"...every life is a vocation"

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today, June 13, is significant in this 100th Anniversary Year of Mary’s Apparitions at Fatima. Today was the date of the second apparition. Listening to the words of Pope Benedict’s encyclical “Caritas in veritate”, I’m aware of Mary as Mother and Model of the Church. She who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, gave birth to Jesus in the flesh intercedes for us now that we too may bring Jesus spiritually into the world.

One line of today’s excerpt stood out for me: “in the design of God, every man is called upon to develop and fulfil himself, for every life is a vocation.” These are words quoted by Pope Benedict from Pope Paul VI.

1. Two further documents by Paul VI without any direct link to social doctrine — the Encyclical Humanae Vitae (25 July 1968) and the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (8 December 1975) — are highly important for delineating the fully human meaning of the development that the Church proposes. It is therefore helpful to consider these texts too in relation to Populorum Progressio.

The Encyclical Humanae Vitae emphasizes both the unitive and the procreative meaning of sexuality, thereby locating at the foundation of society the married couple, man and woman, who accept one another mutually, in distinction and in complementarity: a couple, therefore, that is open to life. This is not a question of purely individual morality: Humanae Vitae indicates the strong links between life ethics and social ethics, ushering in a new area of magisterial teaching that has gradually been articulated in a series of documents, most recently John Paul II’s Encyclical Evangelium Vitae. The Church forcefully maintains this link between life ethics and social ethics, fully aware that “a society lacks solid foundations when, on the one hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then, on the other hand, radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized.”

The Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, for its part, is very closely linked with development, given that, in Paul VI’s words, “evangelization would not be complete if it did not take account of the unceasing interplay of the Gospel and of man’s concrete life, both personal and social." “Between evangelization and human advancement — development and liberation — there are in fact profound links”: on the basis of this insight, Paul VI clearly presented the relationship between the proclamation of Christ and the advancement of the individual in society. Testimony to Christ’s charity, through works of justice, peace and development, is part and parcel of evangelization, because Jesus Christ, who loves us, is concerned with the whole person. These important teachings form the basis for the missionary aspect of the Church’s social doctrine, which is an essential element of evangelization. The Church’s social doctrine proclaims and bears witness to faith. It is an instrument and an indispensable setting for formation in faith.

1. In Populorum Progressio, Paul VI taught that progress, in its origin and essence, is first and foremost a vocation: “in the design of God, every man is called upon to develop and fulfil himself, for every life is a vocation.” This is what gives legitimacy to the Church’s involvement in the whole question of development. If development were concerned with merely technical aspects of human life, and not with the meaning of man’s pilgrimage through history in company with his fellow human beings, nor with identifying the goal of that journey, then the Church would not be entitled to speak on it. Paul VI, like Leo XIII before him in Rerum Novarum, knew that he was carrying out a duty proper to his office by shedding the light of the Gospel on the social questions of his time.

To regard development as a vocation is to recognize, on the one hand, that it derives from a transcendent call, and on the other hand that it is incapable, on its own, of supplying its ultimate meaning. Not without reason the word “vocation” is also found in another passage of the Encyclical, where we read: “There is no true humanism but that which is open to the Absolute, and is conscious of a vocation which gives human life its true meaning.” This vision of development is at the heart of Populorum Progressio, and it lies behind all Paul VI’s reflections on freedom, on truth and on charity in development. It is also the principal reason why that Encyclical is still timely in our day.

The encyclical “Caritas in veritate” (Charity in truth) by Benedict XVI (June 29, 2009) is well worth reading, as sons and daughters of the Church. God has given each of us a share in His Life through Jesus, the Word Made Flesh in the womb of Mary. Jesus and the Father sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost so that the Church would receive power to continue the Mission of Jesus to save us. Today’s Gospel (MT 5:13-16) reminds us of our vocation to be His Light – even as Mary was in this world. In describing her experience in the apparition of June 13, 1917, Lucia said of Mary : “She transmitted to us, for the second time, the reflection of that intense light. In it we felt we were submerged in God.”