| All human activity is to find its purification in the Paschal mystery |
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| Saint Vincent Ferrer |
Holy
Scripture, with which the experience of the ages is in agreement,
teaches the human family that human progress, though it is a great
blessing for man, brings with it a great temptation. When the scale of
values is disturbed and evil becomes mixed with good, individuals and
groups consider only their own interests, not those of others.
The result is that the world is not yet a home of true
brotherhood, while the increased power of mankind already threatens to
destroy the human race itself.
If it is asked how this unhappy state of affairs can
be set right, Christians state their belief that all human activity, in
daily jeopardy through pride and inordinate self-love, is to find its
purification and its perfection in the cross and resurrection of Christ.
Man, redeemed by Christ and made a new creation in the
Holy Spirit, can and must love the very things created by God. For he
receives them from God, and sees and reveres them as coming from the
hand of God,
As he gives thanks for them to his Benefactor, and
uses and enjoys them in a spirit of poverty and freedom, he enters into
true possession of the world, as one having nothing and possessing all
things. For all things are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is
God’s.
The Word of God, through whom all things were made,
himself became man and lived in the world of men. As perfect man he has
entered into the history of the world, taking it up into himself and
bringing it into unity as its head. He reveals to us that God is love,
and at the same time teaches us that the fundamental law of human
perfection, and therefore of the transformation of the world, is the new
commandment of love.
He assures those who have faith in God’s love that the
way of love is open to all men, and that the effort to restore
universal brotherhood is not in vain. At the same time he warns us that
this love is not to be sought after only in great things but also, and
above all, in the ordinary circumstances of life.
He suffered death for us all, sinners as we are, and
by his example he teaches us that we also have to carry that cross which
the flesh and the world lay on the shoulders of those who strive for
peace and justice.
Constituted as the Lord by his resurrection, Christ,
to whom all power in heaven and on earth has been given, is still at
work in the hearts of men through the power of his Spirit. Not only does
he awaken in them a longing for the world to come, but by that very
fact he also inspires, purifies and strengthens those generous desires
by which the human family seeks to make its own life more human and to
achieve the same goal for the whole world.
The gifts of the Spirit are manifold. He calls some to
bear open witness to the longing for a dwelling place in heaven, and to
keep this fresh in the minds of all mankind; he calls others to
dedicate themselves to the service of men here on earth, preparing by
this ministry the material for the kingdom of heaven.
Yet he makes all free, so that, by denying their love
of self and taking up all earth’s resources into the life of man, all
may reach out to the future, when humanity itself will become an
offering acceptable to God.
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