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During Morning Homily, Pope Distinguishes Between ‘True’ and ‘False’ Fasting by Deborah Castellano Lubov
As we embark upon the Lenten season, Pope Francis says being a good person and helping your neighbor is ‘true fasting’
According to Vatican Radio, the Pope stressed this to faithful during his daily morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta, drawing from today’s readings which speak about fasting, “about the penance that we are called to do in this time of Lent,” in order to draw closer to the Lord.
Francis pointed out that as is said in the Psalm, God delights in the “contrite heart … the heart of one who feels himself a sinner, who knows he is a sinner.”
False Fasting
While the Lord calls us to a true fast, where we are attentive to our neighbor, Francis called out those who ‘false fast,’ i.e mix religiosity with un-Christian behaviors.
“There is a fasting that is ‘hypocritical,’” Francis said, recalling, “it’s the word that Jesus uses so often – a fast that makes you see yourself as just, or makes you feel just, but in the meantime I have practiced iniquities, I am not just, I exploit the people.”
“‘But,’ [someone might say,] ‘I am generous, I give a good offering to the Church.’
“‘But tell me,’ [one might answer,] ‘do you pay a just wage to your help? Do you pay your employees under the table? Or, as the law demands, [enough] so that they are able to feed their children?’”
Hypocrisy
Francis recalled something that happened to Jesuit Father Pedro Arrupe, when he was a missionary in Japan right after the second World War. For his evangelical activities, a wealthy businessman gave him a donation, but brought with him a photographer and a journalist. The envelope contained just ten dollars.
“This is the same as what we do when we do not pay a just wage to our people. We take from our penances, from our acts of prayer, of fasting, of almsgiving… we take a bribe: the bribe of vanity, the bribe of being seen.
This, the Jesuit Pope lamented, is not authentic, but is hypocrisy.
“So when Jesus says, ‘When you pray, do it in secret; when you give alms, don’t sound a trumpet; when you fast do not be sad,” it is the same as if He had said: ‘Please, when you do a good work, don’t take the bribe of this good work, it is only for the Father.’”
Francis quoted the passage from Isaiah where the Lord tells the hypocrites about true fasting, saying that today, it seems these words are being spoken to us:
“‘This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.’
Pope Francis concluded, urging: “Let us think on these words, let us think in our own hearts, how do we fast, pray, give alms?
“And it would help us,” he said, to think about how we would feel about a man who, after a meal that cost 200 euros, for example, returns home and sees someone hungry, and doesn’t look at him and keeps walking. It would do us good to think about that.”
Video for Pope’s March Prayer Intentions Focuses on Persecuted Christians by Deborah Castellano Lubov
In the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis began releasing video messages to illustrate his monthly prayer intention.
Today, the March video was released by the Apostleship of Prayer and is available here. It focuses on his prayer for persecuted Christians.
The Holy Father’s prayer intention for March is: “That persecuted Christians may be supported by the prayers and material help of the whole Church.”
Videos for January 2016-February 2017 can be viewed here: http://apostleshipofprayer.org/the-pope-video
INTERVIEW: The Evangelical and Universal Hospitality of the Brothers of Saint John of God, According to Fr Alain-Samuel by Anita Bourdin
“The desire to serve the sick by consecration to God has always been the main reason why I followed my vocation,” confessed Brother Alain Samuel Jeancler, the leader of the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God in France.
He was speaking in this interview about the charism of his community which serves the poorest of the poor, which we are proposing to all our readers to (re)discover for themselves during this Lent, on the occasion of the visit by the General Curia in Rome to Liberia and Sierra Leone.
A community in “the peripheries” but also a community at the heart of the Vatican with a pharmacy used by people from all over Rome.
A community founded by a Portuguese Saint, led throughout the centuries by performing “works of mercy” which the Extraordinary Jubilee Year has encouraged among the faithful.
And it also evokes a virtue which is too-often forgotten, but which is able to revitalise the fabric of our societies: Gospel-based Hospitality.
“As Lent begins, we are all called to “create a family”, to “be a family,” says Brother Alain-Samuel, after having recalled the work of the Brothers in Madagascar, and in Europe working for migrants by running mobile hospitals.
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ZENIT – Brother Alain-Samuel, you are the “French Provincial Superior” of the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God: what does that mean? What is the role of a “Provincial”? How were you attracted by the charism of this Order?
Brother Alain-Samuel : I am responsible for the Hospitaller Order in France. I would like to say first and foremost being the ”French Provincial Superior” is not really my function: in reality it is a mission which has been entrusted to me, by and for the love of Our Lord, at the service of the common good, the service of the communion of the people I lead, accompany and serve. This is, at all events, the way I am trying to work in this capacity! Being a “Provincial” is basically a journey, it is walking as a fellow-traveller, it is following in the footsteps of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, to re-read with my Brothers the presence of the Risen Christ in our lives. I joined the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God first and foremost to place myself at the service of the sick, the poor and people in distress. We should make it clear that we are an Order of carers. We are not therefore trained to work as HR or general managers. This demands a great deal of humility, common-sense, generosity, and sensitivity from time to time, remembering the example set by our founder who had to pass through a radical process of conversion, which was to trigger his work devoted to “serving” others. The Order is present in 53 countries today, and looks after more than 1 million people every year! John of God had to undergo the trial of madness, the personal experience of the inhuman treatment meted out in hospitals in his age, to realise for himself the suffering of the sick, and to have a clear view of his new mission: the mission to institute a new model of care, based on service. He understood, in his age, that in order to lead others, he first had to empty himself in order to reach out to his neighbour, and through him, draw close to God.
The desire to serve the sick through consecration to God has always been the first reason for my own vocation. And that is how life goes on, placing us in the course of our earthly pilgrimage in situations which require us to make choices, make decisions, and take guidance that can influence the course of our personal history, and that is the people in our charge and under our responsibility. And this Lent is giving us an ideal opportunity to question and take stock of the path we are following, our faith in God, the place we leave for Him in our commitments, our readiness to cast ourselves onto the love of a Saviour God in the world of suffering, sickness and loneliness… “Through the body to the soul”: that is our mission as Hospitaller Brothers today.
ZENIT: As long ago as the 16th century, your founder, John of God, based his work on a virtue which is still being practised today by the 1100 Brothers throughout the world: Hospitality. How do you link this hospitality and the works of mercy which Pope Francis has appealed to us to practise in the Extraordinary Jubilee Year?
One of the distinctive features of the Brothers of Saint John of God is that they take a vow of hospitality in addition to the three traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. By virtue of this vow, we consecrate our lives to “caring for the most vulnerable people, even at the cost of our own lives, imitating Christ who loved us to the point of dying for our Salvation”. It is hospitality practiced in so many different situations, stretching out a helping hand to those in despair, being a loving presence by the side of children affected by AIDS, patiently welcoming people, through daily acts restoring trust to those who have lost it, acting as an open door, without conditions, to take in the homeless, and to care for all those who are the “face of the poor, the sick and the suffering, and people in difficulties”. The most beautiful example of this unconditional hospitality was given most recently by our 4 Brothers in Sierra Leone and Liberia, who sacrificed their own lives to care for the victims of the Ebola outbreak in 2014.
This Gospel-based hospitality is founded on our own daily experience of God’s mercy: our encounter with God entails committing ourselves to serving the most vulnerable people, to show them this merciful love which we ourselves have received. The works of mercy are nothing other than expressing this desire to love and to will the good of our neighbour, as Saint John of God did in his age. As soon as he heard God’s call, he immediately set out and overcame every obstacle, in order to manifest God’s divine mercy to all who knocked at his door, through Hospitality. A Hospitality which made him happy, as he himself said when he walked through the streets of Granada crying out to all people of goodwill to help him: “Do good to yourselves, Brothers, by doing good to others!”. Through our words and through our deeds, may we also prove that mercy can achieve all things, and make people profoundly happy.
ZENIT: During Lent, Zenit will give our readers the joy of following you and discovering more about your mission. But would you please give us an advance idea of some geographic benchmarks and examples of your commitment in the field, which illustrate the work you are doing as the maternal face of the Church, bending over to help the poorest people who come to you wherever you are in the world, regardless of their status and condition?
We are present in all 5 continents working in 454 health care facilities, and social and medical care centres, designed to meet the demands of the local government policies, but also and above all to meet the needs of the people who seek us out. The latest foundation was created last year when we opened a psychiatric rehabilitation centre in Madagascar. We reached that country in 2007 and established a community there, and a dispensary. As time passed when the Brothers set about serving those who applied to them, they soon found that many of the psychiatric patients discharged from the only hospital in the country had to be very quickly re-admitted because there was no service to accompany them to reintegrate them back into society. This is why we decided to offer them a place where they could not only continue to receive the care they needed, but also learn a trade, and to live in society and rebuild themselves physically, mentally and spiritually.
When the migrant crisis erupted in Europe, we also set up mobile hospitals in Italy and in Slovakia to offer primary care to the families, drained by months of trekking. I would also like to mention, somewhat earlier than that, the example of a German Brother, Fortunatus Thanhäuser in the 1970s, who had been sent on a mission to India to set up a dispensary in a region tucked away in the mountains of Kerala. Because of the large numbers of people who often walked dozens of kilometres for help from him, he decided to build a hospital which is now the largest hospital in the region, catering for about one million people! There is also Europe’s first ever night shelter, founded 140 years ago in Marseille (France) in which the Brothers are still welcoming in about 300 homeless people every single night.
I might mention many other examples of the work which we are managing throughout the world, but it would take far too long. I mention this to show that our centres are simply there, as you yourself have quite rightly said, to demonstrate the Church’s concern for those in greatest need. That is also the meaning of our motto: “Caring for the body as a means of caring for the soul”.
ZENIT: You are also present in the very heart of the Church, in the Vatican, where the mission is no less universal: the Vatican Pharmacy, for example, is also international and is open to everyone. How did this mission begin? Some of your Brothers also care for the health of our popes. Isn’t this is a wonderful symbol which clearly exemplifies the Church’s mission?
This is a very good example of our charism of hospitality which we also practise with Papuans and Popes alike! And what fascinates me whenever I visit any of our Houses is that regardless of differences of culture between the communities, the Hospitality we practise is exactly the same.
The Pharmacy we manage in the Vatican was founded by the Hospitaller Brothers in 1874 at the request of the Secretary of State at the time, Cardinal Antonelli. A community of Brothers still lives there to this day, close by Saint Agnes’ Gate. It provides not only everything that you can find in any other pharmacy, but also numerous potions which the Brothers themselves make in-house, and for which they alone hold the secrets! Two Brothers of this Community also care for the health of Popes Francis and Benedict XVI, as their nurses.
ZENIT: The 1100 Hospitaller Brothers are supported by more than 60,000 lay Co-workers who help you in your mission. How do you associate them with your charism of Hospitality?
Since the Internet began to play such a prominent role in contemporary life, the family has been for all of us the first social network that we must not neglect and learn to love. This fact, and our own experiences of family life and of which we speak so much, led the Order to take up this whole issue of the family in its own particular way, to draw on the wealth of the family and broaden our family circle. And our Superior General invited us, in 2009, to live the experience of the Hospitaller Family of Saint John of God, made up of the Brothers, Co-workers, supporters and our guests in our services, each one with their own vocation. As any other family, we are trying to share the same experience of love, acceptance and mutual forgiveness and hospitality, which has to be explored and enriched.
A family is better placed than anyone else to speak this language of the heart in our fragmented, globalized and dehumanized societies. Giving life and creating a hospitaller family in today’s world takes on a radical character and sense of solidarity and of human brotherhood.
As we set out through this Lententide, we are all called to “create a family” and to “be a family” by listening to and responding to a deeper and more interior call – the call of God Himself, inviting us to do His will. And what is His will, if not to love one another as He has loved us?
[Translation Courtesy of Fatebenefratelli]
Women’s Day: At the Vatican, Tribute to Believers Who Work for Peace by Constance Roques
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, March 8, 2017, the Jesuit Refugee Service and the “Voices of Faith” Association are organizing a congress at the Vatican, to bring to light the contributions of women of faith in favor of peace.
The theme of this year’s 4th congress of “Voices of Faith” narratives is: “Stir the Waters: Make the Impossible Possible.” “Women’s voices must be heard if peace is to be restored and sustained,” explains a note presenting the event. The speakers will suggest ideas to give women more responsibilities in the Church.
The press release gives portraits of women who will speak at the Vatican:
Burundian Marguerite Barankitse, who gave testimony with Pope Francis at the time of the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation at Lund, Sweden, on October 31, 2016. When the civil war broke out in Burundi in 1993, she decided to adopt seven orphan children. It was the beginning of a mission that would save the life of 30,000 children. On deciding to protect, to love and to educate all these children, she hoped to build a new generation that would break the cycle of violence. “When I became a refugee, I fled with my greatest treasure, love,” explains Maggy. She says that many people say she is mad. When the Pope heard Maggy speak, he exclaimed: “Of course, it’s the folly of the love of God and of one’s neighbor.”
American Religious Simone Campbell, director of “Nuns on the bus,” initiative for immigrants, has worked for the poor and for marginalized individuals as a lawyer of the defense and launched the “Faithful Budget”. At the head of the NETWORK organization, she has exerted pressure in favor of Federal policies and laws that foster economic and social justice. She was regarded as a key actor to convince Congress to adopt the law on affordable care.
British Scilla Elworthy, whose passion is to “enable leaders to take more judicious decisions so that there is less suffering caused by war,” is the Founder of the Oxford Research Group, which gathered decision-makers in the field of nuclear arms – from China, the United States, Russia, France, India, Pakistan and the United Kingdom – and their [detractors] to establish the framework of treaties for arms control. Later, at Peace Direct, which she also founded, her work listed 1,400 viable local initiatives in favor of peace in areas of active conflict and provided them with support.
Pope to Receive Heads of State and Government of European Union by ZENIT Staff
On Friday, March 24, 2017, at 6 p.m., Pope Francis will receive in audience the heads of state and government of the European Union, in Italy for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. Director of the Holy See Press Office, Greg Burke, made this announcement today.
Experience the Trials of One of the World’s Most Beloved Saints by ZENIT Staff
The audio episodes feature an all-star cast, led by John Rhys-Davies, who plays the elder Patrick, and Seán O’Meallaigh, who plays the younger Patrick. Rhys-Davies is best known for his roles in blockbuster hits, such as “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and “The Lord of the Rings Tribology”: “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.” O’Meallaigh has starred in “Viking” and “Love is a Sting.”
The drama is based on the history and writings of Patrick himself. The son of a Roman official, Patrick is kidnapped and taken as a slave to Ireland. Six years later he escapes, but God sends him on an unexpected mission back to his captors where he battles pagan priests, powerful warlords and demonic forces to win the souls of the people who enslaved him. It’s an epic story of one man’s spiritual odyssey through hardship and loss, mercy and forgiveness.
AIR Theatre provides audio dramas that bring great stories to life, featuring dozens of award-winning actors and movie-like sound effects and music. It also produced BROTHER FRANCIS: THE BAREFOOT SAINT OF ASSISI, a 10-part audio drama about the astonishing life of St. Francis of Assisi, the fun-loving son of wealth and privilege who gave up everything for the sake of Christ.
Vatican Commission Will Continue to Promote Child Protection Worldwide by ZENIT Staff
[From Vatican Radio]
Survivors of sexual abuse by priests have reacted with concern to the news that Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins has resigned as a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.In an interview with Vatican Radio on Wednesday, Collins spoke of her frustration at the lack of cooperation from other offices of the Roman Curia with the Commission, set up by Pope Francis in 2014. Another founding member of the Commission, Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, said on Thursday that despite her resignation, the group would continue its crucial work of promoting a culture of child protection throughout the Church worldwide.Fr Hans, who also heads the Gregorian University’s Centre for Child Protection, spoke to Vatican Radio’s Alessandro Gisotti..
Fr Hans says that Marie told him several weeks ago she was intending to step down and he fully respects her decision. He notes he has worked together with her for five years, since she spoke about her experience at the Gregorian University symposium on child protection in 2012 “in front of 120 bishops and 35 superior generals.” He says he understands that she felt “frustrations” that she was not listened to and that “as she says, there are some quarters in the Vatican …that do not cooperate fully and with the speed necessary with the Commission.”
Survivors’ voices “may be even stronger”
Fr Hans says her departure will have “an impact on how people see the Commission”. He notes that [the other abuse survivor on the Commission] Peter Saunders did not step down, but is on leave and he stresses that all the other 14 members, including Cardinal Sean O’Malley, have met with hundreds of survivors of sexual abuse. Fr Hans reveals he’s been contacted by survivors concerned about Marie’s resignation and he says their voice is “maybe even stronger now”. The next meeting of the Commission will be focused on how to represent that voice, he says, adding that the Commission had already announced that abuse survivors will speak at their meeting in September, the last plenary session of the current term of this Commission.
Collins to continue training work
While Marie said she was stepping down to maintain her integrity, Fr Hans notes she has given a positive summary of the work of the Commission. He also stresses her desire to continue working with the Commission, as well as with the Centre for Child Protection, for which she has agreed to do a video, recounting her story as a victim of abuse for participants in the Centre’s online courses, currently available in 25 countries worldwide. She has also agreed to remain a part of the Commission’s team which trains members of the different Vatican offices.
Awareness needs to be put into action
Asked about the achievements of Pope Francis on this crucial issue, Fr Hans says the most important result is that wherever he travels on the five continents “this topic is on the plate of debate in every corner of the world”. He and other members of the Commission will be travelling later this month to Colombia and Malawi, with other encounters scheduled with bishops conferences in all parts of the word.
Changing heads and hearts
What still needs to be done, he says, is for the words of Pope Francis, and his predecessor Pope Benedict, to be put into action, not only “through guidelines and papers” but through “changes of mentality and attitude, and that will take time”. As detailed in the current issue of La Civiltà Cattolica, Fr Hans insists that some positive changes have been put in place – like a day of prayer and a new procedure for bishops’ accountability – but, he adds, “there is much more to do” which requires working “steadily and in a sustainable way so that brings a change of head and of heart”[From Vatican Radio]
Pope’s Address to Roman Clergy (Part I) by ZENIT Staff
Below is a working translation of Pope Francis’ address yesterday morning, March 2, 2017, to the priests of the Diocese of Rome, gathered in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran for the traditional appointment at the beginning of Lent. Due to the length of the address, Zenit will be publishing in separate pieces and this is part I.
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The Holy Father’s Meditation
The Progress of Faith in the Life of a Priest
“Lord, increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5). This question arose spontaneously in the disciples when the Lord was speaking to them of mercy and said that we must forgive seventy times seven. “Increase our faith,” we also ask, at the beginning of this conversation. We ask it with the simplicity of the Catechism, which says: “To live, grow and persevere in the faith until the end, we must nourish it with the Word of God; we must ask the Lord to make it grow.” It is a faith that “must work through love” (Galatians 5:6; cf. James 2:14-26), be sustained by hope (cf. Romans 15:13) and be rooted in the faith of the Church” (n. 162).
It helps me to lean on three firm points: memory, hope and discernment of the moment. As the Catechism says, memory is rooted in the faith of the Church, in the faith of our fathers; hope is what sustains us in the faith; and I have discernment of the moment at the moment of acting, of putting into practice that “faith that works through love.” I formulate it thus:
-I have a promise – it is always important to remember the promise of the Lord who has put me on the way –.
-I am on the way – I have hope –: hope points out the horizon, it guides me: it is the star and also what sustains me; it is the anchor, anchored in Christ.
– And, in the specific moment, at every crossroads of the road I must discern a concrete good, the step forward in love that I can take, and also the way in which the Lord wants me to do it.
To remember past graces confers on our faith the solidity of the Incarnation; it places it within a history, the history of the faith of our fathers, who “died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar” (Hebrews11:13). [1] We, surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, looking where they looked, have our gaze “fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).
For its part, hope is what opens faith to God’s surprises. Our God is always greater than all that we can think and imagine of Him, of what belongs to Him and of His way of acting in history. Openness to hope confers freshness and a horizon on our faith. It is not the openness of an unrealistic imagination that would project one’s fantasies and desires, but the openness that makes us see the spoliation of Jesus, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). Paradoxically, the hope that attracts is not generated by the image of the transfigured Lord, but by His ignominious image. “I will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32). It is the Lord’s total giving of Himself that attracts us, because it reveals the possibility of being more authentic. It is the spoliation of Him who does not seize God’s promise but, as a true testator, passes the torch of inheritance to His children: “For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established” (Hebrews 9:16).
Finally, discernment is what concretizes faith, what makes it “work through love” (Galatians 5:6), what enables us to give credible witness: “I by my faith will show you my works” (James 2:18). Discernment looks in the first place at that which pleases our Father, “who sees in secret” (Matthew 6:4.6), it does not look at models of perfection of cultural paradigms. Discernment is “of the moment” because it is attentive, as Our Lady at Cana, to the good of the neighbor, which can make the Lord anticipate “His hour,” or “skip” over a Saturday to put one who was paralyzed back on his feet. Discernment of the opportune moment (kairos) is fundamentally rich in memory and hope: remembering with love, it points the gaze with lucidity to what leads best to the Promise.
And what leads best is always in relation with the cross. With the dispossessing of my will, with that interior drama of “not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39) that puts me in the Father’s hands and makes it so that He guides my life.
To Grow in Faith
I turn for a moment to the topic of “growing.” If you reread attentively Evangelii gaudium – which is a programmatic document – you will see that it always speaks of “growth” and of “maturation,” be it in faith be it in love, in solidarity as in understanding of the Word.[2] Evangelii gaudium has a dynamic perspective. The Lord’s missionary mandate includes the appeal to growth in faith when He indicates: “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:20). Thus it seems clear that the first proclamation must give place also to a path of formation and maturation” (n. 160). I underscore this: path of formation and maturation in the faith. And to take this seriously implies that “it would not be correct to interpret this appeal to growth exclusively or primarily as (merely) doctrinal formation” (n. 161). Growth in the faith happens through encounters with the Lord in the course of life. These encounters are guarded as a treasure in the memory and they are our living faith, in a history of personal salvation.
In these encounters the experience is that of an unfulfilled fullness. Unfulfilled, because we must continue to walk; fullness, because, as in all human and divine things, the whole is found in every part[3] This constant maturation is true for the disciple as well as the missionary, for the seminarian as well as the priest and the Bishop. At bottom, it is that virtuous circle to which the Aparecida Document refers, which coined the formula “missionary disciples.”
The Key Point of the Cross
When I speak of key points or of “being a pivot,” the image I have in mind is that of the basket or basketball player, who nails his foot as a “pivot” on the ground and does movements to protect the ball or to find a space to pass it, or to take courage and go to the basket. For us that foot nailed to the ground, around which we pivot is the cross of Christ. A phrase written on the wall of the chapel of the House of Exercises of San Miguel (Buenos Aires) said: While the world turns, the Cross is fixed” [“Stat crux dum volvitur orbis,” motto of Saint Bruno and the Carthusians]. The one moves, protecting the ball, with the hope of putting it in the basket and tries to understand to whom to pass it.
Faith – progress and growth in the faith – is always founded on the Cross: “It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” for “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:21.234). As the Letter to the Hebrews says, “looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,” we move and exercise ourselves in the memory – remembering the “great cloud of witnesses” – and run with hope “in the race that is set,” discerning the temptations against the faith before us,” without growing weary or fainthearted” (cf. Hebrews 12:1-3).
Deuteronomic Memory
In Evangelii gaudium I wished to highlight that dimension of the faith which I call Deuteronomic, in analogy with Israel’s memory: “The evangelizing joy always shines in the background of a grateful memory: it is a grace we are in need of requesting. The Apostles never forgot the moment in which Jesus touched their heart: “it was about the tenth hour” (John 1:39)” (n. 13).
Distinguished in the “great cloud of witnesses” [. . .] are some persons who impacted us in a special way so as to have our believing joy sprout: “Remember your leaders , those who spoke to you the word of God (Hebrews 13:7). Sometimes it is simple and close persons who initiated us in the life of faith: “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice” (2 Timothy 1:5). A believer is fundamentally ‘one who remembers’” (Ibid.).
Faith is nourished and fed by the memory. The memory of the Covenant that the Lord made with us: He is the God of our fathers and grandfathers. He is not the god of the last moment, a God without a family history, a God who to respond to every new paradigm must reject the previous as old and ridiculous. The family history is “never unfashionable.” The clothes and hair of grandparents will seem old, the photos will have a brownish color, but the affection and the audacity of our fathers, who spent themselves so that we could be here and have what we have, are a lit flame in every noble heart.
Let us keep well present that to progress in the faith is not only a voluntary resolution to believe more henceforth: it is also an exercise to return with the memory to the fundamental graces. One can “progress by going back,” going to seek again treasures and experiences that were forgotten or that many times contain the keys to understand the present. This is the truly “revolutionary” thing: to go to the roots. The more lucid the memory of the past is, the clearer the future opens, because one can see the really new way and distinguish it from ways that were followed that led nowhere. The faith grows remembering, connecting things with the real history lived by our fathers and by the whole people of God, by the whole Church.
Therefore, the Eucharist is the Memorial of our faith, that which is always situated again daily in the fundamental event of our salvation, in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord, center and pivot of history. To return always to this Memorial – actualizing it in a Sacrament which is prolonged in life – this is to progress in the faith. As Saint Albert Hurtado said: “The Mass is my life and my life is a prolonged Mass.” [4]
To go back to the sources of memory, it always helps me to reread a passage from the prophet Jeremiah and another from the prophet Hosea, in which they speak of what the Lord remembers of His People. For Jeremiah, the memory of the Lord is that of the beloved bride of his youth, who was then unfaithful to him. “I remember the devotion of your youth – he says to Israel –, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, [. . . ] Israel was holy to the Lord” (2:2-3). The Lord will reproach His people for their infidelity, which revealed itself an evil choice: “for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. [. . .] But you said, ‘It is hopeless, for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go” (2:13.25).
For Hosea, the memory of the Lord is that of the coddled and ungrateful child: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; [. . .] burning incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took him up in my arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. [. . .] My people are bent on turning away from me (11:1-4.7) Today as then, the infidelity and ingratitude of Pastors has repercussions on the poorest of the faithful people, who remain at the mercy of strangers and idolaters.
Hope Not only in the Future
Faith is sustained and progresses thanks to hope. Hope is the anchor anchored in Heaven, in the transcendent future, of which the temporal future – considered in a linear way – is only an expression. Hope is that which dynamizes the look behind faith, which leads to find new things in the past – in the treasures of the memory – because it encounters God Himself, whom he hopes to see in the future. Moreover, hope extends itself to the limits, in all the width and thickness of the daily and immediate present, and sees new possibilities in one’s neighbor and in what can be done here, today. Hope is to know how to see, in the face of the poor I encounter today, the same Lord who will come one day to judge us according to the protocol of Matthew 25: “All that you did to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (v. 40).
Thus the faith progresses existentially in this transcendent “impulse,” which moves, which is active and operating – toward the future, but also toward the past and in all the breadth of the present moment. Thus we can understand Paul’s phrase to the Galatians, when he says that what has worth is “faith working through love” (5:6): a love that, when remembering, is activated confessing, in praise and in joy, that love was already given to it; a love that, when it looks ahead and towards on high, confesses its desire to dilate the heart in the fullness of the greatest Good; these two confessions of a faith rich in gratitude and in hope, are translated in present action: faith is confessed in practice, going out of itself, transcending itself in adoration and in service.
Discernment of the Moment
Thus we see how faith, dynamized by the hope of discovering Christ in the thickness of the present, is linked to discernment.
It is proper of discernment to first take a step backwards, as one who reverses a bit to see the scenery better. There is always a temptation in the first impulse, which leads to wanting to resolve something immediately. In this connection, I believe that there is a first discernment, great sand foundational, that is, which does not let itself be deceived by the force of evil, but which is able to see the victory of Christ’s Cross in every human situation. At this point I would like to reread with you an entire passage of Evangelii gaudium, because it helps to discern that insidious temptation that I call sterile pessimism: “One of the most serious temptations that suffocate fervor and audacity is the sense of defeat, which is transformed into the discontented and disenchanted pessimisms of the dark face. No on can undertake a battle if beforehand he does not trust fully in the triumph. One who begins without trust has lost beforehand half of the battle and buries his talents. Even with the painful awareness of one’s frailties, it is necessary to go forward without considering oneself defeated, and to remember what the Lord said to Saint Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). The Christian triumph is always a cross, but a cross that at the same time is ensign of victory, which is carried with a combative tenderness against the assaults of evil. The evil spirit of defeat is brother of the temptation to separate before the time the grain from the darnel, product of an anxious and egocentric mistrust. [. . . ]In any case, in those circumstances we are called to be amphora-persons to give drink to others. At times the amphora is transformed into a heavy cross, but it is precisely on the Cross where, pierced, the Lord gave Himself to us as source of living water. Let us not allow ourselves to be robed of hope!” (85-86).
These formulations, “let us not allow ourselves to be robbed . . .,” come to me from Saint Ignatius’ rules of discernment, which usually represents the devil as a thief. He behaves like a captain – says Ignatius – who to win and rob what he desires fights us in our weakest part (cf. Spiritual Exercises, 327). And in our case, at present, I believe he seeks to rob us of joy – which is like robbing us of the present [5] – and hope –the going out, the walking –, are the graces that I asked for most and that I ask for the Church in this time.
It is important at this point to take a step forward and to say that faith progresses when, in the present moment, we discern how to concretize love in the possible good, commensurate with the good of the other. The first good of the other is to be able to grow in faith. The communal supplication of the disciples “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:6) subtends the awareness that the faith is a communal good. Moreover, we must consider that to seek the good of the other makes us risk. As Evangelii gaudium says: “A missionary heart is aware [. . .] that it must grow in the understanding of the Gospel and in the discernment of the paths of the Spirit, and then it does not give up the possible good, rather, it runs the risk of getting soiled with the mud of the street” (45).
Implicit in this discernment is the act of faith in Christ present in the poorest, in the littlest, in the lost sheep, in the insistent friend. Christ present in one who encounters us – making himself seen, as Zacchaeus or the sinner who enters with her perfume vase, and almost not making herself noted, as the woman with the haemorrhage –; or Christ present in the one we ourselves approach, feeling compassion when we see him from afar, lying on the side of the street. To believe that Christ is there, to discern the best way to take a small step toward Him, for the good of that person, is progress in the faith. As praise is also progress in the faith, and to desire more is progress in the faith.
It might do us good to pause a while on this progress in the faith, which occurs thanks to the discernment of the moment. The progress of the faith in memory and in hope is more developed; instead, this key point of discernment, perhaps, not so much. It might seem perhaps that where there is faith there is no need of discernment: one believes and that’s it. But this is dangerous, especially if the renewed acts of faith are substituted in a Person – in Christ our Lord – which have all the dynamism that we just saw, with merely intellectual acts of faith, whose dynamism is exhausted in making reflections and elaborating abstract formulations. Conceptual formulation is a necessary moment of thought, as choosing a means of transport is necessary to reach an end. However, faith is not exhausted in an abstract formulation or charity in a particular good, but what is proper of the faith and of charity is to grow and progress, opening oneself to greater trust and to a greater common good. What is proper to faith is to be “operative,” active, and it is so for charity. And the paragon stone is discernment. In fact, faith can fossilize, in keeping the love received, transforming it into an object to close in a museum; and faith can also volatize, in the projection of the desired love, transforming it into a virtual object that exists only in the island of utopias. Discernment of real, concrete and possible love in the present moment, in favor of the most dramatically needy neighbor, makes faith become active, creative and effective.[Original Text: Italian] [Working Translation by ZENIT, by Virginia Forrester]
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Survivors of sexual abuse by priests have reacted with concern to the news that Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins has resigned as a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.In an interview with Vatican Radio on Wednesday, Collins spoke of her frustration at the lack of cooperation from other offices of the Roman Curia with the Commission, set up by Pope Francis in 2014. Another founding member of the Commission, Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, said on Thursday that despite her resignation, the group would continue its crucial work of promoting a culture of child protection throughout the Church worldwide.Fr Hans, who also heads the Gregorian University’s Centre for Child Protection, spoke to Vatican Radio’s Alessandro Gisotti..
Fr Hans says that Marie told him several weeks ago she was intending to step down and he fully respects her decision. He notes he has worked together with her for five years, since she spoke about her experience at the Gregorian University symposium on child protection in 2012 “in front of 120 bishops and 35 superior generals.” He says he understands that she felt “frustrations” that she was not listened to and that “as she says, there are some quarters in the Vatican …that do not cooperate fully and with the speed necessary with the Commission.”
Survivors’ voices “may be even stronger”
Fr Hans says her departure will have “an impact on how people see the Commission”. He notes that [the other abuse survivor on the Commission] Peter Saunders did not step down, but is on leave and he stresses that all the other 14 members, including Cardinal Sean O’Malley, have met with hundreds of survivors of sexual abuse. Fr Hans reveals he’s been contacted by survivors concerned about Marie’s resignation and he says their voice is “maybe even stronger now”. The next meeting of the Commission will be focused on how to represent that voice, he says, adding that the Commission had already announced that abuse survivors will speak at their meeting in September, the last plenary session of the current term of this Commission.
Collins to continue training work
While Marie said she was stepping down to maintain her integrity, Fr Hans notes she has given a positive summary of the work of the Commission. He also stresses her desire to continue working with the Commission, as well as with the Centre for Child Protection, for which she has agreed to do a video, recounting her story as a victim of abuse for participants in the Centre’s online courses, currently available in 25 countries worldwide. She has also agreed to remain a part of the Commission’s team which trains members of the different Vatican offices.
Awareness needs to be put into action
Asked about the achievements of Pope Francis on this crucial issue, Fr Hans says the most important result is that wherever he travels on the five continents “this topic is on the plate of debate in every corner of the world”. He and other members of the Commission will be travelling later this month to Colombia and Malawi, with other encounters scheduled with bishops conferences in all parts of the word.
Changing heads and hearts
What still needs to be done, he says, is for the words of Pope Francis, and his predecessor Pope Benedict, to be put into action, not only “through guidelines and papers” but through “changes of mentality and attitude, and that will take time”. As detailed in the current issue of La Civiltà Cattolica, Fr Hans insists that some positive changes have been put in place – like a day of prayer and a new procedure for bishops’ accountability – but, he adds, “there is much more to do” which requires working “steadily and in a sustainable way so that brings a change of head and of heart”[From Vatican Radio]
Pope’s Address to Roman Clergy (Part I) by ZENIT Staff
Below is a working translation of Pope Francis’ address yesterday morning, March 2, 2017, to the priests of the Diocese of Rome, gathered in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran for the traditional appointment at the beginning of Lent. Due to the length of the address, Zenit will be publishing in separate pieces and this is part I.
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The Holy Father’s Meditation
The Progress of Faith in the Life of a Priest
“Lord, increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5). This question arose spontaneously in the disciples when the Lord was speaking to them of mercy and said that we must forgive seventy times seven. “Increase our faith,” we also ask, at the beginning of this conversation. We ask it with the simplicity of the Catechism, which says: “To live, grow and persevere in the faith until the end, we must nourish it with the Word of God; we must ask the Lord to make it grow.” It is a faith that “must work through love” (Galatians 5:6; cf. James 2:14-26), be sustained by hope (cf. Romans 15:13) and be rooted in the faith of the Church” (n. 162).
It helps me to lean on three firm points: memory, hope and discernment of the moment. As the Catechism says, memory is rooted in the faith of the Church, in the faith of our fathers; hope is what sustains us in the faith; and I have discernment of the moment at the moment of acting, of putting into practice that “faith that works through love.” I formulate it thus:
-I have a promise – it is always important to remember the promise of the Lord who has put me on the way –.
-I am on the way – I have hope –: hope points out the horizon, it guides me: it is the star and also what sustains me; it is the anchor, anchored in Christ.
– And, in the specific moment, at every crossroads of the road I must discern a concrete good, the step forward in love that I can take, and also the way in which the Lord wants me to do it.
To remember past graces confers on our faith the solidity of the Incarnation; it places it within a history, the history of the faith of our fathers, who “died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar” (Hebrews11:13). [1] We, surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, looking where they looked, have our gaze “fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).
For its part, hope is what opens faith to God’s surprises. Our God is always greater than all that we can think and imagine of Him, of what belongs to Him and of His way of acting in history. Openness to hope confers freshness and a horizon on our faith. It is not the openness of an unrealistic imagination that would project one’s fantasies and desires, but the openness that makes us see the spoliation of Jesus, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). Paradoxically, the hope that attracts is not generated by the image of the transfigured Lord, but by His ignominious image. “I will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32). It is the Lord’s total giving of Himself that attracts us, because it reveals the possibility of being more authentic. It is the spoliation of Him who does not seize God’s promise but, as a true testator, passes the torch of inheritance to His children: “For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established” (Hebrews 9:16).
Finally, discernment is what concretizes faith, what makes it “work through love” (Galatians 5:6), what enables us to give credible witness: “I by my faith will show you my works” (James 2:18). Discernment looks in the first place at that which pleases our Father, “who sees in secret” (Matthew 6:4.6), it does not look at models of perfection of cultural paradigms. Discernment is “of the moment” because it is attentive, as Our Lady at Cana, to the good of the neighbor, which can make the Lord anticipate “His hour,” or “skip” over a Saturday to put one who was paralyzed back on his feet. Discernment of the opportune moment (kairos) is fundamentally rich in memory and hope: remembering with love, it points the gaze with lucidity to what leads best to the Promise.
And what leads best is always in relation with the cross. With the dispossessing of my will, with that interior drama of “not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39) that puts me in the Father’s hands and makes it so that He guides my life.
To Grow in Faith
I turn for a moment to the topic of “growing.” If you reread attentively Evangelii gaudium – which is a programmatic document – you will see that it always speaks of “growth” and of “maturation,” be it in faith be it in love, in solidarity as in understanding of the Word.[2] Evangelii gaudium has a dynamic perspective. The Lord’s missionary mandate includes the appeal to growth in faith when He indicates: “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:20). Thus it seems clear that the first proclamation must give place also to a path of formation and maturation” (n. 160). I underscore this: path of formation and maturation in the faith. And to take this seriously implies that “it would not be correct to interpret this appeal to growth exclusively or primarily as (merely) doctrinal formation” (n. 161). Growth in the faith happens through encounters with the Lord in the course of life. These encounters are guarded as a treasure in the memory and they are our living faith, in a history of personal salvation.
In these encounters the experience is that of an unfulfilled fullness. Unfulfilled, because we must continue to walk; fullness, because, as in all human and divine things, the whole is found in every part[3] This constant maturation is true for the disciple as well as the missionary, for the seminarian as well as the priest and the Bishop. At bottom, it is that virtuous circle to which the Aparecida Document refers, which coined the formula “missionary disciples.”
The Key Point of the Cross
When I speak of key points or of “being a pivot,” the image I have in mind is that of the basket or basketball player, who nails his foot as a “pivot” on the ground and does movements to protect the ball or to find a space to pass it, or to take courage and go to the basket. For us that foot nailed to the ground, around which we pivot is the cross of Christ. A phrase written on the wall of the chapel of the House of Exercises of San Miguel (Buenos Aires) said: While the world turns, the Cross is fixed” [“Stat crux dum volvitur orbis,” motto of Saint Bruno and the Carthusians]. The one moves, protecting the ball, with the hope of putting it in the basket and tries to understand to whom to pass it.
Faith – progress and growth in the faith – is always founded on the Cross: “It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” for “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:21.234). As the Letter to the Hebrews says, “looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,” we move and exercise ourselves in the memory – remembering the “great cloud of witnesses” – and run with hope “in the race that is set,” discerning the temptations against the faith before us,” without growing weary or fainthearted” (cf. Hebrews 12:1-3).
Deuteronomic Memory
In Evangelii gaudium I wished to highlight that dimension of the faith which I call Deuteronomic, in analogy with Israel’s memory: “The evangelizing joy always shines in the background of a grateful memory: it is a grace we are in need of requesting. The Apostles never forgot the moment in which Jesus touched their heart: “it was about the tenth hour” (John 1:39)” (n. 13).
Distinguished in the “great cloud of witnesses” [. . .] are some persons who impacted us in a special way so as to have our believing joy sprout: “Remember your leaders , those who spoke to you the word of God (Hebrews 13:7). Sometimes it is simple and close persons who initiated us in the life of faith: “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice” (2 Timothy 1:5). A believer is fundamentally ‘one who remembers’” (Ibid.).
Faith is nourished and fed by the memory. The memory of the Covenant that the Lord made with us: He is the God of our fathers and grandfathers. He is not the god of the last moment, a God without a family history, a God who to respond to every new paradigm must reject the previous as old and ridiculous. The family history is “never unfashionable.” The clothes and hair of grandparents will seem old, the photos will have a brownish color, but the affection and the audacity of our fathers, who spent themselves so that we could be here and have what we have, are a lit flame in every noble heart.
Let us keep well present that to progress in the faith is not only a voluntary resolution to believe more henceforth: it is also an exercise to return with the memory to the fundamental graces. One can “progress by going back,” going to seek again treasures and experiences that were forgotten or that many times contain the keys to understand the present. This is the truly “revolutionary” thing: to go to the roots. The more lucid the memory of the past is, the clearer the future opens, because one can see the really new way and distinguish it from ways that were followed that led nowhere. The faith grows remembering, connecting things with the real history lived by our fathers and by the whole people of God, by the whole Church.
Therefore, the Eucharist is the Memorial of our faith, that which is always situated again daily in the fundamental event of our salvation, in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord, center and pivot of history. To return always to this Memorial – actualizing it in a Sacrament which is prolonged in life – this is to progress in the faith. As Saint Albert Hurtado said: “The Mass is my life and my life is a prolonged Mass.” [4]
To go back to the sources of memory, it always helps me to reread a passage from the prophet Jeremiah and another from the prophet Hosea, in which they speak of what the Lord remembers of His People. For Jeremiah, the memory of the Lord is that of the beloved bride of his youth, who was then unfaithful to him. “I remember the devotion of your youth – he says to Israel –, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, [. . . ] Israel was holy to the Lord” (2:2-3). The Lord will reproach His people for their infidelity, which revealed itself an evil choice: “for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. [. . .] But you said, ‘It is hopeless, for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go” (2:13.25).
For Hosea, the memory of the Lord is that of the coddled and ungrateful child: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; [. . .] burning incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took him up in my arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. [. . .] My people are bent on turning away from me (11:1-4.7) Today as then, the infidelity and ingratitude of Pastors has repercussions on the poorest of the faithful people, who remain at the mercy of strangers and idolaters.
Hope Not only in the Future
Faith is sustained and progresses thanks to hope. Hope is the anchor anchored in Heaven, in the transcendent future, of which the temporal future – considered in a linear way – is only an expression. Hope is that which dynamizes the look behind faith, which leads to find new things in the past – in the treasures of the memory – because it encounters God Himself, whom he hopes to see in the future. Moreover, hope extends itself to the limits, in all the width and thickness of the daily and immediate present, and sees new possibilities in one’s neighbor and in what can be done here, today. Hope is to know how to see, in the face of the poor I encounter today, the same Lord who will come one day to judge us according to the protocol of Matthew 25: “All that you did to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (v. 40).
Thus the faith progresses existentially in this transcendent “impulse,” which moves, which is active and operating – toward the future, but also toward the past and in all the breadth of the present moment. Thus we can understand Paul’s phrase to the Galatians, when he says that what has worth is “faith working through love” (5:6): a love that, when remembering, is activated confessing, in praise and in joy, that love was already given to it; a love that, when it looks ahead and towards on high, confesses its desire to dilate the heart in the fullness of the greatest Good; these two confessions of a faith rich in gratitude and in hope, are translated in present action: faith is confessed in practice, going out of itself, transcending itself in adoration and in service.
Discernment of the Moment
Thus we see how faith, dynamized by the hope of discovering Christ in the thickness of the present, is linked to discernment.
It is proper of discernment to first take a step backwards, as one who reverses a bit to see the scenery better. There is always a temptation in the first impulse, which leads to wanting to resolve something immediately. In this connection, I believe that there is a first discernment, great sand foundational, that is, which does not let itself be deceived by the force of evil, but which is able to see the victory of Christ’s Cross in every human situation. At this point I would like to reread with you an entire passage of Evangelii gaudium, because it helps to discern that insidious temptation that I call sterile pessimism: “One of the most serious temptations that suffocate fervor and audacity is the sense of defeat, which is transformed into the discontented and disenchanted pessimisms of the dark face. No on can undertake a battle if beforehand he does not trust fully in the triumph. One who begins without trust has lost beforehand half of the battle and buries his talents. Even with the painful awareness of one’s frailties, it is necessary to go forward without considering oneself defeated, and to remember what the Lord said to Saint Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). The Christian triumph is always a cross, but a cross that at the same time is ensign of victory, which is carried with a combative tenderness against the assaults of evil. The evil spirit of defeat is brother of the temptation to separate before the time the grain from the darnel, product of an anxious and egocentric mistrust. [. . . ]In any case, in those circumstances we are called to be amphora-persons to give drink to others. At times the amphora is transformed into a heavy cross, but it is precisely on the Cross where, pierced, the Lord gave Himself to us as source of living water. Let us not allow ourselves to be robed of hope!” (85-86).
These formulations, “let us not allow ourselves to be robbed . . .,” come to me from Saint Ignatius’ rules of discernment, which usually represents the devil as a thief. He behaves like a captain – says Ignatius – who to win and rob what he desires fights us in our weakest part (cf. Spiritual Exercises, 327). And in our case, at present, I believe he seeks to rob us of joy – which is like robbing us of the present [5] – and hope –the going out, the walking –, are the graces that I asked for most and that I ask for the Church in this time.
It is important at this point to take a step forward and to say that faith progresses when, in the present moment, we discern how to concretize love in the possible good, commensurate with the good of the other. The first good of the other is to be able to grow in faith. The communal supplication of the disciples “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:6) subtends the awareness that the faith is a communal good. Moreover, we must consider that to seek the good of the other makes us risk. As Evangelii gaudium says: “A missionary heart is aware [. . .] that it must grow in the understanding of the Gospel and in the discernment of the paths of the Spirit, and then it does not give up the possible good, rather, it runs the risk of getting soiled with the mud of the street” (45).
Implicit in this discernment is the act of faith in Christ present in the poorest, in the littlest, in the lost sheep, in the insistent friend. Christ present in one who encounters us – making himself seen, as Zacchaeus or the sinner who enters with her perfume vase, and almost not making herself noted, as the woman with the haemorrhage –; or Christ present in the one we ourselves approach, feeling compassion when we see him from afar, lying on the side of the street. To believe that Christ is there, to discern the best way to take a small step toward Him, for the good of that person, is progress in the faith. As praise is also progress in the faith, and to desire more is progress in the faith.
It might do us good to pause a while on this progress in the faith, which occurs thanks to the discernment of the moment. The progress of the faith in memory and in hope is more developed; instead, this key point of discernment, perhaps, not so much. It might seem perhaps that where there is faith there is no need of discernment: one believes and that’s it. But this is dangerous, especially if the renewed acts of faith are substituted in a Person – in Christ our Lord – which have all the dynamism that we just saw, with merely intellectual acts of faith, whose dynamism is exhausted in making reflections and elaborating abstract formulations. Conceptual formulation is a necessary moment of thought, as choosing a means of transport is necessary to reach an end. However, faith is not exhausted in an abstract formulation or charity in a particular good, but what is proper of the faith and of charity is to grow and progress, opening oneself to greater trust and to a greater common good. What is proper to faith is to be “operative,” active, and it is so for charity. And the paragon stone is discernment. In fact, faith can fossilize, in keeping the love received, transforming it into an object to close in a museum; and faith can also volatize, in the projection of the desired love, transforming it into a virtual object that exists only in the island of utopias. Discernment of real, concrete and possible love in the present moment, in favor of the most dramatically needy neighbor, makes faith become active, creative and effective.[Original Text: Italian] [Working Translation by ZENIT, by Virginia Forrester]
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