OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
BENEDICT XVI
TO THE BISHOPS, PRIESTS AND DEACONS, MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS
AND ALL THE LAY FAITHFUL
ON CHRISTIAN HOPE
Introduction
1. “SPE SALVI facti sumus”—in
hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise
to us (Rom 8:24). According to the Christian faith,
“redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given. Redemption is
offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope,
trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present:
the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if
it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if
this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey.
Now the question immediately arises: what sort of hope could
ever justify the statement that, on the basis of that hope and
simply because it exists, we are redeemed? And what sort of
certainty is involved here?
Faith is Hope
2. Before turning our attention
to these timely questions, we must listen a little more closely
to the Bible's testimony on hope. “Hope”, in fact, is a key word
in Biblical faith—so much so that in several passages the words
“faith” and “hope” seem interchangeable. Thus the Letter to
the Hebrews closely links the “fullness of faith” (10:22) to
“the confession of our hope without wavering” (10:23). Likewise,
when the First Letter of Peter exhorts Christians to be
always ready to give an answer concerning the logos—the
meaning and the reason—of their hope (cf. 3:15), “hope” is
equivalent to “faith”. We see how decisively the
self-understanding of the early Christians was shaped by their
having received the gift of a trustworthy hope, when we compare
the Christian life with life prior to faith, or with the
situation of the followers of other religions. Paul reminds the
Ephesians that before their encounter with Christ they were
“without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12).
Of course he knew they had had gods, he knew they had had a
religion, but their gods had proved questionable, and no hope
emerged from their contradictory myths. Notwithstanding their
gods, they were “without God” and consequently found themselves
in a dark world, facing a dark future. In nihil ab nihilo
quam cito recidimus (How quickly we fall back from nothing
to nothing): 1 so says an epitaph of that period. In
this phrase we see in no uncertain terms the point Paul was
making. In the same vein he says to the Thessalonians: you must
not “grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Th 4:13).
Here too we see as a distinguishing mark of Christians the fact
that they have a future: it is not that they know the details of
what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life
will not end in emptiness. Only when the future is certain as a
positive reality does it become possible to live the present as
well. So now we can say: Christianity was not only “good
news”—the communication of a hitherto unknown content. In our
language we would say: the Christian message was not only
“informative” but “performative”. That means: the Gospel is not
merely a communication of things that can be known—it is one
that makes things happen and is life-changing. The dark door of
time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope
lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift
of a new life.
3. Yet at this point a question
arises: in what does this hope consist which, as hope, is
“redemption”? The essence of the answer is given in the phrase
from the Letter to the Ephesians quoted above: the
Ephesians, before their encounter with Christ, were without hope
because they were “without God in the world”. To come to know
God—the true God—means to receive hope. We who have always lived
with the Christian concept of God, and have grown accustomed to
it, have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that
ensues from a real encounter with this God. The example of a
saint of our time can to some degree help us understand what it
means to have a real encounter with this God for the first time.
I am thinking of the African Josephine Bakhita, canonized by
Pope John Paul II. She was born around 1869—she herself did not
know the precise date—in Darfur in Sudan. At the age of nine,
she was kidnapped by slave-traders, beaten till she bled, and
sold five times in the slave-markets of Sudan. Eventually she
found herself working as a slave for the mother and the wife of
a general, and there she was flogged every day till she bled; as
a result of this she bore 144 scars throughout her life.
Finally, in 1882, she was bought by an Italian merchant for the
Italian consul Callisto Legnani, who returned to Italy as the
Mahdists advanced. Here, after the terrifying “masters” who had
owned her up to that point, Bakhita came to know a totally
different kind of “master”—in Venetian dialect, which she was
now learning, she used the name “paron” for the living
God, the God of Jesus Christ. Up to that time she had known only
masters who despised and maltreated her, or at best considered
her a useful slave. Now, however, she heard that there is a “paron”
above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is
good, goodness in person. She came to know that this Lord even
knew her, that he had created her—that he actually loved her.
She too was loved, and by none other than the supreme “Paron”,
before whom all other masters are themselves no more than lowly
servants. She was known and loved and she was awaited. What is
more, this master had himself accepted the destiny of being
flogged and now he was waiting for her “at the Father's right
hand”. Now she had “hope” —no longer simply the modest hope of
finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: “I
am definitively loved and whatever happens to me—I am awaited by
this Love. And so my life is good.” Through the knowledge of
this hope she was “redeemed”, no longer a slave, but a free
child of God. She understood what Paul meant when he reminded
the Ephesians that previously they were without hope and without
God in the world—without hope because without God. Hence,
when she was about to be taken back to Sudan, Bakhita refused;
she did not wish to be separated again from her “Paron”.
On 9 January 1890, she was baptized and confirmed and received
her first Holy Communion from the hands of the Patriarch of
Venice. On 8 December 1896, in Verona, she took her vows in the
Congregation of the Canossian Sisters and from that time
onwards, besides her work in the sacristy and in the porter's
lodge at the convent, she made several journeys round Italy in
order to promote the missions: the liberation that she had
received through her encounter with the God of Jesus Christ, she
felt she had to extend, it had to be handed on to others, to the
greatest possible number of people. The hope born in her which
had “redeemed” her she could not keep to herself; this hope had
to reach many, to reach everybody.
The concept of faith-based hope
in the New Testament and the early Church
4. We have raised the question:
can our encounter with the God who in Christ has shown us his
face and opened his heart be for us too not just “informative”
but “performative”—that is to say, can it change our lives, so
that we know we are redeemed through the hope that it expresses?
Before attempting to answer the question, let us return once
more to the early Church. It is not difficult to realize that
the experience of the African slave-girl Bakhita was also the
experience of many in the period of nascent Christianity who
were beaten and condemned to slavery. Christianity did not bring
a message of social revolution like that of the ill-fated
Spartacus, whose struggle led to so much bloodshed. Jesus was
not Spartacus, he was not engaged in a fight for political
liberation like Barabbas or Bar- Kochba. Jesus, who himself died
on the Cross, brought something totally different: an encounter
with the Lord of all lords, an encounter with the living God and
thus an encounter with a hope stronger than the sufferings of
slavery, a hope which therefore transformed life and the world
from within. What was new here can be seen with the utmost
clarity in Saint Paul's Letter to Philemon. This is a
very personal letter, which Paul wrote from prison and entrusted
to the runaway slave Onesimus for his master, Philemon. Yes,
Paul is sending the slave back to the master from whom he had
fled, not ordering but asking: “I appeal to you for my child ...
whose father I have become in my imprisonment ... I am sending
him back to you, sending my very heart ... perhaps this is why
he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back
for ever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a
beloved brother ...” (Philem 10-16). Those who, as far as
their civil status is concerned, stand in relation to one an
other as masters and slaves, inasmuch as they are members of the
one Church have become brothers and sisters—this is how
Christians addressed one another. By virtue of their Baptism
they had been reborn, they had been given to drink of the same
Spirit and they received the Body of the Lord together,
alongside one another. Even if external structures remained
unaltered, this changed society from within. When the Letter
to the Hebrews says that Christians here on earth do not
have a permanent homeland, but seek one which lies in the future
(cf. Heb 11:13-16; Phil 3:20), this does not mean
for one moment that they live only for the future: present
society is recognized by Christians as an exile; they belong to
a new society which is the goal of their common pilgrimage and
which is anticipated in the course of that pilgrimage.
5. We must add a further point
of view. The First Letter to the Corinthians (1:18-31)
tells us that many of the early Christians belonged to the lower
social strata, and precisely for this reason were open to the
experience of new hope, as we saw in the example of Bakhita. Yet
from the beginning there were also conversions in the
aristocratic and cultured circles, since they too were living
“without hope and without God in the world”. Myth had lost its
credibility; the Roman State religion had become fossilized into
simple ceremony which was scrupulously carried out, but by then
it was merely “political religion”. Philosophical rationalism
had confined the gods within the realm of unreality. The Divine
was seen in various ways in cosmic forces, but a God to whom one
could pray did not exist. Paul illustrates the essential problem
of the religion of that time quite accurately when he contrasts
life “according to Christ” with life under the dominion of the
“elemental spirits of the universe” (Col 2:8). In this
regard a text by Saint Gregory Nazianzen is enlightening. He
says that at the very moment when the Magi, guided by the star,
adored Christ the new king, astrology came to an end, because
the stars were now moving in the orbit determined by Christ.2
This scene, in fact, overturns the world-view of that time,
which in a different way has become fashionable once again
today. It is not the elemental spirits of the universe, the laws
of matter, which ultimately govern the world and mankind, but a
personal God governs the stars, that is, the universe; it is not
the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but
reason, will, love—a Person. And if we know this Person and he
knows us, then truly the inexorable power of material elements
no longer has the last word; we are not slaves of the universe
and of its laws, we are free. In ancient times, honest enquiring
minds were aware of this. Heaven is not empty. Life is not a
simple product of laws and the randomness of matter, but within
everything and at the same time above everything, there is a
personal will, there is a Spirit who in Jesus has revealed
himself as Love.3
6. The sarcophagi of the early
Christian era illustrate this concept visually—in the context of
death, in the face of which the question concerning life's
meaning becomes unavoidable. The figure of Christ is interpreted
on ancient sarcophagi principally by two images: the philosopher
and the shepherd. Philosophy at that time was not generally seen
as a difficult academic discipline, as it is today. Rather, the
philosopher was someone who knew how to teach the essential art:
the art of being authentically human—the art of living and
dying. To be sure, it had long since been realized that many of
the people who went around pretending to be philosophers,
teachers of life, were just charlatans who made money through
their words, while having nothing to say about real life. All
the more, then, the true philosopher who really did know how to
point out the path of life was highly sought after. Towards the
end of the third century, on the sarcophagus of a child in Rome,
we find for the first time, in the context of the resurrection
of Lazarus, the figure of Christ as the true philosopher,
holding the Gospel in one hand and the philosopher's travelling
staff in the other. With his staff, he conquers death; the
Gospel brings the truth that itinerant philosophers had searched
for in vain. In this image, which then became a common feature
of sarcophagus art for a long time, we see clearly what both
educated and simple people found in Christ: he tells us who man
truly is and what a man must do in order to be truly human. He
shows us the way, and this way is the truth. He himself is both
the way and the truth, and therefore he is also the life which
all of us are seeking. He also shows us the way beyond death;
only someone able to do this is a true teacher of life. The same
thing becomes visible in the image of the shepherd. As in the
representation of the philosopher, so too through the figure of
the shepherd the early Church could identify with existing
models of Roman art. There the shepherd was generally an
expression of the dream of a tranquil and simple life, for which
the people, amid the confusion of the big cities, felt a certain
longing. Now the image was read as part of a new scenario which
gave it a deeper content: “The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not
want ... Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I fear no evil, because you are with me ...” (Ps
23 [22]:1, 4). The true shepherd is one who knows even the path
that passes through the valley of death; one who walks with me
even on the path of final solitude, where no one can accompany
me, guiding me through: he himself has walked this path, he has
descended into the kingdom of death, he has conquered death, and
he has returned to accompany us now and to give us the certainty
that, together with him, we can find a way through. The
realization that there is One who even in death accompanies me,
and with his “rod and his staff comforts me”, so that “I fear no
evil” (cf. Ps 23 [22]:4)—this was the new “hope” that
arose over the life of believers.
7. We must return once more to
the New Testament. In the eleventh chapter of the Letter to
the Hebrews (v. 1) we find a kind of definition of faith
which closely links this virtue with hope. Ever since the
Reformation there has been a dispute among exegetes over the
central word of this phrase, but today a way towards a common
interpretation seems to be opening up once more. For the time
being I shall leave this central word untranslated. The sentence
therefore reads as follows: “Faith is the hypostasis of
things hoped for; the proof of things not seen”. For the Fathers
and for the theologians of the Middle Ages, it was clear that
the Greek word hypostasis was to be rendered in Latin
with the term substantia. The Latin translation of the
text produced at the time of the early Church therefore reads:
Est autem fides sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum non
apparentium—faith is the “substance” of things hoped for;
the proof of things not seen. Saint Thomas Aquinas,4
using the terminology of the philosophical tradition to which he
belonged, explains it as follows: faith is a habitus,
that is, a stable disposition of the spirit, through which
eternal life takes root in us and reason is led to consent to
what it does not see. The concept of “substance” is therefore
modified in the sense that through faith, in a tentative way, or
as we might say “in embryo”—and thus according to the
“substance”—there are already present in us the things that are
hoped for: the whole, true life. And precisely because the thing
itself is already present, this presence of what is to come also
creates certainty: this “thing” which must come is not yet
visible in the external world (it does not “appear”), but
because of the fact that, as an initial and dynamic reality, we
carry it within us, a certain perception of it has even now come
into existence. To Luther, who was not particularly fond of the
Letter to the Hebrews, the concept of “substance”, in the
context of his view of faith, meant nothing. For this reason he
understood the term hypostasis/substance not in the
objective sense (of a reality present within us), but in the
subjective sense, as an expression of an interior attitude, and
so, naturally, he also had to understand the term argumentum
as a disposition of the subject. In the twentieth century this
interpretation became prevalent—at least in Germany—in Catholic
exegesis too, so that the ecumenical translation into German of
the New Testament, approved by the Bishops, reads as follows:
Glaube aber ist: Feststehen in dem, was man erhofft,
Überzeugtsein von dem, was man nicht sieht (faith is:
standing firm in what one hopes, being convinced of what one
does not see). This in itself is not incorrect, but it is not
the meaning of the text, because the Greek term used (elenchos)
does not have the subjective sense of “conviction” but the
objective sense of “proof”. Rightly, therefore, recent Prot-
estant exegesis has arrived at a different interpretation: “Yet
there can be no question but that this classical Protestant
understanding is untenable.”5 Faith is not merely a
personal reaching out towards things to come that are still
totally absent: it gives us something. It gives us even now
something of the reality we are waiting for, and this present
reality constitutes for us a “proof” of the things that are
still unseen. Faith draws the future into the present, so that
it is no longer simply a “not yet”. The fact that this future
exists changes the present; the present is touched by the future
reality, and thus the things of the future spill over into those
of the present and those of the present into those of the
future.
8. This explanation is further
strengthened and related to daily life if we consider verse 34
of the tenth chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews, which
is linked by vocabulary and content to this definition of
hope-filled faith and prepares the way for it. Here the author
speaks to believers who have undergone the experience of
persecution and he says to them: “you had compassion on the
prisoners, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your
property (hyparchonton—Vg. bonorum), since you
knew that you yourselves had a better possession (hyparxin—Vg.
substantiam) and an abiding one.” Hyparchonta refers
to property, to what in earthly life constitutes the means of
support, indeed the basis, the “substance” for life, what we
depend upon. This “substance”, life's normal source of security,
has been taken away from Christians in the course of
persecution. They have stood firm, though, because they
considered this material substance to be of little account. They
could abandon it because they had found a better “basis” for
their existence—a basis that abides, that no one can take away.
We must not overlook the link between these two types of
“substance”, between means of support or material basis and the
word of faith as the “basis”, the “substance” that endures.
Faith gives life a new basis, a new foundation on which we can
stand, one which relativizes the habitual foundation, the
reliability of material income. A new freedom is created with
regard to this habitual foundation of life, which only
appears to be capable of providing support, although this is
obviously not to deny its normal meaning. This new freedom, the
awareness of the new “substance” which we have been given, is
revealed not only in martyrdom, in which people resist the
overbearing power of ideology and its political organs and, by
their death, renew the world. Above all, it is seen in the great
acts of renunciation, from the monks of ancient times to Saint
Francis of Assisi and those of our contemporaries who enter
modern religious Institutes and movements and leave everything
for love of Christ, so as to bring to men and women the faith
and love of Christ, and to help those who are suffering in body
and spirit. In their case, the new “substance” has proved to be
a genuine “substance”; from the hope of these people who have
been touched by Christ, hope has arisen for others who were
living in darkness and without hope. In their case, it has been
demonstrated that this new life truly possesses and is
“substance” that calls forth life for others. For us who
contemplate these figures, their way of acting and living is
de facto a “proof” that the things to come, the promise of
Christ, are not only a reality that we await, but a real
presence: he is truly the “philosopher” and the “shepherd” who
shows us what life is and where it is to be found.
9. In order to understand more
deeply this reflection on the two types of substance—hypostasis
and hyparchonta—and on the two approaches to life
expressed by these terms, we must continue with a brief
consideration of two words pertinent to the discussion which can
be found in the tenth chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews.
I refer to the words hypomone (10:36) and hypostole
(10:39). Hypo- mone is normally translated as
“patience”—perseverance, constancy. Knowing how to wait, while
patiently enduring trials, is necessary for the believer to be
able to “receive what is promised” (10:36). In the religious
context of ancient Judaism, this word was used expressly for the
expectation of God which was characteristic of Israel, for their
persevering faithfulness to God on the basis of the certainty of
the Covenant in a world which contradicts God. Thus the word
indicates a lived hope, a life based on the certainty of hope.
In the New Testament this expectation of God, this standing with
God, takes on a new significance: in Christ, God has revealed
himself. He has already communicated to us the “substance” of
things to come, and thus the expectation of God acquires a new
certainty.
It is the expectation of things
to come from the perspective of a present that is already given.
It is a looking-forward in Christ's presence, with Christ who is
present, to the perfecting of his Body, to his definitive
coming. The word hypostole, on the other hand, means
shrinking back through lack of courage to speak openly and
frankly a truth that may be dangerous. Hiding through a spirit
of fear leads to “destruction” (Heb 10:39). “God did not
give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and
self-control”—that, by contrast, is the beautiful way in which
the Second Letter to Timothy (1:7) describes the
fundamental attitude of the Christian.
Eternal life – what is it?
10. We have spoken thus far of
faith and hope in the New Testament and in early Christianity;
yet it has always been clear that we are referring not only to
the past: the entire reflection concerns living and dying in
general, and therefore it also concerns us here and now. So now
we must ask explicitly: is the Christian faith also for us today
a life-changing and life-sustaining hope?
Is it “performative” for us—is
it a message which shapes our life in a new way, or is it just
“information” which, in the meantime, we have set aside and
which now seems to us to have been superseded by more recent
information? In the search for an answer, I would like to begin
with the classical form of the dialogue with which the rite of
Baptism expressed the reception of an infant into the community
of believers and the infant's rebirth in Christ. First of all
the priest asked what name the parents had chosen for the child,
and then he continued with the question: “What do you ask of the
Church?” Answer: “Faith”. “And what does faith give you?”
“Eternal life”. According to this dialogue, the parents were
seeking access to the faith for their child, communion with
believers, because they saw in faith the key to “eternal life”.
Today as in the past, this is what being baptized, becoming
Christians, is all about: it is not just an act of socialization
within the community, not simply a welcome into the Church. The
parents expect more for the one to be baptized: they expect that
faith, which includes the corporeal nature of the Church and her
sacraments, will give life to their child—eternal life. Faith is
the substance of hope. But then the question arises: do we
really want this—to live eternally? Perhaps many people reject
the faith today simply because they do not find the prospect of
eternal life attractive. What they desire is not eternal life at
all, but this present life, for which faith in eternal life
seems something of an impediment. To continue living for ever
—endlessly—appears more like a curse than a gift. Death,
admittedly, one would wish to postpone for as long as possible.
But to live always, without end—this, all things considered, can
only be monotonous and ultimately unbearable. This is precisely
the point made, for example, by Saint Ambrose, one of the Church
Fathers, in the funeral discourse for his deceased brother
Satyrus: “Death was not part of nature; it became part of
nature. God did not decree death from the beginning; he
prescribed it as a remedy. Human life, because of sin ... began
to experience the burden of wretchedness in unremitting labour
and unbearable sorrow. There had to be a limit to its evils;
death had to restore what life had forfeited. Without the
assistance of grace, immortality is more of a burden than a
blessing.” 6 A little earlier, Ambrose had said:
“Death is, then, no cause for mourning, for it is the cause of
mankind's salvation.” 7
11. Whatever precisely Saint
Ambrose may have meant by these words, it is true that to
eliminate death or to postpone it more or less indefinitely
would place the earth and humanity in an impossible situation,
and even for the individual would bring no benefit. Obviously
there is a contradiction in our attitude, which points to an
inner contradiction in our very existence. On the one hand, we
do not want to die; above all, those who love us do not want us
to die. Yet on the other hand, neither do we want to continue
living indefinitely, nor was the earth created with that in
view. So what do we really want? Our paradoxical attitude gives
rise to a deeper question: what in fact is “life”? And what does
“eternity” really mean? There are moments when it suddenly seems
clear to us: yes, this is what true “life” is—this is what it
should be like. Besides, what we call “life” in our everyday
language is not real “life” at all. Saint Augustine, in the
extended letter on prayer which he addressed to Proba, a wealthy
Roman widow and mother of three consuls, once wrote this:
ultimately we want only one thing—”the blessed life”, the life
which is simply life, simply “happiness”. In the final analysis,
there is nothing else that we ask for in prayer. Our journey has
no other goal—it is about this alone. But then Augustine also
says: looking more closely, we have no idea what we ultimately
desire, what we would really like. We do not know this reality
at all; even in those moments when we think we can reach out and
touch it, it eludes us. “We do not know what we should pray for
as we ought,” he says, quoting Saint Paul (Rom 8:26). All
we know is that it is not this. Yet in not knowing, we know that
this reality must exist. “There is therefore in us a certain
learned ignorance (docta ignorantia), so to speak”, he
writes. We do not know what we would really like; we do not know
this “true life”; and yet we know that there must be something
we do not know towards which we feel driven.8
12. I think that in this very
precise and permanently valid way, Augustine is describing man's
essential situation, the situation that gives rise to all his
contradictions and hopes. In some way we want life itself, true
life, untouched even by death; yet at the same time we do not
know the thing towards which we feel driven. We cannot stop
reaching out for it, and yet we know that all we can experience
or accomplish is not what we yearn for. This unknown “thing” is
the true “hope” which drives us, and at the same time the fact
that it is unknown is the cause of all forms of despair and also
of all efforts, whether positive or destructive, directed
towards worldly authenticity and human authenticity. The term
“eternal life” is intended to give a name to this known
“unknown”. Inevitably it is an inadequate term that creates
confusion. “Eternal”, in fact, suggests to us the idea of
something interminable, and this frightens us; “life” makes us
think of the life that we know and love and do not want to lose,
even though very often it brings more toil than satisfaction, so
that while on the one hand we desire it, on the other hand we do
not want it. To imagine ourselves outside the temporality that
imprisons us and in some way to sense that eternity is not an
unending succession of days in the calendar, but something more
like the supreme moment of satisfaction, in which totality
embraces us and we embrace totality—this we can only attempt. It
would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment
in which time—the before and after—no longer exists. We can only
attempt to grasp the idea that such a moment is life in the full
sense, a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being, in which
we are simply overwhelmed with joy. This is how Jesus expresses
it in Saint John's Gospel: “I will see you again and your hearts
will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (16:22).
We must think along these lines if we want to understand the
object of Christian hope, to understand what it is that our
faith, our being with Christ, leads us to expect.9
Is Christian hope
individualistic?
13. In the course of their
history, Christians have tried to express this “knowing without
knowing” by means of figures that can be represented, and they
have developed images of “Heaven” which remain far removed from
what, after all, can only be known negatively, via unknowing.
All these attempts at the representation of hope have given to
many people, down the centuries, the incentive to live by faith
and hence also to abandon their hyparchonta, the material
substance for their lives. The author of the Letter to the
Hebrews, in the eleventh chapter, outlined a kind of history
of those who live in hope and of their journeying, a history
which stretches from the time of Abel into the author's own day.
This type of hope has been subjected to an increasingly harsh
critique in modern times: it is dismissed as pure individualism,
a way of abandoning the world to its misery and taking refuge in
a private form of eternal salvation. Henri de Lubac, in the
introduction to his seminal book Catholicisme. Aspects
sociaux du dogme, assembled some characteristic
articulations of this viewpoint, one of which is worth quoting:
“Should I have found joy? No ... only my joy, and that is
something wildly different ... The joy of Jesus can be personal.
It can belong to a single man and he is saved. He is at peace
... now and always, but he is alone. The isolation of this joy
does not trouble him. On the contrary: he is the chosen one! In
his blessedness he passes through the battlefields with a rose
in his hand.” 10
14. Against this, drawing upon
the vast range of patristic theology, de Lubac was able to
demonstrate that salvation has always been considered a “social”
reality. Indeed, the Letter to the Hebrews speaks of a
“city” (cf. 11:10, 16; 12:22; 13:14) and therefore of communal
salvation. Consistently with this view, sin is understood by the
Fathers as the destruction of the unity of the human race, as
fragmentation and division. Babel, the place where languages
were confused, the place of separation, is seen to be an
expression of what sin fundamentally is. Hence “redemption”
appears as the reestablishment of unity, in which we come
together once more in a union that begins to take shape in the
world community of believers. We need not concern ourselves here
with all the texts in which the social character of hope
appears. Let us concentrate on the Letter to Proba in
which Augustine tries to illustrate to some degree this “known
unknown” that we seek. His point of departure is simply the
expression “blessed life”. Then he quotes Psalm 144
[143]:15: “Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.” And he
continues: “In order to be numbered among this people and attain
to ... everlasting life with God, ‘the end of the commandment is
charity that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and
sincere faith' (1 Tim 1:5).” 11 This real
life, towards which we try to reach out again and again, is
linked to a lived union with a “people”, and for each individual
it can only be attained within this “we”. It presupposes that we
escape from the prison of our “I”, because only in the openness
of this universal subject does our gaze open out to the source
of joy, to love itself—to God.
15. While this
community-oriented vision of the “blessed life” is certainly
directed beyond the present world, as such it also has to do
with the building up of this world—in very different ways,
according to the historical context and the possibilities
offered or excluded thereby. At the time of Augustine, the
incursions of new peoples were threatening the cohesion of the
world, where hitherto there had been a certain guarantee of law
and of living in a juridically ordered society; at that time,
then, it was a matter of strengthening the basic foundations of
this peaceful societal existence, in order to survive in a
changed world. Let us now consider a more or less randomly
chosen episode from the Middle Ages, that serves in many
respects to illustrate what we have been saying. It was commonly
thought that monasteries were places of flight from the world (contemptus
mundi) and of withdrawal from responsibility for the world,
in search of private salvation. Bernard of Clairvaux, who
inspired a multitude of young people to enter the monasteries of
his reformed Order, had quite a different perspective on this.
In his view, monks perform a task for the whole Church and hence
also for the world. He uses many images to illustrate the
responsibility that monks have towards the entire body of the
Church, and indeed towards humanity; he applies to them the
words of pseudo-Rufinus: “The human race lives thanks to a few;
were it not for them, the world would perish ...”.12
Contemplatives—contemplantes—must become agricultural
labourers—laborantes—he says. The nobility of work, which
Christianity inherited from Judaism, had already been expressed
in the monastic rules of Augustine and Benedict. Bernard takes
up this idea again. The young noblemen who flocked to his
monasteries had to engage in manual labour. In fact Bernard
explicitly states that not even the monastery can restore
Paradise, but he maintains that, as a place of practical and
spiritual “tilling the soil”, it must prepare the new Paradise.
A wild plot of forest land is rendered fertile—and in the
process, the trees of pride are felled, whatever weeds may be
growing inside souls are pulled up, and the ground is thereby
prepared so that bread for body and soul can flourish.13
Are we not perhaps seeing once again, in the light of current
history, that no positive world order can prosper where souls
are overgrown?
The transformation of Christian
faith-hope in the modern age
16. How could the idea have
developed that Jesus's message is narrowly individualistic and
aimed only at each person singly? How did we arrive at this
interpretation of the “salvation of the soul” as a flight from
responsibility for the whole, and how did we come to conceive
the Christian project as a selfish search for salvation which
rejects the idea of serving others? In order to find an answer
to this we must take a look at the foundations of the modern
age. These appear with particular clarity in the thought of
Francis Bacon. That a new era emerged—through the discovery of
America and the new technical achievements that had made this
development possible—is undeniable. But what is the basis of
this new era? It is the new correlation of experiment and method
that enables man to arrive at an interpretation of nature in
conformity with its laws and thus finally to achieve “the
triumph of art over nature” (victoria cursus artis super
naturam).14 The novelty—according to Bacon's
vision—lies in a new correlation between science and praxis.
This is also given a theological application: the new
correlation between science and praxis would mean that the
dominion over creation —given to man by God and lost through
original sin—would be reestablished.15
17. Anyone who reads and
reflects on these statements attentively will recognize that a
disturbing step has been taken: up to that time, the recovery of
what man had lost through the expulsion from Paradise was
expected from faith in Jesus Christ: herein lay “redemption”.
Now, this “redemption”, the restoration of the lost “Paradise”
is no longer expected from faith, but from the newly discovered
link between science and praxis. It is not that faith is simply
denied; rather it is displaced onto another level—that of purely
private and other-worldly affairs—and at the same time it
becomes somehow irrelevant for the world. This programmatic
vision has determined the trajectory of modern times and it also
shapes the present-day crisis of faith which is essentially a
crisis of Christian hope. Thus hope too, in Bacon, acquires a
new form. Now it is called: faith in progress. For Bacon,
it is clear that the recent spate of discoveries and inventions
is just the beginning; through the interplay of science and
praxis, totally new discoveries will follow, a totally new world
will emerge, the kingdom of man.16 He even put
forward a vision of foreseeable inventions—including the
aeroplane and the submarine. As the ideology of progress
developed further, joy at visible advances in human potential
remained a continuing confirmation of faith in progress
as such.
18. At the same time, two
categories become increasingly central to the idea of progress:
reason and freedom. Progress is primarily associated with the
growing dominion of reason, and this reason is obviously
considered to be a force of good and a force for good. Progress
is the overcoming of all forms of dependency—it is progress
towards perfect freedom. Likewise freedom is seen purely as a
promise, in which man becomes more and more fully himself. In
both concepts—freedom and reason—there is a political aspect.
The kingdom of reason, in fact, is expected as the new condition
of the human race once it has attained total freedom. The
political conditions of such a kingdom of reason and freedom,
however, appear at first sight somewhat ill defined. Reason and
freedom seem to guarantee by themselves, by virtue of their
intrinsic goodness, a new and perfect human community. The two
key concepts of “reason” and “freedom”, however, were tacitly
interpreted as being in conflict with the shackles of faith and
of the Church as well as those of the political structures of
the period. Both concepts therefore contain a revolutionary
potential of enormous explosive force.
19. We must look briefly at the
two essential stages in the political realization of this hope,
because they are of great importance for the development of
Christian hope, for a proper understanding of it and of the
reasons for its persistence. First there is the French
Revolution—an attempt to establish the rule of reason and
freedom as a political reality. To begin with, the Europe of the
Enlightenment looked on with fascination at these events, but
then, as they developed, had cause to reflect anew on reason and
freedom. A good illustration of these two phases in the
reception of events in France is found in two essays by Immanuel
Kant in which he reflects on what had taken place. In 1792 he
wrote Der Sieg des guten Prinzips über das böse und die
Gründung eines Reiches Gottes auf Erden (“The Victory of the
Good over the Evil Principle and the Founding of a Kingdom of
God on Earth”). In this text he says the following: “The gradual
transition of ecclesiastical faith to the exclusive sovereignty
of pure religious faith is the coming of the Kingdom of God.”
17 He also tells us that revolutions can accelerate
this transition from ecclesiastical faith to rational faith. The
“Kingdom of God” proclaimed by Jesus receives a new definition
here and takes on a new mode of presence; a new “imminent
expectation”, so to speak, comes into existence: the “Kingdom of
God” arrives where “ecclesiastical faith” is vanquished and
superseded by “religious faith”, that is to say, by simple
rational faith. In 1795, in the text Das Ende aller Dinge
(“The End of All Things”) a changed image appears. Now Kant
considers the possibility that as well as the natural end of all
things there may be another that is unnatural, a perverse end.
He writes in this connection: “If Christianity should one day
cease to be worthy of love ... then the prevailing mode in human
thought would be rejection and opposition to it; and the
Antichrist ... would begin his—albeit short—regime (presumably
based on fear and self-interest); but then, because
Christianity, though destined to be the world religion, would
not in fact be favoured by destiny to become so, then, in a
moral respect, this could lead to the (perverted) end of all
things.” 18
20. The nineteenth century held
fast to its faith in progress as the new form of human hope, and
it continued to consider reason and freedom as the guiding stars
to be followed along the path of hope. Nevertheless, the
increasingly rapid advance of technical development and the
industrialization connected with it soon gave rise to an
entirely new social situation: there emerged a class of
industrial workers and the so-called “industrial proletariat”,
whose dreadful living conditions Friedrich Engels described
alarmingly in 1845. For his readers, the conclusion is clear:
this cannot continue; a change is necessary. Yet the change
would shake up and overturn the entire structure of bourgeois
society. After the bourgeois revolution of 1789, the time had
come for a new, proletarian revolution: progress could not
simply continue in small, linear steps. A revolutionary leap was
needed. Karl Marx took up the rallying call, and applied his
incisive language and intellect to the task of launching this
major new and, as he thought, definitive step in history towards
salvation—towards what Kant had described as the “Kingdom of
God”. Once the truth of the hereafter had been rejected, it
would then be a question of establishing the truth of the here
and now. The critique of Heaven is transformed into the critique
of earth, the critique of theology into the critique of
politics. Progress towards the better, towards the definitively
good world, no longer comes simply from science but from
politics—from a scientifically conceived politics that
recognizes the structure of history and society and thus points
out the road towards revolution, towards all-encompassing
change. With great precision, albeit with a certain onesided
bias, Marx described the situation of his time, and with great
analytical skill he spelled out the paths leading to
revolution—and not only theoretically: by means of the Communist
Party that came into being from the Communist Manifesto of 1848,
he set it in motion. His promise, owing to the acuteness of his
analysis and his clear indication of the means for radical
change, was and still remains an endless source of fascination.
Real revolution followed, in the most radical way in Russia.
21. Together with the victory of
the revolution, though, Marx's fundamental error also became
evident. He showed precisely how to overthrow the existing
order, but he did not say how matters should proceed thereafter.
He simply presumed that with the expropriation of the ruling
class, with the fall of political power and the socialization of
means of production, the new Jerusalem would be realized. Then,
indeed, all contradictions would be resolved, man and the world
would finally sort themselves out. Then everything would be able
to proceed by itself along the right path, because everything
would belong to everyone and all would desire the best for one
another. Thus, having accomplished the revolution, Lenin must
have realized that the writings of the master gave no indication
as to how to proceed. True, Marx had spoken of the interim phase
of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessity which in
time would automatically become redundant. This “intermediate
phase” we know all too well, and we also know how it then
developed, not ushering in a perfect world, but leaving behind a
trail of appalling destruction. Marx not only omitted to work
out how this new world would be organized—which should, of
course, have been unnecessary. His silence on this matter
follows logically from his chosen approach. His error lay
deeper. He forgot that man always remains man. He forgot man and
he forgot man's freedom. He forgot that freedom always remains
also freedom for evil. He thought that once the economy had been
put right, everything would automatically be put right. His real
error is materialism: man, in fact, is not merely the product of
economic conditions, and it is not possible to redeem him purely
from the outside by creating a favourable economic environment.
22. Again, we find ourselves
facing the question: what may we hope? A self-critique of
modernity is needed in dialogue with Christianity and its
concept of hope. In this dialogue Christians too, in the context
of their knowledge and experience, must learn anew in what their
hope truly consists, what they have to offer to the world and
what they cannot offer. Flowing into this self-critique of the
modern age there also has to be a self-critique of modern
Christianity, which must constantly renew its self-understanding
setting out from its roots. On this subject, all we can attempt
here are a few brief observations. First we must ask ourselves:
what does “progress” really mean; what does it promise and what
does it not promise? In the nineteenth century, faith in
progress was already subject to critique. In the twentieth
century, Theodor W. Adorno formulated the problem of faith in
progress quite drastically: he said that progress, seen
accurately, is progress from the sling to the atom bomb. Now
this is certainly an aspect of progress that must not be
concealed. To put it another way: the ambiguity of progress
becomes evident. Without doubt, it offers new possibilities for
good, but it also opens up appalling possibilities for
evil—possibilities that formerly did not exist. We have all
witnessed the way in which progress, in the wrong hands, can
become and has indeed become a terrifying progress in evil. If
technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in
man's ethical formation, in man's inner growth (cf. Eph
3:16; 2 Cor 4:16), then it is not progress at all, but a
threat for man and for the world.
23. As far as the two great
themes of “reason” and “freedom” are concerned, here we can only
touch upon the issues connected with them. Yes indeed, reason is
God's great gift to man, and the victory of reason over unreason
is also a goal of the Christian life. But when does reason truly
triumph? When it is detached from God? When it has become blind
to God? Is the reason behind action and capacity for action the
whole of reason? If progress, in order to be progress, needs
moral growth on the part of humanity, then the reason behind
action and capacity for action is likewise urgently in need of
integration through reason's openness to the saving forces of
faith, to the differentiation between good and evil. Only thus
does reason become truly human. It becomes human only if it is
capable of directing the will along the right path, and it is
capable of this only if it looks beyond itself. Otherwise, man's
situation, in view of the imbalance between his material
capacity and the lack of judgement in his heart, becomes a
threat for him and for creation. Thus where freedom is
concerned, we must remember that human freedom always requires a
convergence of various freedoms. Yet this convergence cannot
succeed unless it is determined by a common intrinsic criterion
of measurement, which is the foundation and goal of our freedom.
Let us put it very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains
without hope. Given the developments of the modern age, the
quotation from Saint Paul with which I began (Eph 2:12)
proves to be thoroughly realistic and plainly true. There is no
doubt, therefore, that a “Kingdom of God” accomplished without
God—a kingdom therefore of man alone—inevitably ends up as the
“perverse end” of all things as described by Kant: we have seen
it, and we see it over and over again. Yet neither is there any
doubt that God truly enters into human affairs only when, rather
than being present merely in our thinking, he himself comes
towards us and speaks to us. Reason therefore needs faith if it
is to be completely itself: reason and faith need one another in
order to fulfil their true nature and their mission.
The true shape of Christian hope
24. Let us ask once again: what
may we hope? And what may we not hope? First of all, we must
acknowledge that incremental progress is possible only in the
material sphere. Here, amid our growing knowledge of the
structure of matter and in the light of ever more advanced
inventions, we clearly see continuous progress towards an ever
greater mastery of nature. Yet in the field of ethical awareness
and moral decision-making, there is no similar possibility of
accumulation for the simple reason that man's freedom is always
new and he must always make his decisions anew. These decisions
can never simply be made for us in advance by others—if that
were the case, we would no longer be free. Freedom presupposes
that in fundamental decisions, every person and every generation
is a new beginning. Naturally, new generations can build on the
knowledge and experience of those who went before, and they can
draw upon the moral treasury of the whole of humanity. But they
can also reject it, because it can never be self-evident in the
same way as material inventions. The moral treasury of humanity
is not readily at hand like tools that we use; it is present as
an appeal to freedom and a possibility for it. This, however,
means that:
a)
The right state of human affairs, the moral well-being of the
world can never be guaranteed simply through structures alone,
however good they are. Such structures are not only important,
but necessary; yet they cannot and must not marginalize human
freedom. Even the best structures function only when the
community is animated by convictions capable of motivating
people to assent freely to the social order. Freedom requires
conviction; conviction does not exist on its own, but must
always be gained anew by the community.
b)
Since man always remains free and since his freedom is always
fragile, the kingdom of good will never be definitively
established in this world. Anyone who promises the better world
that is guaranteed to last for ever is making a false promise;
he is overlooking human freedom. Freedom must constantly be won
over for the cause of good. Free assent to the good never exists
simply by itself. If there were structures which could
irrevocably guarantee a determined—good—state of the world,
man's freedom would be denied, and hence they would not be good
structures at all.
25. What this means is that
every generation has the task of engaging anew in the arduous
search for the right way to order human affairs; this task is
never simply completed. Yet every generation must also make its
own contribution to establishing convincing structures of
freedom and of good, which can help the following generation as
a guideline for the proper use of human freedom; hence, always
within human limits, they provide a certain guarantee also for
the future. In other words: good structures help, but of
themselves they are not enough. Man can never be redeemed simply
from outside. Francis Bacon and those who followed in the
intellectual current of modernity that he inspired were wrong to
believe that man would be redeemed through science. Such an
expectation asks too much of science; this kind of hope is
deceptive. Science can contribute greatly to making the world
and mankind more human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the
world unless it is steered by forces that lie outside it. On the
other hand, we must also acknowledge that modern Christianity,
faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring
the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the
individual and his salvation. In so doing it has limited the
horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the
greatness of its task—even if it has continued to achieve great
things in the formation of man and in care for the weak and the
suffering.
26. It is not science that
redeems man: man is redeemed by love. This applies even in terms
of this present world. When someone has the experience of a
great love in his life, this is a moment of “redemption” which
gives a new meaning to his life. But soon he will also realize
that the love bestowed upon him cannot by itself resolve the
question of his life. It is a love that remains fragile. It can
be destroyed by death. The human being needs unconditional love.
He needs the certainty which makes him say: “neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything
else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love
of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38- 39). If this
absolute love exists, with its absolute certainty, then—only
then—is man “redeemed”, whatever should happen to him in his
particular circumstances. This is what it means to say: Jesus
Christ has “redeemed” us. Through him we have become certain of
God, a God who is not a remote “first cause” of the world,
because his only-begotten Son has become man and of him everyone
can say: “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).
27. In this sense it is true
that anyone who does not know God, even though he may entertain
all kinds of hopes, is ultimately without hope, without the
great hope that sustains the whole of life (cf. Eph
2:12). Man's great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all
disappointments can only be God—God who has loved us and who
continues to love us “to the end,” until all “is accomplished”
(cf. Jn 13:1 and 19:30). Whoever is moved by love begins
to perceive what “life” really is. He begins to perceive the
meaning of the word of hope that we encountered in the Baptismal
Rite: from faith I await “eternal life”—the true life which,
whole and unthreatened, in all its fullness, is simply life.
Jesus, who said that he had come so that we might have life and
have it in its fullness, in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10), has
also explained to us what “life” means: “this is eternal life,
that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you
have sent” (Jn 17:3). Life in its true sense is not
something we have exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a
relationship. And life in its totality is a relationship with
him who is the source of life. If we are in relation with him
who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself, then we
are in life. Then we “live”.
28. Yet now the question arises:
are we not in this way falling back once again into an
individualistic understanding of salvation, into hope for myself
alone, which is not true hope since it forgets and overlooks
others? Indeed we are not! Our relationship with God is
established through communion with Jesus—we cannot achieve it
alone or from our own resources alone. The relationship with
Jesus, however, is a relationship with the one who gave himself
as a ransom for all (cf. 1 Tim 2:6). Being in communion
with Jesus Christ draws us into his “being for all”; it makes it
our own way of being. He commits us to live for others, but only
through communion with him does it become possible truly to be
there for others, for the whole. In this regard I would like to
quote the great Greek Doctor of the Church, Maximus the
Confessor († 662), who begins by exhorting us to prefer nothing
to the knowledge and love of God, but then quickly moves on to
practicalities: “The one who loves God cannot hold on to money
but rather gives it out in God's fashion ... in the same manner
in accordance with the measure of justice.” 19 Love
of God leads to participation in the justice and generosity of
God towards others. Loving God requires an interior freedom from
all possessions and all material goods: the love of God is
revealed in responsibility for others.20 This same
connection between love of God and responsibility for others can
be seen in a striking way in the life of Saint Augustine. After
his conversion to the Christian faith, he decided, together with
some like-minded friends, to lead a life totally dedicated to
the word of God and to things eternal. His intention was to
practise a Christian version of the ideal of the contemplative
life expressed in the great tradition of Greek philosophy,
choosing in this way the “better part” (cf. Lk 10:42).
Things turned out differently, however. While attending the
Sunday liturgy at the port city of Hippo, he was called out from
the assembly by the Bishop and constrained to receive ordination
for the exercise of the priestly ministry in that city. Looking
back on that moment, he writes in his Confessions:
“Terrified by my sins and the weight of my misery, I had
resolved in my heart, and meditated flight into the wilderness;
but you forbade me and gave me strength, by saying: ‘Christ died
for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves
but for him who for their sake died' (cf. 2 Cor 5:15)”.21
Christ died for all. To live for him means allowing oneself to
be drawn into his being for others.
29. For Augustine this meant a
totally new life. He once described his daily life in the
following terms: “The turbulent have to be corrected, the
faint-hearted cheered up, the weak supported; the Gospel's
opponents need to be refuted, its insidious enemies guarded
against; the unlearned need to be taught, the indolent stirred
up, the argumentative checked; the proud must be put in their
place, the desperate set on their feet, those engaged in
quarrels reconciled; the needy have to be helped, the oppressed
to be liberated, the good to be encouraged, the bad to be
tolerated; all must be loved.” 22 “The Gospel
terrifies me” 23—producing that healthy fear which
prevents us from living for ourselves alone and compels us to
pass on the hope we hold in common. Amid the serious
difficulties facing the Roman Empire—and also posing a serious
threat to Roman Africa, which was actually destroyed at the end
of Augustine's life—this was what he set out to do: to transmit
hope, the hope which came to him from faith and which, in
complete contrast with his introverted temperament, enabled him
to take part decisively and with all his strength in the task of
building up the city. In the same chapter of the Confessions
in which we have just noted the decisive reason for his
commitment “for all”, he says that Christ “intercedes for us,
otherwise I should despair. My weaknesses are many and grave,
many and grave indeed, but more abundant still is your medicine.
We might have thought that your word was far distant from union
with man, and so we might have despaired of ourselves, if this
Word had not become flesh and dwelt among us.” 24 On
the strength of his hope, Augustine dedicated himself completely
to the ordinary people and to his city—renouncing his spiritual
nobility, he preached and acted in a simple way for simple
people.
30. Let us summarize what has
emerged so far in the course of our reflections. Day by day, man
experiences many greater or lesser hopes, different in kind
according to the different periods of his life. Sometimes one of
these hopes may appear to be totally satisfying without any need
for other hopes. Young people can have the hope of a great and
fully satisfying love; the hope of a certain position in their
profession, or of some success that will prove decisive for the
rest of their lives. When these hopes are fulfilled, however, it
becomes clear that they were not, in reality, the whole. It
becomes evident that man has need of a hope that goes further.
It becomes clear that only something infinite will suffice for
him, something that will always be more than he can ever attain.
In this regard our contemporary age has developed the hope of
creating a perfect world that, thanks to scientific knowledge
and to scientifically based politics, seemed to be achievable.
Thus Biblical hope in the Kingdom of God has been displaced by
hope in the kingdom of man, the hope of a better world which
would be the real “Kingdom of God”. This seemed at last to be
the great and realistic hope that man needs. It was capable of
galvanizing—for a time—all man's energies. The great objective
seemed worthy of full commitment. In the course of time,
however, it has become clear that this hope is constantly
receding. Above all it has become apparent that this may be a
hope for a future generation, but not for me.
And however much “for all” may
be part of the great hope—since I cannot be happy without others
or in opposition to them—it remains true that a hope that does
not concern me personally is not a real hope. It has also become
clear that this hope is opposed to freedom, since human affairs
depend in each generation on the free decisions of those
concerned. If this freedom were to be taken away, as a result of
certain conditions or structures, then ultimately this world
would not be good, since a world without freedom can by no means
be a good world. Hence, while we must always be committed to the
improvement of the world, tomorrow's better world cannot be the
proper and sufficient content of our hope. And in this regard
the question always arises: when is the world “better”? What
makes it good? By what standard are we to judge its goodness?
What are the paths that lead to this “goodness”?
31. Let us say once again: we
need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day.
But these are not enough without the great hope, which must
surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who
encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what
we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as
a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope:
not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved
us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His
Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that
will never arrive; his Kingdom is present wherever he is loved
and wherever his love reaches us. His love alone gives us the
possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing
to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is
imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee of the
existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless,
in our deepest self, we await: a life that is “truly” life. Let
us now, in the final section, develop this idea in more detail
as we focus our attention on some of the “settings” in which we
can learn in practice about hope and its exercise.
“Settings” for learning and
practicing hope
I. Prayer as a school of hope
32. A first essential setting
for learning hope is prayer. When no one listens to me any more,
God still listens to me. When I can no longer talk to anyone or
call upon anyone, I can always talk to God. When there is no
longer anyone to help me deal with a need or expectation that
goes beyond the human capacity for hope, he can help me.25
When I have been plunged into complete solitude ...; if I pray I
am never totally alone. The late Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan, a
prisoner for thirteen years, nine of them spent in solitary
confinement, has left us a precious little book: Prayers of
Hope. During thirteen years in jail, in a situation of
seemingly utter hopelessness, the fact that he could listen and
speak to God became for him an increasing power of hope, which
enabled him, after his release, to become for people all over
the world a witness to hope—to that great hope which does not
wane even in the nights of solitude.
33. Saint Augustine, in a homily
on the First Letter of John, describes very beautifully
the intimate relationship between prayer and hope. He defines
prayer as an exercise of desire. Man was created for
greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God.
But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is
destined. It must be stretched. “By delaying [his gift], God
strengthens our desire; through desire he enlarges our soul and
by expanding it he increases its capacity [for receiving him]”.
Augustine refers to Saint Paul, who speaks of himself as
straining forward to the things that are to come (cf. Phil
3:13). He then uses a very beautiful image to describe this
process of enlargement and preparation of the human heart.
“Suppose that God wishes to fill you with honey [a symbol of
God's tenderness and goodness]; but if you are full of vinegar,
where will you put the honey?” The vessel, that is your heart,
must first be enlarged and then cleansed, freed from the vinegar
and its taste. This requires hard work and is painful, but in
this way alone do we become suited to that for which we are
destined.26 Even if Augustine speaks directly only of
our capacity for God, it is nevertheless clear that through this
effort by which we are freed from vinegar and the taste of
vinegar, not only are we made free for God, but we also become
open to others. It is only by becoming children of God, that we
can be with our common Father. To pray is not to step outside
history and withdraw to our own private corner of happiness.
When we pray properly we undergo a process of inner purification
which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as
well. In prayer we must learn what we can truly ask of God—what
is worthy of God. We must learn that we cannot pray against
others. We must learn that we cannot ask for the superficial and
comfortable things that we desire at this moment—that meagre,
misplaced hope that leads us away from God. We must learn to
purify our desires and our hopes. We must free ourselves from
the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves. God sees
through them, and when we come before God, we too are forced to
recognize them. “But who can discern his errors? Clear me from
hidden faults” prays the Psalmist (Ps 19:12 [18:13]).
Failure to recognize my guilt, the illusion of my innocence,
does not justify me and does not save me, because I am culpable
for the numbness of my conscience and my incapacity to recognize
the evil in me for what it is. If God does not exist, perhaps I
have to seek refuge in these lies, because there is no one who
can forgive me; no one who is the true criterion. Yet my
encounter with God awakens my conscience in such a way that it
no longer aims at self-justification, and is no longer a mere
reflection of me and those of my contemporaries who shape my
thinking, but it becomes a capacity for listening to the Good
itself.
34. For prayer to develop this
power of purification, it must on the one hand be something very
personal, an encounter between my intimate self and God, the
living God. On the other hand it must be constantly guided and
enlightened by the great prayers of the Church and of the
saints, by liturgical prayer, in which the Lord teaches us again
and again how to pray properly. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan, in
his book of spiritual exercises, tells us that during his life
there were long periods when he was unable to pray and that he
would hold fast to the texts of the Church's prayer: the Our
Father, the Hail Mary and the prayers of the liturgy.27
Praying must always involve this intermingling of public and
personal prayer. This is how we can speak to God and how God
speaks to us. In this way we undergo those purifications by
which we become open to God and are prepared for the service of
our fellow human beings. We become capable of the great hope,
and thus we become ministers of hope for others. Hope in a
Christian sense is always hope for others as well. It is an
active hope, in which we struggle to prevent things moving
towards the “perverse end”. It is an active hope also in the
sense that we keep the world open to God. Only in this way does
it continue to be a truly human hope.
II. Action and suffering as
settings for learning hope
35. All serious and upright
human conduct is hope in action. This is so first of all in the
sense that we thereby strive to realize our lesser and greater
hopes, to complete this or that task which is important for our
onward journey, or we work towards a brighter and more humane
world so as to open doors into the future. Yet our daily efforts
in pursuing our own lives and in working for the world's future
either tire us or turn into fanaticism, unless we are
enlightened by the radiance of the great hope that cannot be
destroyed even by small-scale failures or by a breakdown in
matters of historic importance. If we cannot hope for more than
is effectively attainable at any given time, or more than is
promised by political or economic authorities, our lives will
soon be without hope. It is important to know that I can always
continue to hope, even if in my own life, or the historical
period in which I am living, there seems to be nothing left to
hope for. Only the great certitude of hope that my own life and
history in general, despite all failures, are held firm by the
indestructible power of Love, and that this gives them their
meaning and importance, only this kind of hope can then give the
courage to act and to persevere. Certainly we cannot “build” the
Kingdom of God by our own efforts—what we build will always be
the kingdom of man with all the limitations proper to our human
nature. The Kingdom of God is a gift, and precisely because of
this, it is great and beautiful, and constitutes the response to
our hope. And we cannot—to use the classical expression—”merit”
Heaven through our works. Heaven is always more than we could
merit, just as being loved is never something “merited”, but
always a gift. However, even when we are fully aware that Heaven
far exceeds what we can merit, it will always be true that our
behaviour is not indifferent before God and therefore is not
indifferent for the unfolding of history. We can open ourselves
and the world and allow God to enter: we can open ourselves to
truth, to love, to what is good. This is what the saints did,
those who, as “God's fellow workers”, contributed to the world's
salvation (cf. 1 Cor 3:9; 1 Th 3:2). We can free
our life and the world from the poisons and contaminations that
could destroy the present and the future. We can uncover the
sources of creation and keep them unsullied, and in this way we
can make a right use of creation, which comes to us as a gift,
according to its intrinsic requirements and ultimate purpose.
This makes sense even if outwardly we achieve nothing or seem
powerless in the face of overwhelming hostile forces. So on the
one hand, our actions engender hope for us and for others; but
at the same time, it is the great hope based upon God's promises
that gives us courage and directs our action in good times and
bad.
36. Like action, suffering is a
part of our human existence. Suffering stems partly from our
finitude, and partly from the mass of sin which has accumulated
over the course of history, and continues to grow unabated
today. Certainly we must do whatever we can to reduce suffering:
to avoid as far as possible the suffering of the innocent; to
soothe pain; to give assistance in overcoming mental suffering.
These are obligations both in justice and in love, and they are
included among the fundamental requirements of the Christian
life and every truly human life. Great progress has been made in
the battle against physical pain; yet the sufferings of the
innocent and mental suffering have, if anything, increased in
recent decades. Indeed, we must do all we can to overcome
suffering, but to banish it from the world altogether is not in
our power. This is simply because we are unable to shake off our
finitude and because none of us is capable of eliminating the
power of evil, of sin which, as we plainly see, is a constant
source of suffering. Only God is able to do this: only a God who
personally enters history by making himself man and suffering
within history. We know that this God exists, and hence that
this power to “take away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29)
is present in the world. Through faith in the existence of this
power, hope for the world's healing has emerged in history. It
is, however, hope—not yet fulfilment; hope that gives us the
courage to place ourselves on the side of good even in seemingly
hopeless situations, aware that, as far as the external course
of history is concerned, the power of sin will continue to be a
terrible presence.
37. Let us return to our topic.
We can try to limit suffering, to fight against it, but we
cannot eliminate it. It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by
withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try
to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love,
and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which
there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of
meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater. It is not by
sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but
rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and
finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with
infinite love. In this context, I would like to quote a passage
from a letter written by the Vietnamese martyr Paul Le-Bao-Tinh
(† 1857) which illustrates this transformation of suffering
through the power of hope springing from faith. “I, Paul, in
chains for the name of Christ, wish to relate to you the trials
besetting me daily, in order that you may be inflamed with love
for God and join with me in his praises, for his mercy is for
ever (Ps 136 [135]). The prison here is a true image of
everlasting Hell: to cruel tortures of every kind—shackles, iron
chains, manacles—are added hatred, vengeance, calumnies, obscene
speech, quarrels, evil acts, swearing, curses, as well as
anguish and grief. But the God who once freed the three children
from the fiery furnace is with me always; he has delivered me
from these tribulations and made them sweet, for his mercy is
for ever. In the midst of these torments, which usually
terrify others, I am, by the grace of God, full of joy and
gladness, because I am not alone —Christ is with me ... How am I
to bear with the spectacle, as each day I see emperors,
mandarins, and their retinue blaspheming your holy name, O Lord,
who are enthroned above the Cherubim and Seraphim? (cf. Ps
80:1 [79:2]). Behold, the pagans have trodden your Cross
underfoot! Where is your glory? As I see all this, I would, in
the ardent love I have for you, prefer to be torn limb from limb
and to die as a witness to your love. O Lord, show your power,
save me, sustain me, that in my infirmity your power may be
shown and may be glorified before the nations ... Beloved
brothers, as you hear all these things may you give endless
thanks in joy to God, from whom every good proceeds; bless the
Lord with me, for his mercy is for ever ... I write these things
to you in order that your faith and mine may be united. In the
midst of this storm I cast my anchor towards the throne of God,
the anchor that is the lively hope in my heart.” 28
This is a letter from “Hell”. It lays bare all the horror of a
concentration camp, where to the torments inflicted by tyrants
upon their victims is added the outbreak of evil in the victims
themselves, such that they in turn become further instruments of
their persecutors' cruelty. This is indeed a letter from Hell,
but it also reveals the truth of the Psalm text: “If I go up to
the heavens, you are there; if I sink to the nether world, you
are present there ... If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall hide
me, and night shall be my light' —for you darkness itself is not
dark, and night shines as the day; darkness and light are the
same” (Ps 139 [138]:8-12; cf. also Ps 23 [22]:4).
Christ descended into “Hell” and is therefore close to those
cast into it, transforming their darkness into light. Suffering
and torment is still terrible and well- nigh unbearable. Yet the
star of hope has risen—the anchor of the heart reaches the very
throne of God. Instead of evil being unleashed within man, the
light shines victorious: suffering—without ceasing to be
suffering—becomes, despite everything, a hymn of praise.
38. The true measure of humanity
is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to
the sufferer. This holds true both for the individual and for
society. A society unable to accept its suffering members and
incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it
inwardly through “com-passion” is a cruel and inhuman society.
Yet society cannot accept its suffering members and support them
in their trials unless individuals are capable of doing so
themselves; moreover, the individual cannot accept another's
suffering unless he personally is able to find meaning in
suffering, a path of purification and growth in maturity, a
journey of hope. Indeed, to accept the “other” who suffers,
means that I take up his suffering in such a way that it becomes
mine also. Because it has now become a shared suffering, though,
in which another person is present, this suffering is penetrated
by the light of love. The Latin word con-solatio,
“consolation”, expresses this beautifully. It suggests being
with the other in his solitude, so that it ceases to be
solitude. Furthermore, 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 reign supreme.
Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical
well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie. In the end,
even the “yes” to love is a source of suffering, because love
always requires expropriations of my “I”, in which I allow
myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist
without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it
becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love.
39. To suffer with the other and
for others; to suffer for the sake of truth and justice; to
suffer out of love and in order to become a person who truly
loves—these are fundamental elements of humanity, and to abandon
them would destroy man himself. Yet once again the question
arises: are we capable of this? Is the other important enough to
warrant my becoming, on his account, a person who suffers? Does
truth matter to me enough to make suffering worthwhile? Is the
promise of love so great that it justifies the gift of myself?
In the history of humanity, it was the Christian faith that had
the particular merit of bringing forth within man a new and
deeper capacity for these kinds of suffering that are decisive
for his humanity. The Christian faith has shown us that truth,
justice and love are not simply ideals, but enormously weighty
realities. It has shown us that God —Truth and Love in
person—desired to suffer for us and with us. Bernard of
Clairvaux coined the marvellous expression: Impassibilis est
Deus, sed non incompassibilis 29—God cannot
suffer, but he can suffer with. Man is worth so much to
God that he himself became man in order to suffer with
man in an utterly real way—in flesh and blood—as is revealed to
us in the account of Jesus's Passion. Hence in all human
suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that
suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in
all suffering, the consolation of God's compassionate love—and
so the star of hope rises. Certainly, in our many different
sufferings and trials we always need the lesser and greater
hopes too—a kind visit, the healing of internal and external
wounds, a favourable resolution of a crisis, and so on. In our
lesser trials these kinds of hope may even be sufficient. But in
truly great trials, where I must make a definitive decision to
place the truth before my own welfare, career and possessions, I
need the certitude of that true, great hope of which we have
spoken here. For this too we need witnesses—martyrs—who have
given themselves totally, so as to show us the way—day after
day. We need them if we are to prefer goodness to comfort, even
in the little choices we face each day—knowing that this is how
we live life to the full. Let us say it once again: the capacity
to suffer for the sake of the truth is the measure of humanity.
Yet this capacity to suffer depends on the type and extent of
the hope that we bear within us and build upon. The saints were
able to make the great journey of human existence in the way
that Christ had done before them, because they were brimming
with great hope.
40. I would like to add here
another brief comment with some relevance for everyday living.
There used to be a form of devotion—perhaps less practised today
but quite widespread not long ago—that included the idea of
“offering up” the minor daily hardships that continually strike
at us like irritating “jabs”, thereby giving them a meaning. Of
course, there were some exaggerations and perhaps unhealthy
applications of this devotion, but we need to ask ourselves
whether there may not after all have been something essential
and helpful contained within it. What does it mean to offer
something up? Those who did so were convinced that they could
insert these little annoyances into Christ's great “com-passion”
so that they somehow became part of the treasury of compassion
so greatly needed by the human race. In this way, even the small
inconveniences of daily life could acquire meaning and
contribute to the economy of good and of human love. Maybe we
should consider whether it might be judicious to revive this
practice ourselves.
III. Judgement as a setting for
learning and practicing hope
41. At the conclusion of the
central section of the Church's great Credo—the part that
recounts the mystery of Christ, from his eternal birth of the
Father and his temporal birth of the Virgin Mary, through his
Cross and Resurrection to the second coming—we find the phrase:
“he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”.
From the earliest times, the prospect of the Judgement has
influenced Christians in their daily living as a criterion by
which to order their present life, as a summons to their
conscience, and at the same time as hope in God's justice. Faith
in Christ has never looked merely backwards or merely upwards,
but always also forwards to the hour of justice that the Lord
repeatedly proclaimed. This looking ahead has given Christianity
its importance for the present moment. In the arrangement of
Christian sacred buildings, which were intended to make visible
the historic and cosmic breadth of faith in Christ, it became
customary to depict the Lord returning as a king—the symbol of
hope—at the east end; while the west wall normally portrayed the
Last Judgement as a symbol of our responsibility for our lives—a
scene which followed and accompanied the faithful as they went
out to resume their daily routine. As the iconography of the
Last Judgement developed, however, more and more prominence was
given to its ominous and frightening aspects, which obviously
held more fascination for artists than the splendour of hope,
often all too well concealed beneath the horrors.
42. In the modern era, the idea
of the Last Judgement has faded into the background: Christian
faith has been individualized and primarily oriented towards the
salvation of the believer's own soul, while reflection on world
history is largely dominated by the idea of progress. The
fundamental content of awaiting a final Judgement, however, has
not disappeared: it has simply taken on a totally different
form. The atheism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
is—in its origins and aims—a type of moralism: a protest against
the injustices of the world and of world history. A world marked
by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power
cannot be the work of a good God. A God with responsibility for
such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God. It
is for the sake of morality that this God has to be contested.
Since there is no God to create justice, it seems man himself is
now called to establish justice. If in the face of this world's
suffering, protest against God is understandable, the claim that
humanity can and must do what no God actually does or is able to
do is both presumptuous and intrinsically false. It is no
accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty
and violations of justice; rather, it is grounded in the
intrinsic falsity of the claim. A world which has to create its
own justice is a world without hope. No one and nothing can
answer for centuries of suffering. No one and nothing can
guarantee that the cynicism of power—whatever beguiling
ideological mask it adopts—will cease to dominate the world.
This is why the great thinkers of the Frankfurt School, Max
Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, were equally critical of
atheism and theism. Horkheimer radically excluded the
possibility of ever finding a this-worldly substitute for God,
while at the same time he rejected the image of a good and just
God. In an extreme radicalization of the Old Testament
prohibition of images, he speaks of a “longing for the totally
Other” that remains inaccessible—a cry of yearning directed at
world history. Adorno also firmly upheld this total rejection of
images, which naturally meant the exclusion of any “image” of a
loving God. On the other hand, he also constantly emphasized
this “negative” dialectic and asserted that justice —true
justice—would require a world “where not only present suffering
would be wiped out, but also that which is irrevocably past
would be undone.” 30 This, would mean, however—to
express it with positive and hence, for him, inadequate
symbols—that there can be no justice without a resurrection of
the dead. Yet this would have to involve “the resurrection of
the flesh, something that is totally foreign to idealism and the
realm of Absolute spirit.” 31
43. Christians likewise can and
must constantly learn from the strict rejection of images that
is contained in God's first commandment (cf. Ex 20:4).
The truth of negative theology was highlighted by the Fourth
Lateran Council, which explicitly stated that however great the
similarity that may be established between Creator and creature,
the dissimilarity between them is always greater.32
In any case, for the believer the rejection of images cannot be
carried so far that one ends up, as Horkheimer and Adorno would
like, by saying “no” to both theses—theism and atheism. God has
given himself an “image”: in Christ who was made man. In him who
was crucified, the denial of false images of God is taken to an
extreme. God now reveals his true face in the figure of the
sufferer who shares man's God-forsaken condition by taking it
upon himself. This innocent sufferer has attained the certitude
of hope: there is a God, and God can create justice in a way
that we cannot conceive, yet we can begin to grasp it through
faith. Yes, there is a resurrection of the flesh.33
There is justice.34 There is an “undoing” of past
suffering, a reparation that sets things aright. For this
reason, faith in the Last Judgement is first and foremost
hope—the need for which was made abundantly clear in the
upheavals of recent centuries. I am convinced that the question
of justice constitutes the essential argument, or in any case
the strongest argument, in favour of faith in eternal life. The
purely individual need for a fulfilment that is denied to us in
this life, for an everlasting love that we await, is certainly
an important motive for believing that man was made for
eternity; but only in connection with the impossibility that the
injustice of history should be the final word does the necessity
for Christ's return and for new life become fully convincing.
44. To protest against God in
the name of justice is not helpful. A world without God is a
world without hope (cf. Eph 2:12). Only God can create
justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so. The
image of the Last Judgement is not primarily an image of terror,
but an image of hope; for us it may even be the decisive image
of hope. Is it not also a frightening image? I would say: it is
an image that evokes responsibility, an image, therefore, of
that fear of which Saint Hilary spoke when he said that all our
fear has its place in love.35 God is justice and
creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in
his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our
gaze to the crucified and risen Christ. Both these
things—justice and grace—must be seen in their correct inner
relationship. Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not
make wrong into right. It is not a sponge which wipes everything
away, so that whatever someone has done on earth ends up being
of equal value. Dostoevsky, for example, was right to protest
against this kind of Heaven and this kind of grace in his novel
The Brothers Karamazov. Evildoers, in the end, do not sit
at table at the eternal banquet beside their victims without
distinction, as though nothing had happened. Here I would like
to quote a passage from Plato which expresses a premonition of
just judgement that in many respects remains true and salutary
for Christians too. Albeit using mythological images, he
expresses the truth with an unambiguous clarity, saying that in
the end souls will stand naked before the judge. It no longer
matters what they once were in history, but only what they are
in truth: “Often, when it is the king or some other monarch or
potentate that he (the judge) has to deal with, he finds that
there is no soundness in the soul whatever; he finds it scourged
and scarred by the various acts of perjury and wrong-doing ...;
it is twisted and warped by lies and vanity, and nothing is
straight because truth has had no part in its development.
Power, luxury, pride, and debauchery have left it so full of
disproportion and ugliness that when he has inspected it (he)
sends it straight to prison, where on its arrival it will
undergo the appropriate punishment ... Sometimes, though, the
eye of the judge lights on a different soul which has lived in
purity and truth ... then he is struck with admiration and sends
him to the isles of the blessed.” 36 In the parable
of the rich man and Lazarus (cf. Lk 16:19-31), Jesus
admonishes us through the image of a soul destroyed by arrogance
and opulence, who has created an impassable chasm between
himself and the poor man; the chasm of being trapped within
material pleasures; the chasm of forgetting the other, of
incapacity to love, which then becomes a burning and
unquenchable thirst. We must note that in this parable Jesus is
not referring to the final destiny after the Last Judgement, but
is taking up a notion found, inter alia, in early
Judaism, namely that of an intermediate state between death and
resurrection, a state in which the final sentence is yet to be
pronounced.
45. This early Jewish idea of an
intermediate state includes the view that these souls are not
simply in a sort of temporary custody but, as the parable of the
rich man illustrates, are already being punished or are
experiencing a provisional form of bliss. There is also the idea
that this state can involve purification and healing which
mature the soul for communion with God. The early Church took up
these concepts, and in the Western Church they gradually
developed into the doctrine of Purgatory. We do not need to
examine here the complex historical paths of this development;
it is enough to ask what it actually means. With death, our
life-choice becomes definitive—our life stands before the judge.
Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a
certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people
who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness
to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who
have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within
themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles
of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history.
In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of
good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word
Hell.37 On the other hand there can be people who
are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully
open to their neighbours—people for whom communion with God even
now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey
towards God only brings to fulfilment what they already are.38
46. Yet we know from experience
that neither case is normal in human life. For the great
majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of
their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to
God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered
over by ever new compromises with evil —much filth covers
purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still
constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present
in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear
before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed
through life suddenly cease to matter? What else might occur?
Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, gives
us an idea of the differing impact of God's judgement according
to each person's particular circumstances. He does this using
images which in some way try to express the invisible, without
it being possible for us to conceptualize these images—simply
because we can neither see into the world beyond death nor do we
have any experience of it. Paul begins by saying that Christian
life is built upon a common foundation: Jesus Christ. This
foundation endures. If we have stood firm on this foundation and
built our life upon it, we know that it cannot be taken away
from us even in death. Then Paul continues: “Now if any one
builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones,
wood, hay, straw—each man's work will become manifest; for the
Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and
the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the
work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will
receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer
loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire”
(1 Cor 3:12-15). In this text, it is in any case evident
that our salvation can take different forms, that some of what
is built may be burned down, that in order to be saved we
personally have to pass through “fire” so as to become fully
open to receiving God and able to take our place at the table of
the eternal marriage-feast.
47. Some recent theologians are
of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is
Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is
the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood
melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms
and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we
build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster,
and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the
impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there
lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us
through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”.
But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love
sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally
ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the
inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the
way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does
not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out
towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has
already been burned away through Christ's Passion. At the moment
of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power
of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The
pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that
we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning
in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The
transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly
time-reckoning—it is the heart's time, it is the time of
“passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ.39
The judgement of God is hope, both because it is justice and
because it is grace. If it were merely grace, making all earthly
things cease to matter, God would still owe us an answer to the
question about justice—the crucial question that we ask of
history and of God. If it were merely justice, in the end it
could bring only fear to us all. The incarnation of God in
Christ has so closely linked the two together—judgement and
grace—that justice is firmly established: we all work out our
salvation “with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12).
Nevertheless grace allows us all to hope, and to go trustfully
to meet the Judge whom we know as our “advocate”, or
parakletos (cf. 1 Jn 2:1).
48. A further point must be
mentioned here, because it is important for the practice of
Christian hope. Early Jewish thought includes the idea that one
can help the deceased in their intermediate state through prayer
(see for example 2 Macc 12:38-45; first century BC). The
equivalent practice was readily adopted by Christians and is
common to the Eastern and Western Church. The East does not
recognize the purifying and expiatory suffering of souls in the
afterlife, but it does acknowledge various levels of beatitude
and of suffering in the intermediate state. The souls of the
departed can, however, receive “solace and refreshment” through
the Eucharist, prayer and almsgiving. The belief that love can
reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving
is possible, in which our affection for one another continues
beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental
conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a
source of comfort today. Who would not feel the need to convey
to their departed loved ones a sign of kindness, a gesture of
gratitude or even a request for pardon? Now a further question
arises: if “Purgatory” is simply purification through fire in
the encounter with the Lord, Judge and Saviour, how can a third
person intervene, even if he or she is particularly close to the
other? When we ask such a question, we should recall that no man
is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one
another, through innumerable interactions they are linked
together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved
alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in
what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life
spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my
prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person,
something external, not even after death. In the
interconnectedness of Being, my gratitude to the other—my prayer
for him—can play a small part in his purification. And for that
there is no need to convert earthly time into God's time: in the
communion of souls simple terrestrial time is superseded. It is
never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in
vain. In this way we further clarify an important element of the
Christian concept of hope. Our hope is always essentially also
hope for others; only thus is it truly hope for me too.40
As Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking: how can
I save myself? We should also ask: what can I do in order that
others may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may
rise? Then I will have done my utmost for my own personal
salvation as well.
Mary, Star of Hope
49. With a hymn composed in the
eighth or ninth century, thus for over a thousand years, the
Church has greeted Mary, the Mother of God, as “Star of the
Sea”: Ave maris stella. Human life is a journey. Towards
what destination? How do we find the way? Life is like a voyage
on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which
we watch for the stars that indicate the route. The true stars
of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are
lights of hope. Certainly, Jesus Christ is the true light, the
sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. But to
reach him we also need lights close by—people who shine with his
light and so guide us along our way. Who more than Mary could be
a star of hope for us? With her “yes” she opened the door of our
world to God himself; she became the living Ark of the Covenant,
in whom God took flesh, became one of us, and pitched his tent
among us (cf. Jn 1:14).
50. So we cry to her: Holy Mary,
you belonged to the humble and great souls of Israel who, like
Simeon, were “looking for the consolation of Israel” (Lk
2:25) and hoping, like Anna, “for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Lk
2:38). Your life was thoroughly imbued with the sacred
scriptures of Israel which spoke of hope, of the promise made to
Abraham and his descendants (cf. Lk 1:55). In this way we
can appreciate the holy fear that overcame you when the angel of
the Lord appeared to you and told you that you would give birth
to the One who was the hope of Israel, the One awaited by the
world. Through you, through your “yes”, the hope of the ages
became reality, entering this world and its history. You bowed
low before the greatness of this task and gave your consent:
“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me
according to your word” (Lk 1:38). When you hastened with
holy joy across the mountains of Judea to see your cousin
Elizabeth, you became the image of the Church to come, which
carries the hope of the world in her womb across the mountains
of history. But alongside the joy which, with your Magnificat,
you proclaimed in word and song for all the centuries to hear,
you also knew the dark sayings of the prophets about the
suffering of the servant of God in this world. Shining over his
birth in the stable at Bethlehem, there were angels in splendour
who brought the good news to the shepherds, but at the same time
the lowliness of God in this world was all too palpable. The old
man Simeon spoke to you of the sword which would pierce your
soul (cf. Lk 2:35), of the sign of contradiction that
your Son would be in this world. Then, when Jesus began his
public ministry, you had to step aside, so that a new family
could grow, the family which it was his mission to establish and
which would be made up of those who heard his word and kept it
(cf. Lk 11:27f). Notwithstanding the great joy that
marked the beginning of Jesus's ministry, in the synagogue of
Nazareth you must already have experienced the truth of the
saying about the “sign of contradiction” (cf. Lk 4:28ff).
In this way you saw the growing power of hostility and rejection
which built up around Jesus until the hour of the Cross, when
you had to look upon the Saviour of the world, the heir of
David, the Son of God dying like a failure, exposed to mockery,
between criminals. Then you received the word of Jesus: “Woman,
behold, your Son!” (Jn 19:26). From the Cross you
received a new mission. From the Cross you became a mother in a
new way: the mother of all those who believe in your Son Jesus
and wish to follow him. The sword of sorrow pierced your heart.
Did hope die? Did the world remain definitively without light,
and life without purpose? At that moment, deep down, you
probably listened again to the word spoken by the angel in
answer to your fear at the time of the Annunciation: “Do not be
afraid, Mary!” (Lk 1:30). How many times had the Lord,
your Son, said the same thing to his disciples: do not be
afraid! In your heart, you heard this word again during the
night of Golgotha. Before the hour of his betrayal he had said
to his disciples: “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world”
(Jn 16:33). “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let
them be afraid” (Jn 14:27). “Do not be afraid, Mary!” In
that hour at Nazareth the angel had also said to you: “Of his
kingdom there will be no end” (Lk 1:33). Could it have
ended before it began? No, at the foot of the Cross, on the
strength of Jesus's own word, you became the mother of
believers. In this faith, which even in the darkness of Holy
Saturday bore the certitude of hope, you made your way towards
Easter morning. The joy of the Resurrection touched your heart
and united you in a new way to the disciples, destined to become
the family of Jesus through faith. In this way you were in the
midst of the community of believers, who in the days following
the Ascension prayed with one voice for the gift of the Holy
Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14) and then received that gift on the
day of Pentecost. The “Kingdom” of Jesus was not as might have
been imagined. It began in that hour, and of this “Kingdom”
there will be no end. Thus you remain in the midst of the
disciples as their Mother, as the Mother of hope. Holy Mary,
Mother of God, our Mother, teach us to believe, to hope, to love
with you. Show us the way to his Kingdom! Star of the Sea, shine
upon us and guide us on our way!
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's,
on 30 November, the Feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle, in the
year 2007, the third of my Pontificate.
BENEDICTUS PP.
XVI
1
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
VI, no. 26003.
2
Cf. Dogmatic Poems, V, 53-64: PG
37, 428-429.
3
Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church,
1817-1821.
4
Summa Theologiae, II-IIae,
q.4, a.1.
5
H. Köster in Theological Dictionary of
the New Testament VIII (1972), p.586.
6
De excessu fratris sui Satyri,
II, 47: CSEL 73, 274.
7
Ibid., II, 46:
CSEL 73, 273.
8
Cf. Ep. 130 Ad Probam 14, 25-15, 28:
CSEL 44, 68-73.
9
Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church,
1025.
10
Jean Giono, Les vraies richesses
(1936), Preface, Paris 1992, pp.18-20; quoted in Henri de Lubac,
Catholicisme. Aspects sociaux du dogme, Paris 1983, p.VII.
11
Ep. 130 Ad Probam 13, 24: CSEL
44, 67.
12
Sententiae III, 118: CCL 6/2,
215.
13
Cf. ibid. III, 71: CCL 6/2,
107-108.
14
Novum Organum I, 117.
15
Cf. ibid. I, 129.
16
Cf. New Atlantis.
17
In Werke IV, ed. W. Weischedel
(1956), p.777.
18
I. Kant, Das Ende aller Dinge, in
Werke VI, ed. W.Weischedel (1964), p.190.
19
Chapters on charity, Centuria 1,
ch. 1: PG 90, 965.
20
Cf. ibid.: PG 90, 962-966.
21
Conf. X 43, 70: CSEL 33, 279.
22
Sermo 340, 3: PL 38, 1484; cf.
F. Van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop, London and New
York 1961, p.268.
23
Sermo 339,
4: PL 38, 1481.
24
Conf. X
43, 69: CSEL 33, 279.
25
Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church,
2657.
26
Cf. In 1 Ioannis 4, 6: PL 35,
2008f.
27
Testimony of Hope,
Boston 2000, pp.121ff.
28
The Liturgy of the Hours, Office of
Readings, 24 November.
29
Sermones in Cant., Sermo 26, 5: PL
183, 906.
30 Negative
Dialektik (1966), Third part, III, 11,
in Gesammelte Schriften VI, Frankfurt am Main 1973,
p.395.
31
Ibid., Second part, p.207.
32
DS 806.
33
Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church,
988-1004.
34
Cf. ibid., 1040.
35
Cf. Tractatus super Psalmos, Ps
127, 1-3: CSEL 22, 628-630.
36 Gorgias
525a-526c.
37
Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church,
1033-1037.
38
Cf. ibid., 1023-1029.
39
Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church,
1030-1032.
40 Cf.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1032.
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