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Texts of most Reverend Roger Ébacher, Archbishop
04 décembre 2007 I have read this document published on November 30, 2007. I found it very rich in its teaching and spirituality content, in spite of a few more technical passages.. Particularly I enjoyed how it is rooted in its biblical foundation, with numerous references and refreshing interpretations of certain biblical passages. I also found very enlightening the witness to which the Pope refers in many instances in this text.
This document is particularly pertinent as we enter into this Advent 2007, with its official theme : Hope! In a broader context, the document comes at a time in our history where we lack hope. We do not believe any more in indefinite progress. The disappointments, the suffering, and the wounds caused by the failures of the great ideologies (Marxism, Nazism, neo-liberalism) leave us with questions about the meaning of life and the reasons for living, with questions about suffering, death, the future. We know that science without a conscience is very ambiguous; it can lead to a terrible in evil just as much as it can lead to a humanizing and liberating progress. Is our Christian faith able to offer to today´s world a path of light out of its darkness and anxiety? Can the thirsts rooted in the human heart, the thirsts for peace, justice, solidarity, love, truth, be stimulated and guided by our faith? Benedict XVI replies in the affirmative and makes abundantly obvious all the reasons we have to hope.
Here I will only refer to a few sentences, but I invite you to read the entire text and to use it for meditation during Advent 1. A first affirmation gives us the basic orientation. Through faith in Jesus, « was given to us hope, a real hope, with which we can face our present : the present, even a painful present, can be faced and accepted if it leads to a goal and if we can be sure of this goal, if this goal is so grandiose that it can justify the sacrifices it demands along the way. »(1). Jesus came to reveal to us the true God, who can dethrone all idols and false gods of all types. He is the God of love, the God of mercy, the God of faithfulness, the God of promises. He is the God of goodness who knows each one of us personally. He is the God who has taken on a human face and a human heart to be closer to us. It is in Him that lies our “credible hope”(2) The crux, the heart and the engine of our hope consists precisely in the fact that we are no longer without God in this world. And Pope Benedict elaborates, with biblical examples and witnesses, even martyrs, on this hope that is capable of overcoming all our pessimisms and discouragements. Here “appears as a fundamental character of Christians the fact that they have a future: not that they know in every detail what lies ahead for them, but they know generally that their life does not end in nothing. It is only when the future is ensured as something sure that the present becomes bearable.”(2)
There is for example the very moving testimony of the African lady Josephine Bakhita, born in 1869. After years in slavery, of being badly treated, of fear and despair she discovers the Good Master, Him who created her, who knows her, who loves her. She discovers this Master who himself wanted to be treated like a slave in order to give the slaves their freedom. “I am loved for good and whatever may come my way, I am cared for by that Love. She no longer feels like a slave, but like a daughter of God!
I particularly enjoy all the passages where the Pope stresses the God revealed by Jesus : the personnal God, to whom we can pray, He who has made Himself our Good Shepherd (5-6). This leads us into a long and meaningful meditation on suffering, death, life eternal (heaven, purgatory, hell). Those are themes that we do not dare face very often. And thus we can better understand that « it is not a spirit of fear that God has given us but rather a spirit of strength, of love, of wisdom » (2 Tim 1, 7, as referred to in 9). Here you find what characterizes the fundamental attitude of the Christian: our hope.
We find in this encyclical also helpful reflections on the community dimension of Christian hope. “From our love for God flows participation in the justice and the goodness of God towards the other; to love God asks for that inner freedom in the face of all possessions and material things: our love for God shows itself in our responsibility towards the other.” After the Pope has quoted Maximus the Confessor he gives the moving example of Saint Augustine and of the impact his conversion to Jesus Christ had on the communities.
And then the Pope states categorically : « Man needs God, otherwise he is devoid of hope »(23). « It is true that he who does not know God, while he may have many hopes, is basically without hope, without that hope that keeps us in existence (cf Ep 2, 12). The true hope, the real hope of man, that which can stand fast in spite of disappointment, can only be found in God – the God who has loved us and who goes on loving us « to the end », « until it is finished» (cf John 13, 1 and 19, 30). » (27)
Our faith provides the goal of Christian hope : God who loves us as much as one can love, who wants that we be with Him, where He is, and who leads us there through our Good Shepherd, JESUS !
There are many more pearls hidden in this text. We are invited to discover them during this Advent season. I wish you a fruitful meditation and a blessed Advent.
Yours in Christ’s Church,
†Roger Ébacher
Archbishop of Gatineau
December 4, 2007 catégorie : texts of most reverend roger ébacher, archbishop |
