Many priests and religious began an exodus, not from Egyptian thraldom, but from the sanctuary and the cloister. Whenever there is a defect in the Church there is always a danger of going to an extreme. This happens in all areas of life even in literature, where the classicism of Dryden produces the reaction of the romanticism of the Lake poets. Time is required to strike a balance between the teeter-totter of isolation from the world at one time and drowning in it at another.
The distance between spirituality and social action is not as great as many believe. Scripture does not reveal a spiritual man or a secular man. It speaks only of a whole man - integrated by the salvation that Christ brings. It is the incarnation that has to be worked out in the assumption of new human natures as the instruments of Christ's continuing salvation. God is indeed the source of all things, but all things have their fulfillment in Him. The keriosis or the humiliation of God in Christ is balanced by the pleroma or the filling up of all things in Him: "So may you attain the fullness of being, the fullness of God Himself". - Eph. 3:19 -
Every great deed done to a neighbour is done in a world in which Christ has already acted: touching the lepers, emptying food baskets, healing withered hands. Only when we align ourselves with Him do all our good deeds begin to work. Theology is not politics: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. So do not be swept off your course by all sorts of outlandish teaching". - Heb. 13:7-8 - John Mark is still a better guide than Harvey Cox. It is the actualization of Christ that differs from age to age. Unamuno had the correct vision:
Those who believe that they believe in God,
but without any passion in their heart,
without anguish of mind,... believe only in
the God-idea, not God Himself.
Because we are in the world but not of it, the priest or nun who would be truly effective in an apostolate in the world must have three conversions: TO CHRIST -------; TO CHURCH -------; TO WORLD
The world represents the last step in the descent; without the first two, there may be no claim to doing God's work.
TO CHRIST: "There is no salvation in anyone else at all, for there is no other name under heaven granted to men, by which we may receive salvation". - Acts: 4:12 -
TO THE CHURCH: The mutuality of response by those who are saved by the Blood of Christ form His Body: "In Him you too are being built with all the rest into a spiritual dwelling for God". - Eph. 2:22 - "For no one ever hated his own body; on the contrary, he provides and cares for it; and that is how Christ treats the Church, because it is His Body, of which we are living parts". - Eph. 5:29 -
TO THE WORLD: "Christ Himself the remedy for the defilement of our sins, not our sins only but the sins of the world". - 1John 2:2 -
The Lord never intended that the conversion to....................
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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