifixion. John who is trusted to take Mary as his mother. John who beat Peter to the empty tomb. John who is the first one to see Jesus from the boat post-resurrection. John who's symbol is the eagle, marked for clairvoyance and observation. John who saw a vision of Jesus with breasts. John who was gifted an apocalypse where he saw Jesus and his followers conquer the world through their deaths. John the patron saint of love and friendship and loyalty and writers and poets and mystics and theologians. Also he's an INFP like myself lol

C.S. Lewis: As If I need to freaking explain. I wish to read everything he's written. I can only name one thing he's said that I disagree with (he's anti-pacifist) but even then I can fundamentally understand where he's coming from.

Augustine of Hippo: I have a love/dislike relationship with him. Much of Protestantism and Calvinism get's it's philosophy from him... and much of it I disagree with (see: Original Sin or Just War for example). But like his moral philosophy is splendid! His theodicy helped me develop my own (we both agree that evil is lack and is un-real for example. Moral evil is disordered love). "God is more intimate to me than my most intimate being." "The only way to have all you desire and want no evil is to have God" !!!!!! Like!? Also I love a good quality "rake to saint" story also while he was *kinda* sexist, I deeply appreciate how he never blamed women for his lust and sin, always maintaining his own responsibility. Icon.

Thomas Aquinas: Gosh I love this man. His arguments for God's existence. His moral philosophy. His political philosophy. His reconciliation of Aristotle, ARISTOTLE!!!! His explanation of transubstantiation. Need I go on?

Haven't read John Piper (and he's Calvinist so. There's that.) but he's got a concept called "Christian Hedonism" in his book Desiring God and I just love a good quality provocative name lol. (Inspiration between eventually naming my book on the theodicy "God is Un-Real"). I also would fight back against his critics who say that there is no similarity between his concept and philosophical hedonism. If Epicureanism can be considered hedonism, so can this. And I myself am a Christian Hedonist. In Greek philosophy hedone/joy/pleasure was the product of love and the soul. If God is Love, I find this equation of love + human = pleasure still tracks because God + human = joy. Both Aristotle and Aquinas believed that happiness was the highest (natural) good. Aquinas took it farther to say that the highest spiritual good is "joy everlasting". The concepts are quite similar.

@eesirachs. I love here lol. The way she approaches scripture is quite different from me, but one thing certainly cannot be denied: you never read her writing without coming away with something to contemplate or meditate on. Also she always gives marvelous answers to my inquiries

Some names of the top of my head: Tim Keller; Hildegard of Bingen; Crispin Fletcher-Lewis; Andrew Rillera; Amy Peeler; Josh Matthews; Gustavo Gutiérrez; Peter J. Leithart; Scot McKnight; Ray Lubeck; John Sailhamer; Adele Berlin; Brevard Childs; Morna D. Hooker; Karl Barth; Michael Fishbane; Abraham Heschel; Richard Bauckham; Michael Heiser; Robert Alter; J. Richard Middleton; Christopher J.H. Wright; Richard B. Hayes

I haven't read all of these (obviously) but I know from a very trustworthy source that they are very good

[tottymatsuno]

My au of angels is slightly different than I think a lot of christian based texts, like biologically (they are not organic life forms)

They are shapeshifters who communicate mostly through static, and on higher dimensional planes, so kinda in a reference to Ososans anime/animated 4th wall jokes they can literally go from 3D to flat one dimensional images, to even higher dimensions. They have true forms, and they have forms to show humans.

Earth in itself is too bright for their eyes to adjust to, so they’re in constant pain bc they got LOTS of eyes, and also they are used to darkness that extends past the vacuum of space. They are not used to this amount of light.

I also wanted for black to be the color of heaven, rather than white. This is based off of my own experiences as a black person. And also bc there’s that one set where they’re goth bikers lol, but mostly bc I’m sick of the anti blackness woven into our very language and the connotations that black is evil and demonic.

Anyways in this au, the matsunos wear a lot of black specifically to be assholes and be like “we were once the holiest” and in other universes where they are angels and wear white, it’s supposed to symbolize that these dudes are not good angels and are rebelling already

More things are angels can use magic, but very rarely do bc witchcraft is a sin or whatever. They do perform lots of rituals but under very specific situations, or times of year.

Because they’re shapeshifters they typically when they exist in heaven, don’t really have concrete forms, unless they want em. They can make genitalia tho, which brings me to my next part!

The nephilim war, which was basically what it says on the tin, a bunch of angels after the rebellion involving @girlymatsu s oc Erina, and the angels wanna be parents

Like a major theme of my angel/religious aus is the idea that angels as a species are very powerful, very obsessive, and are very loving to the point where god is like “I don’t really want you guys loving someone more than me so no kids no families no partners no nothing thanks”

A lot of my stories and ideas center around giving them or them struggling to create and maintain family units. They’re very repressed. Their halo is probably the most obvious sign of love and devotion bc they can’t control it, their very nature is self sacrificial because they all want to be martyrized, but also because it’s them making a shield out of themselves.

It’s subconsciously saying “you’re now my most important treasure, and even if I die I will protect you with my very essence” so like it’s a big deal when a halo appears over someone else’s head when an angel is around.

Anyways lots of wars behind the concept of love. This is like the context Todomatsu is living under.

They also are a very patriarchal society, there’s lots of misogyny too, very Christian ideals that imo aren’t sexy unless gay, so I blast my queervision on them.

They tend to be either born to or assigned classes, one may work hard to gain a promotion but its rare. Standard angel hierarchy at work with seraphim as the top.

There’s more stuff that isn’t super relevant to this au in specific like what their jobs can be, how they work, their interactions with humans, them in modern society, their culture but…not important!!

Anyways all of this set up so i can kick him in the face

OKAY SINCE MULTIPLE PPL SAID THEY WERE INTERESTED!!!

The body of Christ au is a spin off of my apostasy au

Which has been inspired by a lot of my friends, but I’d been working on it since 2019?

I remember getting loved of inspiration post partum when I started collaborating with the fellas!

@pajamamatsu for the succubus/demon au inspo

@girlymatsu @ichikos as my main sources of inspo and feedback, and also who compliment me when we play fruit salad with oso, ichi and totty

@itchypinefield for providing so many different facts

I can’t remember which side blog is viris ososan sideblog @marriedonacross but I rmbr viri had a multiverse au

and ofc clover who played otome villainess with us! I haven’t listed everyone but also the fellas in the girls be devious/demon GC for letting me bounce ideas and make a structure for it!

[kabane52]

Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos

Happy feast of our Lady's Nativity! I have been struck for the past few years by the presence of a Marian hymn during the offering of the tithe. In honor of our Lady's Nativity, I offer the following as a potential exegesis of the unique significance of Mary in this context.

During our liturgy, we present our tithe on top of the Eucharist *after* it has been placed on the altar and consecrated by the Holy Spirit. In scripture, our creative development of the world is captured in the imagery of the land being made fruitful by the instrumentality of man. This fruitfulness compounds upon itself to increase the value of that which God gives as gift to His children. While capital (for lack of a better word) is signified according to the success of the harvest, we see throughout the text that this imagery is "fungible" with other economic assets as well: Cain harvests fruits from the ground and works them into food by fire. Tubal-Cain harvests metal from the ground and works it into craftsmanship by fire. God gives us the world as gift and endows us with the Spirit by whom we develop these gifts into the fullness of their innate potency. All things are given birth from the outflow of God's glory (Philippians 3:20-21 packs this imagery into a series of dense intertexts from the Psalter and prophets) and the human family is the instrument by whom that which is born is perfected and returned as thanksgiving (Eucharist) as inflow to God's heart- the nations which "flow" to Zion in Isaiah 2 to hear the word of the God of Jacob circle outwards and flow back inwards by Isaiah 65-66 so that the river of life on the holy hill carries with it the "wealth of nations" to beautify the altar.

To put it directly: 1) divine glory is the archetype for a creature's existence, 2) in biblical symbolism, its value represents its degree of correspondence to that archetype, so 3) the creative vocation of mankind is only realized in the Truth: that "every good and perfect gift is from above and cometh down from thee, the Father of Lights." The tithe and its liturgical context embodies these realities: a portion of the increase of our assets embodying the fact that the raw material which is increased, the power of its increase, and the very personal existence according to which that power is realized come from God at every point. He gives us Christ as outflow in the Spirit, and that which Christ works in us is returned, in love, to God the Father as inflow. (Procession and reversion).

All things find their perfection in the Church, the Body of Christ: the incarnate Logos is not merely the *abstract* archetype which models the fullness of Him who fills all in all. He *is the actual existence of that fullness.* We grow into that which is already given. That which we set upon the altar God already possesses. So what is added? Nothing with respect to God in Himself, but with respect to us, it is our participation in that fullness which makes the difference. "From His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace" (John 1:16). Through the Church, Man, the human family, is brought into the heart of this twofold motion. In the liturgy, Jesus makes Himself present on the altar and then in the body of those who receive Him. He gives Himself for that work to be accomplished in the coming week in the same moment He receives the work of the completed week. This, then, is why the tithe is placed on the altar *after* and only after the Gifts have been consecrated by the Holy Spirit. As St. Paul describes it in Colossians:

(Colossians 1:24)  Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,

Nothing is lacking in the work of Christ except the Spirit-woven participation of our will in that work. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church for one reason: the blood of the martyrs is the blood of Jesus. Mary the Virgin is the summation and personal embodiment of what it means for the church to exist as the church. As a creature, she participates in the work of Christ for the sake of the world. She *is* the living tithe of the human family, placed on God's altar, brought into His temple of stone, made by grace into a temple of blood and bone. The calling of Mary, the "most blessed of all women" is the calling of every Christian, summoned and empowered to "bear fruit" by the "living and abiding word of God" (1 Peter 1:23) sprouting leaves which will be for the healing of the nations (cp. Psalm 1:3, Ezekiel 47:7, Revelation 22:2). "For a little while", says the Psalmist, was man "lower than the angels." In the divine Son who made our nature His own, Man is "crowned with glory and honor" so that all things might be placed in lawful and blessed subjection to him. The Virgin Mary, the root who sprouted this day from the barren womb, is the permanent demonstration of the victory of life: born from a barren womb, she is reborn in the Son from a fruitful tomb.

The Son of God became "for a little while lower than the angels" so that we could, like Our Lady, become in Him "more honorable than the cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim."*

*The allusion to Ps. 8 is quite remarkable here: "crowned with glory" becomes "more glorious beyond compare..." and "crowned with honor" becomes "more honorable than." The fact that Psalm 8 is specifically speaking of angels further underscores the intertextual relation between these two hymns: the "angels" which these crowns exalt relative to are the "cherubim" and "seraphim."

[coral-skeleton]

Ok, so this is a few days late, but:

To the people sharing that video on Halloween that says why you shouldn't participate in the Halloween culture of dressing up and having some harmless fun because of the supposed danger of spirits and satanic forces. I would like to remind everyone of a few things on these topics, specifically halloween and it's origins. Its a lot to read, but please actually read it.

Halloween started out as a Celtic harvest festival, particularly the Gaelic (think Scotland and Ireland, that's where the origns of pretty much anything Celtic is...) festival of Samhain, which marked the end of the harvest, and the start of the darker half of the year, it typically lasted from sundown on the 31st October until sundown on the 1st November.

This Celtic festival was essentially hijacked by Christians in the 8th to 9th century and was dubbed The feast of All Hallows' (also known as All Hallows' eve/day, or All Saints eve/day, or Allhallowtide. (If I refer to the holiday from here on out, these specic names refer to the Christian version)) and is celebrated in honor of all of the saints. Yes, this is a Christian holiday. Yes the date and some of the practices come from a pagan holiday.

But so does the date and some of the practices of other Christian holidays, Christmas in specific comes to mind, 25 December is the Roman winter solstice, the traditions of hearths, gift giving and making up trees are all pagan. (in fact the bible explicitly forbids Christmas trees in Jeremiah 10:1-4, but no one ever talks about that) I'll leave Christmas history for another time though.

In the middle ages some churches were too poor to display relics of martyred saints, and let practitioners dress up as saints instead. This is believed to be the start of the tradition of dressing during Allhallowtide.

Another possibility for the origin of this tradition is the christionization of the pagan practice of souling. While souling, Christians would carry turnip lanterns, which represented the souls of the dead and were believed to dispell demons, and dress in disguise to keep from being recognized by the same demons.

All of this then later became comercialized by western society, along with other holidays like Christmas, Easter, and valentines day. Meaning much of the history of these holidays fell out of public memory. Giving us what we have now.

I also want to talk about spirits in Christianity, since the video is in the context of Christianity.

Spirits can be seen to mean many things, including spirits of the dead, and animism, which is the belief that objects, places and creatures all have a distinct spiritual essense. I presume it is animism that the preacher in the video is talking about, since the spirts of dead people pretty much directly goes to heaven or hell without interference. (Luke 23:43)

Animism doesn't really exist within christian mythos, the closest we see to that (that quickly comes to mind) is demons which were cast into the pigs. Modern christianity still sees all other gods and spirits as demons.

However if you are Christian, you don't really need to be afraid of these, because of Matthew 10:29-31 "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."

Lastly I want to talk about the more taboo topic of Satanism. Modern Satanism is split between two big groups, The Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple.

The Satanic Temple exists mostly in the US and UK, they are completely atheistic, (meaning they don't believe in a god, heaven, hell or anything supernatural) and do not worship a litteral, personal Satan. They mostly fight for freedom of religion and separation of church and state (which is a good thing, and I will fight you on that) as well as the rights of marginalized groups. That's it, they're humanist with an aestetic.

The Church of Satan on the other hand are much less politically active. They also don't believe in or worship a litteral Satan, but they do believe in magic, and practice things like tarot. They also follow the teachings of Anton LaVey.

These are the two big one's in Satanism, there are very few small fringe groups who do worship the Christian devil. Because of this I seriously doubt that this preacher in the video is an actual ex-satanist. I think its much more likely that that was added to play on the fear induced by the (ongoing) Satanic Panic.

The Satanic Panic was a period of time where a lot of things were persumed to be satanic and supposed satanic ritual abuse happened, in the 1980's. Where things like pokemon, dungeons and dragons, and certain types of music were seen as satanic, (remember the playing music backwards to find hidden messages, that came from this)

The story of satanic ritual abuse that started the whole thing was later found to be a case of malpractice by a psychologist, where false memories were created and implanted, and this started the whole thing.

I said it was ongoing, because I remember experiencing the effects of the satanic panic in primary school, where I was told that Bakugan toys and tamagotchies were satanic. I heared the radio presenter of a secular station talking about how ACDC means "After Christ Devil Comes" and that music have backward messages in high school. And as recent as this year I was told that magic the gathering is satanic.

So yes, it's ongoing, there just isn't that much media coverage anymore. And because of this we flinch whenever we see the word satanic, and tricks like saying someone used to be a satanic priest tap into that fear, and in fear we are less likely to evaluate a subject objectively.

All of these are really interesting topics and I suggest doing some googling on these topics. As a previously very religious person I find the history of religion really fascinating, there's so much you wouldn't expect.

[dailyaudiobible]

07/02/2020 DAB Transcript

2 Kings 20:1-22:2, Acts 21:18-36, Psalms 150:1-6, Proverbs 18:9-10

Today is the 2nd day of July welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we…well…we’re just kinda getting’ moved into this 7th month and just settling into the second half of the year and getting’ ready for the long walk in a few days, but we are here and we are here now and the next step forward will lead us back into second Kings. We’ve been reading the story about King Hezekiah and we have a few more days before we will conclude the book of second Kings and move forward there. But like I said, we are here. So, let's dive in. Second Kings chapter 20 verse 1 through 22 verse 2 today. And we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Acts we’ve been journeying with the apostle Paul for a while now, sailing around, watching churches form, watching antagonism grow, and watching Paul be thrown out of cities and move on to the next. And we’ve then seen him move toward Jerusalem and find that he's being warned all along the way that nothing…nothing pleasant is waiting for him in Jerusalem anyway. And Paul has been instructed by the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem, even though he knows that affliction and chains are in his future. So, Paul sailed back to Caesarea yesterday, which is on the Mediterranean coast of Israel and then moved and inland, south east up to Jerusalem. So, he's in Jerusalem today and he makes himself known to the Jerusalem church and they obviously know this is volatile situation and it's here that we see Paul is the lightning rod because he's been branded a heretic by some and is suspected of heresy by others among the Hebrew people and among the Hebrew people who believe in Jesus. So, it's very easy for us to simply see Paul moving around and telling people about Jesus and people pushing back on that and the Jews being jealous of him and pushing back on that and just think, “well…this…this is what it took to bring the Good News. It was opposed and evil was set against it. And those things all can be true, but underneath all that is the story of what's going on here in the early church. So, we had the Jerusalem Council which…which was a counsel that effectively attempted to answer the question, “who gets to be in? Who gets to be a disciple of Jesus? What do they have to do? What's the criteria?” This is a big deal in the early church because you have one side of things, the Hebrew side of things, very resolutely defending their position that Jesus himself was Jewish, he was a Hebrew rabbi, he commented and taught on the Hebrew Scriptures, he lived in a Hebrew context. It's just that he was the Messiah and fulfilled the law, which for them wasn't to say that the law is abolished, and no one should live in that context. Nobody was being told to jettison their Hebrewness or even their Hebrew religiousness. Jesus was the continuation of that Hebrew story, a story that has had its ups and downs over thousands of years by that time. We’re reading that story. We know it has its ups and downs as we read through it, even thousands more years in the future. But for these Hebrew believers there's no conversion. Their Messiah came. Like this is the fulfillment and they are going to continue to follow Jesus and continue to follow the law and revere it and live within its context, and that's what they believe anyone who wants to follow Jesus should do. And fair enough. That is a valid argument. On the other side you have people like Paul and even the apostle Peter, although we'll see later that the apostle Peter, kind of swayed back and forth…like was trying to live in both worlds and Paul confronts him about it and we’ll see this soon enough in the Scriptures. So, Paul has been ministering to the Gentiles. There has been a church council about this. Everyone has agreed, like nobody can obey the law perfectly. It's been done by Jesus, but nobody has ever since its institution has ever been able to live up to it perfectly. And, so, the argument was, these Gentile people who are coming to faith in Christ, do they have to become Jewish to follow Jesus, or can they just follow Jesus since they don't really know anything about Judaism? They haven't been raised up in it. They're not familiar with the culture at all. They are former pagans. That is a tough question to reason out if you are in this situation. And, so, what they did was take a cue from the Holy Spirit. In other words, it's too difficult of a situation to actually make a decision. But the Holy Spirit has made this decision because the Holy Spirit is coming upon Gentile people who are confessing faith in Christ. So, God is making this decision, not us. The thing is, not everybody was on board with that and still isn't on board with that. So, there is disagreement here at the very beginning. There’s disagreement about how things are supposed to work among the early church. So, Paul has his detractors who are believers in Jesus, but he has a vastly large amount of detractors among the Hebrew people because Paul is a trained Pharisee who has essentially, at least in their minds, turned his back on Moses, the Mosaic law with that God gave that has led this people and built their culture. He’s turned his back on this and is now claiming this Jesus guy and he's out spreading this Jesus message all over the world to Jews and Gentiles alike so that this doesn't really look like classical Judaism anymore. So, Paul is very easily branded a heretic in their minds they want to kill him. That's what's swirling around here. So, Paul coming back to Jerusalem where he was trained as a Pharisee, where he held the coats of people who work killing Stephen, the first Christian martyr, where he was getting letters from the high priest to travel around and round up these people, he shows back up in Jerusalem as an ambassador for this Jesus. So, the leaders of the church in Jerusalem are like, “this is a powder keg waiting to blow. Lots of people think they you are teaching things. You are…you are instructing Hebrew people to abandon the law and just follow Jesus. You’re saying all kinds of stuff and you are…you are in the heart of it all. So we gotta show the you know the culture, that they you understand and you observe the Mosaic law and that you are a Jew.” And, so, they come with this plan. There’s vows that are gonna be taken, there’s heads that are gonna be shaved, Paul's gonna pay for it. It's a very religious thing, that Hebrew people, very, very, very devout would do here. And, so, this is what Paul agrees to do and things are going well until he's recognized. So, we leave today's reading in the book of Acts and Paul is in chains, two of them to be specific, since the book of Acts gave us the detail. He’s chained with two chains. The people are swirling around this, like the mob mentality is in force and they're trying to kill Paul and it's the Roman soldiers that come in and pick Paul up and carry him out and we leave today's reading trying to figure out what's going on. That's where the Roman soldiers are, “what is happening? who is this guy? What has he done?” And what we’re goona see, even though we've seen some pretty amazing things happen on the journeys of Paul and with the establishment of the churches, that Paul will never be free again for the rest of his life but his influence is only gonna grow.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for this look, this ability to look back and look objectively at the difficulties that were happening and the challenges that were being faced. And that…that helps us to interpret our own times, but it also helps us in our own hearts and lives as we follow the paths of those who have gone before us. And, so, come Holy Spirit and continue to lead and guide our steps as we continue to become more and more aware of Your presence in our lives. Come Jesus we pray. In Your mighty name, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, home base and indeed where you find out what's going on around here.

And what is coming up and going on around here is preparations for the 7th of July, which is our own little family Global Campfire holiday. It’s a day we set aside, go for a long walk with God. It’s called the long walk and that's…that's it. Go somewhere beautiful. Go for a long walk with God understanding that this is the middle of the year and it's time, right? We’ve been too busy we’ve been too frantic. It's been too crazy out there and our fleeting prayers, yes, we are staying in touch with the Lord but we need a long walk and everything that we need to say needs to get said everything that we need to hear needs to get heard. It's a re-group, a re-centering as we prepare for the second half of the year. So, that's the long walk, that happens every July 7th. It's something that you do alone but it's something that we do together. And, so, you know, I'll be going for a long walk, knowing that I may be walking by myself, but I'm not alone. Brothers and sisters all over the world are doing the same thing and together we are listening for the voice of the Lord in our lives to give us direction in the…in the coming months. So, make plans for that. This year is a little special. We have a brand-new resource that's gonna release because it’s so…it wasn't made for the long walk but it's perfect for the long walk, it’s called Hearts, a contemplative journey. And it's a guided prayer and musical journey exploring the depths of the emotions of our lives that we've been experiencing and just inviting God fully into those specific things. Kind of a great way to begin a long walk, to just acknowledge some things, to invite God into those things and to find comfort in melody and music and harmony and nature and beauty and opening ourselves from the frantic chaos that has been swirling around us because it takes some time to quiet our soul to be still. As the Bible describes it like…like a weaned child at its mother's asked. And that's the place we’re looking for, is this place that transcends all of the anxieties and regrets that we’re facing, all of the prospects for where this is all going, all of our fears, all of our aspirations, to get behind all of that to where God is and to where we truly are. We live in these circumstances, but that's not us. That's just what we are conscious of and facing. But behind it all is place that knows that He is God and that we are in the palm of His hand and we just need to find that place and that place can be found like this, going for a long walk and pouring out our souls and being still and silent and drinking in the beauty of the day that He gives us each and every day. So, that resource is available on the 7th of July. It is available for preorder now so that will just be waiting for you on the 7th of July. Just look Heart, a contemplative journey or you can search for my name at the iTunes store or Google Play or whatever. You can preorder it now in time for the long walk.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link, it lives on the homepage. I am profoundly humbled, awed and ungrateful for your partnership, especially here as we move into and through the summer. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if that is your preference, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, of course, if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can just hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button at the top, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

[pope-francis-quotes]

9th April >> (@zenitenglish) Pope Francis’ full Vatican-provided English text of “Gaudate et Exsultate”: *** APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION GAUDETE ET EXSULTATE OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON THE CALL TO HOLINESS IN TODAY’S WORLD 1. “REJOICE AND BE GLAD” (Mt 5:12), Jesus tells those persecuted or humiliated for his sake. The Lord asks everything of us, and in return he offers us true life, the happiness for which we were created. He wants us to be saints and not to settle for a bland and mediocre existence. The call to holiness is present in various ways from the very first pages of the Bible. We see it expressed in the Lord’s words to Abraham: “Walk before me, and be blameless” (Gen 17:1). 2. What follows is not meant to be a treatise on holiness, containing definitions and distinctions helpful for understanding this important subject, or a discussion of the various means of sanctification. My modest goal is to repropose the call to holiness in a practical way for our own time, with all its risks, challenges and opportunities. For the Lord has chosen each one of us “to be holy and blameless before him in love” (Eph 1:4). CHAPTER ONE THE CALL TO HOLINESS THE SAINTS WHO ENCOURAGE AND ACCOMPANY US 3. The Letter to the Hebrews presents a number of testimonies that encourage us to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us” (12:1). It speaks of Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Gideon and others (cf. 11:1-12:3). Above all, it invites us to realize that “a great cloud of witnesses” (12:1) impels us to advance constantly towards the goal. These witnesses may include our own mothers, grandmothers or other loved ones (cf. 2 Tim 1:5). Their lives may not always have been perfect, yet even amid their faults and failings they kept moving forward and proved pleasing to the Lord. 4. The saints now in God’s presence preserve their bonds of love and communion with us. The Book of Revelation attests to this when it speaks of the intercession of the martyrs: “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, ‘O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge?’” (6:9-10). Each of us can say: “Surrounded, led and guided by the friends of God… I do not have to carry alone what, in truth, I could never carry alone. All the saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me”.[1] 5. The processes of beatification and canonization recognize the signs of heroic virtue, the sacrifice of one’s life in martyrdom, and certain cases where a life is constantly offered for others, even until death. This shows an exemplary imitation of Christ, one worthy of the admiration of the faithful.[2] We can think, for example, of Blessed Maria Gabriella Sagheddu, who offered her life for the unity of Christians. THE SAINTS “NEXT DOOR” 6. Nor need we think only of those already beatified and canonized. The Holy Spirit bestows holiness in abundance among God’s holy and faithful people, for “it has pleased God to make men and women holy and to save them, not as individuals without any bond between them, but rather as a people who might acknowledge him in truth and serve him in holiness”.[3] In salvation history, the Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships present in a human community. God wanted to enter into the life and history of a people. 7. I like to contemplate the holiness present in the patience of God’s people: in those parents who raise their children with immense love, in those men and women who work hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly religious who never lose their smile. In their daily perseverance I see the holiness of the Church militant. Very often it is a holiness found in our next-door neighbours, those who, living in our midst, reflect God’s presence. We might call them “the middle class of holiness”.[4] 8. Let us be spurred on by the signs of holiness that the Lord shows us through the humblest members of that people which “shares also in Christ’s prophetic office, spreading abroad a living witness to him, especially by means of a life of faith and charity”.[5] We should consider the fact that, as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross suggests, real history is made by so many of them. As she writes: “The greatest figures of prophecy and sanctity step forth out of the darkest night. But for the most part, the formative stream of the mystical life remains invisible. Certainly the most decisive turning points in world history are substantially co-determined by souls whom no history book ever mentions. And we will only find out about those souls to whom we owe the decisive turning points in our personal lives on the day when all that is hidden is revealed”.[6] 9. Holiness is the most attractive face of the Church. But even outside the Catholic Church and in very different contexts, the Holy Spirit raises up “signs of his presence which help Christ’s followers”.[7] Saint John Paul II reminded us that “the witness to Christ borne even to the shedding of blood has become a common inheritance of Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants”.[8] In the moving ecumenical commemoration held in the Colosseum during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, he stated that the martyrs are “a heritage which speaks more powerfully than all the causes of division”.[9] THE LORD CALLS 10. All this is important. Yet with this Exhortation I would like to insist primarily on the call to holiness that the Lord addresses to each of us, the call that he also addresses, personally, to you: “Be holy, for I am holy” (Lev 11:44; cf. 1 Pet 1:16). The Second Vatican Council stated this clearly: “Strengthened by so many and such great means of salvation, all the faithful, whatever their condition or state, are called by the Lord – each in his or her own way – to that perfect holiness by which the Father himself is perfect”.[10] 11. “Each in his or her own way” the Council says. We should not grow discouraged before examples of holiness that appear unattainable. There are some testimonies that may prove helpful and inspiring, but that we are not meant to copy, for that could even lead us astray from the one specific path that the Lord has in mind for us. The important thing is that each believer discern his or her own path, that they bring out the very best of themselves, the most personal gifts that God has placed in their hearts (cf. 1 Cor 12:7), rather than hopelessly trying to imitate something not meant for them. We are all called to be witnesses, but there are many actual ways of bearing witness.[11] Indeed, when the great mystic, Saint John of the Cross, wrote his Spiritual Canticle, he preferred to avoid hard and fast rules for all. He explained that his verses were composed so that everyone could benefit from them “in his or her own way”.[12] For God’s life is communicated “to some in one way and to others in another”.[13] 12. Within these various forms, I would stress too that the “genius of woman” is seen in feminine styles of holiness, which are an essential means of reflecting God’s holiness in this world. Indeed, in times when women tended to be most ignored or overlooked, the Holy Spirit raised up saints whose attractiveness produced new spiritual vigour and important reforms in the Church. We can mention Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Bridget, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. But I think too of all those unknown or forgotten women who, each in her own way, sustained and transformed families and communities by the power of their witness. 13. This should excite and encourage us to give our all and to embrace that unique plan that God willed for each of us from eternity: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you” (Jer 1:5). FOR YOU TOO 14. To be holy does not require being a bishop, a priest or a religious. We are frequently tempted to think that holiness is only for those who can withdraw from ordinary affairs to spend much time in prayer. That is not the case. We are all called to be holy by living our lives with love and by bearing witness in everything we do, wherever we find ourselves. Are you called to the consecrated life? Be holy by living out your commitment with joy. Are you married? Be holy by loving and caring for your husband or wife, as Christ does for the Church. Do you work for a living? Be holy by labouring with integrity and skill in the service of your brothers and sisters. Are you a parent or grandparent? Be holy by patiently teaching the little ones how to follow Jesus. Are you in a position of authority? Be holy by working for the common good and renouncing personal gain.[14] 15. Let the grace of your baptism bear fruit in a path of holiness. Let everything be open to God; turn to him in every situation. Do not be dismayed, for the power of the Holy Spirit enables you to do this, and holiness, in the end, is the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life (cf. Gal 5:22-23). When you feel the temptation to dwell on your own weakness, raise your eyes to Christ crucified and say: “Lord, I am a poor sinner, but you can work the miracle of making me a little bit better”. In the Church, holy yet made up of sinners, you will find everything you need to grow towards holiness. The Lord has bestowed on the Church the gifts of scripture, the sacraments, holy places, living communities, the witness of the saints and a multifaceted beauty that proceeds from God’s love, “like a bride bedecked with jewels” (Is 61:10). 16. This holiness to which the Lord calls you will grow through small gestures. Here is an example: a woman goes shopping, she meets a neighbour and they begin to speak, and the gossip starts. But she says in her heart: “No, I will not speak badly of anyone”. This is a step forward in holiness. Later, at home, one of her children wants to talk to her about his hopes and dreams, and even though she is tired, she sits down and listens with patience and love. That is another sacrifice that brings holiness. Later she experiences some anxiety, but recalling the love of the Virgin Mary, she takes her rosary and prays with faith. Yet another path of holiness. Later still, she goes out onto the street, encounters a poor person and stops to say a kind word to him. One more step. 17. At times, life presents great challenges. Through them, the Lord calls us anew to a conversion that can make his grace more evident in our lives, “in order that we may share his holiness” (Heb 12:10). At other times, we need only find a more perfect way of doing what we are already doing: “There are inspirations that tend solely to perfect in an extraordinary way the ordinary things we do in life”.[15] When Cardinal François-Xavier Nguyên van Thuân was imprisoned, he refused to waste time waiting for the day he would be set free. Instead, he chose “to live the present moment, filling it to the brim with love”. He decided: “I will seize the occasions that present themselves every day; I will accomplish ordinary actions in an extraordinary way”.[16] 18. In this way, led by God’s grace, we shape by many small gestures the holiness God has willed for us, not as men and women sufficient unto ourselves but rather “as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Pet 4:10). The New Zealand bishops rightly teach us that we are capable of loving with the Lord’s unconditional love, because the risen Lord shares his powerful life with our fragile lives: “His love set no limits and, once given, was never taken back. It was unconditional and remained faithful. To love like that is not easy because we are often so weak. But just to try to love as Christ loved us shows that Christ shares his own risen life with us. In this way, our lives demonstrate his power at work – even in the midst of human weakness”.[17] YOUR MISSION IN CHRIST 19. A Christian cannot think of his or her mission on earth without seeing it as a path of holiness, for “this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess 4:3). Each saint is a mission, planned by the Father to reflect and embody, at a specific moment in history, a certain aspect of the Gospel. 20. That mission has its fullest meaning in Christ, and can only be understood through him. At its core, holiness is experiencing, in union with Christ, the mysteries of his life. It consists in uniting ourselves to the Lord’s death and resurrection in a unique and personal way, constantly dying and rising anew with him. But it can also entail reproducing in our own lives various aspects of Jesus’ earthly life: his hidden life, his life in community, his closeness to the outcast, his poverty and other ways in which he showed his self-sacrificing love. The contemplation of these mysteries, as Saint Ignatius of Loyola pointed out, leads us to incarnate them in our choices and attitudes.[18] Because “everything in Jesus’ life was a sign of his mystery”,[19] “Christ’s whole life is a revelation of the Father”,[20] “Christ’s whole life is a mystery of redemption”,[21] “Christ’s whole life is a mystery of recapitulation”.[22] “Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us”.[23] 21. The Father’s plan is Christ, and ourselves in him. In the end, it is Christ who loves in us, for “holiness is nothing other than charity lived to the full”.[24] As a result, “the measure of our holiness stems from the stature that Christ achieves in us, to the extent that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we model our whole life on his”.[25] Every saint is a message which the Holy Spirit takes from the riches of Jesus Christ and gives to his people. 22. To recognize the word that the Lord wishes to speak to us through one of his saints, we do not need to get caught up in details, for there we might also encounter mistakes and failures. Not everything a saint says is completely faithful to the Gospel; not everything he or she does is authentic or perfect. What we need to contemplate is the totality of their life, their entire journey of growth in holiness, the reflection of Jesus Christ that emerges when we grasp their overall meaning as a person.[26] 23. This is a powerful summons to all of us. You too need to see the entirety of your life as a mission. Try to do so by listening to God in prayer and recognizing the signs that he gives you. Always ask the Spirit what Jesus expects from you at every moment of your life and in every decision you must make, so as to discern its place in the mission you have received. Allow the Spirit to forge in you the personal mystery that can reflect Jesus Christ in today’s world. 24. May you come to realize what that word is, the message of Jesus that God wants to speak to the world by your life. Let yourself be transformed. Let yourself be renewed by the Spirit, so that this can happen, lest you fail in your precious mission. The Lord will bring it to fulfilment despite your mistakes and missteps, provided that you do not abandon the path of love but remain ever open to his supernatural grace, which purifies and enlightens. ACTIVITY THAT SANCTIFIES 25. Just as you cannot understand Christ apart from the kingdom he came to bring, so too your personal mission is inseparable from the building of that kingdom: “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Mt 6:33). Your identification with Christ and his will involves a commitment to build with him that kingdom of love, justice and universal peace. Christ himself wants to experience this with you, in all the efforts and sacrifices that it entails, but also in all the joy and enrichment it brings. You cannot grow in holiness without committing yourself, body and soul, to giving your best to this endeavour. 26. It is not healthy to love silence while fleeing interaction with others, to want peace and quiet while avoiding activity, to seek prayer while disdaining service. Everything can be accepted and integrated into our life in this world, and become a part of our path to holiness. We are called to be contemplatives even in the midst of action, and to grow in holiness by responsibly and generously carrying out our proper mission. 27. Could the Holy Spirit urge us to carry out a mission and then ask us to abandon it, or not fully engage in it, so as to preserve our inner peace? Yet there are times when we are tempted to relegate pastoral engagement or commitment in the world to second place, as if these were “distractions” along the path to growth in holiness and interior peace. We can forget that “life does not have a mission, but is a mission”.[27] 28. Needless to say, anything done out of anxiety, pride or the need to impress others will not lead to holiness. We are challenged to show our commitment in such a way that everything we do has evangelical meaning and identifies us all the more with Jesus Christ. We often speak, for example, of the spirituality of the catechist, the spirituality of the diocesan priesthood, the spirituality of work. For the same reason, in Evangelii Gaudium I concluded by speaking of a spirituality of mission, in Laudato Si’ of an ecological spirituality, and in Amoris Laetitia of a spirituality of family life. 29. This does not mean ignoring the need for moments of quiet, solitude and silence before God. Quite the contrary. The presence of constantly new gadgets, the excitement of travel and an endless array of consumer goods at times leave no room for God’s voice to be heard. We are overwhelmed by words, by superficial pleasures and by an increasing din, filled not by joy but rather by the discontent of those whose lives have lost meaning. How can we fail to realize the need to stop this rat race and to recover the personal space needed to carry on a heartfelt dialogue with God? Finding that space may prove painful but it is always fruitful. Sooner or later, we have to face our true selves and let the Lord enter. This may not happen unless “we see ourselves staring into the abyss of a frightful temptation, or have the dizzying sensation of standing on the precipice of utter despair, or find ourselves completely alone and abandoned”.[28] In such situations, we find the deepest motivation for living fully our commitment to our work. 30. The same distractions that are omnipresent in today’s world also make us tend to absolutize our free time, so that we can give ourselves over completely to the devices that provide us with entertainment or ephemeral pleasures.[29] As a result, we come to resent our mission, our commitment grows slack, and our generous and ready spirit of service begins to flag. This denatures our spiritual experience. Can any spiritual fervour be sound when it dwells alongside sloth in evangelization or in service to others? 31. We need a spirit of holiness capable of filling both our solitude and our service, our personal life and our evangelizing efforts, so that every moment can be an expression of self-sacrificing love in the Lord’s eyes. In this way, every minute of our lives can be a step along the path to growth in holiness. MORE ALIVE, MORE HUMAN 32. Do not be afraid of holiness. It will take away none of your energy, vitality or joy. On the contrary, you will become what the Father had in mind when he created you, and you will be faithful to your deepest self. To depend on God sets us free from every form of enslavement and leads us to recognize our great dignity. We see this in Saint Josephine Bakhita: “Abducted and sold into slavery at the tender age of seven, she suffered much at the hands of cruel masters. But she came to understand the profound truth that God, and not man, is the true Master of every human being, of every human life. This experience became a source of great wisdom for this humble daughter of Africa”.[30] 33. To the extent that each Christian grows in holiness, he or she will bear greater fruit for our world. The bishops of West Africa have observed that “we are being called in the spirit of the New Evangelization to be evangelized and to evangelize through the empowering of all you, the baptized, to take up your roles as salt of the earth and light of the world wherever you find yourselves”.[31] 34. Do not be afraid to set your sights higher, to allow yourself to be loved and liberated by God. Do not be afraid to let yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit. Holiness does not make you less human, since it is an encounter between your weakness and the power of God’s grace. For in the words of León Bloy, when all is said and done, “the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint”.[32] CHAPTER TWO TWO SUBTLE ENEMIES OF HOLINESS 35. Here I would like to mention two false forms of holiness that can lead us astray: gnosticism and pelagianism. They are two heresies from early Christian times, yet they continue to plague us. In our times too, many Christians, perhaps without realizing it, can be seduced by these deceptive ideas, which reflect an anthropocentric immanentism disguised as Catholic truth.[33] Let us take a look at these two forms of doctrinal or disciplinary security that give rise “toa narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyses and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. In neither case is one really concerned about Jesus Christ or others”.[34] CONTEMPORARY GNOSTICISM 36. Gnosticism presumes “a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings”.[35] An intellect without God and without flesh 37. Thanks be to God, throughout the history of the Church it has always been clear that a person’s perfection is measured not by the information or knowledge they possess, but by the depth of their charity. “Gnostics” do not understand this, because they judge others based on their ability to understand the complexity of certain doctrines. They think of the intellect as separate from the flesh, and thus become incapable of touching Christ’s suffering flesh in others, locked up as they are in an encyclopaedia of abstractions. In the end, by disembodying the mystery, they prefer “a God without Christ, a Christ without the Church, a Church without her people”.[36] 38. Certainly this is a superficial conceit: there is much movement on the surface, but the mind is neither deeply moved nor affected. Still, gnosticism exercises a deceptive attraction for some people, since the gnostic approach is strict and allegedly pure, and can appear to possess a certain harmony or order that encompasses everything. 39. Here we have to be careful. I am not referring to a rationalism inimical to Christian faith. It can be present within the Church, both among the laity in parishes and teachers of philosophy and theology in centres of formation. Gnostics think that their explanations can make the entirety of the faith and the Gospel perfectly comprehensible. They absolutize their own theories and force others to submit to their way of thinking. A healthy and humble use of reason in order to reflect on the theological and moral teaching of the Gospel is one thing. It is another to reduce Jesus’ teaching to a cold and harsh logic that seeks to dominate everything.[37] A doctrine without mystery 40. Gnosticism is one of the most sinister ideologies because, while unduly exalting knowledge or a specific experience, it considers its own vision of reality to be perfect. Thus, perhaps without even realizing it, this ideology feeds on itself and becomes even more myopic. It can become all the more illusory when it masks itself as a disembodied spirituality. For gnosticism “by its very nature seeks to domesticate the mystery”,[38] whether the mystery of God and his grace, or the mystery of others’ lives. 41. When somebody has an answer for every question, it is a sign that they are not on the right road. They may well be false prophets, who use religion for their own purposes, to promote their own psychological or intellectual theories. God infinitely transcends us; he is full of surprises. We are not the ones to determine when and how we will encounter him; the exact times and places of that encounter are not up to us. Someone who wants everything to be clear and sure presumes to control God’s transcendence. 42. Nor can we claim to say where God is not, because God is mysteriously present in the life of every person, in a way that he himself chooses, and we cannot exclude this by our presumed certainties. Even when someone’s life appears completely wrecked, even when we see it devastated by vices or addictions, God is present there. If we let ourselves be guided by the Spirit rather than our own preconceptions, we can and must try to find the Lord in every human life. This is part of the mystery that a gnostic mentality cannot accept, since it is beyond its control. The limits of reason 43. It is not easy to grasp the truth that we have received from the Lord. And it is even more difficult to express it. So we cannot claim that our way of understanding this truth authorizes us to exercise a strict supervision over others’ lives. Here I would note that in the Church there legitimately coexist different ways of interpreting many aspects of doctrine and Christian life; in their variety, they “help to express more clearly the immense riches of God’s word”. It is true that “for those who long for a monolithic body of doctrine guarded by all and leaving no room for nuance, this might appear as undesirable and leading to confusion”.[39] Indeed, some currents of gnosticism scorned the concrete simplicity of the Gospel and attempted to replace the trinitarian and incarnate God with a superior Unity, wherein the rich diversity of our history disappeared. 44. In effect, doctrine, or better, our understanding and expression of it, “is not a closed system, devoid of the dynamic capacity to pose questions, doubts, inquiries… The questions of our people, their suffering, their struggles, their dreams, their trials and their worries, all possess an interpretational value that we cannot ignore if we want to take the principle of the incarnation seriously. Their wondering helps us to wonder, their questions question us”.[40] 45. A dangerous confusion can arise. We can think that because we know something, or are able to explain it in certain terms, we are already saints, perfect and better than the “ignorant masses”. Saint John Paul II warned of the temptation on the part of those in the Church who are more highly educated “to feel somehow superior to other members of the faithful”.[41] In point of fact, what we think we know should always motivate us to respond more fully to God’s love. Indeed, “you learn so as to live: theology and holiness are inseparable”.[42] 46. When Saint Francis of Assisi saw that some of his disciples were engaged in teaching, he wanted to avoid the temptation to gnosticism. He wrote to Saint Anthony of Padua: “I am pleased that you teach sacred theology to the brothers, provided that… you do not extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion during study of this kind”.[43] Francis recognized the temptation to turn the Christian experience into a set of intellectual exercises that distance us from the freshness of the Gospel. Saint Bonaventure, on the other hand, pointed out that true Christian wisdom can never be separated from mercy towards our neighbour: “The greatest possible wisdom is to share fruitfully what we have to give… Even as mercy is the companion of wisdom, avarice is its enemy”.[44]“There are activities that, united to contemplation, do not prevent the latter, but rather facilitate it, such as works of mercy and devotion”.[45] CONTEMPORARY PELAGIANISM 47. Gnosticism gave way to another heresy, likewise present in our day. As time passed, many came to realize that it is not knowledge that betters us or makes us saints, but the kind of life we lead. But this subtly led back to the old error of the gnostics, which was simply transformed rather than eliminated. 48. The same power that the gnostics attributed to the intellect, others now began to attribute to the human will, to personal effort. This was the case with the pelagians and semi-pelagians. Now it was not intelligence that took the place of mystery and grace, but our human will. It was forgotten that everything “depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy” (Rom 9:16) and that “he first loved us” (cf. 1 Jn 4:19). A will lacking humility 49. Those who yield to this pelagian or semi-pelagian mindset, even though they speak warmly of God’s grace, “ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style”.[46] When some of them tell the weak that all things can be accomplished with God’s grace, deep down they tend to give the idea that all things are possible by the human will, as if it were something pure, perfect, all-powerful, to which grace is then added. They fail to realize that “not everyone can do everything”,[47] and that in this life human weaknesses are not healed completely and once for all by grace.[48] In every case, as Saint Augustine taught, God commands you to do what you can and to ask for what you cannot,[49] and indeed to pray to him humbly: “Grant what you command, and command what you will”.[50] 50. Ultimately, the lack of a heartfelt and prayerful acknowledgment of our limitations prevents grace from working more effectively within us, for no room is left for bringing about the potential good that is part of a sincere and genuine journey of growth.[51]Grace, precisely because it builds on nature, does not make us superhuman all at once. That kind of thinking would show too much confidence in our own abilities. Underneath our orthodoxy, our attitudes might not correspond to our talk about the need for grace, and in specific situations we can end up putting little trust in it. Unless we can acknowledge our concrete and limited situation, we will not be able to see the real and possible steps that the Lord demands of us at every moment, once we are attracted and empowered by his gift. Grace acts in history; ordinarily it takes hold of us and transforms us progressively.[52] If we reject this historical and progressive reality, we can actually refuse and block grace, even as we extol it by our words. 51. When God speaks to Abraham, he tells him: “I am God Almighty, walk before me, and be blameless” (Gen 17:1). In order to be blameless, as he would have us, we need to live humbly in his presence, cloaked in his glory; we need to walk in union with him, recognizing his constant love in our lives. We need to lose our fear before that presence which can only be for our good. God is the Father who gave us life and loves us greatly. Once we accept him, and stop trying to live our lives without him, the anguish of loneliness will disappear (cf. Ps 139:23-24). In this way we will know the pleasing and perfect will of the Lord (cf. Rom 12:1-2) and allow him to mould us like a potter (cf. Is 29:16). So often we say that God dwells in us, but it is better to say that we dwell in him, that he enables us to dwell in his light and love. He is our temple; we ask to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our life (cf. Ps 27:4). “For one day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere” (Ps 84:10). In him is our holiness. An often overlooked Church teaching 52. The Church has repeatedly taught that we are justified not by our own works or efforts, but by the grace of the Lord, who always takes the initiative. The Fathers of the Church, even before Saint Augustine, clearly expressed this fundamental belief. Saint John Chrysostom said that God pours into us the very source of all his gifts even before we enter into battle.[53] Saint Basil the Great remarked that the faithful glory in God alone, for “they realize that they lack true justice and are justified only through faith in Christ”.[54] 53. The Second Synod of Orange taught with firm authority that nothing human can demand, merit or buy the gift of divine grace, and that all cooperation with it is a prior gift of that same grace: “Even the desire to be cleansed comes about in us through the outpouring and working of the Holy Spirit”.[55] Subsequently, the Council of Trent, while emphasizing the importance of our cooperation for spiritual growth, reaffirmed that dogmatic teaching: “We are said to be justified gratuitously because nothing that precedes justification, neither faith nor works, merits the grace of justification; for ‘if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise, grace would no longer be grace’ (Rom 11:6)”.[56] 54. The Catechism of the Catholic Church also reminds us that the gift of grace “surpasses the power of human intellect and will”[57] and that “with regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality”.[58] His friendship infinitely transcends us; we cannot buy it with our works, it can only be a gift born of his loving initiative. This invites us to live in joyful gratitude for this completely unmerited gift, since “after one has grace, the grace already possessed cannot come under merit”.[59] The saints avoided putting trust in their own works: “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you empty-handed, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justices have stains in your sight”.[60] 55. This is one of the great convictions that the Church has come firmly to hold. It is so clearly expressed in the word of God that there can be no question of it. Like the supreme commandment of love, this truth should affect the way we live, for it flows from the heart of the Gospel and demands that we not only accept it intellectually but also make it a source of contagious joy. Yet we cannot celebrate this free gift of the Lord’s friendship unless we realize that our earthly life and our natural abilities are his gift. We need “to acknowledge jubilantly that our life is essentially a gift, and recognize that our freedom is a grace. This is not easy today, in a world that thinks it can keep something for itself, the fruits of its own creativity or freedom”.[61] 56. Only on the basis of God’s gift, freely accepted and humbly received, can we cooperate by our own efforts in our progressive transformation.[62] We must first belong to God, offering ourselves to him who was there first, and entrusting to him our abilities, our efforts, our struggle against evil and our creativity, so that his free gift may grow and develop within us: “I appeal to you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rom 12:1). For that matter, the Church has always taught that charity alone makes growth in the life of grace possible, for “if I do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor 13:2). New pelagians 57. Still, some Christians insist on taking another path, that of justification by their own efforts, the worship of the human will and their own abilities. The result is a self-centred and elitist complacency, bereft of true love. This finds expression in a variety of apparently unconnected ways of thinking and acting: an obsession with the law, an absorption with social and political advantages, a punctilious concern for the Church’s liturgy, doctrine and prestige, a vanity about the ability to manage practical matters, and an excessive concern with programmes of self-help and personal fulfilment. Some Christians spend their time and energy on these things, rather than letting themselves be led by the Spirit in the way of love, rather than being passionate about communicating the beauty and the joy of the Gospel and seeking out the lost among the immense crowds that thirst for Christ.[63] 58. Not infrequently, contrary to the promptings of the Spirit, the life of the Church can become a museum piece or the possession of a select few. This can occur when some groups of Christians give excessive importance to certain rules, customs or ways of acting. The Gospel then tends to be reduced and constricted, deprived of its simplicity, allure and savour. This may well be a subtle form of pelagianism, for it appears to subject the life of grace to certain human structures. It can affect groups, movements and communities, and it explains why so often they begin with an intense life in the Spirit, only to end up fossilized… or corrupt. 59. Once we believe that everything depends on human effort as channelled by ecclesial rules and structures, we unconsciously complicate the Gospel and become enslaved to a blueprint that leaves few openings for the working of grace. Saint Thomas Aquinas reminded us that the precepts added to the Gospel by the Church should be imposed with moderation “lest the conduct of the faithful become burdensome”, for then our religion would become a form of servitude.[64] The summation of the Law 60. To avoid this, we do well to keep reminding ourselves that there is a hierarchy of virtues that bids us seek what is essential. The primacy belongs to the theological virtues, which have God as their object and motive. At the centre is charity. Saint Paul says that what truly counts is “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). We are called to make every effort to preserve charity: “The one who loves another has fulfilled the law… for love is the fulfilment of the law” (Rom 13:8.10). “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’” (Gal 5:14). 61. In other words, amid the thicket of precepts and prescriptions, Jesus clears a way to seeing two faces, that of the Father and that of our brother. He does not give us two more formulas or two more commands. He gives us two faces, or better yet, one alone: the face of God reflected in so many other faces. For in every one of our brothers and sisters, especially the least, the most vulnerable, the defenceless and those in need, God’s very image is found. Indeed, with the scraps of this frail humanity, the Lord will shape his final work of art. For “what endures, what has value in life, what riches do not disappear? Surely these two: the Lord and our neighbour. These two riches do not disappear!”[65] 62. May the Lord set the Church free from these new forms of gnosticism and pelagianism that weigh her down and block her progress along the path to holiness! These aberrations take various shapes, according to the temperament and character of each person. So I encourage everyone to reflect and discern before God whether they may be present in their lives. CHAPTER THREE IN THE LIGHT OF THE MASTER 63. There can be any number of theories about what constitutes holiness, with various explanations and distinctions. Such reflection may be useful, but nothing is more enlightening than turning to Jesus’ words and seeing his way of teaching the truth. Jesus explained with great simplicity what it means to be holy when he gave us the Beatitudes (cf. Mt 5:3-12; Lk 6:20-23). The Beatitudes are like a Christian’s identity card. So if anyone asks: “What must one do to be a good Christian?”, the answer is clear. We have to do, each in our own way, what Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount.[66] In the Beatitudes, we find a portrait of the Master, which we are called to reflect in our daily lives. 64. The word “happy” or “blessed” thus becomes a synonym for “holy”. It expresses the fact that those faithful to God and his word, by their self-giving, gain true happiness. GOING AGAINST THE FLOW 65. Although Jesus’ words may strike us as poetic, they clearly run counter to the way things are usually done in our world. Even if we find Jesus’ message attractive, the world pushes us towards another way of living. The Beatitudes are in no way trite or undemanding, quite the opposite. We can only practise them if the Holy Spirit fills us with his power and frees us from our weakness, our selfishness, our complacency and our pride. 66. Let us listen once more to Jesus, with all the love and respect that the Master deserves. Let us allow his words to unsettle us, to challenge us and to demand a real change in the way we live. Otherwise, holiness will remain no more than an empty word. We turn now to the individual Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew (cf. Mt 5:3-12).[67] “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” 67. The Gospel invites us to peer into the depths of our heart, to see where we find our security in life. Usually the rich feel secure in their wealth, and think that, if that wealth is threatened, the whole meaning of their earthly life can collapse. Jesus himself tells us this in the parable of the rich fool: he speaks of a man who was sure of himself, yet foolish, for it did not dawn on him that he might die that very day (cf. Lk 12:16-21). 68. Wealth ensures nothing. Indeed, once we think we are rich, we can become so self-satisfied that we leave no room for God’s word, for the love of our brothers and sisters, or for the enjoyment of the most important things in life. In this way, we miss out on the greatest treasure of all. That is why Jesus calls blessed those who are poor in spirit, those who have a poor heart, for there the Lord can enter with his perennial newness. 69. This spiritual poverty is closely linked to what Saint Ignatius of Loyola calls “holy indifference”, which brings us to a radiant interior freedom: “We need to train ourselves to be indifferent in our attitude to all created things, in all that is permitted to our free will and not forbidden; so that on our part, we do not set our hearts on good health rather than bad, riches rather than poverty, honour rather than dishonour, a long life rather than a short one, and so in all the rest”.[68] 70. Luke does not speak of poverty “of spirit” but simply of those who are “poor” (cf. Lk 6:20). In this way, he too invites us to live a plain and austere life. He calls us to share in the life of those most in need, the life lived by the Apostles, and ultimately to configure ourselves to Jesus who, though rich, “made himself poor” (2 Cor 8:9). Being poor of heart: that is holiness. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” 71. These are strong words in a world that from the beginning has been a place of conflict, disputes and enmity on all sides, where we constantly pigeonhole others on the basis of their ideas, their customs and even their way of speaking or dressing. Ultimately, it is the reign of pride and vanity, where each person thinks he or she has the right to dominate others. Nonetheless, impossible as it may seem, Jesus proposes a different way of doing things: the way of meekness. This is what we see him doing with his disciples. It is what we contemplate on his entrance to Jerusalem: “Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey” (Mt 21:5; Zech 9:9). 72. Christ says: “Learn from me; for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:29). If we are constantly upset and impatient with others, we will end up drained and weary. But if we regard the faults and limitations of others with tenderness and meekness, without an air of superiority, we can actually help them and stop wasting our energy on useless complaining. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux tells us that “perfect charity consists in putting up with others’ mistakes, and not being scandalized by their faults”.[69] 73. Paul speaks of meekness as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal 5:23). He suggests that, if a wrongful action of one of our brothers or sisters troubles us, we should try to correct them, but “with a spirit of meekness”, since “you too could be tempted” (Gal6:1). Even when we defend our faith and convictions, we are to do so “with meekness” (cf. 1 Pet 3:16). Our enemies too are to be treated “with meekness” (2 Tim 2:25). In the Church we have often erred by not embracing this demand of God’s word. 74. Meekness is yet another expression of the interior poverty of those who put their trust in God alone. Indeed, in the Bible the same word – anawim – usually refers both to the poor and to the meek. Someone might object: “If I am that meek, they will think that I am an idiot, a fool or a weakling”. At times they may, but so be it. It is always better to be meek, for then our deepest desires will be fulfilled. The meek “shall inherit the earth”, for they will see God’s promises accomplished in their lives. In every situation, the meek put their hope in the Lord, and those who hope for him shall possess the land… and enjoy the fullness of peace (cf. Ps37:9.11). For his part, the Lord trusts in them: “This is the one to whom I will look, to the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at my word” (Is 66:2). Reacting with meekness and humility: that is holiness. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” 75. The world tells us exactly the opposite: entertainment, pleasure, diversion and escape make for the good life. The worldly person ignores problems of sickness or sorrow in the family or all around him; he averts his gaze. The world has no desire to mourn; it would rather disregard painful situations, cover them up or hide them. Much energy is expended on fleeing from situations of suffering in the belief that reality can be concealed. But the cross can never be absent. 76. A person who sees things as they truly are and sympathizes with pain and sorrow is capable of touching life’s depths and finding authentic happiness.[70] He or she is consoled, not by the world but by Jesus. Such persons are unafraid to share in the suffering of others; they do not flee from painful situations. They discover the meaning of life by coming to the aid of those who suffer, understanding their anguish and bringing relief. They sense that the other is flesh of our flesh, and are not afraid to draw near, even to touch their wounds. They feel compassion for others in such a way that all distance vanishes. In this way they can embrace Saint Paul’s exhortation: “Weep with those who weep” (Rom 12:15). Knowing how to mourn with others: that is holiness. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” 77. Hunger and thirst are intense experiences, since they involve basic needs and our instinct for survival. There are those who desire justice and yearn for righteousness with similar intensity. Jesus says that they will be satisfied, for sooner or later justice will come. We can cooperate to make that possible, even if we may not always see the fruit of our efforts. 78. Jesus offers a justice other than that of the world, so often marred by petty interests and manipulated in various ways. Experience shows how easy it is to become mired in corruption, ensnared in the daily politics of quid pro quo, where everything becomes business. How many people suffer injustice, standing by powerlessly while others divvy up the good things of this life. Some give up fighting for real justice and opt to follow in the train of the winners. This has nothing to do with the hunger and thirst for justice that Jesus praises. 79. True justice comes about in people’s lives when they themselves are just in their decisions; it is expressed in their pursuit of justice for the poor and the weak. While it is true that the word “justice” can be a synonym for faithfulness to God’s will in every aspect of our life, if we give the word too general a meaning, we forget that it is shown especially in justice towards those who are most vulnerable: “Seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Is 1:17). Hungering and thirsting for righteousness: that is holiness. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” 80. Mercy has two aspects. It involves giving, helping and serving others, but it also includes forgiveness and understanding. Matthew sums it up in one golden rule: “In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you” (7:12). The Catechism reminds us that this law is to be applied “in every case”,[71]especially when we are “confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult”.[72] 81. Giving and forgiving means reproducing in our lives some small measure of God’s perfection, which gives and forgives superabundantly. For this reason, in the Gospel of Luke we do not hear the words, “Be perfect” (Mt 5:48), but rather, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you” (6:36-38). Luke then adds something not to be overlooked: “The measure you give will be the measure you get back” (6:38). The yardstick we use for understanding and forgiving others will measure the forgiveness we receive. The yardstick we use for giving will measure what we receive. We should never forget this. 82. Jesus does not say, “Blessed are those who plot revenge”. He calls “blessed” those who forgive and do so “seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22). We need to think of ourselves as an army of the forgiven. All of us have been looked upon with divine compassion. If we approach the Lord with sincerity and listen carefully, there may well be times when we hear his reproach: “Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” (Mt 18:33). Seeing and acting with mercy: that is holiness. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” 83. This Beatitude speaks of those whose hearts are simple, pure and undefiled, for a heart capable of love admits nothing that might harm, weaken or endanger that love. The Bible uses the heart to describe our real intentions, the things we truly seek and desire, apart from all appearances. “Man sees the appearance, but the Lord looks into the heart” (1Sam 16:7). God wants to speak to our hearts (cf. Hos 2:16); there he desires to write his law (cf. Jer 31:33). In a word, he wants to give us a new heart (cf. Ezek36:26). 84. “Guard your heart with all vigilance” (Prov 4:23). Nothing stained by falsehood has any real worth in the Lord’s eyes. He “flees from deceit, and rises and departs from foolish thoughts” (Wis 1:5). The Father, “who sees in secret” (Mt 6:6), recognizes what is impure and insincere, mere display or appearance, as does the Son, who knows “what is in man” (cf. Jn 2:25). 85. Certainly there can be no love without works of love, but this Beatitude reminds us that the Lord expects a commitment to our brothers and sisters that comes from the heart. For “if I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have no love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor 13:3). In Matthew’s Gospel too, we see that what proceeds from the heart is what defiles a person (cf. 15:18), for from the heart come murder, theft, false witness, and other evil deeds (cf. 15:19). From the heart’s intentions come the desires and the deepest decisions that determine our actions. 86. A heart that loves God and neighbour (cf. Mt 22:36-40), genuinely and not merely in words, is a pure heart; it can see God. In his hymn to charity, Saint Paul says that “now we see in a mirror, dimly” (1 Cor 13:12), but to the extent that truth and love prevail, we will then be able to see “face to face”. Jesus promises that those who are pure in heart “will see God”. Keeping a heart free of all that tarnishes love: that is holiness. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” 87. This Beatitude makes us think of the many endless situations of war in our world. Yet we ourselves are often a cause of conflict or at least of misunderstanding. For example, I may hear something about someone and I go off and repeat it. I may even embellish it the second time around and keep spreading it… And the more harm it does, the more satisfaction I seem to derive from it. The world of gossip, inhabited by negative and destructive people, does not bring peace. Such people are really the enemies of peace; in no way are they “blessed”.[73] 88. Peacemakers truly “make” peace; they build peace and friendship in society. To those who sow peace Jesus makes this magnificent promise: “They will be called children of God” (Mt 5:9). He told his disciples that, wherever they went, they were to say: “Peace to this house!” (Lk 10:5). The word of God exhorts every believer to work for peace, “along with all who call upon the Lord with a pure heart” (cf. 2 Tim 2:22), for “the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (Jas 3:18). And if there are times in our community when we question what ought to be done, “let us pursue what makes for peace” (Rom 14:19), for unity is preferable to conflict.[74] 89. It is not easy to “make” this evangelical peace, which excludes no one but embraces even those who are a bit odd, troublesome or difficult, demanding, different, beaten down by life or simply uninterested. It is hard work; it calls for great openness of mind and heart, since it is not about creating “a consensus on paper or a transient peace for a contented minority”,[75] or a project “by a few for the few”.[76] Nor can it attempt to ignore or disregard conflict; instead, it must “face conflict head on, resolve it and make it a link in the chain of a new process”.[77] We need to be artisans of peace, for building peace is a craft that demands serenity, creativity, sensitivity and skill. Sowing peace all around us: that is holiness. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” 90. Jesus himself warns us that the path he proposes goes against the flow, even making us challenge society by the way we live and, as a result, becoming a nuisance. He reminds us how many people have been, and still are, persecuted simply because they struggle for justice, because they take seriously their commitment to God and to others. Unless we wish to sink into an obscure mediocrity, let us not long for an easy life, for “whoever would save his life will lose it” (Mt 16:25). 91. In living the Gospel, we cannot expect that everything will be easy, for the thirst for power and worldly interests often stands in our way. Saint John Paul II noted that “a society is alienated if its forms of social organization, production and consumption make it more difficult to offer this gift of self and to establish this solidarity between people”.[78] In such a society, politics, mass communications and economic, cultural and even religious institutions become so entangled as to become an obstacle to authentic human and social development. As a result, the Beatitudes are not easy to live out; any attempt to do so will be viewed negatively, regarded with suspicion, and met with ridicule. 92. Whatever weariness and pain we may experience in living the commandment of love and following the way of justice, the cross remains the source of our growth and sanctification. We must never forget that when the New Testament tells us that we will have to endure suffering for the Gospel’s sake, it speaks precisely of persecution (cf. Acts 5:41; Phil 1:29; Col 1:24; 2 Tim 1:12; 1 Pet 2:20, 4:14-16; Rev 2:10). 93. Here we are speaking about inevitable persecution, not the kind of persecution we might bring upon ourselves by our mistreatment of others. The saints are not odd and aloof, unbearable because of their vanity, negativity and bitterness. The Apostles of Christ were not like that. The Book of Acts states repeatedly that they enjoyed favour “with all the people” (2:47; cf. 4:21.33; 5:13), even as some authorities harassed and persecuted them (cf. 4:1-3, 5:17-18). 94. Persecutions are not a reality of the past, for today too we experience them, whether by the shedding of blood, as is the case with so many contemporary martyrs, or by more subtle means, by slander and lies. Jesus calls us blessed when people “utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Mt 5:11). At other times, persecution can take the form of gibes that try to caricature our faith and make us seem ridiculous. Accepting daily the path of the Gospel, even though it may cause us problems: that is holiness. THE GREAT CRITERION 95. In the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (vv. 31-46), Jesus expands on the Beatitude that calls the merciful blessed. If we seek the holiness pleasing to God’s eyes, this text offers us one clear criterion on which we will be judged. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me” (vv. 35-36). In fidelity to the Master 96. Holiness, then, is not about swooning in mystic rapture. As Saint John Paul II said: “If we truly start out anew from the contemplation of Christ, we must learn to see him especially in the faces of those with whom he himself wished to be identified”.[79] The text of Matthew 25:35-36 is “not a simple invitation to charity: it is a page of Christology which sheds a ray of light on the mystery of Christ”.[80] In this call to recognize him in the poor and the suffering, we see revealed the very heart of Christ, his deepest feelings and choices, which every saint seeks to imitate. 97. Given these uncompromising demands of Jesus, it is my duty to ask Christians to acknowledge and accept them in a spirit of genuine openness, sine glossa. In other words, without any “ifs or buts” that could lessen their force. Our Lord made it very clear that holiness cannot be understood or lived apart from these demands, for mercy is “the beating heart of the Gospel”.[81] 98. If I encounter a person sleeping outdoors on a cold night, I can view him or her as an annoyance, an idler, an obstacle in my path, a troubling sight, a problem for politicians to sort out, or even a piece of refuse cluttering a public space. Or I can respond with faith and charity, and see in this person a human being with a dignity identical to my own, a creature infinitely loved by the Father, an image of God, a brother or sister redeemed by Jesus Christ. That is what it is to be a Christian! Can holiness somehow be understood apart from this lively recognition of the dignity of each human being?[82] 99. For Christians, this involves a constant and healthy unease. Even if helping one person alone could justify all our efforts, it would not be enough. The bishops of Canada made this clear when they noted, for example, that the biblical understanding of the jubilee year was about more than simply performing certain good works. It also meant seeking social change: “For later generations to also be released, clearly the goal had to be the restoration of just social and economic systems, so there could no longer be exclusion”.[83] Ideologies striking at the heart of the Gospel 100. I regret that ideologies lead us at times to two harmful errors. On the one hand, there is the error of those Christians who separate these Gospel demands from their personal relationship with the Lord, from their interior union with him, from openness to his grace. Christianity thus becomes a sort of NGO stripped of the luminous mysticism so evident in the lives of Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Vincent de Paul, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, and many others. For these great saints, mental prayer, the love of God and the reading of the Gospel in no way detracted from their passionate and effective commitment to their neighbours; quite the opposite. 101. The other harmful ideological error is found in those who find suspect the social engagement of others, seeing it as superficial, worldly, secular, materialist, communist or populist. Or they relativize it, as if there are other more important matters, or the only thing that counts is one particular ethical issue or cause that they themselves defend. Our defence of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.[84] We cannot uphold an ideal of holiness that would ignore injustice in a world where some revel, spend with abandon and live only for the latest consumer goods, even as others look on from afar, living their entire lives in abject poverty. 102. We often hear it said that, with respect to relativism and the flaws of our present world, the situation of migrants, for example, is a lesser issue. Some Catholics consider it a secondary issue compared to the “grave” bioethical questions. That a politician looking for votes might say such a thing is understandable, but not a Christian, for whom the only proper attitude is to stand in the shoes of those brothers and sisters of ours who risk their lives to offer a future to their children. Can we not realize that this is exactly what Jesus demands of us, when he tells us that in welcoming the stranger we welcome him (cf. Mt 25:35)? Saint Benedict did so readily, and though it might have “complicated” the life of his monks, he ordered that all guests who knocked at the monastery door be welcomed “like Christ”,[85] with a gesture of veneration;[86] the poor and pilgrims were to be met with “the greatest care and solicitude”.[87] 103. A similar approach is found in the Old Testament: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Ex 22:21). “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Lev 19:33-34). This is not a notion invented by some Pope, or a momentary fad. In today’s world too, we are called to follow the path of spiritual wisdom proposed by the prophet Isaiah to show what is pleasing to God. “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn” (58:7-8). The worship most acceptable to God 104. We may think that we give glory to God only by our worship and prayer, or simply by following certain ethical norms. It is true that the primacy belongs to our relationship with God, but we cannot forget that the ultimate criterion on which our lives will be judged is what we have done for others. Prayer is most precious, for it nourishes a daily commitment to love. Our worship becomes pleasing to God when we devote ourselves to living generously, and allow God’s gift, granted in prayer, to be shown in our concern for our brothers and sisters. 105. Similarly, the best way to discern if our prayer is authentic is to judge to what extent our life is being transformed in the light of mercy. For “mercy is not only an action of the Father; it becomes a criterion for ascertaining who his true children are”.[88]Mercy “is the very foundation of the Church’s life”.[89] In this regard, I would like to reiterate that mercy does not exclude justice and truth; indeed, “we have to say that mercy is the fullness of justice and the most radiant manifestation of God’s truth”.[90] It is “the key to heaven”.[91] 106. Here I think of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who asked which actions of ours are noblest, which external works best show our love for God. Thomas answered unhesitatingly that they are the works of mercy towards our neighbour,[92] even more than our acts of worship: “We worship God by outward sacrifices and gifts, not for his own benefit, but for that of ourselves and our neighbour. For he does not need our sacrifices, but wishes them to be offered to him, in order to stir our devotion and to profit our neighbour. Hence mercy, whereby we supply others’ defects, is a sacrifice more acceptable to him, as conducing more directly to our neighbour’s well-being”.[93] 107. Those who really wish to give glory to God by their lives, who truly long to grow in holiness, are called to be single-minded and tenacious in their practice of the works of mercy. Saint Teresa of Calcutta clearly realized this: “Yes, I have many human faults and failures… But God bends down and uses us, you and me, to be his love and his compassion in the world; he bears our sins, our troubles and our faults. He depends on us to love the world and to show how much he loves it. If we are too concerned with ourselves, we will have no time left for others”.[94] 108. Hedonism and consumerism can prove our downfall, for when we are obsessed with our own pleasure, we end up being all too concerned about ourselves and our rights, and we feel a desperate need for free time to enjoy ourselves. We will find it hard to feel and show any real concern for those in need, unless we are able to cultivate a certain simplicity of life, resisting the feverish demands of a consumer society, which leave us impoverished and unsatisfied, anxious to have it all now. Similarly, when we allow ourselves to be caught up in superficial information, instant communication and virtual reality, we can waste precious time and become indifferent to the suffering flesh of our brothers and sisters. Yet even amid this whirlwind of activity, the Gospel continues to resound, offering us the promise of a different life, a healthier and happier life. * * * 109. The powerful witness of the saints is revealed in their lives, shaped by the Beatitudes and the criterion of the final judgement. Jesus’ words are few and straightforward, yet practical and valid for everyone, for Christianity is meant above all to be put into practice. It can also be an object of study and reflection, but only to help us better live the Gospel in our daily lives. I recommend rereading these great biblical texts frequently, referring back to them, praying with them, trying to embody them. They will benefit us; they will make us genuinely happy. CHAPTER FOUR SIGNS OF HOLINESS IN TODAY’S WORLD 110. Within the framework of holiness offered by the Beatitudes and Matthew 25:31-46, I would like to mention a few signs or spiritual attitudes that, in my opinion, are necessary if we are to understand the way of life to which the Lord calls us. I will not pause to explain the means of sanctification already known to us: the various methods of prayer, the inestimable sacraments of the Eucharist and Reconciliation, the offering of personal sacrifices, different forms of devotion, spiritual direction, and many others as well. Here I will speak only of certain aspects of the call to holiness that I hope will prove especially meaningful. 111. The signs I wish to highlight are not the sum total of a model of holiness, but they are five great expressions of love for God and neighbour that I consider of particular importance in the light of certain dangers and limitations present in today’s culture. There we see a sense of anxiety, sometimes violent, that distracts and debilitates; negativity and sullenness; the self-content bred by consumerism; individualism; and all those forms of ersatz spirituality – having nothing to do with God – that dominate the current religious marketplace. PERSEVERANCE, PATIENCE AND MEEKNESS 112. The first of these great signs is solid grounding in the God who loves and sustains us. This source of inner strength enables us to persevere amid life’s ups and downs, but also to endure hostility, betrayal and failings on the part of others. “If God is for us, who is against us?” (Rom 8:31): this is the source of the peace found in the saints. Such inner strength makes it possible for us, in our fast-paced, noisy and aggressive world, to give a witness of holiness through patience and constancy in doing good. It is a sign of the fidelity born of love, for those who put their faith in God (pístis) can also be faithful to others (pistós). They do not desert others in bad times; they accompany them in their anxiety and distress, even though doing so may not bring immediate satisfaction. 113. Saint Paul bade the Romans not to repay evil for evil (cf. Rom 12:17), not to seek revenge (v. 19), and not to be overcome by evil, but instead to “overcome evil with good” (v. 21). This attitude is not a sign of weakness but of true strength, because God himself “is slow to anger but great in power” (Nah 1:3). The word of God exhorts us to “put away all bitterness and wrath and wrangling and slander, together with all malice” (Eph 4:31). 114. We need to recognize and combat our aggressive and selfish inclinations, and not let them take root. “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Eph 4:26). When we feel overwhelmed, we can always cling to the anchor of prayer, which puts us back in God’s hands and the source of our peace. “Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts…” (Phil 4:6-7). 115. Christians too can be caught up in networks of verbal violence through the internet and the various forums of digital communication. Even in Catholic media, limits can be overstepped, defamation and slander can become commonplace, and all ethical standards and respect for the good name of others can be abandoned. The result is a dangerous dichotomy, since things can be said there that would be unacceptable in public discourse, and people look to compensate for their own discontent by lashing out at others. It is striking that at times, in claiming to uphold the other commandments, they completely ignore the eighth, which forbids bearing false witness or lying, and ruthlessly vilify others. Here we see how the unguarded tongue, set on fire by hell, sets all things ablaze (cf. Jas 3:6). 116. Inner strength, as the work of grace, prevents us from becoming carried away by the violence that is so much a part of life today, because grace defuses vanity and makes possible meekness of heart. The saints do not waste energy complaining about the failings of others; they can hold their tongue before the faults of their brothers and sisters, and avoid the verbal violence that demeans and mistreats others. Saints hesitate to treat others harshly; they consider others better than themselves (cf. Phil 2:3). 117. It is not good when we look down on others like heartless judges, lording it over them and always trying to teach them lessons. That is itself a subtle form of violence.[95] Saint John of the Cross proposed a different path: “Always prefer to be taught by all, rather than to desire teaching even the least of all”.[96] And he added advice on how to keep the devil at bay: “Rejoice in the good of others as if it were your own, and desire that they be given precedence over you in all things; this you should do wholeheartedly. You will thereby overcome evil with good, banish the devil, and possess a happy heart. Try to practise this all the more with those who least attract you. Realize that if you do not train yourself in this way, you will not attain real charity or make any progress in it”.[97] 118. Humility can only take root in the heart through humiliations. Without them, there is no humility or holiness. If you are unable to suffer and offer up a few humiliations, you are not humble and you are not on the path to holiness. The holiness that God bestows on his Church comes through the humiliation of his Son. He is the way. Humiliation makes you resemble Jesus; it is an unavoidable aspect of the imitation of Christ. For “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21). In turn, he reveals the humility of the Father, who condescends to journey with his people, enduring their infidelities and complaints (cf. Ex 34:6-9; Wis 11:23-12:2; Lk 6:36). For this reason, the Apostles, after suffering humiliation, rejoiced “that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for [Jesus’] name” (Acts 5:41). 119. Here I am not speaking only about stark situations of martyrdom, but about the daily humiliations of those who keep silent to save their families, who prefer to praise others rather than boast about themselves, or who choose the less welcome tasks, at times even choosing to bear an injustice so as to offer it to the Lord. “If when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval” (1 Pet 2:20). This does not mean walking around with eyes lowered, not saying a word and fleeing the company of others. At times, precisely because someone is free of selfishness, he or she can dare to disagree gently, to demand justice or to defend the weak before the powerful, even if it may harm his or her reputation. 120. I am not saying that such humiliation is pleasant, for that would be masochism, but that it is a way of imitating Jesus and growing in union with him. This is incomprehensible on a purely natural level, and the world mocks any such notion. Instead, it is a grace to be sought in prayer: “Lord, when humiliations come, help me to know that I am following in your footsteps”. 121. To act in this way presumes a heart set at peace by Christ, freed from the aggressiveness born of overweening egotism. That same peacefulness, the fruit of grace, makes it possible to preserve our inner trust and persevere in goodness, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps 23:4) or “a host encamp against me” (Ps 27:3). Standing firm in the Lord, the Rock, we can sing: “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Ps 4:8). Christ, in a word, “is our peace” (Eph 2:14); he came “to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Lk 1:79). As he told Saint Faustina Kowalska, “Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to my mercy”.[98] So let us not fall into the temptation of looking for security in success, vain pleasures, possessions, power over others or social status. Jesus says: “My peace I give to you; I do not give it to you as the world gives peace” (Jn 14:27). JOY AND A SENSE OF HUMOUR 122. Far from being timid, morose, acerbic or melancholy, or putting on a dreary face, the saints are joyful and full of good humour. Though completely realistic, they radiate a positive and hopeful spirit. The Christian life is “joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17), for “the necessary result of the love of charity is joy; since every lover rejoices at being united to the beloved… the effect of charity is joy”.[99] Having received the beautiful gift of God’s word, we embrace it “in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit” (1 Thess 1:6). If we allow the Lord to draw us out of our shell and change our lives, then we can do as Saint Paul tells us: “Rejoice in the Lord always; I say it again, rejoice!” (Phil 4:4). 123. The prophets proclaimed the times of Jesus, in which we now live, as a revelation of joy. “Shout and sing for joy!” (Is 12:6). “Get you up to a high mountain, O herald of good tidings to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, O herald of good tidings to Jerusalem!” (Is 40:9). “Break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people, and he will have compassion on his afflicted” (Is 49:13). “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he” (Zech 9:9). Nor should we forget Nehemiah’s exhortation: “Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!” (8:10). 124. Mary, recognizing the newness that Jesus brought, sang: “My spirit rejoices” (Lk 1:47), and Jesus himself “rejoiced in the Holy Spirit” (Lk 10:21). As he passed by, “all the people rejoiced” (Lk 13:17). After his resurrection, wherever the disciples went, there was “much joy” (Acts 8:8). Jesus assures us: “You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy… I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (Jn 16:20.22). “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (Jn 15:11). 125. Hard times may come, when the cross casts its shadow, yet nothing can destroy the supernatural joy that “adapts and changes, but always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved”.[100] That joy brings deep security, serene hope and a spiritual fulfilment that the world cannot understand or appreciate. 126. Christian joy is usually accompanied by a sense of humour. We see this clearly, for example, in Saint Thomas More, Saint Vincent de Paul and Saint Philip Neri. Ill humour is no sign of holiness. “Remove vexation from your mind” (Eccl 11:10). We receive so much from the Lord “for our enjoyment” (1 Tim 6:17), that sadness can be a sign of ingratitude. We can get so caught up in ourselves that we are unable to recognize God’s gifts.[101] 127. With the love of a father, God tells us: “My son, treat yourself well… Do not deprive yourself of a happy day” (Sir 14:11.14). He wants us to be positive, grateful and uncomplicated: “In the day of prosperity, be joyful… God created human beings straightforward, but they have devised many schemes” (Eccl 7:14.29). Whatever the case, we should remain resilient and imitate Saint Paul: “I have learned to be content with what I have” (Phil 4:11). Saint Francis of Assisi lived by this; he could be overwhelmed with gratitude before a piece of hard bread, or joyfully praise God simply for the breeze that caressed his face. 128. This is not the joy held out by today’s individualistic and consumerist culture. Consumerism only bloats the heart. It can offer occasional and passing pleasures, but not joy. Here I am speaking of a joy lived in communion, which shares and is shared, since “there is more happiness in giving than in receiving” (Acts 20:35) and “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7). Fraternal love increases our capacity for joy, since it makes us capable of rejoicing in the good of others: “Rejoice with those who rejoice” (Rom12:15). “We rejoice when we are weak and you are strong” (2 Cor 13:9). On the other hand, when we “focus primarily on our own needs, we condemn ourselves to a joyless existence”.[102] BOLDNESS AND PASSION 129. Holiness is also parrhesía: it is boldness, an impulse to evangelize and to leave a mark in this world. To allow us to do this, Jesus himself comes and tells us once more, serenely yet firmly: “Do not be afraid” (Mk 6:50). “I am with you always, to the end of the world” (Mt 28:20). These words enable us to go forth and serve with the same courage that the Holy Spirit stirred up in the Apostles, impelling them to proclaim Jesus Christ. Boldness, enthusiasm, the freedom to speak out, apostolic fervour, all these are included in the word parrhesía. The Bible also uses this word to describe the freedom of a life open to God and to others (cf. Acts4:29, 9:28, 28:31; 2 Cor 3:12; Eph 3:12; Heb 3:6, 10:19). 130. Blessed Paul VI, in referring to obstacles to evangelization, spoke of a lack of fervour (parrhesía) that is “all the more serious because it comes from within”.[103] How often we are tempted to keep close to the shore! Yet the Lord calls us to put out into the deep and let down our nets (cf. Lk 5:4). He bids us spend our lives in his service. Clinging to him, we are inspired to put all our charisms at the service of others. May we always feel compelled by his love (2 Cor 5:14) and say with Saint Paul: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor 9:16). 131. Look at Jesus. His deep compassion reached out to others. It did not make him hesitant, timid or self-conscious, as often happens with us. Quite the opposite. His compassion made him go out actively to preach and to send others on a mission of healing and liberation. Let us acknowledge our weakness, but allow Jesus to lay hold of it and send us too on mission. We are weak, yet we hold a treasure that can enlarge us and make those who receive it better and happier. Boldness and apostolic courage are an essential part of mission. 132. Parrhesía is a seal of the Spirit; it testifies to the authenticity of our preaching. It is a joyful assurance that leads us to glory in the Gospel we proclaim. It is an unshakeable trust in the faithful Witness who gives us the certainty that nothing can “separate us from the love of God” (Rom 8:39). 133. We need the Spirit’s prompting, lest we be paralyzed by fear and excessive caution, lest we grow used to keeping within safe bounds. Let us remember that closed spaces grow musty and unhealthy. When the Apostles were tempted to let themselves be crippled by danger and threats, they joined in prayer to implore parrhesía: “And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness” (Acts 4:29). As a result, “when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31). 134. Like the prophet Jonah, we are constantly tempted to flee to a safe haven. It can have many names: individualism, spiritualism, living in a little world, addiction, intransigence, the rejection of new ideas and approaches, dogmatism, nostalgia, pessimism, hiding behind rules and regulations. We can resist leaving behind a familiar and easy way of doing things. Yet the challenges involved can be like the storm, the whale, the worm that dried the gourd plant, or the wind and sun that burned Jonah’s head. For us, as for him, they can serve to bring us back to the God of tenderness, who invites us to set out ever anew on our journey. 135. God is eternal newness. He impels us constantly to set out anew, to pass beyond what is familiar, to the fringes and beyond. He takes us to where humanity is most wounded, where men and women, beneath the appearance of a shallow conformity, continue to seek an answer to the question of life’s meaning. God is not afraid! He is fearless! He is always greater than our plans and schemes. Unafraid of the fringes, he himself became a fringe (cf. Phil 2:6-8; Jn 1:14). So if we dare to go to the fringes, we will find him there; indeed, he is already there. Jesus is already there, in the hearts of our brothers and sisters, in their wounded flesh, in their troubles and in their profound desolation. He is already there. 136. True enough, we need to open the door of our hearts to Jesus, who stands and knocks (cf. Rev 3:20). Sometimes I wonder, though, if perhaps Jesus is already inside us and knocking on the door for us to let him escape from our stale self-centredness. In the Gospel, we see how Jesus “went through the cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God” (Lk 8:1). After the resurrection, when the disciples went forth in all directions, the Lord accompanied them (cf. Mk 16:20). This is what happens as the result of true encounter. 137. Complacency is seductive; it tells us that there is no point in trying to change things, that there is nothing we can do, because this is the way things have always been and yet we always manage to survive. By force of habit we no longer stand up to evil. We “let things be”, or as others have decided they ought to be. Yet let us allow the Lord to rouse us from our torpor, to free us from our inertia. Let us rethink our usual way of doing things; let us open our eyes and ears, and above all our hearts, so as not to be complacent about things as they are, but unsettled by the living and effective word of the risen Lord. 138. We are inspired to act by the example of all those priests, religious, and laity who devote themselves to proclamation and to serving others with great fidelity, often at the risk of their lives and certainly at the cost of their comfort. Their testimony reminds us that, more than bureaucrats and functionaries, the Church needs passionate missionaries, enthusiastic about sharing true life. The saints surprise us, they confound us, because by their lives they urge us to abandon a dull and dreary mediocrity. 139. Let us ask the Lord for the grace not to hesitate when the Spirit calls us to take a step forward. Let us ask for the apostolic courage to share the Gospel with others and to stop trying to make our Christian life a museum of memories. In every situation, may the Holy Spirit cause us to contemplate history in the light of the risen Jesus. In this way, the Church will not stand still, but constantly welcome the Lord’s surprises. IN COMMUNITY 140. When we live apart from others, it is very difficult to fight against concupiscence, the snares and temptations of the devil and the selfishness of the world. Bombarded as we are by so many enticements, we can grow too isolated, lose our sense of reality and inner clarity, and easily succumb. 141. Growth in holiness is a journey in community, side by side with others. We see this in some holy communities. From time to time, the Church has canonized entire communities that lived the Gospel heroically or offered to God the lives of all their members. We can think, for example, of the seven holy founders of the Order of the Servants of Mary, the seven blessed sisters of the first monastery of the Visitation in Madrid, the Japanese martyrs Saint Paul Miki and companions, the Korean martyrs Saint Andrew Taegon and companions, or the South American martyrs Saint Roque González, Saint Alonso Rodríguez and companions. We should also remember the more recent witness borne by the Trappists of Tibhirine, Algeria, who prepared as a community for martyrdom. In many holy marriages too, each spouse becomes a means used by Christ for the sanctification of the other. Living or working alongside others is surely a path of spiritual growth. Saint John of the Cross told one of his followers: “You are living with others in order to be fashioned and tried”.[104] 142. Each community is called to create a “God-enlightened space in which to experience the hidden presence of the risen Lord”.[105] Sharing the word and celebrating the Eucharist together fosters fraternity and makes us a holy and missionary community. It also gives rise to authentic and shared mystical experiences. Such was the case with Saints Benedict and Scholastica. We can also think of the sublime spiritual experience shared by Saint Augustine and his mother, Saint Monica. “As the day now approached on which she was to depart this life, a day known to you but not to us, it came about, as I believe by your secret arrangement, that she and I stood alone leaning in a window that looked onto a garden… We opened wide our hearts to drink in the streams of your fountain, the source of life that is in you… And as we spoke of that wisdom and strained after it, we touched it in some measure by the impetus of our hearts… eternal life might be like that one moment of knowledge which we now sighed after”.[106] 143. Such experiences, however, are neither the most frequent nor the most important. The common life, whether in the family, the parish, the religious community or any other, is made up of small everyday things. This was true of the holy community formed by Jesus, Mary and Joseph, which reflected in an exemplary way the beauty of the Trinitarian communion. It was also true of the life that Jesus shared with his disciples and with ordinary people. 144. Let us not forget that Jesus asked his disciples to pay attention to details. The little detail that wine was running out at a party. The little detail that one sheep was missing. The little detail of noticing the widow who offered her two small coins. The little detail of having spare oil for the lamps, should the bridegroom delay. The little detail of asking the disciples how many loaves of bread they had. The little detail of having a fire burning and a fish cooking as he waited for the disciples at daybreak. 145. A community that cherishes the little details of love,[107] whose members care for one another and create an open and evangelizing environment, is a place where the risen Lord is present, sanctifying it in accordance with the Father’s plan. There are times when, by a gift of the Lord’s love, we are granted, amid these little details, consoling experiences of God. “One winter night I was carrying out my little duty as usual… Suddenly, I heard off in the distance the harmonious sound of a musical instrument. I then pictured a well-lighted drawing room, brilliantly gilded, filled with elegantly dressed young ladies conversing together and conferring upon each other all sorts of compliments and other worldly remarks. Then my glance fell upon the poor invalid whom I was supporting. Instead of the beautiful strains of music I heard only her occasional complaints… I cannot express in words what happened in my soul; what I know is that the Lord illumined it with rays of truth which so surpassed the dark brilliance of earthly feasts that I could not believe my happiness”.[108] 146. Contrary to the growing consumerist individualism that tends to isolate us in a quest for well-being apart from others, our path to holiness can only make us identify all the more with Jesus’ prayer “that all may be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you” (Jn 17:21). IN CONSTANT PRAYER 147. Finally, though it may seem obvious, we should remember that holiness consists in a habitual openness to the transcendent, expressed in prayer and adoration. The saints are distinguished by a spirit of prayer and a need for communion with God. They find an exclusive concern with this world to be narrow and stifling, and, amid their own concerns and commitments, they long for God, losing themselves in praise and contemplation of the Lord. I do not believe in holiness without prayer, even though that prayer need not be lengthy or involve intense emotions. 148. SaintJohn of the Cross tells us: “Endeavour to remain always in the presence of God, either real, imaginative, or unitive, insofar as is permitted by your works”.[109] In the end, our desire for God will surely find expression in our daily lives: “Try to be continuous in prayer, and in the midst of bodily exercises do not leave it. Whether you eat, drink, talk with others, or do anything, always go to God and attach your heart to him”.[110] 149. For this to happen, however, some moments spent alone with God are also necessary. For Saint Teresa of Avila, prayer “is nothing but friendly intercourse, and frequent solitary converse, with him who we know loves us”.[111] I would insist that this is true not only for a privileged few, but for all of us, for “we all have need of this silence, filled with the presence of him who is adored”.[112] Trust-filled prayer is a response of a heart open to encountering God face to face, where all is peaceful and the quiet voice of the Lord can be heard in the midst of silence. 150. In that silence, we can discern, in the light of the Spirit, the paths of holiness to which the Lord is calling us. Otherwise, any decisions we make may only be window-dressing that, rather than exalting the Gospel in our lives, will mask or submerge it. For each disciple, it is essential to spend time with the Master, to listen to his words, and to learn from him always. Unless we listen, all our words will be nothing but useless chatter. 151. We need to remember that “contemplation of the face of Jesus, died and risen, restores our humanity, even when it has been broken by the troubles of this life or marred by sin. We must not domesticate the power of the face of Christ”.[113] So let me ask you: Are there moments when you place yourself quietly in the Lord’s presence, when you calmly spend time with him, when you bask in his gaze? Do you let his fire inflame your heart? Unless you let him warm you more and more with his love and tenderness, you will not catch fire. How will you then be able to set the hearts of others on fire by your words and witness? If, gazing on the face of Christ, you feel unable to let yourself be healed and transformed, then enter into the Lord’s heart, into his wounds, for that is the abode of divine mercy.[114] 152. I ask that we never regard prayerful silence as a form of escape and rejection of the world around us. The Russian pilgrim, who prayed constantly, says that such prayer did not separate him from what was happening all around him. “Everybody was kind to me; it was as though everyone loved me… Not only did I feel [happiness and consolation] in my own soul, but the whole outside world also seemed to me full of charm and delight”.[115] 153. Nor does history vanish. Prayer, because it is nourished by the gift of God present and at work in our lives, must always be marked by remembrance. The memory of God’s works is central to the experience of the covenant between God and his people. God wished to enter history, and so our prayer is interwoven with memories. We think back not only on his revealed Word, but also on our own lives, the lives of others, and all that the Lord has done in his Church. This is the grateful memory that Saint Ignatius of Loyola refers to in his Contemplation for Attaining Love,[116] when he asks us to be mindful of all the blessings we have received from the Lord. Think of your own history when you pray, and there you will find much mercy. This will also increase your awareness that the Lord is ever mindful of you; he never forgets you. So it makes sense to ask him to shed light on the smallest details of your life, for he sees them all. 154. Prayer of supplication is an expression of a heart that trusts in God and realizes that of itself it can do nothing. The life of God’s faithful people is marked by constant supplication born of faith-filled love and great confidence. Let us not downplay prayer of petition, which so often calms our hearts and helps us persevere in hope. Prayer of intercession has particular value, for it is an act of trust in God and, at the same time, an expression of love for our neighbour. There are those who think, based on a one-sided spirituality, that prayer should be unalloyed contemplation of God, free of all distraction, as if the names and faces of others were somehow an intrusion to be avoided. Yet in reality, our prayer will be all the more pleasing to God and more effective for our growth in holiness if, through intercession, we attempt to practise the twofold commandment that Jesus left us. Intercessory prayer is an expression of our fraternal concern for others, since we are able to embrace their lives, their deepest troubles and their loftiest dreams. Of those who commit themselves generously to intercessory prayer we can apply the words of Scripture: “This is a man who loves the brethren and prays much for the people” (2 Mac 15:14). 155. If we realize that God exists, we cannot help but worship him, at times in quiet wonder, and praise him in festive song. We thus share in the experience of Blessed Charles de Foucauld, who said: “As soon as I believed that there was a God, I understood that I could do nothing other than to live for him”.[117] In the life of God’s pilgrim people, there can be many simple gestures of pure adoration, as when “the gaze of a pilgrim rests on an image that symbolizes God’s affection and closeness. Love pauses, contemplates the mystery, and enjoys it in silence”.[118] 156. The prayerful reading of God’s word, which is “sweeter than honey” (Ps 119:103) yet a “two-edged sword” (Heb 4:12), enables us to pause and listen to the voice of the Master. It becomes a lamp for our steps and a light for our path (cf. Ps 119:105). As the bishops of India have reminded us, “devotion to the word of God is not simply one of many devotions, beautiful but somewhat optional. It goes to the very heart and identity of Christian life. The word has the power to transform lives”.[119] 157. Meeting Jesus in the Scriptures leads us to the Eucharist, where the written word attains its greatest efficacy, for there the living Word is truly present. In the Eucharist, the one true God receives the greatest worship the world can give him, for it is Christ himself who is offered. When we receive him in Holy Communion, we renew our covenant with him and allow him to carry out ever more fully his work of transforming our lives. CHAPTER FIVE SPIRITUAL COMBAT, VIGILANCE AND DISCERNMENT 158. The Christian life is a constant battle. We need strength and courage to withstand the temptations of the devil and to proclaim the Gospel. This battle is sweet, for it allows us to rejoice each time the Lord triumphs in our lives. COMBAT AND VIGILANCE 159. We are not dealing merely with a battle against the world and a worldly mentality that would deceive us and leave us dull and mediocre, lacking in enthusiasm and joy. Nor can this battle be reduced to the struggle against our human weaknesses and proclivities (be they laziness, lust, envy, jealousy or any others). It is also a constant struggle against the devil, the prince of evil. Jesus himself celebrates our victories. He rejoiced when his disciples made progress in preaching the Gospel and overcoming the opposition of the evil one: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Lk 10:18). More than a myth 160. We will not admit the existence of the devil if we insist on regarding life by empirical standards alone, without a supernatural understanding. It is precisely the conviction that this malign power is present in our midst that enables us to understand how evil can at times have so much destructive force. True enough, the biblical authors had limited conceptual resources for expressing certain realities, and in Jesus’ time epilepsy, for example, could easily be confused with demonic possession. Yet this should not lead us to an oversimplification that would conclude that all the cases related in the Gospel had to do with psychological disorders and hence that the devil does not exist or is not at work. He is present in the very first pages of the Scriptures, which end with God’s victory over the devil.[120] Indeed, in leaving us the Our Father, Jesus wanted us to conclude by asking the Father to “deliver us from evil”. That final word does not refer to evil in the abstract; a more exact translation would be “the evil one”. It indicates a personal being who assails us. Jesus taught us to ask daily for deliverance from him, lest his power prevail over us. 161. Hence, we should not think of the devil as a myth, a representation, a symbol, a figure of speech or an idea.[121] This mistake would lead us to let down our guard, to grow careless and end up more vulnerable. The devil does not need to possess us. He poisons us with the venom of hatred, desolation, envy and vice. When we let down our guard, he takes advantage of it to destroy our lives, our families and our communities. “Like a roaring lion, he prowls around, looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8). Alert and trustful 162. God’s word invites us clearly to “stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph 6:11) and to “quench all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Eph 6:16). These expressions are not melodramatic, precisely because our path towards holiness is a constant battle. Those who do not realize this will be prey to failure or mediocrity. For this spiritual combat, we can count on the powerful weapons that the Lord has given us: faith-filled prayer, meditation on the word of God, the celebration of Mass, Eucharistic adoration, sacramental Reconciliation, works of charity, community life, missionary outreach. If we become careless, the false promises of evil will easily seduce us. As the sainted Cura Brochero observed: “What good is it when Lucifer promises you freedom and showers you with all his benefits, if those benefits are false, deceptive and poisonous?”[122] 163. Along this journey, the cultivation of all that is good, progress in the spiritual life and growth in love are the best counterbalance to evil. Those who choose to remain neutral, who are satisfied with little, who renounce the ideal of giving themselves generously to the Lord, will never hold out. Even less if they fall into defeatism, for “if we start without confidence, we have already lost half the battle and we bury our talents… Christian triumph is always a cross, yet a cross which is at the same time a victorious banner, borne with aggressive tenderness against the assaults of evil”.[123] Spiritual corruption 164. The path of holiness is a source of peace and joy, given to us by the Spirit. At the same time, it demands that we keep “our lamps lit” (Lk 12:35) and be attentive. “Abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thess 5:22). “Keep awake” (Mt 24:42; Mk 13:35). “Let us not fall asleep” (1 Thess 5:6). Those who think they commit no grievous sins against God’s law can fall into a state of dull lethargy. Since they see nothing serious to reproach themselves with, they fail to realize that their spiritual life has gradually turned lukewarm. They end up weakened and corrupted. 165. Spiritual corruption is worse than the fall of a sinner, for it is a comfortable and self-satisfied form of blindness. Everything then appears acceptable: deception, slander, egotism and other subtle forms of self-centredness, for “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14). So Solomon ended his days, whereas David, who sinned greatly, was able to make up for disgrace. Jesus warned us against this self-deception that easily leads to corruption. He spoke of a person freed from the devil who, convinced that his life was now in order, ended up being possessed by seven other evil spirits (cf. Lk 11:24-26). Another biblical text puts it bluntly: “The dog turns back to his own vomit” (2 Pet 2:22; cf. Pr 26:11). DISCERNMENT 166. How can we know if something comes from the Holy Spirit or if it stems from the spirit of the world or the spirit of the devil? The only way is through discernment, which calls for something more than intelligence or common sense. It is a gift which we must implore. If we ask with confidence that the Holy Spirit grant us this gift, and then seek to develop it through prayer, reflection, reading and good counsel, then surely we will grow in this spiritual endowment. An urgent need 167. The gift of discernment has become all the more necessary today, since contemporary life offers immense possibilities for action and distraction, and the world presents all of them as valid and good. All of us, but especially the young, are immersed in a culture of zapping. We can navigate simultaneously on two or more screens and interact at the same time with two or three virtual scenarios. Without the wisdom of discernment, we can easily become prey to every passing trend. 168. This is all the more important when some novelty presents itself in our lives. Then we have to decide whether it is new wine brought by God or an illusion created by the spirit of this world or the spirit of the devil. At other times, the opposite can happen, when the forces of evil induce us not to change, to leave things as they are, to opt for a rigid resistance to change. Yet that would be to block the working of the Spirit. We are free, with the freedom of Christ. Still, he asks us to examine what is within us – our desires, anxieties, fears and questions – and what takes place all around us – “the signs of the times” – and thus to recognize the paths that lead to complete freedom. “Test everything; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thess 5:21). Always in the light of the Lord 169. Discernment is necessary not only at extraordinary times, when we need to resolve grave problems and make crucial decisions. It is a means of spiritual combat for helping us to follow the Lord more faithfully. We need it at all times, to help us recognize God’s timetable, lest we fail to heed the promptings of his grace and disregard his invitation to grow. Often discernment is exercised in small and apparently irrelevant things, since greatness of spirit is manifested in simple everyday realities.[124] It involves striving untrammelled for all that is great, better and more beautiful, while at the same time being concerned for the little things, for each day’s responsibilities and commitments. For this reason, I ask all Christians not to omit, in dialogue with the Lord, a sincere daily “examination of conscience”. Discernment also enables us to recognize the concrete means that the Lord provides in his mysterious and loving plan, to make us move beyond mere good intentions. A supernatural gift 170. Certainly, spiritual discernment does not exclude existential, psychological, sociological or moral insights drawn from the human sciences. At the same time, it transcends them. Nor are the Church’s sound norms sufficient. We should always remember that discernment is a grace. Even though it includes reason and prudence, it goes beyond them, for it seeks a glimpse of that unique and mysterious plan that God has for each of us, which takes shape amid so many varied situations and limitations. It involves more than my temporal well-being, my satisfaction at having accomplished something useful, or even my desire for peace of mind. It has to do with the meaning of my life before the Father who knows and loves me, with the real purpose of my life, which nobody knows better than he. Ultimately, discernment leads to the wellspring of undying life: to know the Father, the only true God, and the one whom he has sent, Jesus Christ (cf. Jn 17:3). It requires no special abilities, nor is it only for the more intelligent or better educated. The Father readily reveals himself to the lowly (cf. Mt 11:25). 171. The Lord speaks to us in a variety of ways, at work, through others and at every moment. Yet we simply cannot do without the silence of prolonged prayer, which enables us better to perceive God’s language, to interpret the real meaning of the inspirations we believe we have received, to calm our anxieties and to see the whole of our existence afresh in his own light. In this way, we allow the birth of a new synthesis that springs from a life inspired by the Spirit. Speak, Lord 172. Nonetheless, it is possible that, even in prayer itself, we could refuse to let ourselves be confronted by the freedom of the Spirit, who acts as he wills. We must remember that prayerful discernment must be born of a readiness to listen: to the Lord and to others, and to reality itself, which always challenges us in new ways. Only if we are prepared to listen, do we have the freedom to set aside our own partial or insufficient ideas, our usual habits and ways of seeing things. In this way, we become truly open to accepting a call that can shatter our security, but lead us to a better life. It is not enough that everything be calm and peaceful. God may be offering us something more, but in our comfortable inadvertence, we do not recognize it. 173. Naturally, this attitude of listening entails obedience to the Gospel as the ultimate standard, but also to the Magisterium that guards it, as we seek to find in the treasury of the Church whatever is most fruitful for the “today” of salvation. It is not a matter of applying rules or repeating what was done in the past, since the same solutions are not valid in all circumstances and what was useful in one context may not prove so in another. The discernment of spirits liberates us from rigidity, which has no place before the perennial “today” of the risen Lord. The Spirit alone can penetrate what is obscure and hidden in every situation, and grasp its every nuance, so that the newness of the Gospel can emerge in another light. The logic of gift and of the cross 174. An essential condition for progress in discernment is a growing understanding of God’s patience and his timetable, which are never our own. God does not pour down fire upon those who are unfaithful (cf. Lk 9:54), or allow the zealous to uproot the tares growing among the wheat (cf. Mt 13:29). Generosity too is demanded, for “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Discernment is not about discovering what more we can get out of this life, but about recognizing how we can better accomplish the mission entrusted to us at our baptism. This entails a readiness to make sacrifices, even to sacrificing everything. For happiness is a paradox. We experience it most when we accept the mysterious logic that is not of this world: “This is our logic”, says Saint Bonaventure,[125] pointing to the cross. Once we enter into this dynamic, we will not let our consciences be numbed and we will open ourselves generously to discernment. 175. When, in God’s presence, we examine our life’s journey, no areas can be off limits. In all aspects of life we can continue to grow and offer something greater to God, even in those areas we find most difficult. We need, though, to ask the Holy Spirit to liberate us and to expel the fear that makes us ban him from certain parts of our lives. God asks everything of us, yet he also gives everything to us. He does not want to enter our lives to cripple or diminish them, but to bring them to fulfilment. Discernment, then, is not a solipsistic self-analysis or a form of egotistical introspection, but an authentic process of leaving ourselves behind in order to approach the mystery of God, who helps us to carry out the mission to which he has called us, for the good of our brothers and sisters. * * * 176. I would like these reflections to be crowned by Mary, because she lived the Beatitudes of Jesus as none other. She is that woman who rejoiced in the presence of God, who treasured everything in her heart, and who let herself be pierced by the sword. Mary is the saint among the saints, blessed above all others. She teaches us the way of holiness and she walks ever at our side. She does not let us remain fallen and at times she takes us into her arms without judging us. Our converse with her consoles, frees and sanctifies us. Mary our Mother does not need a flood of words. She does not need us to tell her what is happening in our lives. All we need do is whisper, time and time again: “Hail Mary…” 177. It is my hope that these pages will prove helpful by enabling the whole Church to devote herself anew to promoting the desire for holiness. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us a fervent longing to be saints for God’s greater glory, and let us encourage one another in this effort. In this way, we will share a happiness that the world will not be able to take from us. Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 19 March, the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, in the year 2018, the sixth of my Pontificate. Francis [1] BENEDICT XVI, Homily for the Solemn Inauguration of the Petrine Ministry (24 April 2005): AAS 97 (2005), 708. [2] This always presumes a reputation of holiness and the exercise, at least to an ordinary degree, of the Christian virtues: cf. Motu Proprio Maiorem Hac Dilectionem (11 July 2017), Art. 2c: L’Osservatore Romano, 12 July 2017, p. 8. [3] SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 9. [4] Cf. JOSEPH MALEGUE, Pierres noires. Les classes moyennes du Salut, Paris, 1958. [5] SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 12. [6] Verborgenes Leben und Epiphanie: GW XI, 145. [7] JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (6 January 2001), 56: AAS 93 (2001), 307. [8] Encyclical Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (10 November 1994), 37: AAS 87 (1995), 29. [9] Homily for the Ecumenical Commemoration of Witnesses to the Faith in the Twentieth Century (7 May 2000), 5: AAS 92 (2000), 680-681. [10] Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 11. [11] Cf. HANS URS VON BALTHASAR, “Theology and Holiness”, in Communio 14/4 (1987), 345. [12] Spiritual Canticle, Red. B, Prologue, 2. [13] Cf. ibid., 14-15, 2. [14] Cf. Catechesis, General Audience of 19 November 2014: Insegnamenti II/2 (2014), 555. [15] FRANCIS DE SALES, Treatise on the Love of God, VIII, 11. [16] Five Loaves and Two Fish, Pauline Books and Media, 2003, pp. 9, 13. [17] NEW ZEALAND CATHOLIC BISHOPS’ CONFERENCE, Healing Love, 1 January 1988. [18] Spiritual Exercises, 102-312. [19] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 515. [20] Ibid., 516. [21] Ibid., 517. [22] Ibid., 518. [23] Ibid., 521. [24] BENEDICT XVI, Catechesis, General Audience of 13 April 2011: Insegnamenti VII (2011), 451. [25] Ibid., 450. [26] Cf. HANS URS VON BALTHASAR, “Theology and Holiness”, in Communio 14/4 (1987), 341-350. [27] XAVIER ZUBIRI, Naturaleza, historia, Dios, Madrid, 19933, 427. [28] CARLO M. MARTINI, Le confessioni di Pietro, Cinisello Balsamo, 2017, 69. [29] We need to distinguish between this kind of superficial entertainment and a healthy culture of leisure, which opens us to others and to reality itself in a spirit of openness and contemplation. [30] JOHN PAUL II, Homily at the Mass of Canonization (1 October 2000), 5: AAS 92 (2000), 852. [31] REGIONAL EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE OF WEST AFRICA, Pastoral Message at the End of the Second Plenary Assembly, 29 February 2016, 2. [32] La femme pauvre, Paris, II, 27. [33] Cf. CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Letter Placuit Deo on Certain Aspects of Christian Salvation (22 February 2018), 4, in L’Osservatore Romano, 2 March 2018, pp. 4-5: “Both neo-Pelagian individualism and the neo-Gnostic disregard of the body deface the confession of faith in Christ, the one, universal Saviour”. This document provides the doctrinal bases for understanding Christian salvation in reference to contemporary neo-gnostic and neo-pelagian tendencies. [34] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 94: AAS 105 (2013), 1060. [35] Ibid.: AAS 105 (2013), 1059. [36] Homily at Mass in Casa Santa Marta, 11 November 2016: L’Osservatore Romano, 12 November 2016, p. 8. [37] As Saint Bonaventure teaches, “we must suspend all the operations of the mind and we must transform the peak of our affections, directing them to God alone… Since nature can achieve nothing and personal effort very little, it is necessary to give little importance to investigation and much to unction, little to speech and much to interior joy, little to words or writing but all to the gift of God, namely the Holy Spirit, little or no importance should be given to the creature, but all to the Creator, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”: BONAVENTURE, Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, VII, 4-5. [38] Cf. Letter to the Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina for the Centenary of the Founding of the Faculty of Theology (3 March 2015): L’Osservatore Romano, 9-10 March 2015, p. 6. [39] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 40: AAS 105 (2013), 1037. [40] Video Message to Participants in an International Theological Congress held at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina (1-3 September 2015): AAS 107 (2015), 980. [41] Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata (25 March 1996), 38: AAS 88 (1996), 412. [42] Letter to the Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina for the Centenary of the Founding of the Faculty of Theology (3 March 2015): L’Osservatore Romano, 9-10 March 2015, p. 6. [43] Letter to Brother Anthony, 2: FF 251. [44] De septem donis, 9, 15. [45] In IV Sent. 37, 1, 3, ad 6. [46] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 94: AAS 105 (2013), 1059. [47] Cf. Bonaventure, De sex alis Seraphim, 3, 8: “Non omnes omnia possunt”. The phrase is to be understood along the lines of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1735. [48] Cf. THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 109, a. 9, ad 1: “But here grace is to some extent imperfect, inasmuch as it does not completely heal man, as we have said”. [49] Cf. De natura et gratia, 43, 50: PL 44, 271. [50] Confessiones, X, 29, 40: PL 32, 796. [51] Cf. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 44: AAS 105 (2013), 1038. [52] In the understanding of Christian faith, grace precedes, accompanies and follows all our actions (cf. ECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF TRENT, Session VI, Decree on Justification, ch. 5: DH 1525). [53] Cf. In Ep. ad Romanos, 9, 11: PG 60, 470. [54] Homilia de Humilitate: PG 31, 530. [55] Canon 4: DH 374. [56] Session VI, Decree on Justification, ch. 8: DH 1532. [57] No. 1998. [58] Ibid., 2007. [59] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 114, a. 5. [60] ThÉrÈse of the Child Jesus, “Act of Offering to Merciful Love” (Prayers, 6). [61] Lucio Gera, Sobre el misterio del pobre, in P. GRELOT-L. GERA-A. DUMAS, El Pobre, Buenos Aires, 1962, 103. [62] This is, in a word, the Catholic doctrine on “merit” subsequent to justification: it has to do with the cooperation of the justified for growth in the life of grace (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2010). Yet this cooperation in no way makes justification itself or friendship with God the object of human merit. [63] Cf. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 95: AAS 105 (2013), 1060.[64] Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 107, art. 4. [65] FRANCIS, Homily at Mass for the Jubilee of Socially Excluded People (13 November 2016): L’Osservatore Romano, 14-15 November 2016, p. 8. [66] Cf. Homily at Mass in Casa Santa Marta, 9 June 2014: L’Osservatore Romano, 10 June 2014, p. 8. [67] The order of the second and third Beatitudes varies in accordance with the different textual traditions. [68] Spiritual Exercises, 23d. [69] Manuscript C, 12r. [70] From the patristic era, the Church has valued the gift of tears, as seen in the fine prayer “Ad petendam compunctionem cordis”. It reads: “Almighty and most merciful God, who brought forth from the rock a spring of living water for your thirsting people: bring forth tears of compunction from our hardness of heart, that we may grieve for our sins, and, by your mercy, obtain their forgiveness” (cf. Missale Romanum, ed. typ. 1962, p. [110]). [71] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1789; cf. 1970. [72] Ibid., 1787. [73] Detraction and calumny are acts of terrorism: a bomb is thrown, it explodes and the attacker walks away calm and contented. This is completely different from the nobility of those who speak to others face to face, serenely and frankly, out of genuine concern for their good. [74] At times, it may be necessary to speak of the difficulties of a particular brother or sister. In such cases, it can happen that an interpretation is passed on in place of an objective fact. Emotions can misconstrue and alter the facts of a matter, and end up passing them on laced with subjective elements. In this way, neither the facts themselves nor the truth of the other person are respected. [75] Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 218: AAS 105 (2013), 1110. [76] Ibid., 239: 1116. [77] Ibid., 227: 1112. [78] Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991), 41c: AAS 81 (1993), 844-845. [79] Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (6 January 2001), 49: AAS 93 (2001), 302. [80] Ibid. [81] Bull Misericordiae Vultus (11 April 2015), 12: AAS 107 (2015), 407. [82] We can recall the Good Samaritan’s reaction upon meeting the man attacked by robbers and left for dead (cf. Lk 10:30-37). [83] SOCIAL AFFAIRS COMMISSION OF THE CANADIAN CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS, Open Letter to the Members of Parliament, The Common Good or Exclusion: A Choice for Canadians (1 February 2001), 9. [84] The Fifth General Conference of the Latin American and Caribbean Bishops, echoing the Church’s constant teaching, stated that human beings “are always sacred, from their conception, at all stages of existence, until their natural death, and after death”, and that life must be safeguarded “starting at conception, in all its stages, until natural death” (Aparecida Document, 29 June 2007, 388; 464). [85] Rule, 53, 1: PL 66, 749. [86] Cf. ibid., 53, 7: PL 66, 750. [87] Ibid., 53, 15: PL 66, 751. [88] Bull Misericordiae Vultus (11 April 2015), 9: AAS 107 (2015), 405. [89] Ibid., 10, 406. [90] Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (19 March 2016), 311: AAS 108 (2016), 439. [91] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 197: AAS 105 (2013), 1103. [92] Cf. Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 30, a. 4. [93] Ibid., ad 1. [94] Cited (in Spanish translation) in: Cristo en los Pobres, Madrid, 1981, 37-38. [95] There are some forms of bullying that, while seeming delicate or respectful and even quite spiritual, cause great damage to others’ self-esteem. [96] Precautions, 13. [97] Ibid., 13. [98] Cf. Diary. Divine Mercy in My Soul, Stockbridge, 2000, p. 139 (300). [99] THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 70, a. 3. [100] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 6: AAS 105 (2013), 1221. [101] I recommend praying the prayer attributed to Saint Thomas More: “Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest. Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humour to maintain it. Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil, but rather finds the means to put things back in their place. Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumbling, sighs and laments, nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called ‘I’. Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humour. Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke and to discover in life a bit of joy, and to be able to share it with others”. [102] Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (19 March 2016), 110: AAS 108 (2016), 354. [103] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (8 December 1975), 80: AAS 68 (1976), 73. It is worth noting that in this text Blessed Paul VI closely links joy and parrhesía. While lamenting a “lack of joy and hope” as an obstacle to evangelization, he extols the “delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing”, linked to “an interior enthusiasm that nobody and nothing can quench”. This ensures that the world does not receive the Gospel “from evangelizers who are dejected [and] discouraged”. During the 1975 Holy Year, Pope Paul devoted to joy his Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete in Domino (9 May 1975): AAS 67 (1975), 289-322. [104] Precautions, 15. [105] JOHN PAUL II, Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata (25 March 1996), 42: AAS 88 (1996), 416. [106] Confessiones, IX, 10, 23-25: PL 32, 773-775. [107] I think especially of the three key words “please”, “thank you” and “sorry”. “The right words, spoken at the right time, daily protect and nurture love”: Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (19 March 2016), 133: AAS 108 (2016), 363. [108] THÉRÈSE OF THE CHILD JESUS, Manuscript C, 29 v-30r. [109] Degrees of Perfection, 2. [110] ID., Counsels to a Religious on How to Attain Perfection, 9. [111] Autobiography, 8, 5. [112] JOHN PAUL II, Apostolic Letter Orientale Lumen (2 May 1995), 16: AAS 87 (1995), 762. [113] Meeting with the Participants in the Fifth Convention of the Italian Church, Florence, (10 November 2015): AAS 107 (2015), 1284. [114] Cf. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, Sermones in Canticum Canticorum, 61, 3-5: PL 183:1071-1073. [115] The Way of a Pilgrim, New York, 1965, pp. 17, 105-106. [116] Cf. Spiritual Exercises, 230-237. [117] Letter to Henry de Castries, 14 August 1901. [118] FIFTH GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN BISHOPS, Aparecida Document (29 June 2007), 259. [119] CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS OF INDIA, Final Declaration of the Twenty-First Plenary Assembly, 18 February 2009, 3.2. [120] Cf. Homily at Mass in Casa Santa Marta, 11 October 2013: L’Osservatore Romano, 12 October 2013, p. 2. [121] Cf. PAUL VI, Catechesis, General Audience of 15 November 1972: Insegnamenti X (1972), pp. 1168-1170: “One of our greatest needs is defence against that evil which we call the devil… Evil is not simply a deficiency, it is an efficiency, a living spiritual being, perverted and perverting. A terrible reality, mysterious and frightful. They no longer remain within the framework of biblical and ecclesiastical teaching who refuse to recognize its existence, or who make of it an independent principle that does not have, like every creature, its origin in God, or explain it as a pseudo-reality, a conceptual and imaginative personification of the hidden causes of our misfortunes”. [122] JOSÉ GABRIEL DEL ROSARIO BROCHERO, “Plática de las banderas”, in CONFERENCIA EPISCOPAL ARGENTINA, El Cura Brochero. Cartas y sermones, Buenos Aires, 1999, 71. [123] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 85: AAS 105 (2013), 1056. [124] The tomb of Saint Ignatius of Loyola bears this thought-provoking inscription: Non coerceri a maximo, conteneri tamen a minimo divinum est (“Not to be confined by the greatest, yet to be contained within the smallest, is truly divine”). [125] Collationes in Hexaemeron, 1, 30. © Copyright – Libreria Editrice Vaticana

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In Praise of Meekness

The corona virus has jostled pretty much everyone by this point, and when people get jostled a bit you get to see what sloshes out of them - often in a much more obvious way than when everything’s steady.

It’s helpful to see what sloshes out of your own heart, as well, since “the purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water” and you might not know yourself some of what’s going on inside you.

One thing I’ve noticed - both in myself and others close to me - is a tendency toward anger:

“Why can’t they just do the math? Is it really that hard?” “How can you claim science is on your side and then ignore legitimate evidence?” “How can you say that about other Christians?” “So you’re aggressive and theatrical and then act like a martyr and claim persecution?”

Yes we need bravery right now - lots of Christians are rolling over and playing dead (or perhaps showing that they were already dead).  The fear of death reigns unchecked in churches and people I thought better of, and breaking bread together with the saints just isn’t worth the 0.029% risk of dying.

But for the rest of us, I think we need to remember that ditches usually come in pairs: our temptation towards cowardice and indolence on one hand comes with a temptation toward wild anger and unjustified meddling on the other.

If the ship’s in a calm sea everyone can stand up straight, but when the storm comes it takes strength, coordination, and constant re-adjustment just to keep from falling on your face.  This is a “scambling and unquiet time” that tends towards extremes and mocks meekness.  But meekness is the antidote to the anger I’m struggling with right now.

In English, the word “meek” rhymes with “squeak” and “weak” and definitely lives in an unfortunate linguistic neighborhood.  But maybe that’s a good thing.  Wanting to be labeled “meek” requires - well - meekness.  

Let’s back up in time and start with Aristotle, to give some cultural context for the Greek word for meekness (praos) that’s used in the New Testament:

Now we praise a man who feels anger on the right grounds and against the right persons, and also in the right manner and at the right moment and for the right length of time. He may then be called gentle-tempered (πρᾶος/praos), if we take gentleness (πραότης/praotēs) to be a praiseworthy quality—for ‘gentle’ (πρᾶος/praos) really denotes a calm temper, not led by emotion but only becoming angry in such a manner, for such causes and for such a length of time as principle may ordain although the quality is thought rather to err on the side of defect, since the ‘gentle-tempered man’ (πρᾶος/praos) is not prompt to seek redress for injuries, but rather inclined to forgive them.” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 4.5)

So the meek man possesses “tame anger” as opposed to “wild anger” - the word is apparently also used by Xenophon to describe breaking in wild horses and taming growling dogs.  It makes you think of Jesus sitting down to braid a whip of cords and then driving the money changers out of the temple.  Presumably he could have commandeered a whip from somewhere (as he did in fact commandeer the donkey for the triumphal entry), but the text tells us specifically that he made it Himself right before he used it..

This is mostly humorous - but maybe before you post something angry on Facebook, you should force yourself to look up and read the full definition of each word you’re using in a big unwieldy paper dictionary first.  You’re braiding words together to sting someone, and you should take your time about it and make sure you choose each word yourself with painstaking care, rather than thoughtlessly reaching for one of the pre-bundled whips which litter the internet and reposting that.

When Jesus said “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth,” it’s a quote from Psalm 37 - and we should definitely elect the passage “Psalm of the Year” if that were a thing.  Here are the first eleven verses:

Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.

Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land.

In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace. …

I’m going to go out on a limb and just say it: Psalm 37 is extremely un-American.  There are very good things about our culture - rewards for hard work, generous optimism, and a fierce sense of justice and hatred of oppression.

However, every virtue becomes a vice when it’s not tamed and these ideas embedded in our cultural DNA also make us expect to be able to fix every problem we encounter if we just find the right equipment and then spit on our hands and give it the old college try.  And who knows, maybe God even helps them who help themselves?  In fact, you’re basically not a Christian if you don’t even care enough to take part in the YOUR_CAUSE_HERE attempt to force political change by human pluck and cleverness.

Contrast that attitude with Psalm 37.  That psalm is about real injustice - probably much more obvious and brutal than our typical experience today.  The evil prosper and good men do nothing.  They’re sitting there quietly and not lifting a finger to resist or protest or march or hold signs or yell slogans and all the while the wicked rage and surge around them.  

This is not a cloak for cowardice and indolence - God will call you into situations where you’ll be uncomfortable and tempted to hang your head and stutteringly deny Christ before men.  Don’t do that, ever.  

But we should be highly suspicious of any attempt to manipulate the Church into doing  anything that a political action committee would think of as valuable.  God’s kingdom operates according to different priorities, and (especially since the New Covenant, which far surpasses the Old in every way), those priorities are completely foreign to the mechanisms and machinations of political power.  

Jesus is born into a powder-keg of a conquered country which knows it should be free.  The Jews rightly recognized that slavery is not fitting for the children of God.  Jesus sees the humiliating oppression they’re under: “Hey you - stop what you’re doing and carry my pack for the next mile”.  The Pharisees try to enmesh Him in the divisive patriotic arguments of the day: “How can paying to taxes to a brutal tyrant who literally believes himself to be a god be permissible?”  And Jesus shrugs and points to Caesar’s face on the coin, then goes back to teaching about sin and love and the Father.

And yet - quietly, faithfully, without taking matters into their own hands - the meek will inherit the earth.  Do you actually believe that?  Do you believe that the heart of the most foul-mouthed, fanatical progressive beats or ceases to beat at the discretion of King Jesus?  And the fact that it continues to beat in the person in front of you right now means that God is giving them to you as a test, which has been planned from the foundation of the world, to see if YOU really believe Him or not.

The minute you force yourself to be still and pursue meekness, you become inoculated against a whole class of temptations that we’re hereditarily susceptible to as Americans.  You don’t have to shout now because - in His own good time - the Lion of Judah will roar.

[pamphletstoinspire]

Saint Lawrence - Proto-Deacon of the Roman Church - Feast Day: August 10th - Both Calendars

Image of St. Lawrence being roasted to death on a gridiron.

Saint Lawrence-Proto-Deacon of the Roman Church

by: Fr. Francesco Moraglia

Professor of Dogmatic Theology-Vatican City, Italy

The history of the Church has transmitted to us several accounts of the great Bishops and priests who have illuminated the profound mystery of the ordained ministry at a pastoral and theological level...The ministry of Deacons also becomes more clear when seen in the light of the great deacons of the Church’s history. An example is St Lawrence, Martyr and Proto-Deacon of the Roman Church. Together with St Stephen and St Philip, Lawrence must certainly be one of the most renowned Deacons of antiquity. In the West, the diaconate, considered as a permanent ministry in itself, and not just oriented towards the Priesthood, was less frequent by the fifth century. Up to that time it had been a flourishing institution but by the beginning of the fifth century, largely because of greater involvement of priests in the pastoral ministry, the first grade of Holy Orders was largely reduced to the role of an access to the successive grade of the Priesthood…

The personal adventures of Lawrence, Proto Deacon of the Roman Church, come down to us through an ancient tradition, already widely known by the fourth century. This tradition, accepted by the Church, is also to be found in the liturgical texts. The most notable events of Lawrence’s life are described particularly well in the Passio Polychromi of which we have three versions (dating from the fifth to the seventh centuries)… In our efforts to amplify the few details of Lawrence���s life, let us begin with those preserved for the feast of his Martyrdom (10 August) in the Depositio Martyrm which dates from 354 AD. According to the Roman Missal "Lawrence, the renowned Deacon of the Roman Church, confirmed his service of charity by martyrdom under Valerian (258), four days after the decapitation of Pope Sixtus II… he patiently sustained a terrible martyrdom on the grid-iron, having distributed the goods of the community to the poor whom he regarded as the true treasure of the Church"…

Lawrence is believed to have been born in Spain, at Osca, a town in Aragon, near the foot of the Pyrenees. As a youth he was sent to Saragoza to complete his humanistic and theological studies. It was here that he first encountered the future Pope Sixtus II, who was of Greek origin. He was a teacher in what was then one of the most renowned centers of learning. The future Pope was one of the most famous and esteemed teachers.

Lawrence, would subsequently become the head of the deacons of the Roman Church, was remarkable for his human qualities, his subtlety of mind and for his intelligence. Between master and disciple a communion of life and friendship grew. With the passage of time a love for Rome, the center of Christianity and seat of the Vicar of Christ was consolidated and grew stronger in both. Eventually, following a migratory wave which was then very pronounced, both left Spain for the City where the Apostle Peter had established his See and given supreme witness. Thus Master and disciple were able to realize their ideal of evangelization and missionary activity to the point of shedding their blood, in Rome, the heart of Christianity. Sixtus was raised to the Chair of Peter and began a pontificate that would last for less than a year. Without hesitation, he desired to have Lawrence, his friend and disciple, at his side so as to entrust to him the important office of proto-deacon. Both sealed their life of communion and friendship by dying at the hands of the same persecutor, a few days apart from each other…

In his De Officiis St Ambrose gives us an account of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence. He dwells on the encounter and dialogue of Lawrence and Sixtus. He alludes to the distribution of the Church’s goods to the poor and ends by mentioning the grid-iron, the instrument of Lawrence's torture and the phrase which Lawrence addressed to his torturers: "assum est… versa et manduca" ("This side is done, turn and eat")... There was a contest between Sixtus and Lawrence as to who would be the first to die for Christ. When Sixtus was martyred, Lawrence cried because he had survived Sixtus…

Ambrose’s account of the martyrdom of Lawrence portrays Lawrence as one who, in virtue of the Sacrament received, is totally dedicated to the service of charity in the specific context of third century Imperial Rome, in the throws of violent persecution. In this situation, Lawrence is called to concrete action before the ecclesial community and before the world. These actions would be transformed into signs of God’s love and charity, from which all things derive and to which all things return. By this service the Deacon expresses the characteristic ministry of his diaconia which consists in the service of charity, in accord with a sacramental mandate. His is an animation which affects the Church or areas of Catholic life which is truly catholic in character (katalon= the totality without exclusion). His service aspires to the totality of mankind without exception. Its content is a good which responds to all the expectations of man’s soul, mind and body. It eschews all partiality and interest groups...

In a spirit of service and obedience to his Bishop -- who had been definitively taken from his people -- Lawrence, as Deacon, would guide the Church for three days, and for the last time would administer the goods of the Bride of Christ. This he would do in a manner which, in itself, would have significance. It would show how, in the Church, everything is oriented and consummated by values which begin with charity and with realities which are destined to remain, even when this world has passed away. For those who look on this reality from the outside or merely superficially, all this seems exclusively bound up with material needs and with the present. It would appear solely to be no more than the distribution of material goods to the poor. In reality, however, Lawrence’s act, done in a spirit of fidelity to the office entrusted to him by the Bishop and by ecclesial ministry, propels him and the entire Church entrusted to him until his own martyrdom, beyond history into an eschatological dimension - the "time" and "space" in which God manifests the fullness of his charity and love.

Thus, Lawrence, an ordained minister of charity, brings to completion the task given to him. This he does not only by following his Bishop in the shedding of his own blood in martyrdom, but also in his act of distributing the communities resources (as expressed in material goods) to the poor. His gesture shows how, in the Church, all things have a value once oriented towards charity, or when placed at the service of charity or when they can be transformed into charity…

Finally, the institution of the permanent diaconate represents, and is a sign of an important enrichment for the Church and her mission, especially in the light of the Holy Father’s continued appeals for new evangelization at the dawn of the third Christian Millennium. The beauty, power and the heroism of Deacons such as Lawrence help us to discover and come to a deeper meaning of the special nature of the diaconal ministry.

Prayer to Saint Lawrence

O glorious Saint Lawrence, Martyr and Deacon, who, being subjected to the most bitter torments, didst not lose thy faith nor thy constancy in confessing Jesus Christ, obtain in like manner for us such an active and solid faith, that we shall never be ashamed to be true followers of Jesus Christ, and fervent Christians in word and in deed. - Amen.

[xgenesisrei]

Are Christians Supposed to Be Communists?

It was in 1983 that I heard the distinguished Greek Orthodox historian Aristeides Papadakis casually remark in a lecture at the University of Maryland that the earliest Christians were “communists.” In those days, the Cold War was still casting its great glacial shadow across the cultural landscape, and so enough of a murmur of consternation rippled through the room that Professor Papadakis — who always spoke with severe precision — felt obliged to explain that he meant this in the barest technical sense: They lived a common life and voluntarily enjoyed a community of possessions. The murmur subsided, though not necessarily the disquiet.

Not that anyone should have been surprised. If the communism of the apostolic church is a secret, it is a startlingly open one. Vaguer terms like “communalist” or “communitarian” might make the facts sound more palatable but cannot change them. The New Testament’s Book of Acts tells us that in Jerusalem the first converts to the proclamation of the risen Christ affirmed their new faith by living in a single dwelling, selling their fixed holdings, redistributing their wealth “as each needed” and owning all possessions communally. This was, after all, a pattern Jesus himself had established: “Each of you who does not give up all he possesses is incapable of being my disciple” (Luke 14:33).

This was always something of a scandal for the Christians of later ages, at least those who bothered to notice it. And today in America, with its bizarre piety of free enterprise and private wealth, it is almost unimaginable that anyone would adopt so seditious an attitude. Down the centuries, Christian culture has largely ignored the more provocative features of the early church or siphoned off their lingering residues in small special communities (such as monasteries and convents). Even when those features have been acknowledged, they have typically been treated as somehow incidental to the Gospel’s message — a prudent marshaling of resources against a hostile world for a brief season, but nothing essential to the faith, and certainly nothing amounting to a political philosophy.

It’s true, of course, that the early church was not a political movement in the modern sense. The very idea would have been meaningless. There were no political ideologies in the ancient world, no abstract programs for the reconstitution of society. But if not a political movement, the church was a kind of polity, and the form of life it assumed was not merely a practical strategy for survival, but rather the embodiment of its highest spiritual ideals. Its “communism” was hardly incidental to the faith.

The early church’s radicalism, if that is the right word, was impressed upon me repeatedly over the past few years, as I worked on my own translation of the New Testament for Yale University Press. When my longtime editor initially proposed the project, I foolishly imagined it would be an easy task: not because the text is a simple one, but because I had often “corrected” what I considered inadequate renderings of many of its passages, either for students or for myself. I assumed that long familiarity had prepared me to turn the Greek into English almost effortlessly.

Soon, though, I realized that while I may have known many things about the text, I had not always grasped them properly. I knew that much of the conventional language of scriptural translation has the effect of reducing complex and difficult words and concepts to vacuously simple or deceptively anachronistic terms (“eternal,” “hell,” “justification,” to give a few examples). But I had not appreciated how violently those conventions impoverish the text or obscure crucial dimensions of its conceptual world. The books of the New Testament, I came to see, constitute a historical conundrum — not because they come from the remote world of late antiquity, but rather because they often appear to make no sense even in the context of antiquity.

I found myself constantly in doubt, in particular, regarding various constructions concerning words dealing with that which is “koinon,” or “common,” and most especially the texts’ distinctive emphasis on “koinonia.” This is a word usually rendered blandly as “fellowship” or “sharing” or (slightly better) “communion.” But is that all it implies?

After all, the New Testament’s condemnations of personal wealth are fairly unremitting and remarkably stark: Matthew 6:19-20, for instance (“Do not store up treasures for yourself on the earth”), or Luke 6:24-25 (“But alas for you who are rich, for you have your comfort”) or James 5:1-6 (“Come now, you who are rich, weep, howling out at the miseries that are coming for you”). While there are always clergy members and theologians swift to assure us that the New Testament condemns not wealth but its abuse, not a single verse (unless subjected to absurdly forced readings) confirms the claim.

I came to the conclusion that koinonia often refers to a precise set of practices within the early Christian communities, a special social arrangement — the very one described in Acts — that was integral to the new life in Christ. When, for instance, the Letter to the Hebrews instructs believers not to neglect koinonia, or the First Letter to Timothy exhorts them to become koinonikoi, this is no mere recommendation of personal generosity, but an invocation of a very specific form of communal life.

As best we can tell, local churches in the Roman world of the apostolic age were essentially small communes, self-sustaining but also able to share resources with one another when need dictated. This delicate web of communes constituted a kind of counter-empire within the empire, one founded upon charity rather than force — or, better, a kingdom not of this world but present within the world nonetheless, encompassing a radically different understanding of society and property.

It was all much easier, no doubt — this nonchalance toward private possessions — for those first generations of Christians. They tended to see themselves as transient tenants of a rapidly vanishing world, refugees passing lightly through a history not their own. But as the initial elation and expectations of the Gospel faded and the settled habits of life in this depressingly durable world emerged anew, the distinctive practices of the earliest Christians gave way to the common practices of the established order.

Even then, however, the transition was not quite as abrupt as one might imagine. Well into the second century, the pagan satirist Lucian of Samosata reported that Christians viewed possessions with contempt and owned all property communally. And the Christian writers of Lucian’s day largely confirm that picture: Justin Martyr, Tertullian and the anonymous treatise known as the Didache all claim that Christians must own everything in common, renounce private property and give their wealth to the poor. Even Clement of Alexandria, the first significant theologian to argue that the wealthy could be saved if they cultivated “spiritual poverty,” still insisted that ideally all goods should be held in common.

As late as the fourth and fifth centuries, bishops and theologians as eminent as Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine and Cyril of Alexandria felt free to denounce private wealth as a form of theft and stored riches as plunder seized from the poor. The great John Chrysostom frequently issued pronouncements on wealth and poverty that make Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin sound like timid conservatives. According to him, there is but one human estate, belonging to all, and those who keep any more of it for themselves than barest necessity dictates are brigands and apostates from the true Christian enterprise of charity. And he said much of this while installed as Archbishop of Constantinople.

That such language could still be heard at the heart of imperial Christendom, however, suggests that it had by then lost much of its force. It could be tolerated to a degree, but only as a bracing hyperbole, appropriate to an accepted religious grammar — an idiom, that is, rather than an imperative. Christianity was ceasing to be the apocalyptic annunciation of something unprecedented and becoming just the established devotional system of its culture, offering all the consolations and reassurances that one demands of religious institutions. As time went on, the original provocation of the early church would occasionally erupt in ephemeral “purist” movements — Spiritual Franciscans, Russian non-possessors, Catholic Worker houses — but in general, Christian adherence had become chiefly just a religion, a support for life in this world rather than a radically different model of how to live.

That was unavoidable. No society as a whole will ever found itself upon the rejection of society’s chief mechanism: property. And all great religions achieve historical success by gradually moderating their most extreme demands. So it is not possible to extract a simple moral from the early church’s radicalism.

But for those of us for whom the New Testament is not merely a record of the past but a challenge to the present, it is occasionally worth asking ourselves whether the distance separating the Christianity of the apostolic age from the far more comfortable Christianities of later centuries — and especially those of the developed world today — is more than one merely of time and circumstance.

-David Bentley Hart, fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study and the author of “The New Testament: A Translation.”

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/opinion/sunday/christianity-communism.html?referer=http%253A%252F%252Fm.facebook.com%252F&fbclid=IwAR1KlXrvqEjfVsfLOKaOkeSBnRvs3RbrGFYmpearekEqRdNfkYJLIY_Sow4

[practicelab]

DNA

https://youtu.be/NLZRYQMLDW4 (Kendrick Lamar- DNA)

September 11, 2001 happened and I saw it with my own eyes. I watch their fear, their struggle, their pain and their constant efforts to convince the world, convince AmeriKKKa that they were NOT terrorists (oh what irony!); that what the world witnessed that day was NOT Islam. I empathized with my Muslim brothers and sisters and vowed that day to always speak up about the beauty which I had learned and known to be of their people and their religion. After all, who in the hell, as a Christian (pun intended) would dare to persecute and judge a group of people that come from the same triad of a religious family tree? Judaism, Christianity and Islam all sparks from the same fire of peace, love and being in one accord. But the answer is Christians of course. But hold up! That’s a DIFFERENT type of Christianity, and I want to explain.

While I was present and mindful, or at least I thought, of the Muslim community and its struggle across the globe to separate themselves from radicals that committed heinous crimes in the name of their religion I never once considered my privilege as a Christian woman in Western society. Epstein (1999), stated how, “mindfulness attending the ordinary, the obvious and the present” (p.839). Yet here I am in the present, reflective on the past and realizing even then, in 2001, I was not mindful of the obvious. No matter how I show my solidarity, my Christian faith represented the dominant, acceptable and safe belief system to those outside of it. So even when I proclaimed my faith and yet outright condemned the oppressive impositions of the faith, it did not matter because I was swept up in the cloak of Oppressor, Stealer, Killer, Controller, Manipulator, Conqueror, Chosen One, all in the name of Jesus Christ. It carried with it all the signs of a privileged group: normalcy, superiority, cultural and institutional power and domination (Goodman, D. 2011). It is hard to live with the reality that the world acknowledges only the err of your belief system and smears you with the darkness of blood over you just as the Israelites smeared lambs blood over their doorposts in the Book of Exodus. So for Black Americans I understood this schema of associating Black Christianity as a sort of treason against our heritage.

https://www.facebook.com/whatisjoedoing/videos/1175339139151079/ (Black Christian by Joseph Solomon)

I am a proud Christian and a proud Black woman in AmeriKKKA. This leaves me in quite a conundrum of acknowledging EVER BEING a part of a privileged religious group, as a Black American. But to the world and mostly to Black Americans I have chosen to identify with the oppressor and follow the All Mighty White American Jesus that enslaved my people for hundreds of years. Marsh (2009) noted, that these “schemas are mental ‘maps’ by which we process routine information with little to no conscious thought” (p.2). This process is  what has created a generational divide between Black Americans. Many feel in order to embrace our culture we must abandon all things related to our history of oppression and others feel in order to fully embrace their Christian they must remove all pre-slavery historical context from their doctrine. I will not choose.

https://youtu.be/tgVZykEiB40 (Millennials of Faith: What do Young People Think of Religion)

I was stuck. I struggled. I spoke out. I found myself having to defend my religious choice. I explain to anyone who will listen because I guess the older I become, the more annoyed I am at the miseducation that even pro-Black doctrine and gurus can squawk of Christianity being a tool of enslavement for the Black Man of today; White Man’s Religion, they call it. You can’t be a Christian and Woke is what my community says. But religion is a choice, a birthright AND also a massive tool of manipulation I’d say. And yes, it was used to rid, scrap, peel, kill and burn away the religious identity of the Indigenous, specifically through Christianity and Islam. I would inform my Brothers and Sisters of Color that true Christianity, followed by Islam, was well, live and kicking well before the Trans-Atlantic & Trans-Saharan (Arab enslavement of Northern Africa and EUROPE - yes, white people). I would suggest they research Coptic Orthodox Christianity in East Africa. I make no excuses that Christianity was used BY the oppressor but it is NOT the true religion OF the oppressor. Just as Islam is not the religion of hate and martyrs.

How can a rich father teach humbleness to his seed? Just questions, the stubborn all get taught tough lessons I look at all I got like "What's missing?" God is my only guess, 'cause yes, faith relieve the stress I find peace again when I find Him and see I'm blessed Real blessed, life has always got me wondering (Wondering, wondering) Am I doing it right?

Joey Bada$$ featuring J. Cole- Legendary

Wait! The audacity of me. There it goes again. The privilege. Recently I had to take a step back and analyze my actions and need to explain myself even further. I used tactical self-awareness as a way to ground myself and seek humility, but was that enough? (Burghardt, S. 2011, p.2). I became confused by my actions. Here I am, a part of the dominant religion, safeguarded as people are being persecuted and yet I am feeling defensive??? I had to understand how, structural oppression, like that of religions, have shaped the context of my interpersonal identity in America (Almeida et al, 2004). How my identity now places me in a position of explicit privilege conflicts with the fact that I do not identify with the White radicalization of Christianity that has contributed to the historical trauma of the Indigenous and enslaves populations. According to Dombo & Gray (2013), “previous trauma experiences, systematic discrimination, oppression, and lack of familial and social supports can leave a person vulnerable to the sequlae of trauma” (p.90). Well I say the Black American slave experience has left an entire race of people, scarred, resentful and untrusting of what they find no relation to across the waters to the coasts of Africa. For us all, Christianity which was supposed to be a gateway to Heaven, became a pathway to hell. And like many of my ancestors of the Igbo Tribe of Nigeria who marched off into the singing shores of the Dunbar Creek, Georgia, they will rather die before accepting a faith used and abused by the oppressor.

But in this current climate, I understand the importance of what it is I am here to do and that is to stay true to who I am and my positionality. I want to continue to inform People of Color of the origins of this Christian religion we have been taught to hate while ensuring I do not steal the light away from my Muslim Brothers and Sisters who are too fighting to separate themselves from the depiction of hate.

https://youtu.be/le1kHp5lLmk (J. Ivy, Never Let Me Down)

What the Christian community and it's leaders need to realize is that whether we like it or not, the Kingdom is divided and always has been. Period. Just like any other religion, by power and oppression. It's legacy of love, peace and oneness have been scarred. Before Black Christians go off sipping the kool-aid & passing the collection plate to the white hood in the pew, they need to realize the TRICK language they are associating themselves with today, ALT RIGHT CHRISTIANITY. It is a dangerous & detrimental thing. It is extremism. The "Jesus back to the White House" mentality is the same Christianity the oppressor has used to kill, manipulate, degrade and enslave human beings. Is that really the God you serve?!

The one that oppresses people, controls bodies and condones the maltreatment of our Muslims brothers and Sisters while turning cheek to the surge in homegrown terrorism, the slaughter of armed forces and chemical genocide in communities with no clean water?! Last I checked our origins with Islam are ONE & the SAME so how can you as a Christian not be praying & standing in defense for those in need and we come from the same Book?!?! Like White People who have fought the Cause, I must learn to be an ally that stands behind, not on the side and not in the front, because the Christian story, whether right or wrong has already been told. It is up to us to internally chance the narrative of the Black Church.

O' son of man, O' son of man Who was the angel in Revelations with the foot on water and the foot on land Who was the angel that rode a Harley from the project to the house of Parliament And opened the book in the Devil's chamber and put the true name of the Lord in it Old Jerusalem, New Jerusalem Cuff lights these beats with a ball of fire They poisoned the scripture and gave us the pictures of false messiahs It was all a lie Mystery babylon, tumbling down Satan's establishment crumbling down This is the year that I come for the crown Bury my enemies under the ground

Chance The Rapper - How Great

It is VERY possible to forgive those that are in the wrong and doing evil, as we have all been commissioned to do. I pray to forgive any and all but I do not and refuse to be in support of ANYTHING/ONE that is against LOVE & PEACE. I stay prayed up; I'm good because the Jesus I know doesn't live in a White House and never did. He lives within ME, My House, this Temple, so there will never be anything "missing". Too many Believers out here are praising the so-called return of Jesus to the White House!!! Which is telling within itself, because if you had him living in the White House, was He then ever in "your House" in the first place....or did you kick Him out?

See the God I serve is of love, peace, tolerance for those who lived their lives as they pleased. Jesus provided hope, knowledge and taught those to seek the power that was already within, support and hold your community accountable. He traveled from lands to lands, walked within the coasts of my Mother Land preaching of liberations way before we thought Jesus was the one we needed to liberate ourselves from. He taught of mindfulness, agency, fellowship and network to build a stronger community. Jesus even suggested that we meditate! The Bible speaks to how he understood how powerful liberated oneself could be and even spoke of the human duty of operating in just manner towards one another. Because Jesus, himself, was a Social Worker!

Almeida, R., Hernandez-Wolfe, P. & Tubbs, C. (2011) Cultural equity: Bridging the complexity of social identities with therapeutic practices. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 3, 43-45.

Burghardt, S. (2011). Macro practice in social work for the 21st century. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications.

Dombo, E., & Gray, C. (2013). Engaging Spirituality in Addressing Vicarious Trauma in Clinical Social Workers: A Self-Care Model. Social Work and Christianity, 40(1), 89-104.

Epstein, R. (1999). Mindful Practice. JAMA, 282(9), 833-839.

Goodman, D. (2011). Promoting diversity and social justice : Educating people from privileged groups (2nd ed., Teaching/learning social justice). New York: Routledge.

Marsh, S. (Summer 2009). The Lens of Implicit Bias, Juvenile and Family Justice Today, NCJFCJ

[theabbott-blog1]

Thou Art Christ I

“Thou Art Christ…”

The foundation and the superstructure of the church are built upon the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and the statement that was uttered near Caesarea Philippi. “Thou art Christ…” It was not a statement uttered through systematic analysis of events. Neither was it said after logical deductions nor after necessary inferences. The Author of salvation Himself had this to say: “Blessed are you Simon son of Jonah for flesh and blood did not reveal this unto you but My Father who is in heaven.” The emphasis of the identity of the Christ was crucial to the establishment of the church. This is the very reason Jesus called the twelve and clarified His origin, His mission and His identity. In the midst of the unbelieving Jews and the multitude who were looking forward to an earthly king and surely a king who will destroy the Roman Empire and restore the nationalistic pride of the sons of Jacob (Israel). Jesus took His time to make sure the disciples understood Him for who He is. Of note is that He first questions what the populace thought about Him and who they say He was. Most theologians and preachers in trying to create a doctrine foreign to the entire Bible have missed the most interesting part of this discourse which I don’t want you to miss. Let us not assume that Peter is the one who answered this question “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? Let us say that the disciples were unified in this one answer since the second question specifically denotes Peter as the one who answered. The disciples here echoed what the unrepentant Jews proclaimed concerning who they perceived as only the son of the carpenter.

The disciples affirmed that the Jews believed Jesus was one of the prophets, with some even believing that He was the resurrected Jeremiah or Elijah. This shows us that the Jews believed Him to a certain extent, that He was heaven sent. This can be noted by their belief that He was the resurrected John the Baptist. As can be evidenced from the reasoning of Herod after the beheading of John the Baptist, the Jews believed that John was more than a prophet. Those that were baptized by John during His ministry believed that John was the Christ but John himself denied vehemently that he was only a forerunner who was not worthy to be compared to the Lamb of God. It is at this crux of His ministry that Jesus wanted the disciples to understand the divine change of Headship and Kingship. He did not go into detail but left the Holy Spirit to bring to their remembrance all that He had taught them.

It is at this point that many erroneously assume that the emphasis on this passage must be on Peter. Many have erroneously taught and advocated that Peter is the rock upon which the church of Christ is built. Peter may be linked to the kingdom dynamics concerning the establishment of the church (he preached the first gospel sermon) but to say that the church is built upon him does more harm to the scriptures. First of all note that; if the church is established or built upon the person of Peter, then the church automatically becomes a man made and earthly governed institution. Such an institution cannot be the bedrock of our faith. We shy away from the denominational world because we believe that any group of people who have an earthly founder (living or dead) cannot be the church that Jesus promised to build. That this church is founded by so and so is the craze of our times and we will always stick to the blood bought church of Christ. The reason why we have denominations that have earthly headships, founders, popes, archbishops, presidents and a series of titles that are foreign to the scriptures, is because man in his carnal mind have always wanted to be God or like God (Genesis 3:5, 6). During my evangelism outreaches I have always asked two questions that have changed the world view of many “Since God is the one who is going to be your judge, why do put your trust on man? Then after this question I then ask which denomination baptized the founder of your denomination? This may seem an easy question but many have turned from denominations to the authentic church because they realized that their founders were baptized or were members of other denominations. A careful survey I have conducted over the years showed that many founders of these pseudo-churches defaulted from other denominations because of doctrinal differences or because they did not hunger for the word of God but hungered and thirsted for power, position and prestige. They just loved to be seen by men, like the Pharisees of old. Please remember my fellow brother or sister, that any denomination that is founded earthly by earthly men is earthly and therefore cannot meet the standards of the church because it fails on headship and foundation.

The church is a blood bought institution and therefore it is Christ’s by virtue of His sacrificial death on the Roman cross. Peter may have been martyred as some uninspired traditions proclaim but he did not die to purchase a people for God. He died proclaiming the word of God as some faithful Christians who lived before, during or after the tenure of his ministry (Hebrews 11:36-39). Let us reflect all this by going back to the context of (Matthew 16:13-20). A clarification of this context is in order. What tends to confuse many is the wording or should we say the emphasis made by Jesus “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church.” Objectively looked at, this may mean either the statement made by Peter “Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God” or reference is to Peter himself. The second interpretation is supported albeit erroneously and out of context by several premises, namely; 1) Peter’s name (Petros in Greek) means rock or stone. Pedro, Petra or Cephas are also names that mean rock or stone, the first being Spanish, the second Greek and the third Aramaic. 2) Jesus before addressing the establishment of the church pronounces beatitude to Peter, “Blessed are you Simon son of Jonah for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but My Father who is in heaven.” 3) Jesus alludes to Peter and then instantly says “Upon this rock I will build My church.” 4) Jesus gives Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven and also the authority to bind and loose.

Before we review the above premises let us ponder a few facts: Jesus is the founder of the church and He is also the Head of the church. Anything that pertains to the church must of necessity be linked to Him. He is the Savior of the church and He is the One who paid the purchase price of the church. A careful scrutiny reveals that the church entirely belongs to Jesus Christ. We fall under this umbrella because the term (church of Christ) is not the name of the church but a designation suitably for the church. It simply denotes the owner of the body. We are neither short of words nor names to give to the church; we simply refer to it by the title of its owner. Any other name is earthly and therefore we cannot invent names for the church for we must refer to scriptural things by scriptural designations (1 Peter 4:11). Some call themselves Adventists, some Catholics, some Baptists, some Methodists and still some Pentecostals. This is because men want to have names created through their innovations and distinctify themselves according to their doctrines. Remember that only Adam was given the privilege to name the animal world. Members of the Lord’s church only have the designation from the Bible; church of Christ (Romans 16:16) and are called “Christians” (1 Peter 4:16). We are simply Christians nothing less and nothing more.

The promise to establish the church came from the mouth of Jesus and its establishment was hinged solely upon Him. Please note the following 1) Peter’s name is (Petros) which in Greek is masculine whilst the word (petra) is feminine in nature. Reference here cannot be to Peter. Jesus contrasted these two in order to show distinction. He alluded to Peter in order to strengthen and emphasize metaphorical. Caesarea Philippi was a rocky place and that imagery may also be applied here as well as the character of Peter. Christ’s emphasis is not on the person of Peter nor Peter’s ministry but on the surety and certainty to last until the end of time no matter the conditions or the political environment nor any spiritual forces, “…the gates of Hades will not prevail against it”. Satan after realizing His defeat on the Roman cross decided to unleash his terror on the church, “So the dragon was enraged with the woman. And he went to make war with the rest of her offspring who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 12:17) The present day existence of the church manifests the truth that was revealed by Jesus Christ that the church would not be overcome by the dark forces of Satan. Roman Empire was the human agent used by the devil to thwart and bring to end the church and it failed for the Roman Empire is no longer a kingdom but the church as prophesied to coexist with the kingdom of the Son still is going from strength to strength.

The second premise of the above reasoning that Jesus pronounces beatitude to Peter is used as proof that the church is founded upon Peter who is the rock. “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17). This verse does not give Peter much leverage to have the church built upon him. This verse emphasizes who we are in reference to God’s plan of salvation. Peter is known for his quick to speak attitude and most often than not Peter said things that were contrary to the kingdom dynamics. On the mount of transfiguration the Bible states that he said not knowing what he was saying, (Mark 9:6). Of prime note is what Peter said soon after or should we say minutes after Jesus’ discourse. He rebuked Jesus and declared flatly that Jesus must not die. He did not know that Jesus’ death was for his benefit and the entire world; for all those who will come to Jesus for salvation (Matthew 16:22, 23). God is not one to show partiality and this can be seen from Jesus’ words after His resurrection. The blessing of Peter does not negate other blessings pronounced on the children of God such as the all time faith principle declared to Thomas after the glorious resurrection and appearance, “ Blessed are those who have not seen yet have believed” (John 20:29).  This very premise cannot stand as solid support for the doctrine of Peter being the rock that was referred to by Jesus Christ.

The third premise that is used by the advocates of Peter as the rock or the first pope was explained clearly by J.W Margavey.

“It is objected to this interpretation, that the name of Peter in the original means a stone (John 1:42), and that when Jesus says to him, “Thou art Petros (a stone), and on this rock I will build my church,” the term this identifies rock with the stone just mentioned, or the person of Peter. But here are two insuperable obstacles in the way of this objection: first after saying, “Thou art Petros,’ he changes the phraseology, as if for the very purpose of avoiding this meaning, and says, “on this petra I will build my church.” If he had intended to identify Peter with the rock, he would have repeated the term petros, instead of introducing the new term petra, which means a ledge of rock, while Petros means a stone. Again if he had meant that he would build on Peter, it is inconceivable that he adopted so unnatural a method of expressing the idea, instead of saying, “Thou art Peter, and on thee I will build my church.”

Jesus Christ in this instance used the form of address that was given by Peter. Firstly we must note that Peter in reply had this to say, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”. Jesus in His reply echoes this unique form of address by making a contrast between Him and Peter. “And I say also to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church. Jesus first of all told Peter that he was Simon the son of Jonah, thus showing that Peter was of earthly origin. Peter had previously affirmed that Jesus was the Christ the Son of the Living God thus making Jesus to be of heavenly origin. The form of address hereby applied by these two individuals does not in anyway make Peter the rock upon which the church is built.

The fourth premise may well help us establish the definition of the rock that was referred to. Many commentators have tried at least to a certain extent to support the interpretation of Christ as the Rock. This may seem to be the case for Paul in the book of the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 10:4) wrote, “…and they all drink from that spiritual rock that followed them and the rock was Christ”. The Psalmist echoes the same words in (Psalms 18: 2) when he states that “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold”. Matthew Henry also supports this interpretation, at least he is right about Peter not being the rock but errs when he supports the idea that Christ was referring to Himself,

“Christ added that He had named him Peter, in allusion to his stability or firmness in professing the truth. The word translated “rock” is not the same word as Peter, but is of a similar meaning. Nothing can be more wrong than to suppose that Christ meant the person of Peter.”

In the second part of his commentary on the above he errs albeit with strong emphasis on what the passage does not allude to,

“Without doubt Christ himself is the Rock, the tried foundation of the church; and woe to him who attempts to lay any other! Peter’s confession is this rock as to doctrine. If Jesus be not the Christ, those that own Him are not of the church, but deceivers and deceived.”

To say that Christ is the Rock does no damage to the Scriptures but at least in this instance we must see through the meaning of the rock, the stone that was cut out with no human hands (Daniel 2: 34). Emphasis here must be on what Peter said to Christ and what the Christ asked the apostles. Peter affirmed with the rest of the disciples that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God. This is the foundation or the bedrock of truth that the church is built upon. The church cannot exist if there are no people who confess Jesus as the Son of the Living God. The Ethiopian eunuch believed and before his baptism had this in confession “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” (Acts 8:37).Whenever and wherever this statement is made the church of Christ is established.

Peter cannot be the rock because if Jesus meant Peter in reference to the rock then He would have simply said. “Thou art Peter and upon you I will build My church”. We know that the Lord emphasized divine revelation concerning His identity.

[citizentruth-blog]

The Trump Presidency As Religious Cult? Not As Weird As You Might Think - YOUR NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/the-trump-presidency-as-religious-cult-not-as-weird-as-you-might-think/

The Trump Presidency As Religious Cult? Not As Weird As You Might Think

Scholars of religious studies such as Reza Aslan warn that support of Trump by some white evangelicals is like that of a religious cult, which would present a clear danger to our country. (Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/Creative Commons)

In November of 2017, avid Donald Trump supporter Mark Lee, as part of a panel of Trump voters speaking with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, spoke about Trump’s possible collusion with Russia in the context of religious faith. His comments, which made the rounds on the 24-hour news cycle/water-cooler political discussion loop, were truly astonishing to many. Here’s the one that had people, if not up in arms, scratching their heads:

Let me tell you, if Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him, “Hold on a second: I need to check with the president if it is true.” That is how confident I feel in the president.

You read that right. Hold on, Mr. Savior, I have to ask President Trump if what you’re saying is God’s honest truth. Beyond the seeming absurdity of this scenario—Jesus returned just to tell Trump supporters about his connection with Russia?—the expressed faith in Trump above all others (and I am not using the word faith lightly) was duly baffling.

When Camerota pressed Lee for additional context, Lee, a pest control business owner who expressed vague notions of Trump being an advocate of the little guy, America-first, a drainer of the swamp, and a non-politician, stressed his belief that Trump is a good person, and that he (Trump) “has taken so many shots for us.” Presumably, that “us” is the American people, and any backlash is related to jealousy of his constant “winning.” Dude can’t help it if he’s so famous, handsome, and rich—that’s just how he rolls.

Any number of observers might choose not to share Mark Lee’s views. Heck, I sure don’t. Still, as extreme as Lee’s stances might seem, they may not be that far off from other people’s admiration for or faith in the current President of the United States. Reza Aslan, author, commentator, intellectual, and religious scholar, recently authored a video for Big Think about his notion that the Trump presidency is a religious cult. At first blush, Aslan’s comments might seem as grandiose as Lee’s. Trump as a cult leader? And his devotees are the ones who have drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid?

For all our skepticism, though, Aslan does make his case in a very well-thought-out manner. First, before we even get to “why” certain Americans feel compelled to hold up Donald Trump, there’s the matter of “who.” Aslan cites a statistic that 81% of white evangelists who voted in the 2016 election went for Trump. That’s pretty significant, especially when considering that’s a higher percentage than George W. Bush received, an actual white evangelical. What else is significant about this figure? Well, for one, 67% of evangelicals of color who voted cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton. Thus, when Aslan instructs us not to ignore that there is a racial element to Trump’s support, we would be quick to agree that he ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie.

As to why, however, white evangelicals “acted more white than evangelical” in their backing of Trump, as Aslan and others have put it, one element Aslan points to is the influence of what is known as the prosperity gospel. Loosely speaking, this is the idea that financial success is God’s blessing, and through faith, preaching the word of God, and, of course, generous donations, one’s material wealth will increase. In other words, if the Lord didn’t want you to have that Mercedes-Benz, he wouldn’t have made it so dadgum shiny. This is the sort of Christianity that Aslan explicitly dismisses and rejects, associating it with the likes of “charlatans” like Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes, but given Trump’s boasts of wealth and ostentatious displays of such, it makes sense that Christians who adhere to this doctrine would back him, even when his spiritual credentials are, er, lacking.

Additionally, Aslan points to Trump’s promises to afford secular benefits to white evangelical groups and other religious affiliations. In Trump’s apparently ambiguous vows to “give them back their power,” Aslan points to Trump’s willingness to defend Christians in their goal of making a stand on specific issues—even if he may not agree with their positions on those underlying issues—as well as his indication of intent, for instance, to repeal the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations like churches from endorsing or opposing political candidates. Just a few days ago, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of the Treasury not to find churches guilty of “implied endorsements” much as secular organizations wouldn’t be. Never mind that this could help create a slippery slope that allows churches to bypass campaign finance laws and effectually become partisan super PACs. That sweet, sweet support from the religious right is too much to ignore.

Meanwhile, all of this may merely be a prologue to a separate conversation we need to be having about Donald Trump, morality, evangelicals, and the intersection of the Venn diagram of their circles. As Reza Aslan insists, none of the above explains why white evangelicals have gone from a voting bloc that has insisted on a candidate’s morality as a significant qualification for office to one that eschews such concerns—in the span of one election cycle, no less. To reinforce this idea, Aslan highlights the fact that, re Trump, self-identifying atheists were more likely to consider morality as important than white evangelicals. So much for being “values voters.”

As Aslan reasons, this is more than can be reasoned away by talk of race or the prosperity gospel or the Johnson Amendment, and points to a different conclusion: that Trump, his presidency, and his most influential supporters have turned a significant portion of his white evangelical base into a religious cult, and a dangerous one at that. From where he (Aslan) stands, all the signs are there. For one, he points to Trump’s infamous remark that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose votes as being a kind of prophetic revelation. Aslan also alludes to statements made by Pat Robertson that he (Robertson) had a dream in which God took him up to Heaven and Trump was seated at His right hand—the space traditionally reserved for Jesus Christ—and Robert Jeffress, Robertson’s pastor, who said that he (Jeffress) prefers Trump as a candidate to someone “who expresses the values of Jesus.” Suddenly, Mark Lee doesn’t sound so out of place.

The implications, in short, are scary. As Aslan instructs, cults, particularly when confronted by the realities of the world, do not tend to end well. The Trump presidency, for all its claims of stability and success, by most objective accounts is on the brink of collapse, its central figure “spiraling out of control,” as Aslan puts it, and the subject of regular conversations about impeachment or other removal. In the perhaps likely event that leadership fails, the response for cult followers is often to double down on the group’s mantra, and this creates, at least in Aslan’s mind, a very perilous situation for the country at large. As he closes his address, “The only thing more dangerous than a cult leader like Trump is a martyred cult leader.” Ominous, indeed.

Reza Aslan is a religious scholar, and since he often approaches worldly matters from a spiritual frame of reference, even with his treatise on why Donald Trump’s presidency is a religious cult, there would likely be doubters and dissenters on this point. On the right, because so much of politics these days involves taking sides, this is all but a given. Naysayers would undoubtedly highlight Aslan’s Iranian heritage and Muslim beliefs (in reality, his faith is more complex, having been born into a Shia Muslim family, converting to evangelical Christianity, and then converting back to Muslim, all while largely regarding religion as nothing more than a series of metaphors and symbols designed to express one’s faith), as well as his anti-Trump animus (after Trump’s comments on the 2017 terrorist attack in London in which a van struck and killed pedestrians on London, Aslan referred to POTUS as a “piece of shit” and “man baby,” comments that, ahem, didn’t go over too well with then-employer CNN). Never mind that that Aslan is a theologian and literally talks about, thinks about, and writes about this stuff for a living. Because he doesn’t care much for Trump, his opinions must, therefore, be invalid, right?

For the non-shameless-Trump-backers among us, though, there might similarly be a reluctance to characterize the President’s following in terms of a destructive religious cult, since these societies tend to remind us of devices of works of fiction set in apocalyptic times. To this, I submit people may be understating just how abnormal Trump and his presidency are. Besides, as many would aver, we are in the midst of a crisis right now, one primarily borne of climate concerns, but not without worry over its political stability. Trump just pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal without an apparent replacement strategy. Does this make the world safer? Does this instill confidence that the U.S. is a country that honors its agreements and is therefore worthy of trust? On both counts, the answer is a resounding “no,” and that should inspire concern from Americans regardless of their political orientation.

Then again, maybe it’s just that devout Christians can be hypocrites or otherwise twist the Bible to suit their purposes. Phil Zuckerman, a professor at Pitzer College and someone who specializes in studies of atheism and secularity, among other topics, penned an essay shortly after Donald Trump’s upset 2016 electoral victory regarding the role of religion in the election’s outcome. Zuckerman—who also cites the statistic about 81% of white evangelicals voting for Trump, as well as 56% of American voters who attend church at least once a week going for the orange-skinned one—points to other disappointing tendencies of the Christian right.

For one, they tend to regard men as superior leaders and reinforce values that support male dominance over obeisant females. They also hate, hate, hate homosexuals and tend to fear and hate other religions, dividing people into a saved-unsaved binary. Furthermore, fundamentalist Christians place a stronger emphasis on authoritarianism, and mistrust and reject the science which clashes with their faith. Or, as Zuckerman frames this, they are a sanctimonious lot, a subdivision of the American electorate that touts morals and yet voted en masse to elect someone in Trump who is the epitome of immorality. As with Aslan’s criticisms, people would be wont to use context to dismiss Zuckerman’s views. He made these comments not long after Election Day, and thus was probably harboring strong feelings at the time of his piece’s publication. Also, he’s interested mainly in secular studies. Maybe he just hates religious types. PROFESSOR, YOUR BIAS IS SHOWING.

Maybe, maybe not. Irrespective of Reza Aslan’s invectives directed at President Trump and Phil Zuckerman’s discontent with strong Christians for voting for someone clearly not of the same mold, this sense of devotion to Trump by a significant portion of the American people is startling and disconcerting, especially in light of the comparisons between Trump and Jesus. These are the same kinds of “values voters” who, say, conceive of gun ownership as a God-given right. Fun fact: the right to bear arms is a constitutional amendment contained in the Bill of Rights, not one of the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill. Gun ownership increases the likelihood you will violate this precept. How does one reconcile these two apparently competing interests?

One oft-cited biblical passage, Matthew 10:34, in which Jesus is believed to have said that he “did not come to bring peace, but a sword,” may just as well speak to Christ’s existence dividing (as a sword would cut) people based on their belief, if not a faulty translation from the original Koine Greek. Psalm 144 in the Book of Psalms, another quoted portion of the Good Book, has been translated as, “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.”

This is context-dependent, however. David, in speaking of bodily strength, ascribes true strength to God, and prays to Him to rescue him and his people “from the cruel sword.” In this context, David is King of Israel at a time when war among rival groups is common, and what’s more, the ending of the psalm expresses a hope for peace. This seems like quite a departure from the rhetoric of the National Rifle Association, which would have you believe in its promotional videos that America resembles a scene from The Purge. Lock ’em and load ’em, ladies and gents. Conflict is brewing, and nothing shouts His love like the cold steel of a .45.

Mark Lee’s pro-Trump comments seemed crazy at the time of first utterance, and a mere six months later, still do. As the Trump presidency wears on, though, at least until anything manifests with respect to impeachment or other means of removal, and as Donald Trump’s support from his base not only holds steady but grows, one wonders whether Aslan’s depiction of Trump as a salvific figure, as something more than an inspiration to those blinded by patriotism, is accurate. For white evangelicals who support him, in particular, Trump’s actions should prompt them to look critically at their set of beliefs and the importance of morality to their worldview. Whether or not the apparent abandonment of their principles holds beyond Trump’s presidency, meanwhile, is anyone’s guess, and is hard to approach with any sense of faith on the part of those who already don’t believe in him.

  Trump Is Not a Threat to a Free Press Despite Inflamed Rhetoric, Obama Administration & DNC’s Recent Lawsuit Much More Menacing

[sjohnson24]

Blood & Stone

My wings start unfolding into Heaven as I fall onto the ground in a prayer. The places that I know will not be forgotten yet, they will never be remembered. The memories that I hold so dear wrap around my brain like ivy on a tree, slowly suffocating it as the years go by. What pain is this which could numb me in such a shattered reflection of myself, which tears us both apart? Why must we surrender to the feeling that traces tears onto our hearts?  My true love, he is a castle. He is a royal tomb which holds my bones. It doesn’t matter if the structure collapses, fades or burns away. He will forever mark me. He told me five times in the essence of seasons passing, that I should go away from him eventually, so he could find his silence. With the right timing, the truth did grow.

In death there is not an absence of sound, as images become clearer in my head from the vibrations of the minutes. My time will be soon. The moments are short yet shortest for many still. A year is faster than a second when I think about the past. It goes by much faster than the past or future. Before I know it the cycle will have ended and all that’s left is what I could think to tell you. This is how important you are to me, dear.

I want to tell you about the legends of blood & stone which transport us into other realms. The magick of the unknown and mysterious lands of which we do not know will haunt over us because the future is heavy and slow in context to the moment we open up and learn our paths. This is the one thing that we all have; blood magick.

Blood Ritual

A blood ritual is one in which a release of blood is used with intention to bring about a pact, or purpose. In these instances, blood symbolizes a rebirth and resurrection. Blood magic can be used in two ways. One is by the blood of the living and the other is by sacrifice. Many ancient rituals from past civilizations used the latter as a means of extreme worship and is considered to be an evil decision by most of us, in today’s world.

One with any knowledge of the occult can translate these magical workings into a number of different ways. Use with a candle, incantations, various magical offerings or any other spell form is always intensified by the use of blood, which can have a very magnificent effect on any working. It is an energy signature of the artist.

Please be aware that exchanging blood with another person or being can cause very dangerous pathogens and poisons to transfer from body to body. It doesn’t take much to deliver life threatening toxins to one another. Please be creative and try not to use this method as some people are unsuspecting of what they do carry.

Bloodstone

The mineral aggregate heliotrope is also known as the bloodstone. It is a variety of chalcedony and jasper, a dark green color, sometimes including red marks of hematite as well. This is the image that has sparked the stone’s name and magical powers.

In ancient texts, it is said to bring about good health and Pliny the Elder himself recounted that it can bring about invisibility to the user. It has wondrous capabilities in the magical realms. Another property of the stone is that it is said to have the unique ability to turn the sun red, or cause an eclipse. It is known to also be able to control certain water elemental storms, such as rain and lightning.It was also used as an ancient amulet to stop bleeding in people. A Christian’s tale is that Christ’s blood fell upon a stone at his feet, turning it into this. In turn, many artisans craft biblical scenes using bloodstone, or martyr’s stone, as they call it.

If the red spots in the stone are yellow, it is then known as plasma. It was commonly placed in Egyptian tombs to protect the dead person from unknown evils and bad luck. Greek soldiers were known to wear it in battle, believing that it would bring good luck to them. Nowadays, it is used by crystal healers to reduce stress, bring mental clarity and inspire self-confidence.

Gravestone

Gravestones became a popular way to identify a person’s grave. In earlier times, the person’s body would simply be covered with dirt. Over time, family and friends made dedications with stones, pieces of wood, iron and marble to honor them. They soon evolved into what we now see today, which is commonly the person’s name, including the year they were born and died, sometimes with an icon of something spiritual engraved and maybe a few short words.

Burials evolved from being around a person’s home, to the church to public cemeteries, which became popular sometime in the 19th century. The business of headstones started booming and it has become like a necessity. However, as times change so too then will peoples tastes and demands. The wealthier always tend to have a more eloquent grave than the poor.

The binding properties of the stone are recognized even as far as ancient Celtic weddings, where couples would tell their oaths to a stone and then throw it out, in order to have a good marriage. This is still practiced to this day in some weddings. There is much power imbedded within the Earth and as humans we still recognize it, even in our evolved states.

Pray

We will pray hard on the day that our soul feels unrest. Yet, while we are summoning angels, the demons are feeling tempted. How you do bind them with improper words? A tower of Babel, a destruction of Earths, I dream of another birth. For all that must be ordered is unrestrained, while those who hold positions of power feel only for theirselves and what they understand.

I know you. The blood that we have flows through our veins, our spark, and our essence. Yet we bond to each other in a higher demand. Like lust or gratitude, we honor the Gods with their forces. The highest of them which can see us, they are also unchanged. Stay in the order, they say now, as they go to and fro. Our blood and words will open the portals to a higher realm of existence.

It is a juxtaposition of elements that transfixes our hands into branches reaching out. Do not be afraid as we have been led this far without questioning our capabilities of self-modified genetics through behavior practices such as prayer. We will wish onto the blood of our bones, until the day we die, for a resurrection of the truth. May we stay buried until we are fed the mana of immortality. The Last Supper

A common Christian blood ritual is the drinking of Christ’s blood through a glass of juice and a cracker to represent his body. But, this activity is meant to mock a real occurrence from this mythology. According to the Gospel accounts of the bible, The Last Supper is the final meal that Jesus shared with his apostles in Jerusalem before the crucifixion.

Jesus is said to take a piece of bread, breaking it into several pieces and passing it around while saying, “This is my body, which is given for you.” He then takes up a bottle of wine, of which he pours and says, “This is my blood of the everlasting covenant, which is poured for many…” To finish the ritual, he then attests that they should dedicate the moment for him always, as he says, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

This holy rite is considered today as the “Eucharist.” It is meant to remind the followers of the day and the death on the cross. It is a form of gratitude and respect to the holy being that dwells within him. It has many variations, spread throughout several denominations of churches and other religious facilities. Its meaning is also fiercely debated between different aspects of Christ’s people.

Morning Star Ritual

The Morning Star Ritual is a custom practice used by the Pawnee peoples. This includes the Skidi band. Their first accounted living habitat was recognized in Loup River in Nebraska. They were also commonly found at the Platte River, or the Pahnimaha River. The last known occurrence of this act was recorded in 1838. The last known sacrifice was of Haxti, a 14-year-old Oglala Lakota girl on April 22, 1838.

The Morning Star Ritual is the sacrifice of a young girl. The reason is because in their folklore, the male Morningstar and the female evening star mated to create the first human being egg, which was of a young girl. A symbolic ceremony was performed in springtime because that is when Mars was the Morningstar. The real one would not be performed until a person of respect within the community had the dream in which it was time to kidnap a girl from an opposing tribe to use. He would then be handed a specific warriors costume to fulfill this mission.

Once captured, the girl would be ritually cleansed with songs, sacred skins and treated with great honor, almost as if the Gods themselves would reside inside of her. Her clothing would be removed and she would be attacked by the man who had captured her. He would pierce her by bow through the heart while another would hit her over the head with a club. The chest would then be cut open while someone would catch the blood onto pieces of dried meat. Finally, the rest of the men would shoot arrows into her and circle her four times before leaving. This was to symbolizing shooting their life force into her.

At the end of the ceremony, they would lay her body in a field, facing down, so that her blood should run smoothly into the Earth. This represented to them the Garden of the Evening Star, which is all plant and animal life. In this way, her blood would fertilize the Earth and she would ensure that the spirit of the Evening star be released back into the world, time and time again.

Sun Dancer

In the Plains cultures of Native Americans we find a dance that was used as a form on invocation to the sun. These individuals gather together as one to empower each other and bring about change through the use of spiritual sacrifice and release of blood through piercing torturous methods. The typical sun dance was made around a fire, drums playing and great substance was created with energy by many people.

This tradition has been recognized since as early as Aztec and Mayan history. It was commonly thought that the sun resurrected itself each day and blood is the symbol for this philosophy. Most of these practices can only be learned about from pictures and information on ancient artifacts. The level of understanding and societal expectations has changed throughout the years and so many things can be misinterpreted.

An influence of other religions and cultures caused the native peoples to keep their present day workings only available to the pure of heart. No money and photography is allowed in the true worship of the sun today as they believe the spirits will not show around these devices. Also you must be of the heritage to honorably participate. It is thought that this ritual would show the Gods gratitude for life and cause a healing and enlightenment to occur in the community.

Blood & Stone

So we dream and we hope. We drown in the smoke. We’ve loved and we’ve lost. We will recognize the duality of life and pay that price. We will exist again, not as strangers, but as one movement of love. For all that was, is everlasting and all that will be, has already happened. This is a lasting moment made of pure energy. Please take the time to close your eyes. Do as much as you can before you die.

The words that are written into the stone, let them manifest. Let the thoughts of fear drift away and let the light in of what draws near. Live with laughter and you will not die here. Follow the path that the words are written on and you will find yourself. Do not be sure of anything else except for love and even then you may be mistaken. Do not lose yourself in the endings.

So, the time draws near for me to leave you now. I hope that in your journey you continue to grow and learn from every mistake until you become the superhero I always knew you were. I believe in you. Let the day be set forward in motion, where blood & stone become one and we are fragments of a dream just waiting to breakthrough. Until next time…

Deanna Jaxine Stinson, Metaphysical Researcher and Author aka Wish Fire www.teardropsofanangel.com

Blood & Stone syndicated from http://ylangylangbeachresort.com/

[kabane52]

Heaven in Earth and Earth in Heaven

In many of the visions and appearances of Matushka Olga wherein she heals and binds up old wounds through the love of Jesus, there is a particular setting. The setting is a Native Alaskan one. The home which is seen in the vision is constructed after that style, according to Matushka Olga’s own lived spatiotemporal context. The tea which is offered is definitively from this culture and not another. If we begin to consider the implications of this, we find something amazing.

[Warning: Takes me awhile to finally get around to the whole point.]

God’s purpose in the incarnation and redemptive work of His Son is to bring together heaven (God’s space, where His presence is full) and earth (our cosmic order, including the astral heavens and what we call earth- the astral heavens are a symbol of what the law and prophets call the “heaven of heavens”, God’s space) in Jesus Christ’s “uniting all things” in His divine person. We read about this in Colossians 1:15-20 as well. He is the image of the invisible God. All things were made through Him and for Him, and in Him all creation holds together and is sustained. Genesis 1 begins with “In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” When Moses focuses down to narrate the creation of man on the sixth day, we read: “These are the generations of the Heavens and the Earth.”

“Generations of” means “offspring of” in Genesis 5:1 and everywhere else the phrase is used in the Book of Genesis. The Spirit of Life conjoined with the Dust of the Earth to create man, the microcosm who links heaven and earth in his person, drawing them together in his own increase of communion with God. Luke echoes Genesis 2 in speaking of the Spirit’s overshadowing of the Blessed Virgin, who is thereby linked with the earth out of which Adam was made. She is the “sum-statement” of the proper meaning and goal of being a creature. As I wrote about the other day in my notes on the theme of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is the living, breathing incense altar linking the heavens and the earth through His descent in the incarnation and ascension after His resurrection. He is the Ladder to Heaven, a ladder built down by the Spirit who torches us and raises us up as fragrant incense of Christ to God. In the Eucharist, we ascend to Heaven as Heaven descends to us. There is always a double-motion of procession and reversion, a gift outwards in love, and a reciprocation back inwards in thanksgiving.

I ramble on in order to emphatically declare the centrality of the real, true, and concrete mutual indwelling of the two aspects of reality purposed through man, realized in Jesus Christ, and implemented and developed to greater and greater glory through His Body, which is the Church living by the Spirit of the Son.

Jesus in the Gospel of John makes His purpose clear: “I go to prepare a Place for you, so that where I am, you may be also.” As He said in John 3, “No one has ascended to Heaven except He who has descended from Heaven, that is, the Son of Man.” He is the Ladder to Heaven, the one who is indeed Greater-than-Jacob (John 4), who beheld the ladder and then went to the very well at which Jesus spoke to the Samaritan Woman. Jesus is “lifted up” and “glorified” through the Cross, and then goes to “ascend” to the Father as promised in John 20 and seen in a vision in Revelation 4-5. Revelation 14:13 makes clear what occurs (I believe in AD 70, but the point really doesn’t matter for our purposes) with the work of Christ:

“Blessed are those who die in the Lord from now on. ‘Blessed indeed!’ says the Spirit, ‘for their deeds follow them, and they rest from their labors.’”

“Rest” in the scripture refers to enthronement, not the cessation of any activity. It is an ever-moving rest, as Maximus so beautifully put it. Revelation 20:6 describes their estate:

“They will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with Him for a thousand years.”

I take “first resurrection” to refer to Christian death as “second death” refers to rebellious resurrection. Again in an answer to the words of our Lord in John’s Gospel, the Christian who “lives and believes” in Christ shall “never die.” And the one who does not- who is dead in their sins- shall never live. The liturgical setting of Revelation 4-5 and many other texts in the Apocalypse, its context in the heavenly court and council, all of these things illustrate quite concretely the real activity of the Saints throughout the new covenant age. And this is one of the real blessings of the Lord’s resurrection. In ages and generations past, each generation who died immediately ceased their activity, going to the grave- some in more bliss than others- but their relationship to this created world had ceased. This is very clear in what Samuel says to Saul. He is no longer involved in ministry. He’s retired. But with the plundering of the grave and the breaking open of the Heavenly Gates by the Savior’s death, this means that the Heavenly Court, with an active position and ongoing ministerial relation to the creation, is a real and important waystation on the path to final beatitude and glorification, wholly integrated with the body. Jesus, after all, being separated from His body in the Tomb, broke the power of the grave and then ascended to sprinkle the heavenly altar. That disembodied yet gloriously victorious existence is thus a part of our path.

Revelation is part of our being exalted over the angels. The old covenant was ministered by angels, created as a host and already fixed in their glory or wickedness, preparing for the arrival of the glorification of the human family, when, after the “little while” of subjection to angels, man would be “crowned with glory and honor”, as Psalm 8 puts it. We read of the twenty-four ministering Elders in the Heavenly Court, recalling among other things the ministry of the twenty-four chief priests. The Great High Priest of the Apocalypse is called “Another Angel” and is mentioned by that title (IIRC), seven times. This is Jesus Christ, acting in His office as steward of the old covenant to close that period of history. All other specific angels mentioned in the text add up to twenty-four. And in Revelation 20, the Saints who were martyred follow Jesus up His ladder of the cross to be enthroned in the heavenly court, still awaiting the second resurrection and final glory, but being very, very active in the meantime.

[Here’s the point.]

When Jesus Christ ascends, He doesn’t disrobe His body. Even before the bodily resurrection, His disembodied existence remained irrevocably and gloriously human. And it is a particular human existence. Jesus is a Jew from the little town of Nazareth, born of a particular lineage. He was born at a particular time, crucified under a particular Roman governor, He had a particular kind of beard and looked a particular way. And in His glory, He carried every aspect of this rich particularity into His Heavenly Throne. He was and is and ever-remains a Jew. I imagine in the Heavenly Lands there will be a place that quite looks like Nazareth near the throne of glory. Jesus is a real man. And so also with the Saints. We pray for the Lord to “remember” us in the Kingdom of God. The memory of God is the real sort of existence, for it is in God’s mind that we are realized in the first place. God’s intense memory of us constitutes us as fully ourselves.

As we are the Image of God, our memory is essential to our existence, too. As we move through life, if we walk according to the Spirit, we do not receive a generic glory. We don’t receive generic graces or gifts. We are inescapably particular persons with a real and particular history. After death, even without our bodies, we appear with our bodily form: a form that was shaped deeply by events which were really material. The body shapes and molds the soul, with which it is perichoretically embraced. In 1 Corinthians, Apostle Paul states- amazingly - that in the resurrection our work is not done in vain. And he is speaking of everyday work. Paul is presently the Apostle to the Nations and the most glorious tent-maker there ever was. I would be willing to bet that there are tents in the heavenly lands that are so beautiful they would move us to tears, woven by the glorified (partially) Apostle Paul, the tentmaker whose labor was not in vain.

And so also for Matushka Olga. Being glorified, transfigured by grace, and exalted for a new kind of ministry, she was not stripped of her particularity. She continues to be the same woman who has specific children, lived in a specific place, had particular delights in creation, and enjoyed particular sorts of food and drink. And her memory of this whole particular life is woven through every strip of fabric constituting her as who she is. And so in the infinite realms, her whole memory is brought up and glorified. She is made so profoundly and richly real that her faint memories suddenly give birth to real places and things in the heavens, specific homes, lands, teas, and so on. This is what Lewis speaks of in relation to our pets being brought up with us, in our memory. They are part of our particularity too. The seed is meant to go into the earth to be reborn, and Apostle Paul says this in the context of identifying the various animal creatures as “seeds!” If they are a seed, his argument demands, they are to be reborn too. But there is an order to all things. God does not hoard glory and life for Himself. He richly shares it as it flows from the Father through the Son in the Spirit up on into the entire created order and back round again, the water becoming, mysteriously, infinitely deeper with every step one learns to walk upon it. We are gathered into infinite reality by God in the person of His Eternal Son. Everything else in creation is gathered into that reality through us.

Man is right there in the midst of it. The Mind and Memory of God has been shared with us in the incarnation of the Word of God. As Apostle Paul says, “We have the Mind of Christ.” (1 Cor. 2:16) We have the Spirit of the Word, who “searches everything, even the depths of God.” (1 Cor. 2:10) God loves to enrich us with the infinity of His thought, each thought apprehended by the power of the Spirit leading us to utter wonder at the profundity of His wisdom and knowledge, hidden wholly in the incarnate Jesus Christ, revealed by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. And so God thinks with, through, and in us, but He thinks in such a way that it enriches our own particularity instead of obliterating it. The human family- with one heart and one spirit operating with the One Spirit of God- is a diamond with as many sides as there are glorified persons delighted in the Happy Trinity. And so, as Mother Olga, we bring our history with us. It’s not exactly true that “you can’t take it with you.” It’s more true that if “taking it with you” is at the forefront of your mind, there will be no place to take it. The self is a shockingly small place to live. But others- in others our heart is widened, as St. Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 7. With one Spirit, our hearts are stretched out by the Cross of Christ until they are so perfectly joined together that they live one life and exist as one heart.

We will only take with us those things that are really good, and they will be pulled up through the Cross, leaving behind any disorder or mistake or unwittingly self-absorbed intent. And having been pulled through, one will find that those memories which are glorified will be remembered so clearly that the memory at that time will be more real- indescribably and massively so- than the actual moment being remembered was. All is infinitely real in the one who is Reality. And you will live with, in, and through Him. By grace. Seek God’s grace, for no transient pleasure can even compare with this eternal weight of glory.

And so, this expansion continues as the Church, the Body of Christ, is taking one, enormous, deep breath which shall inhale the whole creation in order to breathe it outwards irradiated by the Spirit of Glory who is from God. The Communion of Saints is that by which those who have rested-unto-real-work in Christ continue their work in the cosmos, and that by which those of us still living in this world might, receiving the graces given us by God through them, pull the world up towards them.

Revelation 21 sums it all up. The City of God comes down from Heaven, and Heaven and Earth are joined. The church seen by St. John in Revelation 21:9ff (the fourth and final “in-Spirit” vision- not chronologically sequential with 21:1-8 which describes the consummation) is seen as it shall be when it is completed. The two raw materials to which our attention is called in Genesis 2- food and precious metals/stones are gathered together and organized by human creative activity in the city. It is full of the glory of God. It likely has the sun, but it does not need it, the Lamb of God is so immensely bright. The work of the Twelve Apostles is realized in her. The Radiance of the Glory of God and the Exact Imprint of His Nature shone on their stones and was reflected outwards until the light shone in every corner. “Kings shall bring their glory into it”, we are told. This reminds us of Proverbs 25:2, where “The Glory of God is to conceal a thing, the Glory of Kings is to search them out.” In Revelation, the word “king” extends to all the baptized who are priests and kings in Christ. God who spoke the world into being by His Word full of words, has hidden incredible wisdom in every little detail of the creation, into every little jot and tittle of the Bible. And filled with the Spirit who searches out the deep things of God in the Mind of Christ, the Christian civilization finds all of this God-centered beauty in every detail of creation, utilizing it to produce art, technology, culture, and knowledge. And every detail is brought into the City of God. In the Lord your work is not in vain.

And then, Heaven and Earth shall be fully integrated. The Lord Jesus Christ personally appears to sum all things up, to finally cast down the last enemy who was also the first, who is death. The City of God is described with dimensions making clear, given the downward flow of its golden river, that it is a pyramid. Daniel 2 tells us of a little stone, cut without hands (this is an altar), representing the Kingdom of God, breaking apart the kingdoms of this world and growing until it fills the whole world as a mountain. Isaiah 25 tells us of the mountain of God where all nations shall feast on a feast of richness. And Isaiah 65 says, “I create a new heavens and new earth...I create Jerusalem to be a joy.” Jerusalem, that Temple-City of God (Ezk. 40 also describes the temple and city as one) is the whole creation, transfigured, glorified, citified without being de-beautified. The pyramid which is the New and Lasting Jerusalem signifies the whole creation, full of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

[catholicwatertown]

Pope Francis tells diplomats peace is a gift, challenge, and commitment

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Monday appealed to all religious authorities to join in “reaffirming unequivocally that one can never kill in God’s name,” saying the world is “dealing with a homicidal madness which misuses God’s name in order to disseminate death, in a play for domination and power.”

The Holy Father was giving his annual address to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See.  “Fundamentalist terrorism is the fruit of a profound spiritual poverty, and often is linked to significant social poverty,” – the Pope said – “It can only be fully defeated with the joint contribution of religious and political leaders.”

Pope Francis dedicated his remarks to the theme of security and peace. 

“In today’s climate of general apprehension for the present, and uncertainty and anxious concern for the future, I feel it is important to speak a word of hope, which can also indicate a path on which to embark,” the Pope said.

The Holy Father pointed out some of the areas where conflict is affecting people’s lives.

“I think particularly of the fundamentalist-inspired terrorism that in the past year has also reaped numerous victims throughout the world: in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Burkina Faso, Egypt, France, Germany, Jordan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, the United States of America, Tunisia and Turkey,” – he said – “These are vile acts that use children to kill, as in Nigeria, or target people at prayer, as in the Coptic Cathedral of Cairo, or travellers or workers, as in Brussels, or passers-by in the streets of cities like Nice and Berlin, or simply people celebrating the arrival of the new year, as in Istanbul.”

He called on the international community to work for peace.

“Peace is a gift, a challenge and a commitment,” Pope Francis said. 

It is a gift because it flows from the very heart of God.  It is a challenge because it is a good that can never be taken for granted and must constantly be achieved.  It is a commitment because it demands passionate effort on the part of all people of goodwill to seek and build it,” – the Holy Father explained – “For true peace can only come about on the basis of a vision of human beings capable of promoting an integral development respectful of their transcendent dignity.”

  The full speech by Pope Francis to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See is below

  ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS

Monday, 9 January 2017

    Your Excellencies, dear Ambassadors,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

            I offer you a cordial welcome.  I thank you for your presence in such numbers at this traditional gathering, which permits us to exchange greetings and good wishes that the year just beginning will be for everyone a time of joy, prosperity and peace. I express particular gratitude to the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, His Excellency Armindo Fernandes do Espírito Santo Vieira, the Ambassador of Angola, for his courteous greetings on behalf of the entire Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, which has recently been enlarged following the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Mauritania a month ago.  I likewise express my gratitude to the many Ambassadors resident in Rome, whose number has grown this past year, and to the non-resident Ambassadors, whose presence today is a clear sign of the bonds of friendship uniting their peoples to the Holy See.  At the same time, I would like to express heartfelt condolences to the Ambassador of Malaysia for the death of his predecessor, Dato’ Mohd Zulkephli Bin Mohd Noor, who passed away last February.

            In the course of the past year, relations between your countries and the Holy See were further consolidated, thanks to the welcome visit of many Heads of State and Government, also in conjunction with the numerous events of the recently concluded Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.  So too, a variety of bilateral Agreements were signed or ratified, both those of a general nature aimed at recognizing the Church’s juridical status, with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Benin and Timor East, and those of a more specific character, the Avenant signed with France, the Convention on fiscal matters with the Republic of Italy, recently entered into force, and the Memorandum of Understanding between the Secretariat of State and the Government of the United Arab Emirates.  Furthermore, in the context of the Holy See’s commitment to the obligations assumed by the aforementioned Agreements, the Comprehensive Agreement with the State of Palestine, which took effect a year ago, was fully implemented.

Dear Ambassadors,

            A century ago, we were in the midst of the First World War.  A “useless slaughter”,[1] in which new methods of warfare sowed death and caused immense suffering to the defenceless civil population.  In 1917, the conflict changed profoundly, taking on increasingly global proportions, while those totalitarian regimes, which were long to be a cause of bitter divisions, began to appear on the horizon.  A hundred years later, it can be said that many parts of the world have benefited from lengthy periods of peace, which have favoured opportunities for economic development and unprecedented prosperity.  For many people today, peace appears as a blessing to be taken for granted, for all intents an acquired right to which not much thought is given.  Yet, for all too many others, peace remains merely a distant dream.  Millions of people still live in the midst of senseless conflicts.  Even in places once considered secure, a general sense of fear is felt.  We are frequently overwhelmed by images of death, by the pain of innocent men, women and children who plead for help and consolation, by the grief of those mourning the loss of a dear one due to hatred and violence, and by the drama of refugees fleeing war and migrants meeting tragic deaths.

            For this reason, I would like to devote today’s meeting to the theme of security and peace.  In today’s climate of general apprehension for the present, and uncertainty and anxious concern for the future, I feel it is important to speak a word of hope, which can also indicate a path on which to embark.

            Just a few days ago, we celebrated the Fiftieth World Day of Peace, instituted by my blessed predecessor Paul VI “as a hope and as a promise, at the beginning of the calendar which measures and describes the path of human life in time, that peace with its just and beneficent equilibrium may dominate the development of events to come”.[2]  For Christians, peace is a gift of the Lord, proclaimed in song by the Angels at the moment of Christ’s birth: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours” (Lk 2:14).  Peace is a positive good, “the fruit of the right ordering of things” with which God has invested human society;[3] it is “more than the absence of war”.[4]  Nor can it be “reduced to the maintenance of a balance of power between opposing forces”.[5]  Rather, it demands the commitment of those persons of good will who “thirst for an ever more perfect reign of justice”.[6]

            In this regard, I voice my firm conviction that every expression of religion is called to promote peace.  I saw this clearly in the World Day of Prayer for Peace held in Assisi last September, during which the representatives of the different religions gathered to “give voice together to all those who suffer, to all those who have no voice and are not heard”,[7] as well as in my visits to the Synagogue of Rome and the Mosque in Baku.

            We know that there has been no shortage of acts of religiously motivated violence, beginning with Europe itself, where the historical divisions between Christians have endured all too long.  In my recent visit to Sweden, I mentioned the urgent need for healing past wounds and journeying together towards common goals.  The basis of that journey can only be authentic dialogue between different religious confessions.  Such dialogue is possible and necessary, as I wished to show by my meeting in Cuba with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, as well as by my Apostolic Journeys to Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, where I sensed the rightful aspiration of those peoples to resolve conflicts which for years have threatened social harmony and peace.

            At the same time, it is fitting that we not overlook the great number of religiously inspired works that contribute, at times with the sacrifice of martyrs, to the pursuit of the common good through education and social assistance, especially in areas of great poverty and in theatres of conflict.  These efforts advance peace and testify that individuals of different nationalities, cultures and traditions can indeed live and work together, provided that the dignity of the human person is placed at the centre of their activities.

            Sadly, we are conscious that even today, religious experience, rather than fostering openness to others, can be used at times as a pretext for rejection, marginalization and violence.  I think particularly of the fundamentalist-inspired terrorism that in the past year has also reaped numerous victims throughout the world: in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Burkina Faso, Egypt, France, Germany, Jordan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, the United States of America, Tunisia and Turkey.  These are vile acts that use children to kill, as in Nigeria, or target people at prayer, as in the Coptic Cathedral of Cairo, or travellers or workers, as in Brussels, or passers-by in the streets of cities like Nice and Berlin, or simply people celebrating the arrival of the new year, as in Istanbul.

            We are dealing with a homicidal madness which misuses God’s name in order to disseminate death, in a play for domination and power.  Hence I appeal to all religious authorities to join in reaffirming unequivocally that one can never kill in God’s name.  Fundamentalist terrorism is the fruit of a profound spiritual poverty, and often is linked to significant social poverty.  It can only be fully defeated with the joint contribution of religious and political leaders.  The former are charged with transmitting those religious values which do not separate fear of God from love of neighbour.  The latter are charged with guaranteeing in the public forum the right to religious freedom, while acknowledging religion’s positive and constructive contribution to the building of a civil society that sees no opposition between social belonging, sanctioned by the principle of citizenship, and the spiritual dimension of life.  Government leaders are also responsible for ensuring that conditions do not exist that can serve as fertile terrain for the spread of forms of fundamentalism.  This calls for suitable social policies aimed at combating poverty; such policies cannot prescind from a clear appreciation of the importance of the family as the privileged place for growth in human maturity, and from a major investment in the areas of education and culture.

            In this regard, I was interested to learn of the Council of Europe’s initiative on the religious dimension of intercultural dialogue, which in the past year discussed the role of education in preventing radicalization leading to terrorism and extremist violence.  This represents an occasion for a better understanding of the role of religion and education in bringing about the authentic social harmony needed for coexistence in a multicultural society.

            Here I would express my conviction that political authorities must not limit themselves to ensuring the security of their own citizens – a concept which could easily be reduced to a mere “quiet life” – but are called also to work actively for the growth of peace. Peace is an “active virtue”, once that calls for the engagement and cooperation of each individual and society as a whole.  As the Second Vatican Council observed, “peace will never be achieved once and for all, but must be built up continually”,[8] by safeguarding the good of persons and respecting their dignity.  Peacemaking requires above all else renouncing violence in vindicating one’s rights.[9]  To this very principle I devoted my Message for the 2017 World Day of Peace, with the title, “Nonviolence: a Style of Politics for Peace”.  I wished primarily to reaffirm that nonviolence is a political style based on the rule of law and the dignity of each person.

            Peacemaking also demands that “those causes of discord which lead to wars be rooted out”,[10] beginning with acts of injustice.  Indeed, justice and peace are intimately linked[11].  Yet, as Saint John Paul II observed, “because human justice is always fragile and imperfect, subject as it is to the limitations and egoism of individuals and groups, it must include and, as it were, be completed by the forgiveness that heals and rebuilds human relations from their foundations…  Forgiveness is in no way opposed to justice.  It is rather the fullness of justice, leading to that tranquillity of order” which involves “the deepest healing of the wounds which fester in human hearts.  Justice and forgiveness are both essential to such healing”.[12]  Those words remain most timely, and met with openness on the part of some Heads of State or Government to my request to make a gesture of clemency towards the incarcerated.  To them, and to all those who promote dignified living conditions for prisoners and their reintegration into society, I would like to express my particular appreciation and gratitude.

            I am convinced that for many people the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy was an especially fruitful moment for rediscovering “mercy’s immense positive influence as a social value”.[13]  In this way, everyone can help bring about “a culture of mercy, based on the rediscovery of encounter with others, a culture in which no one looks at another with indifference or turns away from the suffering of our brothers and sisters”.[14]  Only thus will it be possible to build societies that are open and welcoming towards foreigners and at the same time internally secure and at peace.  This is all the more needed at the present time, when massive waves of migration continue in various parts of the world.  I think in a special way of the great numbers of displaced persons and refugees in some areas of Africa and Southeast Asia, and all those who are fleeing areas of conflict in the Middle East.

            Last year the international community gathered at two important events convened by the United Nations: the first World Humanitarian Summit and the Summit for Refugees and Migrants.  With regard to migrants, displaced persons and refugees, a common commitment is needed, one focused on offering them a dignified welcome.  This would involve respecting the right of “every human being… to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there”,[15] while at the same time ensuring that migrants can be integrated into the societies in which they are received without the latter sensing that their security, cultural identity and political-social stability are threatened.  On the other hand, immigrants themselves must not forget that they have a duty to respect the laws, culture and traditions of the countries in which they are received.

            Prudence on the part of public authorities does not mean enacting policies of exclusion vis-à-vis migrants, but it does entail evaluating, with wisdom and foresight, the extent to which their country is in a position, without prejudice to the common good of citizens, to offer a decent life to migrants, especially those truly in need of protection.  Above all, the current crisis should not be reduced to a simple matter of numbers.  Migrants are persons, with their own names, stories and families.  There can never be true peace as long as a single human being is violated in his or her personal identity and reduced to a mere statistic or an object of economic calculation.

            The issue of migration is not one that can leave some countries indifferent, while others are left with the burden of humanitarian assistance, often at the cost of notable strain and great hardship, in the face of an apparently unending emergency.  All should feel responsible for jointly pursuing the international common good, also through concrete gestures of human solidarity; these are essential building-blocks of that peace and development which entire nations and millions of people still await.  So I am grateful to the many countries which offer a generous welcome to those in need, beginning with various European nations, particularly Italy, Germany, Greece and Sweden.

            I vividly remember my visit to the island of Lesvos in the company of my brothers Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Ieronymos.  There I saw at first hand the dramatic situation of the refugee camps, but also the goodness and spirit of service shown by the many persons committed to assisting those living there.  Nor should we overlook the welcome offered by other countries of Europe and the Middle East, such as Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, as well as the commitment of various African and Asian countries.  In the course of my visit to Mexico, where I experienced the joy of the Mexican people, I likewise felt close to the thousands of migrants from Central America who, in their attempt to find a better future, endure terrible injustices and dangers, victims of extortion and objects of that deplorable trade – that horrible form of modern slavery – which is human trafficking.

            One enemy of peace is a “reductive vision” of the human person, which opens the way to the spread of injustice, social inequality and corruption.  With regard to this last phenomenon, the Holy See has taken on new commitments with its formal adherence, on 19 September last, to the United Nations Convention against Corruption, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 31 October 2003.

            In his encyclical Populorum Progressio, issued fifty years ago, Blessed Paul VI noted how such situations of inequality provoke conflict.  As he stated, “civil progress and economic development are the only road to peace”,[16] which public authorities have the duty to encourage and foster by creating conditions for a more equitable distribution of resources and by generating employment opportunities, especially for young people.  In today’s world, all too many people, especially children, still suffer from endemic poverty and live in conditions of food insecurity – indeed, hunger – even as natural resources are the object of greedy exploitation by a few, and enormous amounts of food are wasted daily.

            Children and young people are the future; it is for them that we work and build.  They cannot be selfishly overlooked or forgotten.  As I stated recently in a letter addressed to all bishops, I consider it a priority to protect children, whose innocence is often violated by exploitation, clandestine and slave labour, prostitution or the abuse of adults, criminals and dealers in death.[17]

            During my visit to Poland for World Youth Day, I encountered thousands of young people full of life and enthusiasm.  Yet in many of them I also saw pain and suffering.  I think of the young people affected by the brutal conflict in Syria, deprived of the joys of childhood and youth, such as the ability to play games and to attend school.  My constant thoughts are with them and the beloved Syrian people.  I appeal to the international community to make every effort to encourage serious negotiations for an end to the conflict, which is causing a genuine human catastrophe.  Each of the parties must give priority to international humanitarian law, and guarantee the protection of civilians and needed humanitarian aid for the populace.  Our common aspiration is that the recently signed truce will be a sign of hope for the whole Syrian people, so greatly in need of it.

            This also means working for the elimination of the deplorable arms trade and the never-ending race to create and spread ever more sophisticated weaponry.    Particularly disturbing are the experiments being conducted on the Korean Peninsula, which destabilize the entire region and raise troubling questions for the entire international community about the risk of a new nuclear arms race.  The words of Saint John XXIII in Pacem in Terris continue to ring true: “Justice, right reason and the recognition of human dignity cry out insistently for a cessation to the arms race.  The stockpiles of armaments which have been built up in various countries must be reduced all round by the parties concerned.  Nuclear weapons must be banned”.[18]  In the light of this, and in view of the forthcoming Conference on Disarmament, the Holy See seeks to promote an ethics of peace and security that goes beyond that fear and “closure” which condition the debate on nuclear weapons.

            Also with regard to conventional weapons, we need to acknowledge that easy access to the sale of arms, including those of small calibre, not only aggravates various conflicts, but also generates a widespread sense of insecurity and fear.  This is all the more dangerous in times, like our own, of social uncertainty and epochal changes.

            Another enemy of peace is the ideology that exploits social unrest in order to foment contempt and hate, and views others as enemies to be eliminated.  Sadly, new ideologies constantly appear on the horizon of humanity.  Under the guise of promising great benefits, they instead leave a trail of poverty, division, social tensions, suffering and, not infrequently, death.  Peace, on the other hand, triumphs through solidarity.  It generates the desire for dialogue and cooperation which finds an essential instrument in diplomacy.  Mercy and solidarity inspire the convinced efforts of the Holy See and the Catholic Church to avert conflicts and to accompany processes of peace, reconciliation and the search for negotiated solutions.  It is heartening that some of these attempts have met with the good will of many people who, from a number of quarters, have actively and fruitfully worked for peace.  I think of the efforts made in the last two years for rapprochement between Cuba and the United States.  I think also of the persevering efforts made, albeit not without difficulty, to end years of conflict in Colombia.

            That approach aims at encouraging reciprocal trust, supporting processes of dialogue and emphasizing the need for courageous gestures.  These are quite urgent in neighbouring Venezuela, where the effects of the political, social and economic crisis have long burdened the civil population.  So too in other parts of the world, beginning with the Middle East, a similar approach is needed, not only to bring an end to the Syrian conflict, but also to foster fully reconciled societies in Iraq and in Yemen.  The Holy See renews its urgent appeal for the resumption of dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians towards a stable and enduring solution that guarantees the peaceful coexistence of two states within internationally recognized borders.  No conflict can become a habit impossible to break.  Israelis and Palestinians need peace.  The whole Middle East urgently needs peace!

            I also express my hope that there will be a full implementation of the agreements aimed at restoring peace in Libya, where it is imperative to reconcile the divisions of recent years.  I likewise encourage every effort on the local and international level to renew peaceful civil coexistence in Sudan and South Sudan, and in the Central African Republic, all plagued by ongoing armed conflicts, massacres and destruction, as well as in other African nations marked by tensions and political and social instability.   In particular, I express my hope that the recently-signed agreement in the Democratic Republic of Congo may help enable political leaders to work diligently to pursue reconciliation and dialogue between all elements of civil society.  My thoughts also turn to Myanmar, that efforts will be made to foster peaceful co-existence and, with the support of the international community, to provide assistance to those in grave and pressing need.

            In Europe too, where tensions also exist, openness to dialogue is the only way to ensure the security and development of the continent.  Consequently, I welcome those initiatives favouring the process of reunification in Cyprus, where negotiations resume today, and I express my hope that in Ukraine viable solutions will continue to be pursued with determination in order to fulfil the commitments undertaken by the parties involved and, above all, that a prompt response will be given to the humanitarian situation, which remains grave.

            Europe as a whole is experiencing a decisive moment in its history, one in which it is called to rediscover its proper identity.  This requires recovering its roots in order to shape its future.  In response to currents of divisiveness, it is all the more urgent to update “the idea of Europe”, so as to give birth to a new humanism based on the capacity to integrate, dialogue and generate[19] that made the “Old Continent” great.  The process of European unification, begun after the Second World War, continues to be a unique opportunity for stability, peace and solidarity between peoples.  On this occasion, I can only reaffirm the interest and concern of the Holy See for Europe and its future, conscious that the values that were the inspiration and basis of that project, which this year celebrates its sixtieth anniversary, are values common to the entire continent and transcend the borders of the European Union itself.

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

            To build peace also means to work actively for the care of creation.  The Paris Agreement on the climate, which recently took effect, is an important sign of the shared commitment to bequeath a more beautiful and livable world to those who will come after us.  It is my hope that the efforts made in recent times to respond to climate change will meet with increased cooperation on the part of all, for the earth is our common home and we need to realize that the choices of each have consequences for all.

            Clearly, however, certain phenomena go beyond the possibilities of human intervention.  I refer to the numerous earthquakes which have struck some areas of the world.  I think especially of those in Ecuador, Italy and Indonesia, which has claimed numerous victims and left many others in conditions of great insecurity.  I was able to visit personally some of the areas affected by the earthquake in central Italy.  In addition to seeing the damage done to a land rich in art and culture, I shared the pain of many people, but I also witnessed their courage and their determination to rebuild what was destroyed.   I pray that the solidarity which united the beloved Italian people in the days after the earthquake will continue to inspire the entire nation, particularly at this delicate time in its history.  The Holy See and Italy are particularly close for obvious historical, cultural and geographical reasons.  This relationship was evident in the Jubilee Year, and I thank all the Italian authorities for their help in organizing this event and ensuring the security of pilgrims from all over the world.

Dear Ambassadors,

            Peace is a gift, a challenge and a commitment.  It is a gift because it flows from the very heart of God.  It is a challenge because it is a good that can never be taken for granted and must constantly be achieved.  It is a commitment because it demands passionate effort on the part of all people of goodwill to seek and build it.  For true peace can only come about on the basis of a vision of human beings capable of promoting an integral development respectful of their transcendent dignity.  As Blessed Paul VI observed, “development is the new name for peace”.[20] 

            This, then, is my prayerful hope for the year just begun: that our countries and their peoples may find increased opportunities to work together in building true peace.  For its part, the Holy See, and the Secretariat of State in particular, will always be ready to cooperate with those committed to ending current conflicts and to offer support and hope to all who suffer.

            In the Church’s liturgy, we greet one another with the words: “Peace be with you”.  With this same greeting, as a pledge of abundant divine blessings, I renew to each of you, distinguished members of the Diplomatic Corps, to your families and to the countries you represent, my heartfelt good wishes for the New Year.

            Thank you.

    [1] BENEDICT XV, Letter to the Leaders of the Peoples at War (1 August 1917): AAS 9 (1917), 421.

[2] Message for the Celebration of the First World Day of Peace (1 January 1968).

[3] SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), 78.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Address at the World Day of Prayer for Peace, Assisi, 20 September 2016.

[8] Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 78.

[9] Cf. ibid.

[10] Ibid., 83.

[11] Cf. Ps 85:11 and Is 32:17.

[12] Message for the Thirty-fifth World Day of Peace: There is no Peace without Justice, There is no Justice without Forgiveness (1 January 2002), 3.

[13] Apostolic Letter Misericordia et Misera (20 November 2016), 18.

[14] Ibid., 20.

[15] JOHN XXIII, Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris (11 April 1963), 25.

[16] Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio (26 March 1967), 83.

[17] Cf. Letter to Bishops on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, 28 December 2016.

[18] Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris, 112.

[19] Cf. Address at the Conferral of the Charlemagne Prize, 6 May 2016.

[20] Cf. Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 87.

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