A CONTINUOUS CRESCENDO

The  Fullness of God's Love for us.

"The Year of Faith is" the Holy Father tells us, “a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Saviour of the world." He expands on this explanation of its purpose by referring to the great mystery of the death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ which reveal so dramatically the fullness of God's Love for us and open the way for our conversion of life through the forgiveness of sins.

He goes on to quote Saint Paul:

"We were buried......with Him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life."(Rom. 6:4)

Then the Holy Father tells us that “Through Faith, this new life shapes the whole of human existence according to the radical new reality of the Resurrection." We are given a deeper appreciation of this great reality by considering the words of Pope Leo XIII in "Tametsi"(All Saints Day, 1900):

”...He is the origin and source of all good, and just as mankind could not be freed from slavery but by the sacrifice of Christ, so neither can it be preserved but by His power."

 In a wonderful reflection upon a variety of writings of Saint Paul, Pope Benedict explains that "Faith working through love" (Gal. 5:6) becomes a new criterion of understanding and action that changes the whole of man's life.

The LateFather John Hardon S.J.
A remarkable example of a life of Faith working through love.

This is a crucial insight. It is something we have always understood implicitly, but here it is so succinctly expressed that we are able to address its implications more effectively. It is a brilliant expression of the appropriate understanding of Jesus as the "Way". It reveals to us with unavoidable clarity how we must follow the "Way".

Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman's words should leave us unsurprised that we are always able to learn more from the life of Christ: "Every passage in the history of Our Lord and Saviour is of unfathomable depth, and affords inexhaustible matter of contemplation. All that concerns Him is infinite, and what we first discern is but the surface of that which begins and ends in eternity."(Discourses to Mixed Congregations - 19th Cent.)

Moving on the Holy Father explores the implications of this insight, and takes up the ancient formula : " Caritas Christi urget nos" that is " The Love of Christ impels us" (2Cor. 5:14), showing that it is precisely the working of Faith through love, that propels evangelization in every generation and to the ends of the earth. He urges us in effect to re-kindle the fire of apostolic zeal which will fuel the new evangelization. And, he shows that this very act of living out the implications of Faith, itself further develops that Faith and the grace and joy which follow and causes in those evangelized the opening of their hearts and minds to the Divine message.

Two lives exemplifying Faith working through love
in the service of Jesus Christ

The Holy Father quotes the great Saint Augustine to the effect that believers "strengthen themselves by believing". And he shows that in the Saints life we see a continual quest to "…search for the beauty of Faith until such time as his heart would find rest in God". He points out that the mighty writings of Saint Augustine still, after some 1,600 years are leading people to the "door of Faith".

Pope Benedict concludes this section:"Only through believing, then, does Faith grow and become stronger; there is no other possibility for possessing certitude with regard to one's life apart from self abandonment, in a continuous crescendo, into the hands of a love that seems to grow constantly because it has its origin in God."