SUMMARY:
-
SPEAKING ABOUT GOD IN OUR TIMES
- APPEAL
FOR WORLD AIDS DAY 2012
______________________________________
SPEAKING
ABOUT GOD IN OUR TIMES
Vatican
City, 28 November 2012 (VIS) - "How do we speak to God in our
times? How can we communicate the Gospel to open the way to its
salvific truth?" The Holy Father offered an answer to these
questions in his catechesis during today's general audience, held in
the Vatican's Paul VI Hall.
"In
Jesus of Nazareth", the Pope said, "we encounter the face
of God, descended from Heaven to immerse Himself in the world of
mankind and to teach 'the art of living', the road to happiness; to
free us from sin and to make us true children of God".
He
continued, "speaking about God means, first and foremost, being
clear about what we must bring to the men and women of our time. God
has spoken to us, … not an abstract or hypothetical God, but a real
God, a God Who exists, Who entered history and remains present in
history: the God of Jesus Christ ... as a response to the fundamental
question of why and how to live. Therefore, speaking about God
requires a continual growth in faith, familiarity with Jesus and His
Gospel, a profound knowledge of God and strong passion for His plan
for salvation, without giving in to the temptations of success. …
We must not fear the humility of taking small steps, trusting in the
leaven that makes the dough rise slowly and mysteriously. In speaking
about God, in the work of evangelisation under the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, we must return to the simplicity and essential nature of
proclamation: the concrete Good News of God Who cares about us, the
love of God which Jesus Christ brought close to us, even unto the
Cross, and which in the Resurrection opens us to life without end, to
eternal life".
The Pope
explained that for St. Paul, communicating the faith did not mean
"showing himself, but rather saying openly and publicly what he
had seen and heard in his encounter with Christ, and how much his
life had been transformed by that encounter. … The Apostle was not
satisfied with merely proclaiming the words, but committed his entire
existence to the great work of faith. … To speak about God, we must
make space for Him, confident that He acts upon our weakness. We must
make space for Him without fear, with simplicity and joy, in the
profound conviction that the more we place Him - and not ourselves -
at the centre of our lives, the more fruitful our communication will
be. ... This also holds true for Christian communities. They are
called to communicate the transforming action of God's grace,
overcoming individualism, closure, selfishness and indifference,
bringing the love of God to daily relationships. We must must act to
ensure ... we always announce Christ, not ourselves".
"At
this point", the Holy Father continued, we must ask ourselves
"how Jesus Christ Himself communicated. Jesus … spoke about
His Father (Whom He called 'Abba') and about the Kingdom of God,
looking with compassion on the discomforts and difficulties of human
existence. … From the Gospel we see how Jesus was interested in
every human situation He encountered, He immersed Himself in the
lives of the men and women of His time, with complete trust in the
help of the Father. … In Him, proclamation and life were entwined:
Jesus acted and taught, always taking as a starting point His
intimate relationship with God the Father. This approach gives
fundamental indications to Christians: living in faith and charity is
a way of speaking about God in our times, because it demonstrates the
credibility of what we say in words through a life lived in Christ.
We must take care to grasp the signs of our times, and thereby to
identify the potential, the desires and the obstacles we encounter in
contemporary culture, in particular the desire for authenticity, the
yearning for transcendence, the sensibility for protecting creation.
And we must communicate without fear the answer offered by faith in
God".
"Speaking
about God, therefore, means enabling others to understand through
words and acts that God is not a competitor in our existence but
rather its true guarantor, the guarantor of the greatness of the
human person. Thus we return to the beginning: speaking about God
means communicating, with power and simplicity, through words and the
life we lead, that which is essential: the God of Jesus Christ, the
God Who showed us a love so great that He took on human flesh, died
and rose again for us; the God Who asks us to follow Him and to allow
ourselves to be transformed by His immense love in order to renew our
lives and our relationships; the God Who gave us the Church, to allow
us to journey together and, through the Word and the Sacraments, to
renew the entire City of Man so that it might become the City of
God", concluded the Pope.
APPEAL
FOR WORLD AIDS DAY 2012
Vatican
City, 28 November 2012 (VIS) - "World AIDS Day, a United Nations
initiative intended to draw attention to a disease that has caused
millions of deaths and tragic human suffering, will fall on 1
December", said the Pope following his catechesis at this
morning's general audience. "HIV/AIDS particularly affects the
poorest regions of the world, where there is very limited access to
effective medicines. My thoughts turn in particular to the large
number of children who contract the virus from their mothers each
year, despite the treatments which exist to prevent its transmission.
I encourage the many initiatives that, within the scope of the
ecclesial mission, have been taken in order to eradicate this
scourge".
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