inundado por um mistério de luz que é Deus e N´Ele vi e ouvi -A ponta da lança como chama que se desprende, toca o eixo da terra, – Ela estremece: montanhas, cidades, vilas e aldeias com os seus moradores são sepultados. - O mar, os rios e as nuvens saem dos seus limites, transbordam, inundam e arrastam consigo num redemoinho, moradias e gente em número que não se pode contar , é a purificação do mundo pelo pecado em que se mergulha. - O ódio, a ambição provocam a guerra destruidora! - Depois senti no palpitar acelerado do coração e no meu espírito o eco duma voz suave que dizia: – No tempo, uma só Fé, um só Batismo, uma só Igreja, Santa, Católica, Apostólica: - Na eternidade, o Céu! Cardinal Carlo Caffarra: extracts from a conference he would have held in Milan on September 10th 2017
Nuova Bussola Quotidiana
September 8, 2017
If Cardinal Caffarra’s death on one hand leaves a void for those who grew to love and follow him over the years, on the other hand it calls each and all of us to an even greater responsibility, for our own and the Church’s benefit.
For “La Giornata della Bussola”, (on Sunday September 10th) the Cardinal had prepared an intervention and sent it to us just before his death. In these extracts we publish now, we are conscious that it is a sort of spiritual testament and that we are called to continue in this defense of Truth, following the great example of Cardinal Caffarra.
Sunday’s lesson is divided into two parts: in the first the Cardinal examines the factors of the destruction of the human and in the second he explains Who it is that rebuilds the human.
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Woe to us if the Church should have in Her memory something other than the Resurrection of Christ
I’ll begin the second part of my reflection with a metaphor. Two people are walking along the banks of an overflowing river. One knows how to swim the other doesn’t. The latter slips and falls into the river, which sweeps him away. There are three possibilities his friend has: teach him to swim; throw a rope telling him to hold on tight to it; jump into the river himself, get hold of the drowning man and bring him back to the shore.
Which of these ways did the Incarnate Verb take, seeing man being swept away by his own self-destruction? The Pelagians responded with the first and this corresponds to all those who reduce the Christian Event to moral exhortations. The Semi- Pelagians responded with the second, and corresponds to those who see grace and liberty as two forces inversely proportional. The Church teaches the third. The Word, not considering His Divine condition a treasure to guard jealously, threw Himself into the river of evil in order to get hold of man and bring him to the shore. This is the Christian Event.”
Let’s ask ourselves: at what depth must the reconstruction of the human begin? At the point where truth and liberty meet. The human person’s evil as such, is moral evil, since it strikes the personal subject. The reconstruction of the human starts at this level or it will always be mere ‘aesthetic surgery’.
Christ’s redemptive act, occurring once and for always and operating in the Church, heals specifically the laceration of the subject through which the devastation of the human has its origin. And the Church exists for this: to render present here and now the redemptive act of Christ. “Be mindful that the Lord Jesus Christ is risen again from the dead” [Tim. 2,8] St. Paul writes to his disciple Timothy. Woe to us if the memory of the Church has other contents!
H/T: Chiesa e Post Concilio
Translation: Contributer, Francesca Romana