I wished to express to our time and to our existence something of what Dante audaciously recapitulated in his vision. It is precisely this: that faith might become a vision-comprehension that transforms us. I wished to underline the centrality of faith in God, in that God who has assumed a human face and a human heart. Faith is not a theory that one can take up or lay aside. It is something very concrete: It is the criterion that decides our lifestyle.
In an age in which hostility and greed have become superpowers, an age in which we witness the abuse of religion to the point of culminating in hatred, neutral rationality on its own is unable to protect us. We are in need of the living God who has loved us unto death. And in it, eros is transformed into agape, love for the other that no longer seeks itself but that becomes concern for the other, willingness to sacrifice oneself for him and openness to the gift of a new human life.
The Christian agape, love for one's neighbor in the following of Christ, is not something foreign, put to one side or something that even goes against the eros; on the contrary, with the sacrifice Christ made of himself for man he offered a new dimension, which has developed ever more in the history of the charitable dedication of Christians to the poor and the suffering. A first reading of the encyclical might perhaps give the impression that it is divided in two parts, that it is not greatly related within itself: a first, theoretical part that talks about the essence of love, and a second part that addresses ecclesial charity, with charitable organizations.
However, what interested me was precisely the unity of the two topics, which can only be properly understood if they are seen as only one thing. Above all, it was necessary to show that man is created to love and that this love, which in the first instance is manifested above all as eros between man and woman, must be transformed interiorly later into agape, in gift of self to the other to respond precisely to the authentic nature of the eros.
With this foundation, it had then to be clarified that the essence of the love of God and of one's neighbor described in the Bible is the center of Christian life, it is the fruit of faith. Then, it was necessary to underline in a second part that the totally personal act of the agape cannot remain as something merely individual, but, on the contrary, it must also become an essential act of the Church as community: that is, an institutional form is also needed that expresses itself in the communal action of the Church.
The ecclesial organization of charity is not a form of social assistance that is superimposed by accident on the reality of the Church, an initiative that others could also take.
Show us Jesus. Lead us to him. Teach us to know and love him, so that we too can become capable of true love and be fountains of living water in the midst of a thirsting world. Peters, S. Most recently updated in All About Mary includes a variety of content, much of which reflects the expertise, interpretations and opinions of the individual authors and not necessarily of the Marian Library or the University of Dayton.
Please share feedback or suggestions with marianlibrary udayton. Athletics Overview Dayton Flyers. Alphabetical List of Articles. All About Mary. To her we entrust the Church and her mission in the service of love: Holy Mary, Mother of God, you have given the world its true light, Jesus, your Son — the Son of God.
The Church's deepest nature is thus expressed in her three-fold duty: to proclaim the Word of God kerygma-martyria , celebrate the sacraments leiturgia , and exercise, the ministry of charity diakonia. These duties presuppose one another and are inseparable.
Since the 19th century, a fundamental objection has been raised to the Church's charitable activity. People claim that it is contrary to justice and will end by becoming a means of preserving the status quo. Through individual works of charity, the Church would foster the continuance of the present unjust system, making it appear at least to some extent tolerable and thereby slowing down the result and potential evolution of a better world.
In this regard, Marxism saw world revolution and its preliminaries as the panacea for the social problem, a dream that has faded in the meantime. The Papal Magisterium, starting with the Encyclical Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII to the trilogy of John Paul II's social Encyclicals Laborem Exercens [], Sollicitudo Rei Socialis [] and Centesimus Annus [] , persistently tackled the social question and, in confrontation with the ever new problematic situations, developed a very comprehensive social doctrine which proposes effective guidelines extending far beyond the Church's frontiers.
The just ordering of society and of the State, however, is a core duty of politics and therefore cannot be an immediate responsibility of the Church. Catholic social doctrine does not seek to confer upon the Church power over the State, but simply desires to purify and illuminate reason, making its own contribution to the formation of consciences, so that the true requirements of justice may be perceived, recognized and subsequently practiced.
Yet there is no ordering of the State, however just, that can make a service of love superfluous. The State which aims to provide everything would ultimately become a bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person — every person — needs: loving personal concern. In our time, a positive collateral effect of globalization can be seen in the fact that concern for neighbour transcends the confines of national communities and tends to broaden its horizons to the whole world.
State agencies and humanitarian associations support in various ways the solidarity shown by civil society: this has led to the foundation of many organizations with charitable or philanthropic aims. In the Catholic Church as well as other ecclesial communities, new forms of charitable activity have arisen. Among all these bodies, the hope is for fruitful collaboration. It is, of course, important that the Church's charitable activity does not lose its own identity and become just another form of social assistance, but that it maintain all the splendour of the essence of Christian and ecclesial charity.
The Christian's programme — the programme of the Good Samaritan, the programme of Jesus — is "a heart which sees". This heart sees where love is needed and acts accordingly. Love is free; it is not practised as a way of achieving other ends. But this does not mean that charitable activity must, so to speak, leave God and Christ aside.
A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing about him and to let love alone speak. St Paul's hymn to charity cf. I Cor 13 must be the Magna Carta of all ecclesial service to protect it from the risk of being reduced to pure activism.
In this context and in the face of the impending secularism that can also condition many Christians who are involved in charitable work, it is necessary to reaffirm the importance of prayer.
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