This past weekend up through today, the Pope met with several groups and offered thoughts here and there:
Pilgrims from the region of Romagna came on Saturday:
During Sunday’s Angelus, he celebrated the family as "missionaries of love."
Last night was another Sunday Night at the Movies – this time a film on the life of John Paul I
After the screening, the Pope pronounced a few words. "We have," he said, "reconsidered the kind and gentle figure of a Pontiff strong in the faith, firm in his principles but always ready to welcome with a smile. Faithful to tradition and open to renewal, Servant of God Albino Luciani, as priest, as bishop and as Pope was tireless in his pastoral activity, constantly encouraging clergy and laity to seek in the various fields of the apostolate, the one common ideal of sanctity.
"Master of truth and zealous catechist, with his customary engaging simplicity he reminded all believers of the duty and joy of evangelization, highlighting the beauty of Christian love, the only power capable of defeating violence and of building a more fraternal humanity."
The Holy Father said the following in French:
The parable of the prodigal son is one of the most appreciated passages in Sacred Scripture. Its profound illustration of God’s mercy and the important human desire for conversion and reconciliation, as well as the restoration of broken relationships, speaks to men and women of all ages.
Man is frequently tempted to exercise his freedom by keeping his distance from God. The experience of the prodigal son enables us to recognize in history as well as in our own lives that when freedom is sought outside of God, the result is negative: loss of personal dignity, moral confusion and social disintegration.
Nevertheless, the Father’s passionate love for humanity triumphs over human pride. Given freely, it is a love that pardons and leads us to enter more profoundly into the communion of the Church of Christ. It truly offers to all peoples union with God, and as perfectly manifested by Christ on the Cross, it reconciles justice and love (Deus caritas est, n. 10).
He resumed in English:
And what of the elder brother? Is he not, in a certain sense, all men and women as well; perhaps particularly those who sadly distance themselves from the Church?
His rationalization of his attitude and actions evokes a certain sympathy, yet in the final analysis illustrates his inability to understand unconditional love. Unable to think beyond the limits of natural justice, he remains trapped within envy and pride, detached from God, isolated from others and ill at ease with himself.
Dear Brothers, as you reflect upon the three characters in this parable – the Father in his abundant mercy, the younger son in his joy at being forgiven, and the elder brother in his tragic isolation – be confirmed in your desire to address the loss of a sense of sin, to which you have referred in your reports.
This pastoral priority reflects an eager hope that the faithful will experience God’s boundless love as a call to deepen their ecclesial unity and overcome the division and fragmentation that so often wound today’s families and communities.
From this perspective, the Bishop’s responsibility to indicate the destructive presence of sin is readily understood as a service of hope: it strengthens believers to avoid evil and to embrace the perfection of love and the plenitude of Christian life.
I wish therefore to commend your promotion of the Sacrament of Penance. While this Sacrament is often considered with indifference, what it effects is precisely the fullness of healing for which we long. A new-found appreciation of this Sacrament will confirm that time spent in the confessional draws good from evil, restores life from death, and reveals anew the merciful face of the Father.
Understanding the gift of reconciliation calls for a careful reflection on the ways to evoke conversion and penance in man’s heart (cf. Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 23).
While manifestations of sin abound – greed and corruption, betrayed relationships and exploitation of persons – the recognition of individual sinfulness has waned. Behind this weakening of the recognition of sin, with its commensurate attenuation of the need to seek forgiveness, is ultimately a weakening of our relationship with God (cf. Address at Ecumenical Vespers, Regensburg, 12 September 2006).
Not surprisingly this phenomenon is particularly pronounced in societies marked by secularist post-Enlightenment ideology. Where God is excluded from the public forum the sense of offence against God – the true sense of sin – dissipates, just as when the absolute value of moral norms is relativized, the categories of good or evil vanish, along with individual responsibility.
Yet, the human need to acknowledge and confront sin in fact never goes away, no matter how much an individual may, like the elder brother, rationalize to the contrary. As Saint John tells us: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves" (1 Jn 1:8). It is an integral part of the truth about the human person.
When the need to seek forgiveness and the readiness to forgive are forgotten, in their place a disturbing culture of blame and litigiousness arises. This ugly phenomenon, however, can be dispelled.
(emphasis Teresa’s the translator’s)
Read Previous Post