Excerpts of Ratzinger's first encylical.
...His love, moreover, is an elective love: among all the nations he chooses Israel and loves her—but he does so precisely with a view to healing the whole human race. God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape...
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 Israel is now realized in a way previously inconceivable: it had meant standing in God's presence, but now it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus' self-gift, sharing in his body and blood. The sacramental “mysticism”, grounded in God's condescension towards us, operates at a radically different level and lifts us to far greater heights than anything that any human mystical elevation could ever accomplish.
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
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.
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 Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word.
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.
Bishop Ketteler of Mainz (1887)
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.
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]
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 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
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”.
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.
found hereNotes:
The idea that g-d is our lover, a source of erotic power, has a long (mostly female, mostly mystic) tradition, and has been only hinted at by the pope, he qoutes a male theologian to make the point, but the holiness of god's genitals remains.
This seems so obvious to me, but I hadnt really thought about it, until i read this...the euchurist is an extenstion of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, in that it is about plenty in a place of hunger. when the lord says feed my sheep, he is being painfully literal, he is extending the idea that his sacrament should be tied to charity, that the bread of the holy supper should be not only a bread of communion but a bread that staves phyiscal hunger, that the bread blessed on that table should grow enough to feed everyone, just like Jesus did w. the loaves and fishes. (and it makes again logos less abstract, logos becomes the lingustic formulae to make the abstract concrete)
I like this, it means that charity is more then being nice to people, for having a wishy-washy generalised lets all hug sense of the world---even if all men are brothers, it means we must go past the tribal nastiness of our world. it means, that to the fullness of our abilty, we must muck out the collective shit of humanity.
How do we deal with a god so much larger then ourselves, he answeres this, and its an answer that has come from the gospel since, to the least of my brethern...so the guy you give a couple of bucks to, to spend on what ever he wants, as a panhandler, is christ. the bishop, with his rectory, is less so...we, as xians, continue to refuse to internalise it in a concrete way, and i dont think that hte pope has here, either..
he has a way w. the aphormism, means that hes gunning for a legacy, which betrays the humility the press has reported, about how he didnt really want to be the pope.
i think this is a vast misreading of both the gospels and marx, and his unwillingness to make "the world turn upside down", as in the fools masses of the 12-15th century, i think betrays this encylical. the world turn upside down, once a day, happened during carnival (so in a couple of weeks really), and what happened, was the poor took over the positions of power and privelege, they became kings and queens, and the kings and queens became peasants--that one day a year, indicated to the world, was variable, and they were in danger if they were not just, that the revoution was not far off...it was a symbolic gesture, but it allowed that the church could stand to be destablized. so it was a longtime before christ talked, that allowed for a mobilty that ratzinger refuses...(other examples of medival christian mobility, no longer availble: pilgrims, monastaries, covents) back to the gospels, one reads the gospels to correspond to a personal ideology...and my ideology of course tends towards radicalism, and economic leveling, so i see that in the gospels, but i think perserving an unjust order (ie late market capitalism) is not something that a Man who worked so hard against poverty would encourage--he w. the loaves and fishes, of the money changers in the temple, of a rich man and an eye of the needle, of sell everything and follow me, the beatitudes which promise all of heaven to them--this does not sound like a leader who was advocating a top-down model of charity, but a world turned upside down recalcuation of class...and this was before marx. i wonder why lib/theo is so threatening to these people?
I have no idea who Kettler of Mainz is
I think that this is meant to settle the fear that w. the disoloution of hte nation state, the church will try their old role of crowning empires--its also disingenous, because this pope and the last pope, have consdliated power as effictvley as humanly possible, engaging in state craft and the refusal of state craft when ever politcally conveinet. this is the closest to the old ratzinger is, and its pure machavelli.
He is qouting this: John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (30 December 1988), 42: AAS 81 (1989), 472. I havent read it, so I will hold off on commenting until i can get proper context.
I think he is making apolgetics for the old school, "like a drunk in a midnight choir" school of catholic good works, which sturck me as both desperate and rathwer dangerous--and which you can see in assholes like FRanklin Graham, tying the giving of charity to the giving of the gospel has never worked for Mother Church, it allows for cruelty and hunger, and i cannot imagine it is what christ meant by "feed my sheep"
I found the connection b/w charity, justice, and humility intesnely powerful, and something that the church has to work on, and almost ending with this idea, is to center the levelling i expect of christs gospel...
it makes my skin crawl, to read Blessed Theresa of Calcutta, because of the speed of her cannozation, because of her rigour, because her lack of humilty and justice, and because of her hyprcosy--she is the conserative pin up, and it should be paid attention to, b/c he qouted her twice (and Martin of Tours, Virgil, Plato, Augustine, and Thomas)
so its a mixed bag, things that are revelatory, radical, just and beautiful, things to pay attention to, and things that seem horribly fucked up
