"Charity in Truth" - Pentecost Sunday!

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Blessed Feast of Pentecost today! What a glorious day this is to open ourselves more fully to the Holy Spirit. By God’s Grace may we continue to learn all the Truth, the Father and Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to bring us. I’ve begun to read Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, “Charity in Truth” (“Caritas in veritate” - June 29, 2009). I’m still on the Introduction but I want to share this excerpt I read this morning. Perhaps you would like to read this encyclical and continue this thread as you ponder Pope Benedict’s (now Pope Emeritus’) words:

1. Charity is love received and given. It is “grace” (cháris). Its source is the wellspring of the Father’s love for the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Love comes down to us from the Son. It is creative love, through which we have our being; it is redemptive love, through which we are recreated. Love is revealed and made present by Christ (cf. Jn 13:1) and “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5). As the objects of God’s love, men and women become subjects of charity, they are called to make themselves instruments of grace, so as to pour forth God’s charity and to weave networks of charity.

This dynamic of charity received and given is what gives rise to the Church’s social teaching, which is caritas in veritate in re sociali: the proclamation of the truth of Christ’s love in society. This doctrine is a service to charity, but its locus is truth. Truth preserves and expresses charity’s power to liberate in the ever-changing events of history. It is at the same time the truth of faith and of reason, both in the distinction and also in the convergence of those two cognitive fields. Development, social well-being, the search for a satisfactory solution to the grave socio-economic problems besetting humanity, all need this truth. What they need even more is that this truth should be loved and demonstrated. Without truth, without trust and love for what is true, there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation, especially in a globalized society at difficult times like the present

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Please, let us pray today for one another, and for the One, Holy, Catholic and Universal Church, in which we were baptized and we all are called to holiness. Let us pray with Mary our Mother and Model for an increase in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we were given in Baptism, and the grace to put all those gifts into fruitful actions done with Love and Truth. I hope those who read this thread will share what God has given each one for the upbuilding of His Body. Thanks.

 

[patricius79]

Dear Sister, Marcellino D’Ambrosio says that Baptism and Confirmation give us the love and gifts of the Holy Spirit. But it’s like with credit cards: one has to call in to activate them. May we all do this today through the intercession of St. Joseph and Our Lady, Mediatrix of all Graces, and Spouse of the Holy Spirit.

 

[Crusaderbear]

Sincerest Prayers:

For one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church…

Our Father who art in heaven…
Hail Mary, full of grace… Hail Mary, full of grace… Hail Mary, full of grace…
Glory Be to the Father…
Amen…

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear Sister, Marcellino D’Ambrosio says that Baptism and Confirmation give us the love and gifts of the Holy Spirit. But it’s like with credit cards: one has to call in to activate them. May we all do this today through the intercession of St. Joseph and Our Lady, Mediatrix of all Graces, and Spouse of the Holy Spirit.

Thanks for your reply, brother Pat,

This Pentecost Sunday was one in which I was more “distracted” than usual, and I think it may be the Lord’s way of revealing how very much I need the Holy Spirit!

Calling on the Holy Spirit is important, as is “listening” for His answers in the silence of my heart after I listen to what Jesus says and does in the Gospel Reading. As Pope Benedict reminds us in His encyclical:

1. Charity is love received and given. It is “grace” (cháris). Its source is the wellspring of the Father’s love for the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Love comes down to us from the Son. It is creative love, through which we have our being; it is redemptive love, through which we are recreated. Love is revealed and made present by Christ (cf. Jn 13:1) and “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5)…

The Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation are never intended to be “past history” but ongoing cooperation with grace to grow perfect in Charity. Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful with your Love as you filled Mary our Mother and Model. Make us fruitful for your honor and glory and the good of all our brothers and sisters.

 

[MariaChristi]

Sincerest Prayers:

For one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church…

Our Father who art in heaven…
Hail Mary, full of grace… Hail Mary, full of grace… Hail Mary, full of grace…
Glory Be to the Father…
Amen…

Dear Crusaderbear,

Thanks so much for your response and for your prayers for the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. It suddenly occurred to me at Mass that I had written in my original post a request to pray for the One, Holy, Catholic, and I typed “Universal” (which is the same as Catholic) instead of typing “Apostolic” as the fourth mark of the True Church. Thanks for reminding me that I needed to make that correction.

Many years go I was in a class in which the priest who was teaching shared his experience of being present at one of Bl. Pope Paul VI’s last audiences. He said that the Pope looked frail and he told those present to “Love the Church” and, the priest said the Pope repeated the words with such earnestness and deep emotion “Love the Church”. I’ve never forgotten that.

As I continue to read Pope Benedict’s encyclical I hear him say, “Love the Truth” and realize they are basically saying the same thing – for Jesus is the Head of His Body the Church and He is Truth. In the next section of “Charity in Truth” following the one I posted today, Pope Benedict goes on to quote from Pope Paul VI:

1. “Caritas in veritate” is the principle around which the Church’s social doctrine turns, a principle that takes on practical form in the criteria that govern moral action. I would like to consider two of these in particular, of special relevance to the commitment to development in an increasingly globalized society: justice and the common good.

First of all, justice. Ubi societas, ibi ius: every society draws up its own system of justice. Charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what is “mine” to the other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting. I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice. If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them. Not only is justice not extraneous to charity, not only is it not an alternative or parallel path to charity: justice is inseparable from charity, and intrinsic to it. Justice is the primary way of charity or, in Paul VI’s words, “the minimum measure” of it, an integral part of the love “in deed and in truth” (1 Jn 3:18), to which Saint John exhorts us. On the one hand, charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples. It strives to build the earthly city according to law and justice. On the other hand, charity transcends justice and completes it in the logic of giving and forgiving. The earthly city is promoted not merely by relationships of rights and duties, but to an even greater and more fundamental extent by relationships of gratuitousness, mercy and communion. Charity always manifests God’s love in human relationships as well, it gives theological and salvific value to all commitment for justice in the world.

How we need the Wisdom the Holy Spirit gives to the Church for the world!

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I’d like to continue this thread – beyond just Pentecost Sunday – on the Encyclical, “Charity in Truth” (Caritas in veritate) by Pope Benedict XVI by quoting another paragraph. It is always a blessing for me to read the writing of Pope Benedict XVI. Here is another excerpt in which he gives us so much to ponder:

1. Another important consideration is the common good. To love someone is to desire that person’s good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good. It is the good of “all of us”, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society. It is a good that is sought not for its own sake, but for the people who belong to the social community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it. To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity. To take a stand for the common good is on the one hand to be solicitous for, and on the other hand to avail oneself of, that complex of institutions that give structure to the life of society, juridically, civilly, politically and culturally, making it the pólis, or “city”. The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, the more effectively we love them. Every Christian is called to practise this charity, in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields in the pólis. This is the institutional path — we might also call it the political path — of charity, no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbour directly, outside the institutional mediation of the pólis. When animated by charity, commitment to the common good has greater worth than a merely secular and political stand would have. Like all commitment to justice, it has a place within the testimony of divine charity that paves the way for eternity through temporal action. Man’s earthly activity, when inspired and sustained by charity, contributes to the building of the universal city of God, which is the goal of the history of the human family. In an increasingly globalized society, the common good and the effort to obtain it cannot fail to assume the dimensions of the whole human family, that is to say, the community of peoples and nations, in such a way as to shape the earthly city in unity and peace, rendering it to some degree an anticipation and a prefiguration of the undivided city of God.

Forgive me for underlining so many sentences. Hope it’s not too distracting, but Pope Benedict (Pope Emeritus) is saying so many good things for us to hear! Come Holy Spirit and fill us with the fire of Your Love. Enable us to bring the Light of Christ into our world. Mary, our Mother and our Model pray for us. Jesus we trust in You!