February 10, 2006

TOGETHER IN HIS NAME

By Archbishop Joseph A. Fiorenza

Pope Benedict XVI: On Christian Love

The Holy Father’s first encyclical letter is a simple but beautiful and powerful personal reflection on the meaning of Christian Love.  It is a topic which surprised many people but it gets right to the core of what God teaches us in the Old Testament and what Jesus has revealed to us about love in the New Testament.  Faith in God is all about understanding and living the full meaning of love which is the key to ending hatred, violence, racial bigotry, intolerance, injustice and all other conflicts which disrupt and wound the human family.  True love is the only path to personal peace and to world peace.

Pope Benedict believes the message of love, “is both timely and significant.  For this reason, I wish in my first encyclical to speak of the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others.”

Good teacher that he is, the Pope gives an instruction on love as eros and love as agape.  The natural love of man and woman in which body and soul are joined was called eros by the Greeks.  The Pope lamented that eros has been reduced only to sex to be used and exploited at will; a “commodity” to be bought and sold.  Agape on the other hand, is love “which involves a real discovery of the other,” moving beyond selfishness and becomes “concern and care for the other.”  No longer self-seeking “it becomes renunciation and it is ready and even willing for sacrifices.”  In describing eros and agape as ascending love and descending love, he said they “can never be completely separated.  The more the two, in their different aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the true nature of love in general is realized.”  It is found in marriage “based on exclusive and definitive love” which is the “icon of the relationship between God and his people.”

The Holy Father relates love in its most radical form to the Eucharist in which Jesus, anticipating his death and resurrection, gives himself, his body and blood as the new manna, a food which truly nourishes.  In the Eucharist Jesus draws us into his act of self-giving, in what the Pope calls a sacramental “mysticism” which lifts us to a level of love far greater than any human experience.  This sacramental union with Christ is social in character because it “is also union with all those to whom he gives himself.  I cannot posses Christ just for myself.”  The Holy Father observes that “Eucharistic communion, includes the reality both of being loved and of loving others in turn.  A Eucharist which does not pass over into a concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented.”

These papal words are powerful and have serious implications for all Christians.  He is teaching us how to live a Eucharistic life in which love for neighbor is the “criterion for the definitive decision about a human life’s worth or lack thereof.”  (He describes neighbor as “anyone who needs me, and whom I can help”).  Drawing on the First Letter of John, the Pope said that “love of neighbor is a path to the encounter with God, and that closing our eyes to our neighbor also blinds us to God.”

The Holy Father concludes his first encyclical to the Church with an exhortation to be actively involved in the works of charity and justice as the concrete expression of the love of God and neighbor.  The exercise of charity is as essential to the Church “as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching the Gospel:  The Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word.”  Because charity is “an indispensable expression of her very being,”  the Church sponsors agencies such as Catholic Charities, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, San Jose Clinic, the Correctional Ministries and many others which are supported by the annual Diocesan Services Fund (DSF) and special collections.

The Pope also reminds us that charity is not enough: “We need to build a just social order in which all receive their share of the world’s good and no longer have to depend on charity.”  Achieving a just social order is the primary responsibility of the State.  In responding to the question of how justice can be achieved here and now, ethical standard must be followed free of what the Pope called “the dazzling effect of power and special interest.”  Then he said, “Here politics and faith meet.”  As a political task, building a just social order “cannot be the Church’s immediate responsibility: yet… the Church is duty bound to offer, through the purification of reason and through ethical formation, her own specific contribution towards understanding the requirements of justice and achieving them politically…”  “She cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice.  She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to awaken the spiritual energy without which justice… cannot prevail and prosper.”

Initiatives such as the involvement in the Civil Rights struggle, Pro-Life legislation, the abolition of the Death Penalty, the Defense of Marriage Act, Justice for Janitors and the Catholic Campaign for Immigration Reform are as essential to the work of the Church as administering the Sacraments and preaching the Gospel.  If the Church were not involved in political issues which involved justice, she would not be faithful to an essential part of her nature.  In other words, the Church would not be the Church Christ founded.

I hope my reflections on Pope Benedict’s encyclical will encourage you to read the complete text.  He writes in a very lucid and easy to understand style, although there are a few sections with a more philosophical explanation of love, but even these are not very dense.  This encyclical is relatively short, about half the length of the ones written by Pope John Paul II.  It is well-worth reading and studying by every Catholic, and should be the topic of discussion in every parish, high school and university.  If you are asked what does it mean to be a Christian, refer the questioner to Pope Benedict’s letter, “On Christian Love.”
 

My Sincere Thanks To You

I am deeply grateful to so many who sent me cards, letters, e-mails and fax messages and gifts on the occasion of my 75th birthday.  Please accept this notice as my sincere appreciation for your thoughtfulness and for the prayers you promised.  As I reported to you in the last issue of the Texas Catholic Herald, my letter of resignation was sent to Pope Benedict through the Apostolic Nuncio two weeks ago.  While I do not know how long it will take for the Holy Father to grant me retirement, I expect that it will happen in the next several weeks.

This will be the last article I will write as your Diocesan Bishop for our diocesan newspaper.  I am grateful for the kind comments you have expressed on the articles which I have written for the past 21 years.  I hope they have helped you to better understand the teachings of our Church and led you to a stronger faith in God while deepening the bonds of unity with the holy and apostolic Church of Rome.

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