St. Scholastica, pray for us!!
St. Scholastica | Saint of the Day | AmericanCatholic.org
Catholics Go To Court To Resist Unjust HHS Edict. The Rising Tide of Catholic Resistance - U.s. - Catholic Online
Redemptor hominis - Pope John Paul II
12. The Church's mission and human freedom
In this unity in mission, which is decided principally by Christ himself,
all Christians must find what already unites them, even before their full
communion is achieved. This is apostolic and missionary unity, missionary and
apostolic unity. Thanks to this unity we can together come close to the
magnificent heritage of the human spirit that has been manifested in all
religions, as the Second Vatican Council's Declaration Nostra Aetate says73.
It also enables us to approach all cultures, all ideological concepts, all
people of good will. We approach them with the esteem, respect and discernment
that since the time of the Apostles has marked the missionary attitude,
the attitude of the missionary. Suffice it to mention Saint Paul and,
for instance, his address in the Areopagus at Athens74. The missionary
attitude always begins with a feeling of deep esteem for "what is in
man"75, for what man has himself. worked out in the depths of his
spirit concerning the most profound and important problems. It is a question of
respecting everything that has been brought about in him by the Spirit, which
"blows where it wills"76. The mission is never destruction,
but instead is a taking up and fresh building, even if in practice there has
not always been full correspondence with this high ideal. And we know well that
the conversion that is begun by the mission is a work of grace, in which man
must fully find himself again.
For this reason the Church in our time attaches great importance to all that
is stated by the Second Vatican Council in its Declaration on Religious
Freedom, both the first and the second part of the document77. We
perceive intimately that the truth revealed to us by God imposes on us an
obligation. We have, in particular, a great sense of responsibility for this
truth. By Christ's institution the Church is its guardian and teacher, having
been endowed with a unique assistance of the Holy Spirit in order to guard and
teach it in its most exact integrity78. In fulfilling this mission, we
look towards Christ himself, the first evangelizer79, and also towards
his Apostles, martyrs and confessors. The Declaration on Religious Freedom
shows us convincingly that, when Christ and, after him, his Apostles proclaimed
the truth that comes not from men but from God ("My teaching is not mine,
but his who sent me"80, that is the Father's), they preserved,
while acting with their full force of spirit, a deep esteem for man, for his
intellect, his will, his conscience and his freedom81. Thus the human
person's dignity itself becomes part of the content of that proclamation, being
included not necessarily in words but by an attitude towards it. This attitude
seems to fit the special needs of our times. Since man's true freedom is not
found in everything that the various systems and individuals see and propagate
as freedom, the Church, because of her divine mission, becomes all the more the
guardian of this freedom, which is the condition and basis for the human
person's true dignity.
Jesus Christ meets the man of every age, including our own, with the same
words: "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you
free"82. These words contain both a fundamental requirement and a warning:
the requirement of an honest relationship with regard to truth as a condition
for authentic freedom, and the warning to avoid every kind of illusory freedom,
every superficial unilateral freedom, every freedom that fails to enter into
the whole truth about man and the world. Today also, even after two thousand
years, we see Christ as the one who brings man freedom based on truth, frees
man from what curtails, diminishes and as it were breaks off this freedom at
its root, in man's soul, his heart and his conscience. What a stupendous
confirmation of this has been given and is still being given by those who,
thanks to Christ and in Christ, have reached true freedom and have manifested
it even in situations of external constraint!
When Jesus Christ himself appeared as a prisoner before Pilate's tribunal
and was interrogated by him about the accusation made against him by the
representatives of the Sanhedrin, did he not answer: "For this I was born,
and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the
truth"83? It was as if with these words spoken before the judge at
the decisive moment he was once more confirming what he had said earlier:
"You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free". In the
course of so many centuries, of so many generations, from the time of the
Apostles on, is it not often Jesus Christ himself that has made an appearance
at the side of people judged for the sake of the truth? And has he not gone to
death with people condemned for the sake of the truth? Does he ever cease to be
the continuous spokesman and advocate for the person who lives "in spirit
and truth"84? Just as he does not cease to be it before the
Father, he is it also with regard to the history of man. And in her turn the Church,
in spite of all the weaknesses that are part of her human history, does not
cease to follow him who said: "The hour is coming, and now is, when the
true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the
Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must
worship in spirit and truth"85.
"Recommend yourselves to God and have no doubt about the consolation He will give you." St. Teresa Margaret Redi
No comments:
Post a Comment