Extract from ContExploration.net
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extract document nr |
8006 |
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local link |
http://contexploration.net/extracts/8006.htm
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remote link |
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html
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title |
Encyclical Letter |
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date published |
25.12.2005 |
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author |
Pope Benedict XVI |
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source |
The Vatican |
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further reading from
author |
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ENCYCLICAL LETTER
DEUS CARITAS EST
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
BENEDICT XVI
TO THE BISHOPS
PRIESTS AND DEACONS
MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS
AND ALL THE LAY FAITHFUL
ON CHRISTIAN LOVE
INTRODUCTION
1. “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in
him” (1 Jn 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with
remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God
and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse,
We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express
the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an
ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person,
which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.
In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even
a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant. For
this reason, I wish in my first Encyclical to speak of the love which God
lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others. That, in essence,
is what the two main parts of this Letter are about, and they are profoundly
interconnected. The first part is more speculative, since I wanted here—at the
beginning of my Pontificate—to clarify some essential facts concerning the love
which God mysteriously and gratuitously offers to man, together with the
intrinsic link between that Love and the reality of human love. The second part
is more concrete, since it treats the ecclesial exercise of the commandment of
love of neighbour. The argument has vast implications, but a lengthy treatment
would go beyond the scope of the present Encyclical. I wish to emphasize some
basic elements, so as to call forth in the world renewed energy and commitment
in the human response to God's love.
PART I
THE UNITY OF LOVE
IN CREATION
AND IN SALVATION HISTORY
A problem of language
2. God's love for us is fundamental for our lives, and it raises important
questions about who God is and who we are. In considering this, we immediately
find ourselves hampered by a problem of language. Today, the term “love” has
become one of the most frequently used and misused of words, a word to which we
attach quite different meanings. Even though this Encyclical will deal
primarily with the understanding and practice of love in sacred Scripture and
in the Church's Tradition, we cannot simply prescind from the meaning of the
word in the different cultures and in present-day usage.
Let us first of all bring to mind the vast semantic range of the word “love”:
we speak of love of country, love of one's profession, love between friends,
love of work, love between parents and children, love between family members,
love of neighbour and love of God. Amid this multiplicity of meanings, however,
one in particular stands out: love between man and woman, where body and soul
are inseparably joined and human beings glimpse an apparently irresistible
promise of happiness. This would seem to be the very epitome of love; all other
kinds of love immediately seem to fade in comparison. So we need to ask: are
all these forms of love basically one, so that love, in its many and varied
manifestations, is ultimately a single reality, or are we merely using the same
word to designate totally different realities?
“Eros” and “Agape” – difference and unity
3. That love between man and woman which is neither planned nor willed, but
somehow imposes itself upon human beings, was called eros by the ancient
Greeks. Let us note straight away that the Greek Old Testament uses the word
eros only twice, while the New Testament does not use it at all: of the three
Greek words for love, eros, philia (the love of friendship) and agape, New
Testament writers prefer the last, which occurs rather infrequently in Greek
usage. As for the term philia, the love of friendship, it is used with added
depth of meaning in
4. But is this the case? Did Christianity really destroy eros? Let us take a
look at the pre- Christian world. The Greeks—not unlike other
cultures—considered eros principally as a kind of intoxication, the
overpowering of reason by a “divine madness” which tears man away from his
finite existence and enables him, in the very process of being overwhelmed by
divine power, to experience supreme happiness. All other powers in heaven and
on earth thus appear secondary: “Omnia vincit amor” says Virgil in the
Bucolics—love conquers all—and he adds: “et nos cedamus amori”—let us, too,
yield to love.[2] In the religions, this attitude found expression in fertility
cults, part of which was the “sacred” prostitution which flourished in many
temples. Eros was thus celebrated as divine power, as fellowship with the
Divine.
The Old Testament firmly opposed this form of religion, which represents a
powerful temptation against monotheistic faith, combating it as a perversion of
religiosity. But it in no way rejected eros as such; rather, it declared war on
a warped and destructive form of it, because this counterfeit divinization of
eros actually strips it of its dignity and dehumanizes it. Indeed, the
prostitutes in the temple, who had to bestow this divine intoxication, were not
treated as human beings and persons, but simply used as a means of arousing
“divine madness”: far from being goddesses, they were human persons being
exploited. An intoxicated and undisciplined eros, then, is not an ascent in
“ecstasy” towards the Divine, but a fall, a degradation of man. Evidently, eros
needs to be disciplined and purified if it is to provide not just fleeting
pleasure, but a certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence, of that
beatitude for which our whole being yearns.
5. Two things emerge clearly from this rapid overview of the concept of eros
past and present. First, there is a certain relationship between love and the
Divine: love promises infinity, eternity—a reality far greater and totally
other than our everyday existence. Yet we have also seen that the way to attain
this goal is not simply by submitting to instinct. Purification and growth in
maturity are called for; and these also pass through the path of renunciation.
Far from rejecting or “poisoning” eros, they heal it and restore its true
grandeur.
This is due first and foremost to the fact that man is a being made up of body
and soul. Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately united;
the challenge of eros can be said to be truly overcome when this unification is
achieved. Should he aspire to be pure spirit and to reject the flesh as
pertaining to his animal nature alone, then spirit and body would both lose
their dignity. On the other hand, should he deny the spirit and consider
matter, the body, as the only reality, he would likewise lose his greatness.
The epicure Gassendi used to offer Descartes the humorous greeting: “O Soul!”
And Descartes would reply: “O Flesh!”.[3] Yet it is neither the spirit alone
nor the body alone that loves: it is man, the person, a unified creature
composed of body and soul, who loves. Only when both dimensions are truly
united, does man attain his full stature. Only thus is love —eros—able to
mature and attain its authentic grandeur.
Nowadays Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to
the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always
existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros,
reduced to pure “sex”, has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and
sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great
“yes” to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality
as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will. Nor
does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as a mere
object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless.
Here we are actually dealing with a debasement of the human body: no longer is
it integrated into our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a vital
expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the purely
biological sphere. The apparent exaltation of the body can quickly turn into a
hatred of bodiliness. Christian faith, on the other hand, has always considered
man a unity in duality, a reality in which spirit and matter compenetrate, and
in which each is brought to a new nobility. True, eros tends to rise “in
ecstasy” towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very
reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.
6. Concretely, what does this path of ascent and purification entail? How might
love be experienced so that it can fully realize its human and divine promise?
Here we can find a first, important indication in the Song of Songs, an Old
Testament book well known to the mystics. According to the interpretation
generally held today, the poems contained in this book were originally
love-songs, perhaps intended for a Jewish wedding feast and meant to exalt
conjugal love. In this context it is highly instructive to note that in the
course of the book two different Hebrew words are used to indicate “love”.
First there is the word dodim, a plural form suggesting a love that is still
insecure, indeterminate and searching. This comes to be replaced by the word
ahabŕ, which the Greek version of the Old Testament translates with the
similar-sounding agape, which, as we have seen, becomes the typical expression
for the biblical notion of love. By contrast with an indeterminate, “searching”
love, this word expresses the experience of a love which involves a real
discovery of the other, moving beyond the selfish character that prevailed
earlier. Love now becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it
self-seeking, a sinking in the intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the
good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing,
for sacrifice.
It is part of love's growth towards higher levels and inward purification that
it now seeks to become definitive, and it does so in a twofold sense: both in
the sense of exclusivity (this particular person alone) and in the sense of
being “for ever”. Love embraces the whole of existence in each of its
dimensions, including the dimension of time. It could hardly be otherwise,
since its promise looks towards its definitive goal: love looks to the eternal.
Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but
rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self
towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic
self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God: “Whoever seeks to gain his life
will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Lk 17:33), as Jesus
says throughout the Gospels (cf. Mt 10:39; 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lk 9:24; Jn 12:25).
In these words, Jesus portrays his own path [suicide], which leads through the
Cross to the Resurrection: the path of the grain of wheat that falls to the
ground and dies, and in this way bears much fruit. Starting from the depths of
his own sacrifice and of the love that reaches fulfilment therein, he also
portrays in these words the essence of love and indeed of human life itself.
7. By their own inner logic, these initial, somewhat philosophical reflections
on the essence of love have now brought us to the threshold of biblical faith.
We began by asking whether the different, or even opposed, meanings of the word
“love” point to some profound underlying unity, or whether on the contrary they
must remain unconnected, one alongside the other. More significantly, though,
we questioned whether the message of love proclaimed to us by the Bible and the
Church's Tradition has some points of contact with the common human experience
of love, or whether it is opposed to that experience. This in turn led us to
consider two fundamental words: eros, as a term to indicate “worldly” love and
agape, referring to love grounded in and shaped by faith. The two notions are
often contrasted as “ascending” love and “descending” love. There are other,
similar classifications, such as the distinction between possessive love and
oblative love (amor concupiscentiae – amor benevolentiae), to which is
sometimes also added love that seeks its own advantage.
In philosophical and theological debate, these distinctions have often been
radicalized to the point of establishing a clear antithesis between them:
descending, oblative love—agape—would be typically Christian, while on the
other hand ascending, possessive or covetous love —eros—would be typical of
non-Christian, and particularly Greek culture. Were this antithesis to be taken
to extremes, the essence of Christianity would be detached from the vital
relations fundamental to human existence, and would become a world apart,
admirable perhaps, but decisively cut off from the complex fabric of human
life. Yet eros and agape—ascending love and descending love—can never be
completely separated. The more the two, in their different aspects, find a
proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the true nature of love in
general is realized. Even if eros is at first mainly covetous and ascending, a
fascination for the great promise of happiness, in drawing near to the other,
it is less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of
the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and
wants to “be there for” the other. The element of agape thus enters into this
love, for otherwise eros is impoverished and even loses its own nature. On the
other hand, man cannot live by oblative, descending love alone. He cannot
always give, he must also receive. Anyone who wishes to give love must also
receive love as a gift. Certainly, as the Lord tells us, one can become a
source from which rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7:37-38). Yet to become
such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which
is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God (cf. Jn 19:34).
In the account of Jacob's ladder, the Fathers of the Church saw this
inseparable connection between ascending and descending love, between eros
which seeks God and agape which passes on the gift received, symbolized in
various ways. In that biblical passage we read how the Patriarch Jacob saw in a
dream, above the stone which was his pillow, a ladder reaching up to heaven, on
which the angels of God were ascending and descending (cf. Gen 28:12; Jn 1:51).
A particularly striking interpretation of this vision is presented by Pope
Gregory the Great in his Pastoral Rule. He tells us that the good pastor must
be rooted in contemplation. Only in this way will he be able to take upon
himself the needs of others and make them his own: “per pietatis viscera in se
infirmitatem caeterorum transferat”.[4] Saint Gregory speaks in this context of
Saint Paul, who was borne aloft to the most exalted mysteries of God, and
hence, having descended once more, he was able to become all things to all men
(cf. 2 Cor 12:2-4; 1 Cor 9:22). He also points to the example of Moses, who
entered the tabernacle time and again, remaining in dialogue with God, so that
when he emerged he could be at the service of his people. “Within [the tent] he
is borne aloft through contemplation, while without he is completely engaged in
helping those who suffer: intus in contemplationem rapitur, foris infirmantium
negotiis urgetur.”[5]
8. We have thus come to an initial, albeit still somewhat generic response to
the two questions raised earlier. Fundamentally, “love” is a single reality,
but with different dimensions; at different times, one or other dimension may
emerge more clearly. Yet when the two dimensions are totally cut off from one
another, the result is a caricature or at least an impoverished form of love.
And we have also seen, synthetically, that biblical faith does not set up a
parallel universe, or one opposed to that primordial human phenomenon which is
love, but rather accepts the whole man; it intervenes in his search for love in
order to purify it and to reveal new dimensions of it. This newness of biblical
faith is shown chiefly in two elements which deserve to be highlighted: the
image of God and the image of man.
The
newness of biblical faith
9. First, the world of the Bible presents us with a new image of God. In
surrounding cultures, the image of God and of the gods ultimately remained
unclear and contradictory. In the development of biblical faith, however, the
content of the prayer fundamental to
The Prophets, particularly Hosea and Ezekiel, described God's passion for his
people using boldly erotic images. God's relationship with
10. We have seen that God's eros for man is also totally agape. This is not
only because it is bestowed in a completely gratuitous manner, without any
previous merit, but also because it is love which forgives. Hosea above all
shows us that this agape dimension of God's love for man goes far beyond the
aspect of gratuity.
The philosophical dimension to be noted in this biblical vision, and its
importance from the standpoint of the history of religions, lies in the fact
that on the one hand we find ourselves before a strictly metaphysical image of
God: God is the absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this universal
principle of creation—the Logos, primordial reason—is at the same time a lover
with all the passion of a true love. Eros is thus supremely ennobled, yet at
the same time it is so purified as to become one with agape. We can thus see
how the reception of the Song of Songs in the canon of sacred Scripture was
soon explained by the idea that these love songs ultimately describe God's
relation to man and man's relation to God. Thus the Song of Songs became, both
in Christian and Jewish literature, a source of mystical knowledge and
experience, an expression of the essence of biblical faith: that man can indeed
enter into union with God—his primordial aspiration. But this union is no mere
fusion, a sinking in the nameless ocean of the Divine; it is a unity which
creates love, a unity in which both God and man remain themselves and yet
become fully one. As Saint Paul says: “He who is united to the Lord becomes one
spirit with him” (1 Cor 6:17).
11.
The first novelty of biblical faith consists, as we have seen, in its image of
God. The second, essentially connected to this, is found in the image of man.
The biblical account of creation speaks of the solitude of Adam, the first man,
and God's decision to give him a helper. Of all other creatures, not one is
capable of being the helper that man needs, even though he has assigned a name
to all the wild beasts and birds and thus made them fully a part of his life.
So God forms woman from the rib of man. Now Adam finds the helper that he needed:
“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23). Here one
might detect hints of ideas that are also found, for example, in the myth
mentioned by Plato, according to which man was originally spherical, because he
was complete in himself and self-sufficient. But as a punishment for pride, he
was split in two by Zeus, so that now he longs for his other half, striving
with all his being to possess it and thus regain his integrity.[8] While the
biblical narrative does not speak of punishment, the idea is certainly present
that man is somehow incomplete, driven by nature to seek in another the part
that can make him whole, the idea that only in communion with the opposite sex
can he become “complete”. The biblical account thus concludes with a prophecy
about Adam: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to
his wife and they become one flesh” (Gen 2:24).
Two aspects of this are important. First, eros is somehow rooted in man's very
nature; Adam is a seeker, who “abandons his mother and father” in order to find
woman; only together do the two represent complete humanity and become “one
flesh”. The second aspect is equally important. From the standpoint of
creation, eros directs man towards marriage, to a bond which is unique and
definitive; thus, and only thus, does it fulfil its deepest purpose.
Corresponding to the image of a monotheistic God is monogamous marriage.
Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love becomes the icon of the
relationship between God and his people and vice versa. God's way of loving
becomes the measure of human love. This close connection between eros and
marriage in the Bible has practically no equivalent in extra-biblical
literature.
Jesus Christ – the incarnate love of God
12. Though up to now we have been speaking mainly of the Old Testament,
nevertheless the profound compenetration of the two Testaments as the one
Scripture of the Christian faith has already become evident. The real novelty
of the New Testament lies not so much in new ideas as in the figure of Christ
himself, who gives flesh and blood to those concepts—an unprecedented realism.
In the Old Testament, the novelty of the Bible did not consist merely in
abstract notions but in God's unpredictable and in some sense unprecedented
activity. This divine activity now takes on dramatic form when, in Jesus
Christ, it is God himself who goes in search of the “stray sheep”, a suffering
and lost humanity. When Jesus speaks in his parables of the shepherd who goes
after the lost sheep, of the woman who looks for the lost coin, of the father
who goes to meet and embrace his prodigal son, these are no mere words: they
constitute an explanation of his very being and activity. His death on the
Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he
gives himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most
radical form. By contemplating the pierced side of Christ (cf. 19:37), we can
understand the starting-point of this Encyclical Letter: “God is love” (1 Jn
4:8). It is there that this truth can be contemplated. It is from there that
our definition of love must begin. In this contemplation the Christian
discovers the path along which his life and love must move.
13. Jesus gave this act of oblation an enduring presence through his
institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. He anticipated his death and
resurrection by giving his disciples, in the bread and wine, his very self, his
body and blood as the new manna (cf. Jn 6:31-33). The ancient world had dimly
perceived that man's real food—what truly nourishes him as man—is ultimately
the Logos, eternal wisdom: this same Logos now truly becomes food for us—as
love. The Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation. More than just
statically receiving the incarnate Logos, we enter into the very dynamic of his
self-giving. The imagery of marriage between God and
14. Here we need to consider yet another aspect: this sacramental
“mysticism” is social in character, for in sacramental communion I become one
with the Lord, like all the other communicants. As Saint Paul says, “Because
there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one
bread” (1 Cor 10:17).
15.
This principle is the starting-point for understanding the great parables of
Jesus. The rich man (cf. Lk 16:19-31) begs from his place of torment that his
brothers be informed about what happens to those who simply ignore the poor man
in need. Jesus takes up this cry for help as a warning to help us return to the
right path. The parable of the Good Samaritan (cf. Lk 10:25-37) offers two
particularly important clarifications. Until that time, the concept of
“neighbour” was understood as referring essentially to one's countrymen and to
foreigners who had settled in the land of Israel; in other words, to the
closely-knit community of a single country or people. This limit is now
abolished. Anyone who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbour. The
concept of “neighbour” is now universalized, yet it remains concrete. Despite
being extended to all mankind, it is not reduced to a generic, abstract and
undemanding expression of love, but calls for my own practical commitment here
and now. The Church has the duty to interpret ever anew this relationship
between near and far with regard to the actual daily life of her members.
Lastly, we should especially mention the great parable of the Last Judgement
(cf. Mt 25:31-46), in which love becomes the criterion for the definitive
decision about a human life's worth or lack thereof. Jesus identifies himself
with those in need, with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the
sick and those in prison. “As you did it to one of the least of these my
brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). Love of God and love of neighbour have
become one: in the least of the brethren we find Jesus himself, and in Jesus we
find God.
Love of God and love of neighbour
16. Having reflected on the nature of love and its meaning in biblical faith,
we are left with two questions concerning our own attitude: can we love God
without seeing him? And can love be commanded? Against the double commandment
of love these questions raise a double objection. No one has ever seen God, so
how could we love him? Moreover, love cannot be commanded; it is ultimately a
feeling that is either there or not, nor can it be produced by the will.
Scripture seems to reinforce the first objection when it states: “If anyone
says, ‘I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not
love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn
4:20). But this text hardly excludes the love of God as something impossible.
On the contrary, the whole context of the passage quoted from the First Letter
of John shows that such love is explicitly demanded. The unbreakable bond
between love of God and love of neighbour is emphasized. One is so closely
connected to the other that to say that we love God becomes a lie if we are
closed to our neighbour or hate him altogether.
17. True, no one has ever seen God as he is. And yet God is not totally
invisible to us; he does not remain completely inaccessible. God loved us
first, says the Letter of John quoted above (cf. 4:10), and this love of God
has appeared in our midst. He has become visible in as much as he “has sent his
only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 Jn 4:9). God has
made himself visible: in Jesus we are able to see the Father (cf. Jn 14:9).
Indeed, God is visible in a number of ways. In the love-story recounted by the
Bible, he comes towards us, he seeks to win our hearts, all the way to the Last
Supper, to the piercing of his heart on the Cross, to his appearances after the
Resurrection and to the great deeds by which, through the activity of the
Apostles, he guided the nascent Church along its path. Nor has the Lord been
absent from subsequent Church history: he encounters us ever anew, in the men
and women who reflect his presence, in his word, in the sacraments, and
especially in the Eucharist. In the Church's Liturgy, in her prayer, in the
living community of believers, we experience the love of God, we perceive his
presence and we thus learn to recognize that presence in our daily lives. He
has loved us first and he continues to do so; we too, then, can respond with
love. God does not demand of us a feeling which we ourselves are incapable of
producing. He loves us, he makes us see and experience his love, and since he
has “loved us first”, love can also blossom as a response within us. [‘we owe
him’]
In the gradual unfolding of this encounter, it is clearly revealed that love is
not merely a sentiment. Sentiments come and go. A sentiment can be a marvellous
first spark, but it is not the fullness of love. Earlier we spoke of the
process of purification and maturation by which eros comes fully into its own,
becomes love in the full meaning of the word. It is characteristic of mature
love that it calls into play all man's potentialities; it engages the whole
man, so to speak. Contact with the visible manifestations of God's love can
awaken within us a feeling of joy born of the experience of being loved. But
this encounter also engages our will and our intellect. Acknowledgment of the
living God is one path towards love, and the “yes” of our will to his will
unites our intellect, will and sentiments in the all- embracing act of love.
But this process is always open-ended; love is never “finished” and complete;
throughout life, it changes and matures, and thus remains faithful to itself.
Idem velle atque idem nolle [9]—to want the same thing, and to reject the same
thing—was recognized by antiquity as the authentic content of love: the one
becomes similar to the other, and this leads to a community of will and
thought. The love-story between God and man consists in the very fact that this
communion of will increases in a communion of thought and sentiment, and thus
our will and God's will increasingly coincide: God's will is no longer for me
an alien will, something imposed on me from without by the commandments, but it
is now my own will, based on the realization that God is in fact more deeply
present to me than I am to myself.[10] Then self- abandonment to God increases
and God becomes our joy (cf. Ps 73 [72]:23-28).
18.
Love of neighbour is thus shown to be possible in the way proclaimed by the
Bible, by Jesus. It consists in the very fact that, in God and with God, I love
even the person whom I do not like or even know. This can only take place on
the basis of an intimate encounter with God, an encounter which has become a
communion of will, even affecting my feelings. Then I learn to look on this
other person not simply with my eyes and my feelings, but from the perspective
of Jesus Christ. His friend is my friend. Going beyond exterior appearances, I
perceive in others an interior desire for a sign of love, of concern. This I
can offer them not only through the organizations intended for such purposes,
accepting it perhaps as a political necessity. Seeing with the eyes of Christ,
I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I can
give them the look of love which they crave. Here we see the
necessary interplay between love of God and love of neighbour which the First
Letter of John speaks of with such insistence. If I have no contact whatsoever
with God in my life, then I cannot see in the other anything more than the
other, and I am incapable of seeing in him the image of God. But if in my life
I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be “devout” and to
perform my “religious duties”, then my relationship with God will also grow
arid. It becomes merely “proper”, but loveless. Only my readiness to encounter
my neighbour and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I
serve my neighbour can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much
he loves me. The saints—consider the example of Blessed Teresa of
Calcutta—constantly renewed their capacity for love of neighbour from their
encounter with the Eucharistic Lord, and conversely this encounter acquired its
real- ism and depth in their service to others. Love of God and love of
neighbour are thus inseparable, they form a single commandment. But both live
from the love of God who has loved us first. No longer is it a question, then,
of a “commandment” imposed from without and calling for the impossible, but
rather of a freely-bestowed experience of love from within, a love which by its
very nature must then be shared with others. Love grows through love. Love is
“divine” because it comes from God and unites us to God; through this unifying
process it makes us a “we” which transcends our divisions and makes us one,
until in the end God is “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).
PART II
CARITAS
THE PRACTICE OF LOVE
BY THE CHURCH
AS A “COMMUNITY OF LOVE”
The Church's charitable activity as a manifestation of Trinitarian love
19. “If you see charity, you see the Trinity”, wrote Saint Augustine.[11] In
the foregoing reflections, we have been able to focus our attention on the
Pierced one (cf. Jn 19:37, Zech 12:10), recognizing the plan of the Father who,
moved by love (cf. Jn 3:16), sent his only-begotten Son into the world to
redeem man. By dying on the Cross—as
The Spirit is also the energy which transforms the heart of the ecclesial
community, so that it becomes a witness before the world to the love of the
Father, who wishes to make humanity a single family in his Son. The entire
activity of the Church is an expression of a love that seeks the integral good
of man: it seeks his evangelization through Word and Sacrament, an undertaking
that is often heroic in the way it is acted out in history; and it seeks to
promote man in the various arenas of life and human activity. Love is therefore
the service that the Church carries out in order to attend constantly to man's
sufferings and his needs, including material needs. And this is the aspect,
this service of charity, on which I want to focus in the second part of the
Encyclical.
Charity as a responsibility of the Church
20. Love of neighbour, grounded in the love of God, is first and
foremost a responsibility for each individual member of the faithful, but it is
also a responsibility for the entire ecclesial community at every level: from
the local community to the particular Church and to the Church universal in its
entirety. As a community, the Church must practise love. Love thus needs to be
organized if it is to be an ordered service to the community. The awareness of
this responsibility has had a constitutive relevance in the Church from the
beginning: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; and
they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had
need” (Acts 2:44-5). In these words, Saint Luke provides a kind of definition
of the Church, whose constitutive elements include fidelity to the “teaching of
the Apostles”, “communion” (koinonia), “the breaking of the bread” and “prayer”
(cf. Acts 2:42). The element of “communion” (koinonia) is not initially
defined, but appears concretely in the verses quoted above: it consists in the
fact that believers hold all things in common and that among them, there is no
longer any distinction between rich and poor (cf. also Acts 4:32-37). As the
Church grew, this radical form of material communion could not in fact be
preserved. But its essential core remained: within the community of believers
there can never be room for a poverty that denies anyone what is needed for a
dignified life.
21. A decisive step in the difficult search for ways of putting this
fundamental ecclesial principle into practice is illustrated in the choice of
the seven, which marked the origin of the diaconal office (cf. Acts 6:5-6). In
the early Church, in fact, with regard to the daily distribution to widows, a
disparity had arisen between Hebrew speakers and Greek speakers. The Apostles,
who had been entrusted primarily with “prayer” (the Eucharist and the liturgy)
and the “ministry of the word”, felt over-burdened by “serving tables”, so they
decided to reserve to themselves the principal duty and to designate for the
other task, also necessary in the Church, a group of seven persons. Nor was
this group to carry out a purely mechanical work of distribution: they were to
be men “full of the Spirit and of wisdom” (cf. Acts 6:1-6). In other words, the
social service which they were meant to provide was absolutely concrete, yet at
the same time it was also a spiritual service; theirs was a truly spiritual
office which carried out an essential responsibility of the Church, namely a
well-ordered love of neighbour. With the formation of this group of seven,
“diaconia”—the ministry of charity exercised in a communitarian, orderly
way—became part of the fundamental structure of the Church.
22. As the years went by and the Church spread further afield, the exercise of charity
became established as one of her essential activities, along with the
administration of the sacraments and the proclamation of the word: love for
widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as
essential to her as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel.
The Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect
the Sacraments and the Word. A few references will suffice to demonstrate this.
Justin Martyr († c. 155) in speaking of the Christians' celebration of Sunday,
also mentions their charitable activity, linked with the Eucharist as such.
Those who are able make offerings in accordance with their means, each as he or
she wishes; the Bishop in turn makes use of these to support orphans, widows,
the sick and those who for other reasons find themselves in need, such as
prisoners and foreigners.[12] The great Christian writer Tertullian († after
220) relates how the pagans were struck by the Christians' concern for the
needy of every sort.[13] And when Ignatius of Antioch († c. 117) described the
Church of Rome as “presiding in charity (agape)”,[14] we may assume that with
this definition he also intended in some sense to express her concrete
charitable activity.
23. Here it might be helpful to allude to the earliest legal structures
associated with the service of charity in the Church. Towards the middle of the
fourth century we see the development in
24. A mention of the emperor Julian the Apostate († 363) can also show how
essential the early Church considered the organized practice of charity. As a
child of six years, Julian witnessed the assassination of his father, brother
and other family members by the guards of the imperial palace; rightly or
wrongly, he blamed this brutal act on the Emperor Constantius, who passed
himself off as an outstanding Christian. The Christian faith was thus
definitively discredited in his eyes. Upon becoming emperor, Julian decided to
restore paganism, the ancient Roman religion, while reforming it in the hope of
making it the driving force behind the empire. In this project he was amply
inspired by Christianity. He established a hierarchy of metropolitans and
priests who were to foster love of God and neighbour. In one of his
letters,[16] he wrote that the sole aspect of Christianity which had impressed
him was the Church's charitable activity. He thus considered it essential for
his new pagan religion that, alongside the system of the Church's charity, an
equivalent activity of its own be established. According to him, this was the
reason for the popularity of the “Galileans”. They needed now to be imitated
and outdone. In this way, then, the Emperor confirmed that charity was a
decisive feature of the Christian community, the Church.
25. Thus far, two essential facts have emerged from our reflections:
a) The Church's deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility:
of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments
(leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties
presuppose each other and are inseparable. For the Church, charity is not a
kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a
part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being.[17]
b) The Church is God's family in the world. In this family no one ought to go
without the necessities of life. Yet at the same time caritas- agape extends
beyond the frontiers of the Church. The parable of the Good Samaritan remains
as a standard which imposes universal love towards the needy whom we encounter
“by chance” (cf. Lk 10:31), whoever they may be. Without in any way detracting
from this commandment of universal love, the Church also has a specific
responsibility: within the ecclesial family no member should suffer through
being in need. The teaching of the Letter to the Galatians is emphatic: “So
then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, and especially to those
who are of the household of faith” (6:10).
Justice and Charity
26. Since the nineteenth century, an objection has been raised to the Church's
charitable activity, subsequently developed with particular insistence by
Marxism: the poor, it is claimed, do not need charity but justice. Works of
charity—almsgiving—are in effect a way for the rich to shirk their obligation
to work for justice and a means of soothing their consciences, while preserving
their own status and robbing the poor of their rights. Instead of contributing
through individual works of charity to maintaining the status quo, we need to
build a just social order in which all receive their share of the world's goods
and no longer have to depend on charity. There is admittedly some truth to this
argument, but also much that is mistaken. It is true that the pursuit of
justice must be a fundamental norm of the State and that the aim of a just social
order is to guarantee to each person, according to the principle of
subsidiarity, his share of the community's goods. This has always been
emphasized by Christian teaching on the State and by the Church's social
doctrine. Historically, the issue of the just ordering of the collectivity had
taken a new dimension with the industrialization of society in the nineteenth
century. The rise of modern industry caused the old social structures to
collapse, while the growth of a class of salaried workers provoked radical
changes in the fabric of society. The relationship between capital and labour
now became the decisive issue—an issue which in that form was previously
unknown. Capital and the means of production were now the new source of power
which, concentrated in the hands of a few, led to the suppression of the rights
of the working classes, against which they had to rebel.
27. It must be admitted that the Church's leadership was slow to realize that
the issue of the just structuring of society needed to be approached in a new
way. There were some pioneers, such as Bishop Ketteler of Mainz († 1877), and
concrete needs were met by a growing number of groups, associations, leagues,
federations and, in particular, by the new religious orders founded in the nineteenth
century to combat poverty, disease and the need for better education. In 1891,
the papal magisterium intervened with the Encyclical Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII.
This was followed in 1931 by Pius XI's Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno. In 1961
Blessed John XXIII published the Encyclical Mater et Magistra, while Paul VI,
in the Encyclical Populorum Progressio (1967) and in the Apostolic Letter
Octogesima Adveniens (1971), insistently addressed the social problem, which
had meanwhile become especially acute in
28. In order to define more accurately the relationship between the necessary
commitment to justice and the ministry of charity, two fundamental situations
need to be considered:
a) The just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibility of
politics. As Augustine once said, a State which is not governed according to
justice would be just a bunch of thieves: “Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt
regna nisi magna latrocinia?”.[18] Fundamental to Christianity is the
distinction between what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God (cf. Mt
22:21), in other words, the distinction between Church and State, or, as the
Second Vatican Council puts it, the autonomy of the temporal sphere.[19] The
State may not impose religion, yet it must guarantee religious freedom and
harmony between the followers of different religions. For her part, the Church,
as the social expression of Christian faith, has a proper independence and is
structured on the basis of her faith as a community which the State must
recognize. The two spheres are distinct, yet always interrelated.
Justice is both the aim and the intrinsic criterion of all politics. Politics
is more than a mere mechanism for defining the rules of public life: its origin
and its goal are found in justice, which by its very nature has to do with
ethics. The State must inevitably face the question of how justice can be
achieved here and now. But this presupposes an even more radical question: what
is justice? The problem is one of practical reason; but if reason is to be
exercised properly, it must undergo constant purification, since it can never
be completely free of the danger of a certain ethical blindness caused by the
dazzling effect of power and special interests.
Here politics and faith meet. Faith by its specific nature is an encounter with
the living God—an encounter opening up new horizons extending beyond the sphere
of reason. But it is also a purifying force for reason itself. From God's
standpoint, faith liberates reason from its blind spots and therefore helps it
to be ever more fully itself. Faith enables reason to do its work more
effectively and to see its proper object more clearly. This is where Catholic
social doctrine has its place: it has no intention of giving the Church power
over the State. Even less is it an attempt to impose on those who do not share
the faith ways of thinking and modes of conduct proper to faith. Its aim is
simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the
acknowledgment and attainment of what is just.
The Church's social teaching argues on the basis of reason and natural law,
namely, on the basis of what is in accord with the nature of every human being.
It recognizes that it is not the Church's responsibility to make this teaching
prevail in political life. Rather, the Church wishes to help form consciences
in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic
requirements of justice as well as greater readiness to act accordingly, even
when this might involve conflict with situations of personal interest. Building
a just social and civil order, wherein each person receives what is his or her
due, is an essential task which every generation must take up anew. As a
political task, this cannot be the Church's immediate responsibility. Yet,
since it is also a most important human responsibility, the Church is
duty-bound to offer, through the purification of reason and through ethical
formation, her own specific contribution towards understanding the requirements
of justice and achieving them politically.
The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring
about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the
State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in
the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and
she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always
demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the
achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the promotion of justice
through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the
common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.
b) Love—caritas—will always prove necessary, even in the most just society.
There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a
service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man
as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and
help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of
material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbour is
indispensable.[20] The State which would provide everything, absorbing
everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of
guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs:
namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and
controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of
subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the
different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in
need. The Church is one of those living forces: she is alive with the love
enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people
material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something which often
is even more necessary than material support. In the end, the claim that just
social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist
conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live “by bread alone” (Mt
4:4; cf. Dt 8:3)—a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all
that is specifically human.
29. We can now determine more precisely, in the life of the Church, the
relationship between commitment to the just ordering of the State and society
on the one hand, and organized charitable activity on the other. We have seen
that the formation of just structures is not directly the duty of the Church,
but belongs to the world of politics, the sphere of the autonomous use of
reason. The Church has an indirect duty here, in that she is called to
contribute to the purification of reason and to the reawakening of those moral
forces without which just structures are neither established nor prove
effective in the long run.
The direct duty to work for a just ordering of society, on the other hand, is
proper to the lay faithful. As citizens of the State, they are called to take
part in public life in a personal capacity. So they cannot relinquish their
participation “in the many different economic, social, legislative,
administrative and cultural areas, which are intended to promote organically
and institutionally the common good.” [21] The mission of the lay faithful is
therefore to configure social life correctly, respecting its legitimate
autonomy and cooperating with other citizens according to their respective
competences and fulfilling their own responsibility.[22] Even if the specific
expressions of ecclesial charity can never be confused with the activity of the
State, it still remains true that charity must animate the entire lives of the
lay faithful and therefore also their political activity, lived as “social
charity”.[23]
The Church's charitable organizations, on the other hand, constitute an opus
proprium, a task agreeable to her, in which she does not cooperate
collaterally, but acts as a subject with direct responsibility, doing what
corresponds to her nature. The Church can never be exempted from practising
charity as an organized activity of believers, and on the other hand, there
will never be a situation where the charity of each individual Christian is
unnecessary, because in addition to justice man needs, and will always need,
love.
The multiple structures of charitable service in the social context of the
present day
30. Before attempting to define the specific profile of the Church's activities
in the service of man, I now wish to consider the overall situation of the
struggle for justice and love in the world of today.
a) Today the means of mass communication have made our planet smaller, rapidly
narrowing the distance between different peoples and cultures. This
“togetherness” at times gives rise to misunderstandings and tensions, yet our
ability to know almost instantly about the needs of others challenges us to
share their situation and their difficulties. Despite the great advances made
in science and technology, each day we see how much suffering there is in the
world on account of different kinds of poverty, both material and spiritual.
Our times call for a new readiness to assist our neighbours in need. The Second
Vatican Council had made this point very clearly: “Now that, through better
means of communication, distances between peoples have been almost eliminated,
charitable activity can and should embrace all people and all needs.”[24]
On the other hand—and here we see one of the challenging yet also positive
sides of the process of globalization—we now have at our disposal numerous
means for offering humanitarian assistance to our brothers and sisters in need,
not least modern systems of distributing food and clothing, and of providing
housing and care. Concern for our neighbour transcends the confines of national
communities and has increasingly broadened its horizon to the whole world. The
Second Vatican Council rightly observed that “among the signs of our times, one
particularly worthy of note is a growing, inescapable sense of solidarity
between all peoples.”[25] State agencies and humanitarian associations work to
promote this, the former mainly through subsidies or tax relief, the latter by
making available considerable resources. The solidarity shown by civil society
thus significantly surpasses that shown by individuals.
b) This situation has led to the birth and the growth of many forms of
cooperation between State and Church agencies, which have borne fruit. Church
agencies, with their transparent operation and their faithfulness to the duty
of witnessing to love, are able to give a Christian quality to the civil
agencies too, favouring a mutual coordination that can only redound to the
effectiveness of charitable service.[26] Numerous organizations for charitable
or philanthropic purposes have also been established and these are committed to
achieving adequate humanitarian solutions to the social and political problems
of the day. Significantly, our time has also seen the growth and spread of
different kinds of volunteer work, which assume responsibility for providing a
variety of services.[27] I wish here to offer a special word of gratitude and
appreciation to all those who take part in these activities in whatever way.
For young people, this widespread involvement constitutes a school of life
which offers them a formation in solidarity and in readiness to offer others
not simply material aid but their very selves. The anti-culture of death, which
finds expression for example in drug use, is thus countered by an unselfish
love which shows itself to be a culture of life by the very willingness to
“lose itself” (cf. Lk 17:33 et passim) for others.
In the Catholic Church, and also in the other Churches and Ecclesial
Communities, new forms of charitable activity have arisen, while other, older
ones have taken on new life and energy. In these new forms, it is often
possible to establish a fruitful link between evangelization and works of
charity. Here I would clearly reaffirm what my great predecessor John Paul II
wrote in his Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis [28] when he asserted the
readiness of the Catholic Church to cooperate with the charitable agencies of
these Churches and Communities, since we all have the same fundamental
motivation and look towards the same goal: a true humanism, which acknowledges
that man is made in the image of God and wants to help him to live in a way
consonant with that dignity. His Encyclical Ut Unum Sint emphasized that the
building of a better world requires Christians to speak with a united voice in
working to inculcate “respect for the rights and needs of everyone, especially
the poor, the lowly and the defenceless.” [29] Here I would like to express my
satisfaction that this appeal has found a wide resonance in numerous
initiatives throughout the world.
The distinctiveness of the Church's charitable activity
31. The increase in diversified organizations engaged in meeting various human
needs is ultimately due to the fact that the command of love of neighbour is
inscribed by the Creator in man's very nature. It is also a result of the
presence of Christianity in the world, since Christianity constantly revives
and acts out this imperative, so often profoundly obscured in the course of
time. The reform of paganism attempted by the emperor Julian the Apostate is
only an initial example of this effect; here we see how the power of
Christianity spread well beyond the frontiers of the Christian faith. For this
reason, it is very important that the Church's charitable activity maintains
all of its splendour and does not become just another form of social
assistance. So what are the essential elements of Christian and ecclesial
charity?
a) Following the example given in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Christian
charity is first of all the simple response to immediate needs and specific
situations: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for and healing the
sick, visiting those in prison, etc. The Church's charitable organizations,
beginning with those of Caritas (at diocesan, national and international
levels), ought to do everything in their power to provide the resources and
above all the personnel needed for this work. Individuals who care for those in
need must first be professionally competent: they should be properly trained in
what to do and how to do it, and committed to continuing care. Yet, while
professional competence is a primary, fundamental requirement, it is not of
itself sufficient. We are dealing with human beings, and human beings always need
something more than technically proper care. They need humanity. They need
heartfelt concern. Those who work for the Church's charitable organizations
must be distinguished by the fact that they do not merely meet the needs of the
moment, but they dedicate themselves to others with heartfelt concern, enabling
them to experience the richness of their humanity. Consequently, in addition to
their necessary professional training, these charity workers need a “formation
of the heart”: they need to be led to that encounter with God in Christ which
awakens their love and opens their spirits to others. As a result, love of
neighbour will no longer be for them a commandment imposed, so to speak, from
without, but a consequence deriving from their faith, a faith which becomes
active through love (cf. Gal 5:6).
b) Christian charitable activity must be independent of parties and ideologies.
It is not a means of changing the world ideologically, and it is not at the
service of worldly stratagems, but it is a way of making present here and now
the love which man always needs. The modern age, particularly from the
nineteenth century on, has been dominated by various versions of a philosophy
of progress whose most radical form is Marxism. Part of Marxist strategy is the
theory of impoverishment: in a situation of unjust power, it is claimed, anyone
who engages in charitable initiatives is actually serving that unjust system,
making it appear at least to some extent tolerable. This in turn slows down a
potential revolution and thus blocks the struggle for a better world. Seen in
this way, charity is rejected and attacked as a means of preserving the status
quo. What we have here, though, is really an inhuman philosophy. People of the
present are sacrificed to the moloch of the future—a future whose effective
realization is at best doubtful. One does not make the world more human by
refusing to act humanely here and now. We contribute to a better world only by
personally doing good now, with full commitment and wherever we have the
opportunity, independently of partisan strategies and programmes. The
Christian's programme —the programme of the Good Samaritan, the programme of
Jesus—is “a heart which sees”. This heart sees where love is needed and acts
accordingly. Obviously when charitable activity is carried out by the Church as
a communitarian initiative, the spontaneity of individuals must be combined
with planning, foresight and cooperation with other similar institutions.
c) Charity, furthermore, cannot be used as a means of engaging in what is
nowadays considered proselytism. Love is free; it is not practised as a way of
achieving other ends.[30] But this does not mean that charitable activity must
somehow leave God and Christ aside. For it is always concerned with the whole
man. Often the deepest cause of suffering is the very absence of God. Those who
practise charity in the Church's name will never seek to impose the Church's
faith upon others. They realize that a pure and generous love is the best
witness to the God in whom we believe and by whom we are driven to love. A
Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say
nothing and to let love alone speak. He knows that God is love (cf. 1 Jn 4:8)
and that God's presence is felt at the very time when the only thing we do is
to love. He knows—to return to the questions raised earlier—that disdain for
love is disdain for God and man alike; it is an attempt to do without God.
Consequently, the best defence of God and man consists precisely in love. It is
the responsibility of the Church's charitable organizations to reinforce this
awareness in their members, so that by their activity—as well as their words,
their silence, their example—they may be credible witnesses to Christ.
Those responsible for the Church's charitable activity
32. Finally, we must turn our attention once again to those who are responsible
for carrying out the Church's charitable activity. As our preceding reflections
have made clear, the true subject of the various Catholic organizations that
carry out a ministry of charity is the Church herself—at all levels, from the
parishes, through the particular Churches, to the universal Church. For this
reason it was most opportune that my venerable predecessor Paul VI established
the Pontifical Council Cor Unum as the agency of the Holy See responsible for
orienting and coordinating the organizations and charitable activities promoted
by the Catholic Church. In conformity with the episcopal structure of the
Church, the Bishops, as successors of the Apostles, are charged with primary
responsibility for carrying out in the particular Churches the programme set
forth in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. 2:42-44): today as in the past, the
Church as God's family must be a place where help is given and received, and at
the same time, a place where people are also prepared to serve those outside
her confines who are in need of help. In the rite of episcopal ordination,
prior to the act of consecration itself, the candidate must respond to several
questions which express the essential elements of his office and recall the
duties of his future ministry. He promises expressly to be, in the Lord's name,
welcoming and merciful to the poor and to all those in need of consolation and
assistance.[31] The Code of Canon Law, in the canons on the ministry of the
Bishop, does not expressly mention charity as a specific sector of episcopal
activity, but speaks in general terms of the Bishop's responsibility for
coordinating the different works of the apostolate with due regard for their
proper character.[32] Recently, however, the Directory for the Pastoral
Ministry of Bishops explored more specifically the duty of charity as a
responsibility incumbent upon the whole Church and upon each Bishop in his
Diocese,[33] and it emphasized that the exercise of charity is an action of the
Church as such, and that, like the ministry of Word and Sacrament, it too has
been an essential part of her mission from the very beginning.[34]
33. With regard to the personnel who carry out the Church's charitable activity
on the practical level, the essential has already been said: they must not be
inspired by ideologies aimed at improving the world, but should rather be
guided by the faith which works through love (cf. Gal 5:6). Consequently, more
than anything, they must be persons moved by Christ's love, persons whose
hearts Christ has conquered with his love, awakening within them a love of
neighbour. The criterion inspiring their activity should be
34. Interior openness to the Catholic dimension of the Church cannot fail to
dispose charity workers to work in harmony with other organizations in serving
various forms of need, but in a way that respects what is distinctive about the
service which Christ requested of his disciples. Saint Paul, in his hymn to
charity (cf. 1 Cor 13), teaches us that it is always more than activity alone:
“If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not
have love, I gain nothing” (v. 3). This hymn must be the Magna Carta of all
ecclesial service; it sums up all the reflections on love which I have offered
throughout this Encyclical Letter. Practical activity will always be
insufficient, unless it visibly expresses a love for man, a love nourished by
an encounter with Christ. My deep personal sharing in the needs and sufferings
of others becomes a sharing of my very self with them: if my gift is not to
prove a source of humiliation, I must give to others not only something that is
my own, but my very self; I must be personally present in my gift.
35. This proper way of serving others also leads to humility. The one who
serves does not consider himself superior to the one served, however miserable
his situation at the moment may be. Christ took the lowest place in the
world—the Cross—and by this radical humility he redeemed us and constantly
comes to our aid. Those who are in a position to help others will realize that
in doing so they themselves receive help; being able to help others is no merit
or achievement of their own. This duty is a grace. The more we do for others,
the more we understand and can appropriate the words of Christ: “We are useless
servants” (Lk 17:10). We recognize that we are not acting on the basis of any
superiority or greater personal efficiency, but because the Lord has graciously
enabled us to do so. There are times when the burden of need and our own
limitations might tempt us to become discouraged. But precisely then we are
helped by the knowledge that, in the end, we are only instruments in the Lord's
hands; and this knowledge frees us from the presumption of thinking that we
alone are personally responsible for building a better world. In all humility
we will do what we can, and in all humility we will entrust the rest to the
Lord. It is God who governs the world, not we. We offer him our service only to
the extent that we can, and for as long as he grants us the strength. To do all
we can with what strength we have, however, is the task which keeps the good
servant of Jesus Christ always at work: “The love of Christ urges us on” (2 Cor
5:14).
36. When we consider the immensity of others' needs, we can, on the one hand,
be driven towards an ideology that would aim at doing what God's governance of
the world apparently cannot: fully resolving every problem. Or we can be tempted
to give in to inertia, since it would seem that in any event nothing can be
accomplished. At such times, a living relationship with Christ is decisive if
we are to keep on the right path, without falling into an arrogant contempt for
man, something not only unconstructive but actually destructive, or
surrendering to a resignation which would prevent us from being guided by love
in the service of others. Prayer, as a means of drawing ever new strength from
Christ, is concretely and urgently needed. People who pray are not wasting
their time, even though the situation appears desperate and seems to call for
action alone. Piety does not undermine the struggle against the poverty of our
neighbours, however extreme. In the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we
have a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not
only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbour but is
in fact the inexhaustible source of that service. In her letter for Lent 1996,
Blessed Teresa wrote to her lay co-workers: “We need this deep connection with
God in our daily life. How can we obtain it? By prayer”.
37. It is time to reaffirm the importance of prayer in the face of the activism
and the growing secularism of many Christians engaged in charitable work.
Clearly, the Christian who prays does not claim to be able to change God's
plans or correct what he has foreseen. Rather, he seeks an encounter with the
Father of Jesus Christ, asking God to be present with the consolation of the
Spirit to him and his work. A personal relationship with God and an abandonment
to his will can prevent man from being demeaned and save him from falling prey
to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism. An authentically religious
attitude prevents man from presuming to judge God, accusing him of allowing
poverty and failing to have compassion for his creatures. When people claim to
build a case against God in defence of man, on whom can they depend when human
activity proves powerless?
38. Certainly Job could complain before God about the presence of
incomprehensible and apparently unjustified suffering in the world. In his pain
he cried out: “Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even
to his seat! ... I would learn what he would answer me, and understand what he
would say to me. Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? ...
Therefore I am terrified at his presence; when I consider, I am in dread of
him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me” (23:3, 5-6,
15-16). Often we cannot understand why God refrains from intervening. Yet he
does not prevent us from crying out, like Jesus on the Cross: “My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). We should continue asking this question
in prayerful dialogue before his face: “Lord, holy and true, how long will it
be?” (Rev 6:10). It is
39. Faith, hope and charity go together. Hope is practised through the virtue of
patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and
through the virtue of humility, which accepts God's mystery and trusts him even
at times of darkness. Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes
and gives us the victorious certainty that it is really true: God is love! It
thus transforms our impatience and our doubts into the sure hope that God holds
the world in his hands and that, as the dramatic imagery of the end of the Book
of Revelation points out, in spite of all darkness he ultimately triumphs in
glory. Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus
on the Cross, gives rise to love. Love is the light—and in the end, the only
light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage
needed to keep living and working. Love is possible, and we are able to
practise it because we are created in the image of God. To experience love and
in this way to cause the light of God to enter into the world—this is the
invitation I would like to extend with the present Encyclical.
CONCLUSION
40. Finally, let us consider the saints, who exercised charity in an exemplary
way. Our thoughts turn especially to Martin of Tours († 397), the soldier who
became a monk and a bishop: he is almost like an icon, illustrating the
irreplaceable value of the individual testimony to charity. At the gates of
Amiens, Martin gave half of his cloak to a poor man: Jesus himself, that night,
appeared to him in a dream wearing that cloak, confirming the permanent
validity of the Gospel saying: “I was naked and you clothed me ... as you did
it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:36,
40).[36] Yet in the history of the Church, how many other testimonies to
charity could be quoted! In particular, the entire monastic movement, from its
origins with Saint Anthony the Abbot († 356), expresses an immense service of
charity towards neighbour. In his encounter “face to face” with the God who is
Love, the monk senses the impelling need to transform his whole life into
service of neighbour, in addition to service of God. This explains the great
emphasis on hospitality, refuge and care of the infirm in the vicinity of the
monasteries. It also explains the immense initiatives of human welfare and
Christian formation, aimed above all at the very poor, who became the object of
care firstly for the monastic and mendicant orders, and later for the various
male and female religious institutes all through the history of the Church. The
figures of saints such as Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, John of God,
Camillus of Lellis, Vincent de Paul, Louise de Marillac, Giuseppe B.
Cottolengo, John Bosco, Luigi Orione, Teresa of Calcutta to name but a
few—stand out as lasting models of social charity for all people of good will.
The saints are the true bearers of light within history, for they are men and
women of faith, hope and love.
41. Outstanding among the saints is Mary, Mother of the Lord and mirror of all
holiness. In the Gospel of Luke we find her engaged in a service of charity to
her cousin Elizabeth, with whom she remained for “about three months” (1:56) so
as to assist her in the final phase of her pregnancy. “Magnificat anima mea
Dominum”, she says on the occasion of that visit, “My soul magnifies the Lord”
(Lk 1:46). In these words she expresses her whole programme of life: not
setting herself at the centre, but leaving space for God, who is encountered
both in prayer and in service of neighbour—only then does goodness enter the
world. Mary's greatness consists in the fact that she wants to magnify God, not
herself. She is lowly: her only desire is to be the handmaid of the Lord (cf.
Lk 1:38, 48). She knows that she will only contribute to the salvation of the
world if, rather than carrying out her own projects, she places herself
completely at the disposal of God's initiatives. Mary is a woman of hope: only
because she believes in God's promises and awaits the salvation of
42. The lives of the saints are not limited to their earthly biographies but
also include their being and working in God after death. In the saints one
thing becomes clear: those who draw near to God do not withdraw from men, but
rather become truly close to them. In no one do we see this more clearly than
in Mary. The words addressed by the crucified Lord to his disciple—to John and
through him to all disciples of Jesus: “Behold, your mother!” (Jn 19:27)—are
fulfilled anew in every generation. Mary has truly become the Mother of all
believers. Men and women of every time and place have recourse to her motherly
kindness and her virginal purity and grace, in all their needs and aspirations,
their joys and sorrows, their moments of loneliness and their common
endeavours. They constantly experience the gift of her goodness and the
unfailing love which she pours out from the depths of her heart. The
testimonials of gratitude, offered to her from every continent and culture, are
a recognition of that pure love which is not self- seeking but simply
benevolent. At the same time, the devotion of the faithful shows an infallible
intuition of how such love is possible: it becomes so as a result of the most
intimate union with God, through which the soul is totally pervaded by him—a
condition which enables those who have drunk from the fountain of God's love to
become in their turn a fountain from which “flow rivers of living water” (Jn
7:38). Mary, Virgin and Mother, shows us what love is and whence it draws its
origin and its constantly renewed power. To her we entrust the Church and her
mission in the service of love:
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
you have given the world its true light,
Jesus, your Son – the Son of God.
You abandoned yourself completely
to God's call
and thus became a wellspring
of the goodness which flows forth from him.
Show us Jesus. Lead us to him.
Teach us to know and love him,
so that we too can become
capable of true love
and be fountains of living water
in the midst of a thirsting world.
Given in
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI