Truth that will set us free?

HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
WITH THE PARISH PRIESTS OF THE ROME DIOCESE

LECTIO DIVINA

Paul VI Audience Hall
Thursday, 23 February 2012

God’s oneness is identified with our hope. Why? In what way? Because God’s oneness is hope, because this guarantees us that, in the end, there are no different powers, in the end there is no dualism between different and clashing powers, in the end there is no dragon’s head left which could be raised against God, the filth of evil and sin is no more.

In the end all that is left is light! God is the one and only God: there is no other power against him! We know that today, with the ever increasing evils we experience in the world, many doubt in God’s Almightiness; indeed, various theologians — even good ones — say that God cannot be Almighty because what we see in the world is incompatible with almightiness. And in this way they wish to create a new apology, to excuse God and to “exculpate” God from these evils.

However this is not the right way, because if God is not Almighty, if other powers exist and endure he is not truly God and is not truly hope, because in the end there would be polytheism, in the end there would be fighting, the power of evil. God is Almighty, the one God. Of course, in history a limit has been set on his omnipotence, recognizing our freedom. However, in the end everything returns and no other power is left; this is the hope: that the light wins, that love wins! In the end the power of evil does not endure, only God endures! And thus we journey on in hope, walking towards the oneness of the one God, revealed to us by the Holy Spirit in the One Lord, Christ. 

...

Truth is not imposed with other means than itself! Truth can only come through itself, through its own light. However, we stand in need of truth; without truth we do not know the true values and how could we order the kosmos of values? Without truth we are blind in the world, we have no path. The great gift of Christ is precisely that we see the Face of God and, even though we see it enigmatically, very insufficiently, we know its basis, the essential of truth in Christ, in his Body. And in knowing this truth, we also grow in charity, which is the legitimation of the truth and shows us that it is truth.

I would say precisely that charity is the fruit of truth — the tree is known by its fruit — and if there is no charity, then truth is not adopted or lived either; and where truth is, charity comes into being. 

Jesus with the Adulterous Woman - Fr Maurice Zundel

“Therefore it is only in the infinite respect shown to his mystery that man can recognize at once the greatness of his soul and who it is that alone can fill it full: God, whom obscurely it has felt everywhere without being able to name him. In the act of faith you make in all that a man can become beyond what he may actually be; in the homage you pay to all that the grace of God can accomplish in him; in your willingness to accept what he is and the unique character of the function he is called to fulfill; in your refraining from judgment and from any interference with his conscience beyond what he himself invites; in the reserve, in short, in the silent adhesion to all that passes speech, the kneeling of your soul before his—in all this man feels infinite horizons opening before him and begins to breathe the air of his true country. He can be himself, he drops his mask, he shows you the true face of his nativity.

This is precisely what Jesus did when they brought to him the woman taken in adultery. He lowered his eyes not to look upon her shame, he allowed her to rediscover her own self in the silent love with which he enveloped her, he delivered her from the judgment of her accusers, scattering them with the voice of their own conscience. And when at last he looked at her, it was to utter words of divine respect:

"Has no man condemned you?" "No man, Lord."
"Neither will I condemn you. Go, and now sin no more."”

— FATHER MAURICE ZUNDEL, Father Zundel (t 1975) was a Swiss mystic, poet, philosopher, liturgist, and author.
— Magnificat, Vol 14, No. 12, March, Pp. 266-267.

Pope Francis - His recent 2013 Lenten Letter

Pope Francis' (Cardinal Bergoglio) Lenten Letter, 2013

[Translation and emphases are those of Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.]

And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil. (Joel 2:13)

Little by little we become accustomed to hearing and seeing, through the mass media, the dark chronicle of contemporary society, presented with an almost perverse elation, and also we become [desensitized] to touching it and feeling it all around us [even] in our own flesh.  Drama plays out on the streets, in our neighborhoods, in our homes and -- why not? -- even in our own hearts.  We live alongside a violence that kills, that destroys families, that enlivens wars and conflicts in so many countries of the world.  We live with envy, hatred, slander, the mundane in our heart.

The suffering of the innocent and peaceable buffets us nonstop; the contempt for the rights of the most fragile of people and nations is not so distant from us; the tyrannical rule of money with its demonic effects, such as drugs, corruption, trafficking in people -- even children -- along with misery, both material and moral, are the coin of the realm [today].  The destruction of dignified work, painful emigrations and the lack of a future also join in this [tragic] symphony.  

Our errors and sins as Church are not beyond this analysis.  Rationalizing selfishnesses, does not diminish it, lack of ethical values within a society metastisizes in [our] families, in the environment of [our] neighborhoods, towns and cities, [this lack of ethical values] testifies to our limitations, to our weaknesses and to our incapacity to transform this innumerable list of destructive realities.

The trap of powerlessness makes us wonder:  Does it make sense to try to change all this?  Can we do anything against this?  Is it worthwhile to try, if the world continues its carnival merriment, disguising all [this tragedy] for a little while?  But, when the mask falls, the truth appears and, although to many it may sound anachronistic to say so, once again sin becomes apparent, sin that wounds our very flesh with all its destructive force, twisting the destinies of the world and of the history.  

Lent is presented us as a shout of truth and certain hope that comes us to say "Yes, it is possible to not slap on makeup, and not draw plastic smiles as if nothing happened."  Yes, it is possible that all is made new and different because God remains "rich in kindness and mercy, always willing to forgive" and He encourages us to begin anew time and again.  Today, again, we are invited to undertake a Paschal road toward Life, a path that includes the cross and resignation; a path that will be uncomfortable but not fruitless.  We are invited to admit that something inside us is not going well, (in society or in the Church) to change, to turn around, to be converted.

Today, the words of the prophet Joel are strong and challenging: Rend your heart, not your clothing: be converted to the Lord, your God.  These [words] are an invitation to all people, nobody is excluded.
  
Rend your heart, not the clothing of artificial penance without [an eternal] future.  
Rend your heart, not the clothing of technical fasting of compliance that [only serves to keep us] satisfied.  
Rend your heart, not the clothing of egotistical and superficial prayer that does not reach the inmost part of [your] life to allow it to be touched by God.  

Rend your heart, that we may say with the Psalmist:  "We have sinned."  

"The wound of the soul is sin: Oh, poor wounded one, recognize your Doctor!  Show him the wounds of your faults.  And, since from Him our most secret thoughts cannot hide themselves, make the cry of your heart felt [to Him].  Move him to compassion with your tears, with your insistence ¡beg him!  Let Him hear your sighs, that your pain reaches Him so that, at the end, He can tell you:  The Lord has forgiven your sins."  (St. Gregory the Great) 

This is the reality of our human condition.  This is the truth that approaches authentic reconciliation between God and men.  This is not a matter of discrediting [one's] self-worth but of penetrating, to its fullest depth, our heart and to take charge of the mystery of suffering and pain that had tied us down for centuries, for thousands of years, [in fact,] forever.  

Rend your hearts so that through this opening we can truly see.  

Rend your hearts, open your hearts, because only with [such a] heart can we allow the entry of the merciful love of the Father, who loves us and heals us.  

Rend your hearts the prophet says, and Paul asks us -- almost on his knees -- "be reconciled with God."  Changing our way of living is both a sign and fruit of a torn heart, reconciled by a love that overwhelms us.
  
This is [God's] invitation, juxtaposed against so many injuries that wound us and can tempt us temptation to be hardened:  Rend your hearts to experience, in serene and silent prayer, the gentle tenderness of God.

Rend your hearts to hear the echo of so many torn lives, that indifference [to suffering] does not paralyze us.  

Rend your hearts to be able to love with the love with which we are beloved, to console with the consolation with which we are consoled and to share what we have received.  

The liturgical time the Church starts today is not only for us, but also for the transformation of our family, of our community, of our Church, of our Country, of the whole world.  They are forty days so that we may convert to the same holiness as God's; that we become collaborators who receive the grace and the potential to reconstruct human life so that everyone may experience the salvation which Christ won for us by His death and resurrection.  

Next to prayer and penitence, as a sign of our faith in the force of an all-transforming Easter, we also begin, as in previous years a "Lenten Gesture of Solidarity."  As Church in Buenos Aires, marching towards Easter and believing the Kingdom of God is possible we need that, in our hearts torn by the desire of conversion and by love, grace may blossom.  [We need] effective gestures to alleviate the pain of so many of our brothers who walk alongside.  "No act of virtue can be large if it does not also benefit another...  Therefore, no matter how you spend the day fasting, no matter how you may sleep on a hard floor, and how you may eat ashes and sigh continuously, if do not do good to others, you do not accomplish anything great."  (St. John Chrysostom)

This year of faith we are traversing is also an opportunity God gives us to grow and to mature in an encounter with the Lord made visible in the suffering face of so many children without a future, in the trembling hands of the elders who have been forgotten and in the trembling knees of so many families who continue to face life without finding anyone who will assist them.  

I wish you a holy Lent, a penitential and fruitful Lent and, please, I ask you all that you pray for me.  

May Jesus bless you and may the Blessed Virgin care for you.  

Paternally,
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio S.J. 

Amazing Grace (playlist)

Clip of new bells for Notre Dame March 2013 stirs memory of bell-maker's son Boriska in the movie Andrei Rublev

New bells for Notre-Dame Cathedral

(To view video click on the line above that starts with "New bells for ...")

The bells of Notre-Dame will soon have a new ring. The cathedral has commissioned nine new bells to replace four 19th-century bells that have gone out of tune. The two largest new bells are being made at a foundry in northwestern France.

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Seeing this news clip reminded me of something my mentor and friend Gil Bailie wrote about, a great Russian movie tribute to the iconographer, Andrei Rublev. In the final chapter of the movie, titled "The Bell," Andrei has find himself at a turning point in his life when he arrives at a village where preparations are under way to replace the bell in the village church tower. The old bell-maker has died, and his unproven son, Boriska, has inherited the task of casting a new bell. “My father, the old snake,” Boriska complains, “didn’t pass on the secret. He died without telling me; he took it to the grave.” 

Rublev is hearing this lament from a young boy whose father had neglected his task – that of passing on the faith through his calling as the bell-maker for the church.  

In Rublev’s fifteenth century, the casting of a new church bell was an elaborate procedure with enormous challenges and considerable social anxiety. Rublev had abandoned icon writing and taken a vow of silence. He nevertheless saw his own vocational crisis mirrored in the young bell-makers’ dilemma. Rublev watched silently as the drama of the bell casting unfolded. Under the pressure of social expectations and uncertainties, the young Boriska supervised the digging of the pit, the selection of the clay, the shaping of the mold, the firing of the furnaces, the pouring of the molten bronze, and finally the hoisting of the bell into the tower. When the new bell rang perfectly at the consecration ceremony, Boriska collapsed in tears. Rublev cradled the boy in his arms and breaking his vow of silence, he said: “Let’s go together. You’ll cast bells. I’ll paint icons.”

ICON – The Holy Trinity

 When I meditate upon this icon – entering into the mystery represented in it, I often pause and reflect on Boriska’s complaint: “He died without telling me; he took it to the grave.” 

Gil wrote in one place: "This lament should haunt those of us who, though no merit of our own, have been the beneficiaries of Christian truth, a gift we received from the imperfect but nonetheless earnest hands of our predecessors in the faith. Were we to fail to pass on this faith to those who come after us, or if we pass on a lifeless replica of a once living faith, we will be as culpable as the old bell‐maker."

The film makes it perfectly clear that Christianity is not merely, and not primarily, a set of beliefs: it is a way of life, a participation in an ongoing historical drama of re-creation.  

"As the ancient hymn Veni Creator Spiritus says: “kindle the senses with light, infuse love into hearts.” If Pascal was right to say that faith moves, not from the mind to the heart, but from the heart to the mind, we might add that it enters the heart through the senses. 'You cast bells,' said Tarkovsky’s Rublev, 'and I’ll paint icons,' for these things play an important role in preparing us for an encounter with the Truth and thereafter in reminding us of our place in the drama of its historical outworking."

A glimpse into the Pope Benedict XVI and Romano Guardini connection (Part 2)

Just a day before Pope Benedict XVI stepped down, I found myself reading a reflection by Romano Guardini in the Magnificat (and Mind Your Maker blog):

“Christ on the cross!  Inconceivable what he went through as he hung there... Such the depths from which omnipotent love calls new creation into being. Taking man and his world together, what impenetrable deception, what labyrinthian confusion, all-permeating estrangement from God, granitic hardness of heart!   This the terrible load Christ on the cross was to dissolve in God, and divinely assimilate into his own thought, heart, life and agony.  Ardent with suffering, he was to plunge to that ultimate depth, distance, center where the sacred power which formed the world from nothing could break into new creation.

Since the Lord's death, this has become reality, in which all things have changed. It is from here that we live - as far as we are really alive in the sight of God.  

If anyone should ask: What is certain in life and death–so certain that everything else may be anchored in it? That answer is: The love of Christ. Life teaches us that this is the only true reply. Not people–not even the best and dearest; not science, or philosophy, or art or any other product of human genius. Also not nature, which is so full of profound deception; neither time nor fate….Not even simply “God”; for his wrath has been roused by sin, and how without Christ would we know what to expect from him? Only Christ’s love is certain. We cannot even say God’s love; for that God loves us we also know, ultimately, only through Christ. And even if we did know without Christ that God loved us–love can also be inexorable, and the more noble it is, the more demanding. Only through Christ do we know that God’s love is forgiving. Certain is only that which manifested itself on the cross. What has been said so often and so inadequately is true: The heart of Jesus Christ is the beginning and end of all things.”  (Romano Guardini, The Lord, p 399-400).

The very next day I read Pope Benedict XVI's farewell address to the College of Cardinal where he quotes Romano:

Pope Benedict leaves quoting Romano Guardini:

Guardini says: "The Church is not an institution devised and built at table, but a living reality. She lives along the course of time by transforming Herself, like any living being, yet Her nature remains the same. At Her heart is Christ. " 

So I thought I would go exploring to learn more of the connection between Pope Benedict XVI and Romano Guardini. I ran across two great articles - sharing here a couple excerpts below:

The Making of a New Benedict

GEORGE WEIGEL

(Excerpt from book)

During his Regensburg years, Joseph Ratzinger attracted impressive students who came to do their doctorates under his direction. Two of the most prominent were Christoph Schönborn, a young Dominican who would later become editor of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and cardinal archbishop of Vienna, and Joseph Fessio, an American Jesuit who would found Ignatius Press, a distinguished publishing house, and lead several important educational initiatives. Ratzinger did not confine his love for teaching to the classroom, however. From 1970 until 1977 he and the Catholic biblical scholar Heinrich Schlier led a week-long course at a country estate near Lake Constance for young people interested in deepening their understanding of the essentials of Catholic faith — a kind of theological and biblical summer camp, in which Ratzinger and Schlier shared the household duties with their students. In launching this initiative, Ratzinger was deliberately patterning himself after Romano Guardini, the great Munich theologian and one of the seminal figures of the Catholic revival in mid-20th-century Mitteleuropa, who had built a similar intellectual and spiritual center for young people in the 1920s and 1930s. Guardini had written extensively about the Church “after modernity,” which he believed had run its course and was out of gas, culturally and spiritually; it is not difficult to imagine Ratzinger and Schlier talking with their summer-school students along similar lines.

Benedict XVI Has a Father, Romano Guardini

He was the guide of the young Ratzinger, who has not ceased to draw inspiration from his thought. Forty years after the death of the great Italian-German intellectual, an analysis of his influence on the current pope
by Sandro Magister. (2008)

One crucial point of encounter between the current pope and Guardini is undoubtedly the liturgy. Both are united by a shared passion for this. In order to make his debt to Guardini clear, Ratzinger entitled his book on the topic of the liturgy, published on the feast of St. Augustine in 1999 and extraordinarily successful (four editions in one year), "Introduction to the Spirit of the Liturgy," referring to the famous "The Spirit of the Liturgy" by Guardini, published in 1918. 

Ratzinger himself writes in the foreword to his book: "One of the first works that I read after beginning my theological studies, at the beginning of 1946, was Romano Guardini's first book, 'The Spirit of the Liturgy', a small book published at Easter of 1918..., reprinted a number of times up until 1957... It contributed in a decisive manner to the rediscovery of the liturgy, with its beauty, hidden richness, and greatness that transcends time, as the vital center of the Church and of Christian life. It made its contribution to having the liturgy celebrated in an 'essential' manner (a term rather precious to Guardini); the desire was to understand it on the basis of its interior nature and form, as a prayer inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit himself, in which Christ continues to become present for us, to enter into our lives." 

The celebration of the liturgy is the true self-fulfillment of the Christian, and therefore in the struggle over symbolism and the liturgy, what is at stake – Ratzinger notes, following Guardini's teaching – is the development of the essential dimension of man. 

Guardini, Ratzinger recalls, found himself in the thick of the drama over the modernist crisis. How did he emerge from it? ... (H)e went in search of a new foundation, and found it beginning with his own conversion...  (N)o longer an encounter with God in the universal sense, but with "God in the concrete." At that moment, Guardini, Ratzinger stresses, understood that he held everything in his hand, his entire life, and had to decide how to spend it. His decision was to give his life to the Church, and from this arose his fundamental theological option: "Guardini was convinced that only thinking in harmony with the Church leads to freedom, and, above all, makes theology possible." 
...

Ratzinger reminds us in the words of Guardini "with a heartfelt appeal that ordinarily seemed entirely foreign to him, opposing the politicization of the university and its infiltration by party leadership, political chatter, the noise of the streets, and he cried out to his listeners: Ladies and gentlemen, do not permit this! This concerns that which is common to all of us, our future." 

Link to see Bidding farewell Pope Benedict XVI quotes Romano Guardini - a voice still relevant and should be made audible again (Part 1)

I leave you with one of my favorite quotes of Guardini: "With the advent of Christ man confronted a decision which placed him on a new level of existence.  Soren Kierkegaard made this fact clear, once and for all.  With the coming of Christ man's existence took on an earnestness which classical antiquity never knew simply because it had no way of knowing it.  The earnestness did not spring from human maturity; it sprang from the call which each person received from God through Christ.  With this call the person opened his eyes, he was awakened for the first time in his life."