Pope Francis recently published Lumen Fidei (The Light of Faith), his first encyclical letter dedicated to faith. Pope Benedict had already done a lot of work on it and Pope Francis just added the finishing touches. These are some extracts:
Faith is not just a private matter
“Faith is not a private matter, a completely individualistic notion or a personal opinion: it comes from hearing, and it is meant to find expression in words and to be proclaimed. For ‘how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?’ (Rom 10:14).
“Faith becomes operative in the Christian on the basis of the gift received, the love which attracts our hearts to Christ (cf. Gal 5:6), and enables us to become part of the Church’s great pilgrimage through history until the end of the world.” (Para. 22)
A tangible God
“Our culture has lost its sense of God’s tangible presence and activity in our world. We think that God is to be found in the beyond, on another level of reality, far removed from our everyday relationships.
“Christians, on the contrary, profess their faith in God’s tangible and powerful love which really does act in history and determines its final destiny: a love that can be encountered, a love fully revealed in Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.” (Para. 17)
Faith and truth
“Today more than ever, we need to be reminded of this bond between faith and truth, given the crisis of truth in our age. In contemporary culture, we tend to consider the only real truth to be that of technology: truth is what we succeed in building and measuring by our scientific knowhow, truth is what works and makes life easier, more comfortable.
“In the end, what we are left with is relativism, in which the question of universal truth – and ultimately this means the question of God – is no longer relevant. It would be logical, from this point of view, to attempt to sever the bond between religion and truth, because it seems to lie at the root of fanaticism, which proves oppressive for anyone who does not share the same beliefs.” (Para. 25)
The Decalogue
“The Decalogue is not a set of negative commands, but concrete directions for emerging from the desert of the selfish and self-enclosed ego in order to enter into dialogue with God, to be embraced by his mercy and then to bring that mercy to others.” (Para. 46)
Truth and love
“Truth nowadays is often reduced to the subjective authenticity of the individual, valid only for the life of the individual. A common truth intimidates us, for we identify it with the intransigent demands of totalitarian systems. But if truth is a truth of love, if it is a truth disclosed in personal encounter with the Other and with others, then it can be set free from its enclosure in individuals and become part of the common good.
“As a truth of love, it is not one that can be imposed by force; it is not a truth that stifles the individual. Since it is born of love, it can penetrate to the heart, to the personal core of each man and woman.” (Para. 34)
Faith and suffering
“Faith is not a light which scatters all our darkness, but a lamp which guides our steps in the night and suffices for the journey. To those who suffer, God does not provide arguments which explain everything; rather, His response is that of an accompanying presence, a history of goodness which touches every story of suffering and opens up a ray of light.” (Para. 57)
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)