Suffering, martyrdom and the joy of redemption
On this there is now much to say. I'll try, but only very briefly to mention as a conclusion, what more in our
context appears to me as the most important thing.
context appears to me as the most important thing.
Forgiveness and its realization in me, by way of repentance and discipleship, is primarily the center of all staff at every renewal. But precisely because the lost person is concerned in its most intimate, it is able to gather together, and is also the center of the renewal of the community. If it is taken away from me the dust and dirt, making it unrecognizable to me the image of God, then I become so very similar to the other also, who is himself the image of God, and above all I become like Christ, who is the image of God, without limitation, the form in which we were all created. Paul expresses this process in very dramatic terms: "The old image is gone, here it is a new sort, no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2:20). It is a process of death and birth. I am torn from my isolation and are welcomed into a new community-subject, my "I" is inserted in the 'I' of Christ and so is joined to all my brothers.
Only from this deep renewal of the Church is born of the individual, the community comes together and supports life and death.
Only when we take into account everything, we see the Church in its proper order of magnitude.
The Church: it is not just the small group of activists who come together in a certain place in order to start a community life. The Church is not simply the great multitude of those who gather together on Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist. And finally, the Church is even more than the Pope, bishops and priests, those who are invested with the sacramental ministry. All these we have named belong to the Church, but the radius of the company in which we enter by faith, goes beyond, goes even beyond death. It includes all the saints from Abel and Abraham and all the witnesses of hope, which tells the Old Testament, through Mary, the Mother of the Lord and his apostles, through Thomas Becket and Thomas More, and finally to Maximilian Kolbe, Edith Stein, a Piergiorgio Frassati. It includes all the unknown and not elsewhere, whose faith no one knew except God, are part of it the men of all places and all times, whose heart reaches out in hope and love to Christ, "the author and perfecter of our faith, "as he calls the Epistle to the Hebrews (12.2). It is not the occasional majorities formed here and there in the Church to decide his and our journey. They, the Saints are the true, decisive majority, according to which we orient. We stick to it! They translate the divine in the human, the eternal in time.
The Church: it is not just the small group of activists who come together in a certain place in order to start a community life. The Church is not simply the great multitude of those who gather together on Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist. And finally, the Church is even more than the Pope, bishops and priests, those who are invested with the sacramental ministry. All these we have named belong to the Church, but the radius of the company in which we enter by faith, goes beyond, goes even beyond death. It includes all the saints from Abel and Abraham and all the witnesses of hope, which tells the Old Testament, through Mary, the Mother of the Lord and his apostles, through Thomas Becket and Thomas More, and finally to Maximilian Kolbe, Edith Stein, a Piergiorgio Frassati. It includes all the unknown and not elsewhere, whose faith no one knew except God, are part of it the men of all places and all times, whose heart reaches out in hope and love to Christ, "the author and perfecter of our faith, "as he calls the Epistle to the Hebrews (12.2). It is not the occasional majorities formed here and there in the Church to decide his and our journey. They, the Saints are the true, decisive majority, according to which we orient. We stick to it! They translate the divine in the human, the eternal in time.
They are our teachers of humanity, which does not abandon us even in the pain and loneliness, even in times of death rather walk beside us.
Here we touch upon something very important.
A worldview that can not make sense even to pain and make it a valuable not do any good. It fails just where does the appeared the decisive question of existence.
Pain on those who have nothing to say except that you must fight, deceive us.
Certainly we must do everything possible to alleviate the suffering of innocent people and to limit suffering.
But a human life without pain is not there, and who is unable to accept the pain, you subtract those purifications that only make us become mature. In communion with Christ the pain becomes so significant, not only for myself, as a process of ablative, when God takes away from me slag that obscure its image, but also beyond myself it is useful for all, so we can all say with Saint Paul: "I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill in my flesh what is lacking the sufferings of Christ for His Body, the Church "(Col 1:24). Thomas Becket, who along with the admiration and Einstein has guided us in the reflections of these days, still encourages us to be a final step. Life goes beyond the our biological existence. Where there is no reason worth dying for, do not go beyond the life more worthwhile. Where faith has opened his eyes and made us the biggest heart, behold, here buys all its power to illuminate this other phrase of St. Paul: "None of us lives to himself, and no one dies to same, because if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. Whether you live or whether we die, we are the Lord "(Rom 14.7-8). The more we are rooted in the company of Jesus Christ and all who belong to Him, the more our lives will be supported by the radiant confidence that once again St. Paul gave expression: "Of this I am certain: neither death nor life, nor angels, nor
powers, nor things present, nor future, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord "(Rom 8.38-39).
But a human life without pain is not there, and who is unable to accept the pain, you subtract those purifications that only make us become mature. In communion with Christ the pain becomes so significant, not only for myself, as a process of ablative, when God takes away from me slag that obscure its image, but also beyond myself it is useful for all, so we can all say with Saint Paul: "I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill in my flesh what is lacking the sufferings of Christ for His Body, the Church "(Col 1:24). Thomas Becket, who along with the admiration and Einstein has guided us in the reflections of these days, still encourages us to be a final step. Life goes beyond the our biological existence. Where there is no reason worth dying for, do not go beyond the life more worthwhile. Where faith has opened his eyes and made us the biggest heart, behold, here buys all its power to illuminate this other phrase of St. Paul: "None of us lives to himself, and no one dies to same, because if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. Whether you live or whether we die, we are the Lord "(Rom 14.7-8). The more we are rooted in the company of Jesus Christ and all who belong to Him, the more our lives will be supported by the radiant confidence that once again St. Paul gave expression: "Of this I am certain: neither death nor life, nor angels, nor
powers, nor things present, nor future, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord "(Rom 8.38-39).
Dear friends, let us fill like we have faith! Then the Church grows as the path to communion and in real life,
and then it is renewed day by day. Then it becomes a big house with many mansions, then the multiplicity of the gifts of the Spirit can work in it. Then we will see "how good and beautiful it is when brothers live together. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on Mount Zion, and there the Lord brings blessing and life forever "{Sai 133,1.3).
and then it is renewed day by day. Then it becomes a big house with many mansions, then the multiplicity of the gifts of the Spirit can work in it. Then we will see "how good and beautiful it is when brothers live together. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on Mount Zion, and there the Lord brings blessing and life forever "{Sai 133,1.3).
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