Last Monday’s announcement by Pope Benedict himself that he was going to resigned surprised all and shocked many. Tomorrow, in my commentary in The Sunday Times I will be discussing this resignation and making an assessment of the pontificate which is now in its dusk.
This Pope has made a mark for himself in his sermons and writings. They are both clear and profound. However, in the light of his resignation his “last” statements in his pontificate take on added significance. This is why I wish to share with you a few thoughts about his message for Lent which now happens to be his final papal message for Lent. It is entitled: Believing in Charity Calls Forth Charity: "We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us," (1Jn 4:16).
Just read this intriguing statement:
“The Christian life consists in continuously scaling the mountain to meet God and then coming back down, bearing the love and strength drawn from him, so as to serve our brothers and sisters with God’s own love.”
The mission of the Christian is Moses-like. On the mountain he met God and went down to communicate to his people what God revealed. We also are invited to go up the mountain to meet God and be strengthened by the divinity. This strength has then to be translated into the service of others.
In his final Lenten message Benedict twines together, once more, the relationship between faith and charity. He proposes Lend as the time when we are expected to examine how we live this intertwining.
This position shows how mistaken is the maxim that the more time humans have for God the less time they will have for other humans. The opposite is true. It is very difficult to altruistically serve others if we are not imbued with God. The more time humans have for God the more time they will have for other humans.
For Benedict the relationship between faith and charity is not one of convenience but one of essence, that is it follows from the nature of faith and charity. It is also an indissoluble relationship.
"It is clear that we can never separate, let alone oppose, faith and charity. These two theological virtues are intimately linked, and it is misleading to posit a contrast or “dialectic” between them.
What happens if this indissoluble bond is broken? Benedict is very clear.
“On the one hand, it would be too one-sided to place a strong emphasis on the priority and decisiveness of faith and to undervalue and almost despise concrete works of charity, reducing them to a vague humanitarianism. On the other hand, though, it is equally unhelpful to overstate the primacy of charity and the activity it generates, as if works could take the place of faith. For a healthy spiritual life, it is necessary to avoid both fideism and moral activism.”
However, this separation or opposition can take different forms. It is a misunderstanding to emphasize the faith, and the liturgy as its privileged channel, so strongly as to forget that they are intended for actual persons who have their own needs, human as they may be their own history, their own relationships."
The going together of faith and charity has a corollary. Even the Gospel and action go together.
Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum" during the press conference launching the Pope’s message for Lent explained it in this way:
"On the one hand, a life based solely on faith runs the risk of sinking into a banal sentimentality that reduces our relationship with God to mere consolation. On the other hand, a charity that kneels in adoration of God without taking into account the source from which it springs and to which every good deed must be directed, is likely to be reduced to mere philanthropy, to mere 'moral activism'," the Cardinal said.
I suggest you read the full text of Pope Benedict XVI's Lenten Message. It can be accessed from http://www.zenit.org/article-36460?l=english
The theme of the Pope’s message has also been developed by our Bishops as the theme of their Lenten Pastoral Letter. It can be accessed from the website of the Archdiocese of Malta.
www.maltadiocese.org