Part II of Prayer for the encyclical is entitled Action and Suffering as Setting for Learning Hope. This is yet another thick section by Pope Benedict. His writing style is to start off with a short rather beautifully simple statement that gets built into an idea that has a sense of beauty but also a burden of complexity, that takes time to ponder. His statement this time is, “all serious and upright human conduct is hope in action (35).” This means that the practical jokes that I participate in are not hope in action. The times that I lead liturgies and preach should be instances of Hope. Pope Benedict gets to the point quickly in that even if we perceive ourselves to be in desperate situations that the love of God allows us to have the “kind of hope [that can] give the courage to act and persevere (#35).” He returns to a point that was made at the very beginning of the letter and that “salvation is not simply a given (#1).” He states, “Heaven far exceeds what we can merit, it will always be true that our behavior is not indifferent before God and therefore is not indifferent for the unfolding of history (#35).” This makes the point of action in the title of this section. He outlines two reasons that our actions are important. The first is that “our actions engender hope for us and for others (#35).” The second “is the great hope based upon God’s promises that give us courage and directs our action in good times and bad (#35).” The point here is that love of God should inspire us to act out of love with the reassurance that love will redeem us. We should not act out of what we think we deserve or should have because Heaven is not offered to us on our actions. We have access to Heaven because of God’s generous love. Our actions should imitate this; our actions should not be cause and effect, but acting on a self-sacrificing love.
The next part of this section deals with the subject of suffering. Pope Benedict states, “Suffering stems partly from our finitude, and partly from the mass of sin which has accumulated over the course of history, and continues to grow abated today (#36).” Pope Benedict points out that we cannot “shake off our finitude (#36)” or “eliminating the power of evil (#36)” that suffering will always be with us while we are on earth in this life. We can limit suffering, but we will never be able to be rid of it this side of heaven. There is a challenge in this section that we as humanity show ourselves best when we recognize truth, justice and love as “enormously weighty realities (#39)” and “not simply ideals (#39).” Realities that must be safeguarded and adopted and not as ideals which occupy the imagination, but never exist in the world. This means that we have to be self-sacrificing for that which is great than ourselves. This is again a connection to the first paragraph of the letter, in which the Pope states, “the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads toward a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey (#1).”
Pope Benedict is stating in a letter what Pope John Paul II stated with his life. Much of life is mundane, that is tasks that need to be done. Yet, we are created in God’s image and likeness and redeemed by God’s love, so our actions cannot reside simply in this world. We must cooperate with God’s grace and act as He has given us the ability. That action entails a “painful renunciation of [oneself] (#39)” so that love can exist. Our challenge is to cooperate with God and luckily God has given us the ability. It is up to us act.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Spe Salvi as a discernment tool, part 7
I think most people would like to be known as being a person of prayer. Though I think most people see it as something unattainable. A life of prayer is done by others, but not by some like myself. We allow ourselves to be disillusioned into thinking something is not possible before we even give ourselves an actual opportunity to start. This is why the next section Prayer as school of hope is so important.
As is usual for Pope Benedict, he states the simple truth that the, “first essential setting for hope is prayer (#32).” As we reflect on the statement we discover that the “how” becomes complicated. First we are reminded that prayer is never an escape from our life or this world. Prayer should not be something that we do because we want to flee our lives or present situation. Prayer is a purification process that allows us to be better present to God and others. When we pray we need to set aside our needs and ideas. I gave up soda for Lent, which has helped me to realize that some times I incorrectly think that if I just have a Diet Coke everything will be fixed. It is a momentary need that some times seems to trump many moments. This is an example of the perceived needs we have, that can be strong in the moment, but seen as being stupid in the long run. Prayer means moving beyond these momentary needs to the need of the Infinite. The problem is that these momentary needs are very active in our minds. We can be easily deceived that they these momentary needs are worthy of our time and thought. These momentary needs can be the near occasion of sin, so we must be able to admit to sin. This is why Pope Benedict states, “Failure to recognize my guilt, the illusion of my innocence, does not justify me and does not save me, because I am culpable for the numbness of my conscience and my incapacity to recognize evil in me for what it is (#33).” He quickly adds, “Yet my encounter with God awakens my conscience in such a way that it no longer aims at self-justification, and is no longer a mere reflection of me and those contemporaries who shape my thinking, but becomes a capacity for listening to the Good itself (#33).” We need to be able to resist our momentary needs, so that we can hear God.
The next point that Pope Benedict makes about prayer is the twofold nature of prayer. Prayer must have personal component and a public component. Pope Benedict states, “Praying must always involve this intermingling of public and personal prayer (#34).” We must use the forms of prayer that have and continue to exist in the Church, such as Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, rosary, novenas, etc. as well as have our own prayer forms. God speaks to us through the Church and to us as individuals, but we can only be sure of Divine revelation, when It is communicated through both forms. Pope Benedict has argued extensively that being Catholic is not an individual issue, but is a communal activity. If we do this the Pope Benedict states, “we undergo those purifications by which we become open to God and are prepared for the service of our fellow human beings. We become capable of great hope, and thus we become ministers of hope for others (#34).” This is an important statement. We can know that we are cooperating with God’s grace when we can see how God is working in us and motivating us to work with others. Sometimes I think we do not know how to assess if we are cooperating with God. The assessment is are we giving to God and working with others.
This is an important point in discernment. The answer to the question of whether I am called to the priesthood is not arrived at by one’s own volition. Both the man and the community arrive at the answer. This is why the seminary is so important. The man entering the seminary needs to be able to ask the question “am I called to the priesthood?” The answer needs to be recognized by himself and the community.
As is usual for Pope Benedict, he states the simple truth that the, “first essential setting for hope is prayer (#32).” As we reflect on the statement we discover that the “how” becomes complicated. First we are reminded that prayer is never an escape from our life or this world. Prayer should not be something that we do because we want to flee our lives or present situation. Prayer is a purification process that allows us to be better present to God and others. When we pray we need to set aside our needs and ideas. I gave up soda for Lent, which has helped me to realize that some times I incorrectly think that if I just have a Diet Coke everything will be fixed. It is a momentary need that some times seems to trump many moments. This is an example of the perceived needs we have, that can be strong in the moment, but seen as being stupid in the long run. Prayer means moving beyond these momentary needs to the need of the Infinite. The problem is that these momentary needs are very active in our minds. We can be easily deceived that they these momentary needs are worthy of our time and thought. These momentary needs can be the near occasion of sin, so we must be able to admit to sin. This is why Pope Benedict states, “Failure to recognize my guilt, the illusion of my innocence, does not justify me and does not save me, because I am culpable for the numbness of my conscience and my incapacity to recognize evil in me for what it is (#33).” He quickly adds, “Yet my encounter with God awakens my conscience in such a way that it no longer aims at self-justification, and is no longer a mere reflection of me and those contemporaries who shape my thinking, but becomes a capacity for listening to the Good itself (#33).” We need to be able to resist our momentary needs, so that we can hear God.
The next point that Pope Benedict makes about prayer is the twofold nature of prayer. Prayer must have personal component and a public component. Pope Benedict states, “Praying must always involve this intermingling of public and personal prayer (#34).” We must use the forms of prayer that have and continue to exist in the Church, such as Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, rosary, novenas, etc. as well as have our own prayer forms. God speaks to us through the Church and to us as individuals, but we can only be sure of Divine revelation, when It is communicated through both forms. Pope Benedict has argued extensively that being Catholic is not an individual issue, but is a communal activity. If we do this the Pope Benedict states, “we undergo those purifications by which we become open to God and are prepared for the service of our fellow human beings. We become capable of great hope, and thus we become ministers of hope for others (#34).” This is an important statement. We can know that we are cooperating with God’s grace when we can see how God is working in us and motivating us to work with others. Sometimes I think we do not know how to assess if we are cooperating with God. The assessment is are we giving to God and working with others.
This is an important point in discernment. The answer to the question of whether I am called to the priesthood is not arrived at by one’s own volition. Both the man and the community arrive at the answer. This is why the seminary is so important. The man entering the seminary needs to be able to ask the question “am I called to the priesthood?” The answer needs to be recognized by himself and the community.
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