The Pope's First Encyclical - New Thread

[Fidelis]

OK, since the previous thread on this topic has degenerated into hair-splitting about what is, and is not, an infallible document, perhaps this one will stay on track. Here is the document:

Deus Caritas Est
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html

Have you read it? What are your thoughts about the Pope’s thoughts?

 

[paramedicgirl]

Thanks for the link. Father John Corapi says that the Pope’s encyclicals are Gods love letters to us. As soon as I get a chance I’m going to read it through.

 

[Fergal]

Personally I am amazed at the lack of enthusiasm for the encyclical from this community. I thought there would be a flood of posts. I know it takes time to read but hey something must have struck some one by now?

I have read the first section and searched in vain for a decent thread on the document.

Come on folks lets get serious on it.

Question 1: Am I right to think that Pope Benedict has implied through the first section of the encyclical that Eros love could be embryonic Agape love?

 

[sweetchuck]

Fergal:

Personally I am amazed at the lack of enthusiasm for the encyclical from this community. I thought there would be a flood of posts. I know it takes time to read but hey something must have struck some one by now?

I have read the first section and searched in vain for a decent thread on the document.

Come on folks lets get serious on it.

Question 1: Am I right to think that Pope Benedict has implied through the first section of the encyclical that Eros love could be embryonic Agape love?

Catholics are peculiar people. They have access to the entirety of the Deposit of the Faith in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition and a vast number of them choose to read neither.

I have read the encyclical. It is AWESOME!!! I would say that it is easy to read and brilliantly crafted to serve to unite the faithful (should they choose to read it, of course). I imagine the fact that liberals love it too might be discouraging some people from reading it. It’s has a very Marian conclusion as well. I was pleasantly surprised that there were so many wonderful words for our mother, a perfect model for humanly love.

I thought it was interesting that he said that the faithful have eros for God…

Paragraph 7: in Jacob’s ladder, “…the Fathers of the Church saw this inseparable connection between ascending and descending love, between eros which seeks God and agape which passes on the gift received, symbolized in various ways.”

Paragraph 10: “God is the absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this universal principle of creation—the Logos, primordial reason—is at the same time a lover with all the passion of a true love. Eros is thus supremely ennobled, yet at the same time it is so purified as to become one with agape.”

 

[Scott1]

While reading through it… my mind wandered (as it often does) from contemplation of one line in the text, to …heaven.

Yes, heaven.

My daydream was Servant of God John Paul II sitting with Mary watching Benedict write this letter to the flock.

Mary leans over to JPII, and with a smile says, *“See, I told you not to let him retire!”. *

From all the ramblings and lack of charity towards the Holy Father when he became Pope… *“God’s Rotweiller”- “He’s gonna lay the smackdown on heresy!!” * etc etc blah blah…

… and his first Encyclical Letter is about LOVE!

 

[Grace_and_Glory]

I really don’t know what my comments could add to this encyclical, but here are some of my favorite quotes after having worked my way through half of it:

Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.

Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive.* Eros*, reduced to pure “sex”, has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man’s great “yes” to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will. Nor does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as a mere object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless. Here we are actually dealing with a debasement of the human body: no longer is it integrated into our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a vital expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the purely biological sphere.

Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God

The love-story between God and man consists in the very fact that this communion of will increases in a communion of thought and sentiment, and thus our will and God’s will increasingly coincide: God’s will is no longer for me an alien will, something imposed on me from without by the commandments, but it is now my own will, based on the realization that God is in fact more deeply present to me than I am to myself.

 

[Tonks40]

I’ve just started reading it…I’ll be back!

 

[Fidelis]

As someone who loves Scripture, doctrine and apologetics and sometimes forgets the other parts of being a Christian, this passage struck a nerve for me :

If I have no contact whatsoever with God in my life, then I cannot see in the other anything more than the other, and I am incapable of seeing in him the image of God. But if in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be “devout” and to perform my “religious duties”, then my relationship with God will also grow arid. It becomes merely “proper”, but loveless. Only my readiness to encounter my neighbour and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbour can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me.

Ouch!

 

[papa_k]

Fergal:

Personally I am amazed at the lack of enthusiasm for the encyclical from this community. I thought there would be a flood of posts. I know it takes time to read but hey something must have struck some one by now?

I have read the first section and searched in vain for a decent thread on the document.

Come on folks lets get serious on it.

Question 1: Am I right to think that Pope Benedict has implied through the first section of the encyclical that Eros love could be embryonic Agape love?

Fergal has touched on something. It’s hard to explain, but I myself am not that inspired by this encyclical so far. It may be that more digestion is needed or something.

There’s nothing I dislike about the encyclical, but it just feels sort of hollow, and I am not sure why I feel like that. Maybe because it seems so uncontroversial, so generally appealing, that you don’t know why it would need to be written. Maybe it’s because homilies about Love are already so well known. Maybe it’s because the conservative catholics that have been waiting for a champion for so long don’t feel like there’s any thunder, and the concern that the man who made his reputation as a doctrinal Rottweiler is running the risk of marginalizing his papacy.

I am not sure at this point what will be his hallmark, and I have not ruled out that this is his way of warming us up with a “nice” encyclical before getting very serious. This first effort, of dicing up the different kinds of Love, just doesn’t seem like anything that will strike a chord in history, and I feel deflated, and I am just being honest. I admire those who have posted that mined this for so m uch inspiration. They are very spiritually gifted. Of course I do not argue the work is well-written, doctrinally sound.

 

[dulcissima]

Fidelis:

As someone who loves Scripture, doctrine and apologetics and sometimes forgets the other parts of being a Christian, this passage struck a nerve for me : Ouch!

That was one passage that really stood out to me too, Fidelis.

I think it is important to consider that being devout and performing your religious duties are really empty acts if they do not stem first from love of God and love of neighbor. This is why Jesus taught us that these are the two greatest commandments, superceding the Law and Prophets.

In another way, I think we are almost being challenged to take a risk, and reach out to our neighbors to show God’s love, even to those who are tainted by sin, and to not worry so much about losing or tainting our “devoutness” by being in close proximity to sin.

 

[chrisb]

Grace and Peace be with you all,

I have only read pieces but I gather from what I’ve read so far that our Holy Father is challenging the Church to express ‘more’ love in our work. Far to many of us posture in our piety and knowledge and fail to allow such ‘graces’ to manifest in our lives as ‘true’ servants of God and the Church.

More comments later!

Peace and God Bless.

 

[dwc]

Far to many of us posture in our piety and knowledge and fail to allow such ‘graces’ to manifest in our lives as ‘true’ servants of God and the Church.

I agree that this was a significant part of the Pope’s message. It might be why the encyclical doesn’t seem as well received as might be expected. As someone else noted, many anticipated a “smack down” of those deemed less “Catholic” than themselves once Pope Benedict became pope; instead, his message is more about us looking at the planks in our eye, so to speak. I also really liked the part about how the church is not to usurp government or try to impose her will on the secular stage, but instead help shape that stage through dialogue and individual conversion. At least that’s how I remember the message of that section (it’s been a couple of days since I read it).

 

[Crumpy]

In the first part of the encyclical, the Pope refers to the “gratuitious love” of God. Love is a word, that, as the Pope says, encompasses so much that it has to be teased apart.

In various threads I keep citing a wonderful book, whose entirety is about the subject of God’s gratuitous-ness. That is, Path to Freedom by Fr. Jean Corbon. Benedict has captured that soaring concept in just a few lines, but he moved on to other aspects.

To oversimplify it immensely, Corbon shows how God has made the world and all of us in it as a big spiritual apple. Although there is so much negativity in the world to distract us and think it is not so, God has given us so much and He has invited us to become like Him by growing in that God-like quality.

In this effort, Corbon has spent all the more time in Biblical exegesis of that theme. I cannot highly enough recommend that book as an adjunct to this encyclical, and in general.

Scott Hahn of St. Paul Center is sponsoring this book as one of a series of life-changing books.

 

[seabird3579]

Pope Benedict is so brilliant it will take decades to unravel all that he has written in this one encyclical, there is so much “food” for thought and formation.

He notes that the early christian community held everything in common, so that each was given according to his needs. He explains that as the Church grew and expanded, it became less plausible that it could continue on as it began, but nevertheless, the christian community must continue to maintain the concept of helping the “household of faith” with material as well as spiritual needs. This requirement, he goes on, is just as important as preaching the Gospel and participating in the Sacraments.

I like the fact that he confronts the shortcomings and falacies of Marxism head on. He explains why man is incapable of accomplishing a just society without a relationship to God. Yet, he very beautifully explains how the State has its role (politically) and the Church has it role (spiritually). It is not the Church’s role to overpower the State, nor the State’s role to obstruct the practice of religion. (my paraphrasing) The State must maintain peace and harmony among the various religions and cultures and the Church is responsible for the formation of Catholic consciences. With a properly formed conscience one can be a very effective political leader and help enact just laws that promote the common good of all.

Benedict is truly a blessed Pope, we are fortunate to have him at this time in history. I look forward to absorbing more of his God-given wisdom.

 

[seabird3579]

I thought I would bring this Post up again to the “new posts” so that others can access the Pope’s new encyclical.

Thanks, Fidelis!