Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church is often labeled today as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, look like the only attitude acceptable to today’s standards.
Pope Benedict XVI | faith Read More »
Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. There may be legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not… with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
Pope Benedict XVI | death Read More »
The great question that will be with us throughout this entire book: What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought?The answer is very simple: God…. He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about our origin and destiny: faith, hope and love. It is only because of our hardness of heart that we think this is too little. Yes indeed, God’s power works quietly in this world, but it is the true and the lasting power. Again and again, God’s cause seems to be in its death throes. Yet over and over again it proves to be the thing that truly endures and saves.
Quote from Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth Read More »
The capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reigns supreme.
Quote from Pope Benedict XVI, Saved in Hope: Spe Salvi Read More »
The ‘commandment’ of love is only possible because it is more than a requirement. Love can be ‘commanded’ because it has first been given.
Quote from Pope Benedict XVI, God Is Love: Deus Caritas Est Read More »
The glory of God is the living man, but the life of man is the vision of God’, says St. Irenaeus, getting to the heart of what happens when man meets God on the mountain in the wilderness. Ultimately, it is the very life of man, man himself as living righteously, that is the true worship of God, but life only becomes real life when it receives its form from looking toward God.
Quote from Pope Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy Read More »
Without God man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is… One of the deepest forms of poverty a person can experience is isolation… Poverty is often produced by a rejection of God’s love, by man’s basic and tragic tendency to close in on himself, thinking himself to be self-sufficient or merely an insignificant and ephemeral fact, a “stranger” in a random universe…The human being develops when … his soul comes to know itself and the truths that God has implanted deep within, when he enters into dialogue with himself and his Creator… It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with God.
Quote from Pope Benedict XVI Read More »
Knowing is not simply a material act, since the object that is known always conceals something beyond the empirical datum. All our knowledge, even the most simple, is always a minor miracle, since it can never be fully explained by the material instruments that we apply to it. In every truth there is something more than we would have expected, in the love that we receive there is always an element that surprises us.
Quote from Pope Benedict XVI, Charity in Truth: Caritas in Veritate Read More »