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Love and
Life
It is
not science that redeems man: man is redeemed by love.
When someone has the experience of a great love in his
life, this is a moment of “redemption” which gives a new
meaning to his life. But soon, he will also realize that
the love bestowed upon him cannot, by itself, resolve
the question of his life.
It is a
love that remains fragile. It can be destroyed by death.
A human being needs unconditional love. He needs the
certainty which makes him say: “neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” If
this absolute love exists, with its absolute certainty,
only then is man “redeemed.” This is what it means to
say: Jesus Christ has “redeemed” us.
In this
sense it is true that anyone who does not know God, even
though he may entertain all kinds of hopes, is
ultimately without hope. Man’s great, true hope which
holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be
God, who has loved us and who continues to love us “to
the end,” until all “is accomplished” (John 13:1 and
19:30). Whoever is moved by love begins to perceive what
“life” really is. He begins to perceive the meaning of
the word of hope that we encountered in the Baptismal
Rite: from faith I await “eternal life”—the true life
which, whole and unthreatened, in all its fullness, is
simply life. Jesus explained to us what “life” means:
“this is eternal life that they know you the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Life in its true sense is not something we have
exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a relationship.
And life in its totality is a relationship with Him who
is the source of life. If we are in relation with Him
who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself,
then we are in life. Then we “live.”
Are we
not, in this way, falling back once again into an
individualistic understanding of salvation, into hope
for myself alone, which overlooks others? We are not!
Our relationship with God is established through
communion with Jesus—we cannot achieve it alone. The
relationship with Jesus, however, is a relationship with
the One who gave Himself as a ransom for all. Being in
communion with Jesus Christ draws us into His “being for
all.” He commits us to live for others, through
communion with Him. To quote Maximus the Confessor, “The
one who loves God cannot hold on to money, but rather
gives it out in God’s fashion. . . in the same manner in
accordance with the measure of justice.” Love of God
leads to participation in the justice and generosity of
God toward others.
Loving
God requires an interior freedom from all possessions
and all material goods: the love of God is revealed in
responsibility for others. This can be seen in the life
of
Saint Augustine. After his conversion to the Christian faith, he
decided to lead a life totally dedicated to the word of
God and to things eternal. His intention was to practice
a Christian version of the ideal contemplative life.
Things turned out differently. While attending Sunday
liturgy, he was called out from the assembly by the
bishop and constrained to receive ordination for the
exercise of the priestly ministry in that city. Looking
back on that moment, he writes in his Confessions:
“Terrified by my sins and the weight of my misery, I had
resolved in my heart, and meditated flight into the
wilderness; but you forbade me and gave me strength, by
saying: ‘Christ died for all, that those who live might
live no longer for themselves but for Him who for their
sake died’. Christ died for all. To live for Him means
allowing oneself to be drawn into His being for others.
For
Augustine, this meant a totally new life. He once
described his life as: “The turbulent have to be
corrected, the faint-hearted cheered up, the weak
supported; the Gospel’s opponents need to be refuted,
its insidious enemies guarded against; the unlearned
need to be taught, the indolent stirred up, the
argumentative checked; the proud must be put in their
place, the desperate set on their feet, those engaged in
quarrels reconciled; the needy have to be helped, the
oppressed to be liberated, the good to be encouraged,
the bad to be tolerated; all must be loved.”
In the
same chapter of the Confessions, he says that Christ
“intercedes for us, otherwise, I should despair. My
weaknesses are many and grave, many and grave, indeed,
but more abundant still is your medicine. We might have
thought that your word was far distant from union with
man, and so we might have despaired of ourselves, if
this Word had not become flesh and dwelt among us.” On
the strength of his hope, Augustine dedicated himself
completely to the ordinary people—renouncing his
spiritual nobility, he preached and acted in a simple
way for simple people.
To be continued next week
Spe
Salvi Encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI to all “On
Christian Hope”
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