Learning from Pope Benedict XVI's Encyclical

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

When I read anything Pope Benedict XVI has written I’m blessed by the wisdom God has given him for the Church. Recently I posted a few threads on his Encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate”. It was his final encyclical, written in 2009. Although that was 8 years ago, I’m amazed at the “timelessness” of it. In my last thread I posted an excerpt on “respect for life”. Today’s excerpt follows:

1. There is another aspect of modern life that is very closely connected to development: the denial of the right to religious freedom. I am not referring simply to the struggles and conflicts that continue to be fought in the world for religious motives, even if at times the religious motive is merely a cover for other reasons, such as the desire for domination and wealth. Today, in fact, people frequently kill in the holy name of God, as both my predecessor John Paul II and I myself have often publicly acknowledged and lamented. Violence puts the brakes on authentic development and impedes the evolution of peoples towards greater socio-economic and spiritual well-being. This applies especially to terrorism motivated by fundamentalism, which generates grief, destruction and death, obstructs dialogue between nations and diverts extensive resources from their peaceful and civil uses.

Yet it should be added that, as well as religious fanaticism that in some contexts impedes the exercise of the right to religious freedom, so too the deliberate promotion of religious indifference or practical atheism on the part of many countries obstructs the requirements for the development of peoples, depriving them of spiritual and human resources. God is the guarantor of man’s true development, inasmuch as, having created him in his image, he also establishes the transcendent dignity of men and women and feeds their innate yearning to “be more”. Man is not a lost atom in a random universe: he is God’s creature, whom God chose to endow with an immortal soul and whom he has always loved. If man were merely the fruit of either chance or necessity, or if he had to lower his aspirations to the limited horizon of the world in which he lives, if all reality were merely history and culture, and man did not possess a nature destined to transcend itself in a supernatural life, then one could speak of growth, or evolution, but not development. When the State promotes, teaches, or actually imposes forms of practical atheism, it deprives its citizens of the moral and spiritual strength that is indispensable for attaining integral human development and it impedes them from moving forward with renewed dynamism as they strive to offer a more generous human response to divine love. In the context of cultural, commercial or political relations, it also sometimes happens that economically developed or emerging countries export this reductive vision of the person and his destiny to poor countries. This is the damage that “superdevelopment” causes to authentic development when it is accompanied by “moral underdevelopment”.

I need to copy into my Bible or some place where I can re-read and ponder these words: “…strive to offer a more generous human response to divine love…”. How many of us are giving perhaps a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny”? Are we personally part of the damage being done to the poor ? Are we offering a “superdevelopment” accompanied by “moral underdevelopment”? Christ’s words echo in this encyclical to me – we can only serve one Master. Am I building the “City of God” or the “city of man”? (as St. Augustine wrote) Do I know, love and serve God first and all others because of my love for Him??? Come Holy Spirit! Jesus I trust in You! Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.

 

[HCTC]

Thank you once again, MarieChristi. I would like to share with you this story that I read this morning:
washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/07/11/a-riptide-swept-away-a-florida-family-then-beachgoers-formed-a-human-chain/?tid=pm_pop&utm_term=.a8f670a40f9a

Although it is an account of the goodness of a group of people who let go of whatever was happening in their lives at the moment to save the lives of a group of drowning people, I cried as I read it. When I asked myself, “Why are you crying?”; the answer that came to me is that I had begun to believe that people in general, and Americans specifically, had lost the will to work together to save the lives of those in desperate need.

I do find renewed hope in the story of a “human chain” on the beach in Florida and in the reminder from Pope Benedict that, “Man is not a lost atom in a random universe: he is God’s creature, whom God chose to endow with an immortal soul and whom he has always loved.” I have to believe that whatever political headwinds beat down our natural desire to help one another, we are all God’s children; and ultimately we retain the ability to join hands, to form a “human chain” and to reach out in order to save each other.

 

[MariaChristi]

Thank you once again, MarieChristi. I would like to share with you this story that I read this morning:
washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/07/11/a-riptide-swept-away-a-florida-family-then-beachgoers-formed-a-human-chain/?tid=pm_pop&utm_term=.a8f670a40f9a

Although it is an account of the goodness of a group of people who let go of whatever was happening in their lives at the moment to save the lives of a group of drowning people, I cried as I read it. When I asked myself, “Why are you crying?”; the answer that came to me is that I had begun to believe that people in general, and Americans specifically, had lost the will to work together to save the lives of those in desperate need.

I do find renewed hope in the story of a “human chain” on the beach in Florida and in the reminder from Pope Benedict that, “Man is not a lost atom in a random universe: he is God’s creature, whom God chose to endow with an immortal soul and whom he has always loved.” I have to believe that whatever political headwinds beat down our natural desire to help one another, we are all God’s children; and ultimately we retain the ability to join hands, to form a “human chain” and to reach out in order to save each other.

Yes, dear HCTC,

When we open our hearts to love, God builds grace upon grace! Faith in God’s power can spur us on to whatever His Love calls us to do. Our Blessed Mother gave the servants at Cana, the same words she repeats to us: “Do whatever He tells you.”

It was a beautiful story, and I smiled to read the truth uttered by Roberta Ursrey whose 2 sons and her own mother were rescued along with herself: “It was beachgoers and the grace of God’s will,” Ursrey said. “That’s why we’re here today.”

Yes, we can be tempted to discouragement when we see the selfishness of some persons, but The Washington Post did well to publish this story to rekindle in us the image of God in which we were created. His love endures! Thanks for seeing an echo of Pope Benedict XVI’s words in this story: “Man is not a lost atom in a random universe: he is God’s creature, whom God chose to endow with an immortal soul and whom He has always loved.”