Categories: uncategorized
Date: 31 January 2006 10:05:18
God is love (1 John 4:16), the title of Pope Benedict XVI's first Encyclical.
I don't think I've ever read an Encyclical before. I can't say if I've even ever had a desire to read one. But the title grabbed me and I thought I'd give it a read.
I am glad I did. Such wise words on "the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others." And practical. Oh so practical. Which is what I need. I constantly need to hear this message, and thanks be to God that He has enabled me to hear it again. Our sub-deacon is very big on practical love for one's neighbours, and I never tire of being challenged by him in sermons and Bible studies. And now Pope Benedict has challenged me.
Pope Benedict begins with several pages defining "love" and detailing the love "God mysteriously and gratuitously offers", culminating in Jesus Christ -- Love Incarnate -- and love of our neighbour. Part II details "Love ... the service that the Church carries out in order to attend constantly to man's sufferings and his needs, including material needs." The conclusion provides us to examples of those who exercised charity, from Martin of Tours to Anthony the Great to Mary, the Mother of God, and many others.
There are a number of wonderful phrases and sentences that stick in my mind. Here are several:
When Jesus speaks in his parables of the shepherd who goes after the lost sheep, of the woman who looks for the lost coin, of the father who goes to meet and embrace his prodigal son, these are no mere words: they constitute an explanation of his very being and activity. His death on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most radical form.In the Church's Liturgy, in her prayer, in the living community of believers, we experience the love of God, we perceive his presence and we thus learn to recognize that presence in our daily lives. He has loved us first and he continues to do so; we too, then, can respond with love. God does not demand of us a feeling which we ourselves are incapable of producing. He loves us, he makes us see and experience his love, and since he has “loved us first”, love can also blossom as a response within us.
Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave. .... 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.
Following the example given in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Christian charity is first of all the simple response to immediate needs and specific situations: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for and healing the sick, visiting those in prison, etc.
Those who practise charity in the Church's name will never seek to impose the Church's faith upon others. They realize that a pure and generous love is the best witness to the God in whom we believe and by whom we are driven to love. A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak. He knows that God is love (cf. 1 Jn 4:8) and that God's presence is felt at the very time when the only thing we do is to love.
Thanks be to God for this message, so desperately needed in our world at this time when we can all too easily lose sight of our union with God and, so often forgotten, our union and communion with our fellow humans: who are, like us, made in the image of God.