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Redemptor hominis - Pope John Paul II
18. The Church as concerned for man's vocation in Christ
This necessarily brief look at man's situation in the modern world makes us
direct our thoughts and our hearts to Jesus Christ, and to the mystery of the
Redemption, in which the question of man is inscribed with a special vigour of
truth and love. If Christ "united himself with each man"115,
the Church lives more profoundly her own nature and mission by penetrating into
the depths of this mystery and into its rich universal language. It was not
without reason that the Apostle speaks of Christ's Body, the Church116.
If this Mystical Body of Christ is God's People -as the Second Vatican Council
was to say later on the basis of the whole of the Biblical and patristic
tradition-this means that in it each man receives within himself that breath of
life that comes from Christ. In this way, turning to man and his real problems,
his hopes and sufferings, his achievements and falls-this too also makes the
Church as a body, an organism, a social unit perceive the same divine
influences, the light and strength of the Spirit that come from the crucified
and risen Christ, and it is for this very reason that she lives her life. The
Church has only one life: that which is given her by her Spouse and Lord.
Indeed, precisely because Christ united himself with her in his mystery of
Redemption, the Church must be strongly united with each man.
This union of Christ with man is in itself a mystery. From the mystery is
born "the new man", called to become a partaker of God's
life117, and newly created in Christ for the fullness of grace and
truth118. Christ's union with man is power and the source of power, as
Saint John stated so incisively in the prologue of his Gospel: "(The Word)
gave power to become children of God"119. Man is transformed
inwardly by this power as the source of a new life that does not disappear and
pass away but lasts to eternal life120. This life, which the Father has
promised and offered to each man in Jesus Christ, his eternal and only Son,
who, "when the time had fully come"121, became incarnate and
was born of the Virgin Mary, is the final fulfilment of man's vocation. It is
in a way the fulfilment of the "destiny" that God has prepared for
him from eternity. This "divine destiny" is advancing, in spite of
all the enigmas, the unsolved riddles, the twists and turns of "human
destiny" in the world of time. Indeed, while all this, in spite of all the
riches of life in time, necessarily and inevitably leads to the frontier of
death and the goal of the destruction of the human body, beyond that goal we
see Christ. "I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me...
shall never die"122. In Jesus Christ, who was crucified and laid
in the tomb and then rose again, "our hope of resurrection dawned... the
bright promise of immortality"123, on the way to which man,
through the death of the body, shares with the whole of visible creation the
necessity to which matter is subject. We intend and are trying to fathom ever
more deeply the language of the truth that man's Redeemer enshrined in the
phrase "It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no
avail"124. In spite of appearances, these words express the
highest affirmation of man-the affirmation of the body given life by the
Spirit.
The Church lives these realities, she lives by this truth about man, which
enables him to go beyond the bounds of temporariness and at the same time to
think with particular love and solicitude of everything within the dimensions
of this temporariness that affect man's life and the life of the human spirit,
in which is expressed that never-ending restlessness referred to in the words
of Saint Augustine: "You made us for yourself, Lord, and our heart is
restless until it rests in you"125. In this creative restlessness
beats and pulsates what is most deeply human-the search for truth, the
insatiable need for the good, hunger for freedom, nostalgia for the beautiful,
and the voice of conscience. Seeking to see man as it were with "the eyes
of Christ himself", the Church becomes more and more aware that she is the
guardian of a great treasure, which she may not waste but must continually
increase. Indeed, the Lord Jesus said: "He who does not gather with me
scatters"126. This treasure of humanity enriched by the
inexpressible mystery of divine filiation127 and by the grace of
"adoption as sons"128 in the Only Son of God, through whom we
call God "Abba, Father"129, is also a powerful force unifying
the Church above all inwardly and giving meaning to all her activity. Through
this force the Church is united with the Spirit of Christ, that Holy Spirit
promised and continually communicated by the Redeemer and whose descent, which
was revealed on the day of Pentecost, endures for ever. Thus the powers of the
Spirit130, the gifts of the Spirit131, and the fruits of the
Holy Spirit 132 are revealed in men. The present-day Church seems to
repeat with ever greater fervour and with holy insistence: "Come, Holy
Spirit!". Come! Come! "Heal our wounds, our strength renew; On our
dryness pour your dew; Wash the stains of guilt away; Bend the stubborn heart
and will; Melt the frozen, warm the chill; Guide the steps that go
astray"133.
This appeal to the Spirit, intended precisely to obtain the Spirit, is the
answer to all the "materialisms" of our age. It is these materialisms
that give birth to so many forms of insatiability in the human heart. This
appeal is making itself heard on various sides and seems to be bearing fruit
also in different ways. Can it be said that the Church is not alone in making
this appeal? Yes it can, because the "need" for what is spiritual is
expressed also by people who are outside the visible confines of the
Church134. Is not this confirmed by the truth concerning the Church
that the recent Council so acutely emphasized at the point in the Dogmatic
Constitution Lumen Gentium where it teaches that the Church is a
"sacrament or sign and means of intimate union with God, and of the unity
of all mankind?"135. This invocation addressed to the Spirit to
obtain the Spirit is really a constant selfinsertion into the full magnitude of
the mystery of the Redemption, in which Christ, united with the Father and with
each man, continually communicates to us the Spirit who places within us the
sentiments of the Son and directs us towards the Father136. This is why
the Church of our time-a time particularly hungry for the Spirit, because it is
hungry for justice, peace, love, goodness, fortitude, responsibility, and human
dignity-must concentrate and gather around that Mystery, finding in it the
light and the strength that are indispensable for her mission. For if, as was
already said, man is the way for the Church's daily life, the Church must be
always aware of the dignity of the divine adoption re ceived by man in Christ
through the grace of the Holy Spirit137 and of his destination to grace
and glory138. By reflecting ever anew on all this, and by accepting it
with a faith that is more and more aware and a love that is more and more firm,
the Church also makes herself better fitted for the service to man to which
Christ the Lord calls her when he says: "The Son of man came not to be
served but to serve"139. The Church performs this ministry by
sharing in the "triple office" belonging to her Master and Redeemer.
This teaching, with its Biblical foundation, was brought fully to the fore by
the Second Vatican Council, to the great advantage of the Church's life. For
when we become aware that we share in Christ's triple mission, his triple
office as priest, as prophet and as king140, we also become more aware
of what must receive service from the whole of the Church as the society and
community of the People of God on earth, and we likewise understand how each
one of us must share in this mission and service.
"It makes little difference whether a bird is tied by a thick thread or by a stout cord." St. John of the Cross
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