Ash Wednesday Our Shifting Understanding of Lent

Those who work with liturgy in parishes know that some of the largest crowds in the year will show up to receive ashes on Ash Wednesday. Though this is not a holy day of obligation in our tradition, many people would not think of letting Ash Wednesday go by without a trip to church to be marked with an ashen cross on their foreheads. Even people who seldom come to Church for the rest of the year may make a concerted effort to come for ashes.

How did this practice become such an important part of the lives of so many believers? Who came up with the idea for this rather odd ritual? How do we explain the popularity of smudging our foreheads with ashes and then walking around all day with dirty faces? Those who do not share our customs often make a point of telling us that we have something on our foreheads, assuming we would want to wash it off, but many Catholics wear that smudge faithfully all day. Ashes in the Bible

The origin of the custom of using ashes in religious ritual is lost in the mists of pre-history, but we find references to the practice in our own religious tradition in the Old Testament. The prophet Jeremiah, for example, calls for repentance this way: "O daughter of my people, gird on sackcloth, roll in the ashes" (Jer 6:26).

The prophet Isaiah, on the other hand, critiques the use of sackcloth and ashes as inadequate to please God, but in the process he indicates that this practice was well-known in Israel: "Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance: that a man bow his head like a reed, and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?" (Is 58:5).

The prophet Daniel pleaded for God to rescue Israel with sackcloth and ashes as a sign of Israel's repentance: "I turned to the Lord God, pleading in earnest prayer, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes" (Dn 9:3).

Perhaps the best known example of repentance in the Old Testament also involves sackcloth and ashes. When the prophet Jonah finally obeyed God's command and preached in the great city of Nineveh, his preaching was amazingly effective. Word of his message was carried to the king of Nineveh. "When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes" (Jon 3:6).

In the book of Judith, we find acts of repentance that specify that the ashes were put on people's heads: "And all the Israelite men, women and children who lived in Jerusalem prostrated themselves in front of the temple building, with ashes strewn on their heads, displaying their sackcloth covering before the Lord" (Jdt 4:11; see also 4:15 and 9:1).

Just prior to the New Testament period, the rebels fighting for Jewish independence, the Maccabees, prepared for battle using ashes: "That day they fasted and wore sackcloth; they sprinkled ashes on their heads and tore their clothes" (1 Mc 3:47; see also 4:39).

In the New Testament, Jesus refers to the use of sackcloth and ashes as signs of repentance: "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes" (Mt 11:21, Lk 10:13).



Ashes in the History of the Church

Despite all these references in Scripture, the use of ashes in the Church left only a few records in the first millennium of Church history. Thomas Talley, an expert on the history of the liturgical year, says that the first clearly datable liturgy for Ash Wednesday that provides for sprinkling ashes is in the Romano-Germanic pontifical of 960. Before that time, ashes had been used as a sign of admission to the Order of Penitents. As early as the sixth century, the Spanish Mozarabic rite calls for signing the forehead with ashes when admitting a gravely ill person to the Order of Penitents. At the beginning of the 11th century, Abbot Aelfric notes that it was customary for all the faithful to take part in a ceremony on the Wednesday before Lent that included the imposition of ashes. Near the end of that century, Pope Urban II called for the general use of ashes on that day. Only later did this day come to be called Ash Wednesday.

At first, clerics and men had ashes sprinkled on their heads, while women had the sign of the cross made with ashes on their foreheads. Eventually, of course, the ritual used with women came to be used for men as well.

In the 12th century the rule developed that the ashes were to be created by burning palm branches from the previous Palm Sunday. Many parishes today invite parishioners to bring such palms to church before Lent begins and have a ritual burning of the palms after Mass.


The Order of Penitents

It seems, then, that our use of ashes at the beginning of Lent is an extension of the use of ashes with those entering the Order of Penitents. This discipline was the way the Sacrament of Penance was celebrated through most of the first millennium of Church history. Those who had committed serious sins confessed their sins to the bishop or his representative and were assigned a penance that was to be carried out over a period of time. After completing their penance, they were reconciled by the bishop with a prayer of absolution offered in the midst of the community.

During the time they worked out their penances, the penitents often had special places in church and wore special garments to indicate their status. Like the catechumens who were preparing for Baptism, they were often dismissed from the Sunday assembly after the Liturgy of the Word.

This whole process was modeled on the conversion journey of the catechumens, because the Church saw falling into serious sin after Baptism as an indication that a person had not really been converted. Penance was a second attempt to foster that conversion. Early Church fathers even called Penance a "second Baptism."

Lent developed in the Church as the whole community prayed and fasted for the catechumens who were preparing for Baptism. At the same time, those members of the community who were already baptized prepared to renew their baptismal promises at Easter, thus joining the catechumens in seeking to deepen their own conversion. It was natural, then, that the Order of Penitents also focused on Lent, with reconciliation often being celebrated on Holy Thursday so that the newly reconciled could share in the liturgies of the Triduum. With Lent clearly a season focused on Baptism, Penance found a home there as well.

Shifting Understanding of Lent

With the disappearance of the catechumenate from the Church's life, people's understanding of the season of Lent changed. By the Middle Ages, the emphasis was no longer clearly baptismal. Instead, the main emphasis shifted to the passion and death of Christ. Medieval art reflected this increased focus on the suffering Savior; so did popular piety. Lent came to be seen as a time to acknowledge our guilt for the sins that led to Christ's passion and death. Repentance was then seen as a way to avoid punishment for sin more than as a way to renew our baptismal commitment.

With the gradual disappearance of the Order of Penitents, the use of ashes became detached from its original context. The focus on personal penance and the Sacrament of Penance continued in Lent, but the connection to Baptism was no longer obvious to most people. This is reflected in the formula that came to be associated with the distribution of ashes: "Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return." This text focuses on our mortality, as an incentive to take seriously the call to repentance, but there is little hint here of any baptismal meaning. This emphasis on mortality fit well with the medieval experience of life, when the threat of death was always at hand. Many people died very young, and the societal devastation of the plague made death even more prevalent.


Ash Wednesday After Vatican II

The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) called for the renewal of Lent, recovering its ancient baptismal character. This recovery was significantly advanced by the restoration of the catechumenate mandated by the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (1972). As Catholics have increasingly interacted with catechumens in the final stage of their preparation for Baptism, they have begun to understand Lent as a season of baptismal preparation and baptismal renewal.

Since Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, it naturally is also beginning to recover a baptismal focus. One hint of this is the second formula that is offered for the imposition of ashes: "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel." Though it doesn't explicitly mention Baptism, it recalls our baptismal promises to reject sin and profess our faith. It is a clear call to conversion, to that movement away from sin and toward Christ that we have to embrace over and over again through our lives.

As the beginning of Lent, Ash Wednesday calls us to the conversion journey that marks the season. As the catechumens enter the final stage of their preparation for the Easter sacraments, we are all called to walk with them so that we will be prepared to renew our baptismal promises when Easter arrives.


The Readings for Ash Wednesday

The readings assigned to Ash Wednesday highlight this call to conversion. The first reading from the prophet Joel is a clarion call to return to the Lord "with fasting, and weeping and mourning." Joel reminds us that our God is "gracious and merciful...slow to anger, rich in kindness and relenting in punishment," thus inviting us to trust in God's love as we seek to renew our life with God. It is important to note that Joel does not call only for individual conversion. His appeal is to the whole people, so he commands: "Blow the trumpet in Zion, proclaim a fast, call an assembly; gather the people, notify the congregation; assemble the elders, gather the children and the infants at the breast." As we enter this season of renewal, we are united with all of God's people, for we all share the need for continued conversion and we are called to support one another on the journey. Imitating those who joined the Order of Penitents in ages past, we all become a community of penitents seeking to grow closer to God through repentance and renewal.

With a different tone but no less urgency, St. Paul implores us in the second reading to "be reconciled to God." "Now," he insists, "is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." The time to return to the Lord is now, this holy season, this very day.

The Gospel for Ash Wednesday gives us good advice on how we are to act during Lent. Jesus speaks of the three main disciplines of the season: giving alms, praying and fasting. All of these spiritual activities, Jesus teaches us, are to be done without any desire for recognition by others. The point is not that we should only pray alone and not in community, for example, but that we should not pray in order to be seen as holy. The same is true of fasting and works of charity; they do not need to be hidden but they are to be done out of love of God and neighbor, not in order to be seen by others.

There is a certain irony that we use this Gospel, which tells us to wash our faces so that we do not appear to be doing penance on the day that we go around with "dirt" on our foreheads. This is just another way Jesus is telling us not to perform religious acts for public recognition. We don't wear the ashes to proclaim our holiness but to acknowledge that we are a community of sinners in need of repentance and renewal.



From Ashes to the Font

The call to continuing conversion reflected in these readings is also the message of the ashes. We move through Lent from ashes to the baptismal font. We dirty our faces on Ash Wednesday and are cleansed in the waters of the font. More profoundly, we embrace the need to die to sin and selfishness at the beginning of Lent so that we can come to fuller life in the Risen One at Easter.

When we receive ashes on our foreheads, we remember who we are. We remember that we are creatures of the earth ("Remember that you are dust"). We remember that we are mortal beings ("and to dust you will return"). We remember that we are baptized. We remember that we are people on a journey of conversion ("Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel"). We remember that we are members of the body of Christ (and that smudge on our foreheads will proclaim that identity to others, too).

Renewing our sense of who we really are before God is the core of the Lenten experience. It is so easy to forget, and thus we fall into habits of sin, ways of thinking and living that are contrary to God's will. In this we are like the Ninevites in the story of Jonah. It was "their wickedness" that caused God to send Jonah to preach to them. Jonah resisted that mission and found himself in deep water. Rescued by a large fish, Jonah finally did God's bidding and began to preach in Nineveh. His preaching obviously fell on open ears and hearts, for in one day he prompted the conversion of the whole city.

From the very beginning of Lent, God's word calls us to conversion. If we open our ears and hearts to that word, we will be like the Ninevites not only in their sinfulness but also in their conversion to the Lord. That, simply put, is the point of Ash Wednesday!




A Prayer for Ash Wednesday

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, the all-holy one, who gives us life and all things. As we go about our lives, the press of our duties and activities often leads us to forget your presence and your love. We fall into sin and fail to live out the responsibilities that you have entrusted to those who were baptized into your Son.

In this holy season, help us to turn our minds and hearts back to you. Lead us into sincere repentance and renew our lives with your grace. Help us to remember that we are sinners, but even more, help us to remember your loving mercy.

As we live through this Ash Wednesday, may the crosses of ashes that mark our foreheads be a reminder to us and to those we meet that we belong to your Son. May our worship and prayer and penitence this day be sustained throughout these 40 days of Lent. Bring us refreshed and renewed to the celebration of Christ’s resurrection at Easter.

We ask this through your Son, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.


source: http://www.americancatholic.org

လူငယ္ ႏွင့္ ဘာသာတရား

                ျမန္မာမွာ ဆိုရိုးစကား ႐ွိပါတယ္ ၾကားဖူးမွာပါ။ ပထမ အရြယ္မွာ ပညာရွာ ဒုတိယအရြယ္ မွာဥၥစာရွာ တတိယ အရြယ္မွာ ၾကင္ယာရွာ စတၳဳအရြယ္မွာ တရားရွာတဲ့ ေရွးလူၾကီးေတြ ေျပာတုိင္းလည္း လိုက္သင့္တာ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး လိုက္သင့္တာ လိုက္ရမယ္ပယ္သင့္ရင္လဲ ပယ္ၾကရ စျမဲပါ။ ဒီဆိုရိုးရဲ့ ပထမ အရြယ္ကေန တတိယ အရြယ္ အထိ လက္ခံႏုိင္ ပါတယ္ လိုက္လဲ လိုက္နာ သင့္ပါတယ္။ဒါေပမဲ့ စတၳဳ အရြယ္မွာ တရားရွာ ဆိုတာေတာ့ စိတ္ထဲမွာ ကသိကေအာက္ ျဖစ္မိတယ္။ဆိုရိုး ကိုပဲ ေသခ်ာနားမလည္လို႕ လားေတာ့ မသိဘူး။ အခုလို အဓိပၸယ္ ဖြင့္ရင္ေတာ့ စတၳဳ အရြယ္ သေဘာကိုေတာ့ မလက္ခံႏုိင္ပါဘူး.။

          စဥ္းစားၾကည့္ပါ ဒုတိယအရြယ္ မွာ ကြယ္လြန္ တယ္ ဆိုပါဆို့ ။ ဘယ္အခ်ိန္မွာ တရား သြားရွာမလဲ ။ ေျပာၾကေသးတယ္ ငယ္ပါေသးတယ္ တမလြန္ဘဝမွာ ဘယ္လိုျဖစ္ မလဲဆိုတာ ေတြးၾကည့္ပါ။ ငရဲလား၊ နိဗၺန္လား... ဘဝကို လြယ္လြယ္နဲ့ အသက္ရွင္လို့ ရေကာင္း ရလိမ့္မယ္။ လြယ္လြယ္ေတာ့ ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ မေတြးဘာနဲ့။ ေနာင္တၾကီး ကိုလည္းေနာင္မွ မတပါနဲ့။အဲလိုဆိုေတာ့ တရားကို ငယ္ရြယ္စဥ္ ကတည္းက ရွာႏိုင္ သေလာက္ ရွာေဖြဆည္းပုူးရမယ္။ အက်ိဳးနဲ့ အျမတ္တြက္ျပီး( အရံုူးကိုဘယ္ေတာ့မွ မတြက္ပါ )

အသက္ရွင္ၾကတဲ့ လူမ်ိဳး ဆိုေတာ့ တရားရွာျခင္၏ အက်ိဳး ေက်းဇူး ကိုတင္ျပ ခ်င္ပါတယ္

ဘာသာတ႐ားႏွင့္ ပညာေရး

 
          လူငယ္တိုင္း လိုလို ပညာေရး ဦးစားေပး ၾကိုးစား ရွာေဖြတတ္ၾကတာပဲ။ ဘာသာတရား ကိုင္းရိွုင္းတဲ့ လူငယ္ဆိုရင္ စိတ္ၾကည္လင္မယ္ အက်ိဳး အျပစ္ဆင္ျခင္ႏွုိင္ ျမင့္မားမယ္ ဇြဲ ဝိရိယေကာင္းသူ ျဖစ္မယ္။ ဒီလို လူမ်ုိးဆို ႐င္ ပညာေ႐း ေအာင္ျမင္ဖို့ အလားလာ ေကာင္းသူပါ။ ဒီလိုအေရး ၾကီးတဲ့ ကာယ စိတ္ဓတ္ ခြန္အားကို တရားရွာေဖြျခင္းက ရရိွႏိုင္ပါတယ္။

ဘာသာတ႐ားႏွင့္ စီးပြားေရး

 
            တရားႏွင့္ စီးပြားေရးဘာဆိုင္သလဲ? သိပ္တဆိုင္တာေပါ့။ ပထမ ဦးဆံုးအေနနဲ့ ဘာသာေရးနဲ့ ကိုယ္က်င့္တရားဟာ အျမဲလို ဒြန္တြဲေနပါတယ္။ ဘာသာတရား လိုက္စားသူတဦးဆိုရင္ အက်င့္စာရိတ ေကာင္းမြန္သူလို့ ဆိုရမွာပဲ။ဘာျဖစ္လို့လဲ ဆိုေတာ့ ဘာသာတရား ကေကာင္းတဲ့ အက်င့္ သီလ တိုကို သင္ေပးလိုပါပဲ။အက်င့္စာရိတတ္ မေကာင္းသူ ဆိုရင္ ဘယ္စီးပြားေရး သမားက ေပါင္းလုပ္ခ်င္မလဲ။ အခ်ိန္မေရြး လိမ္ညာခံႏုိင္တယ္။ ဒီလိုမ်ိဳး အလုပ္သမား ဆိုရင္လည္း ဘယ္သူကမွ အလုပ္ ခန့္ခ်င္မွာ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ဒါေၾကာင့္ တရားနဲ့ စီးပြားေ႐း ဆက္စပ္ေနတယ္ပါတယ္။

ဘာသာတ႐ားႏွင့္ အခ်စ္ေရး

 
         အခ်စ္ေရး ဆိုတာ လူငယ္တိုင္း အတြက္ အားေဆးပါ အဲ ဘယ္ေရာက္သြားလဲမသိဘူး အေတြးလြန္သြားလို့ ေဆာရီး…… ဘာသာတရား ၾကည္ညိုသူ၊ အက်င့္စာရိတၱ ေကာင္းမြန္သူ ဆိုရင္ လူတိုင္းက ခ်စ္ခင္ ခ်င္ၾကတပဲ။ ဘာေၾကာင့္လဲ ဆိုေတာ့ ဒီလိုလူမ်ိုး ဟာ ၾကင္နာတတ္တယ္ စိတ္ေကာင္းေစတနာရိွတယ္ ကူညီတတ္တယ္ ဆိုတဲ့လူမ်ိဳး ျဖစ္လို့ပါပဲ။ တရား ရွာေဖြ တယ္ဆိုရင္ လူမွူေရးဘဝ ေကာင္းမြန္ျပီး လူခ်စ္လူခင္ေပါမ်ား လာမွာပါ။

        က်န္တဲ့ အက်ိုးေက်းဇူးေတြလည္း အမ်ားၾကီးပါ။ ကိုယ့္တိုင္ စဥ္းစား ေတြးၾကည့္၊ ဘဝစာမ်က္ႏွာေတြ ျပန္လွန္ၾကည့္ရင္ သိႏိုင္ပါတယ္။ အဲလိုဆိုေတာ့ တရားကို အသက္ၾကီးမွ မရွာပါနဲ့။ လြန္ကုန္ပါျပီ။ ငယ္ရြယ္စဥ္ တည္းကရွာရရမွာပါ ။ ဒါမွ ေအာင္ျမင္တဲ့၊လူခ်စ္လူခင္ေပါမ်ားတဲ့၊ တန္ဖိုးရိွတဲ့ လူငယ္ျဖစ္လာမွာပါ ။


“ တန္ဖိုးရိွတဲ့ လူငယ္မ်ား ျဖစ္ၾကပါေစ ။ “

မ်ိဳးျမင့္သူ

iPhone Confession App Receives Imprimatur

 Developers Use Technology to Promote Sacramental Life

By Genevieve Pollock

SOUTH BEND, Indiana, FEB. 2, 2011 (Zenit.org).- A new Confession application for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch is encouraging sacramental life through technology. Bishop Kevin Rhodes gave the first known imprimatur for this type of resource.

Patrick Leinen, developer and cofounder of Little iApps, the company that released the application, told ZENIT that "in order to respond to Benedict XVI's message from last year's World Communications Day address, our goal with this project was to offer a digital application that is truly 'new media at the service of the Word.'"

The program, "Confession: A Roman Catholic App," was developed as an aid "for those who frequent the sacrament and those who wish to return," a press release explained.

Designed for use in confession preparation, and later in the confessional itself, the application offers an examination of conscience, step-by-step guide to the sacrament, act of contrition and other prayers.

Multiple users can access password-protected profiles where they can go through the examination of conscience, checking off items that are pertinent to their confession and making personal notes.

Franciscan Father Thomas Weinandy, executive director of the Secretariat for Doctrine and Pastoral Practices of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Father Dan Scheidt, pastor of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Mishawaka, Indiana, collaborated with the development of the text for the program.

Bishop Rhodes of Fort Wayne-South Bend gave the imprimatur for this application. Although other similar programs, such as "Mea Culpa -- Catholic Examination of Conscience for Catholics" and "iConfess -- Confession Handbook and Guide" have been created for similar use on devices such as the iPhone, this latest release is the first known application to receive an episcopal approval.

Leinen explained that "we are Catholic men who love our Church and want to be in communion with its actions," and thus "we thought, 'What better way than to receive the imprimatur from the bishop?'"

"With the imprimatur," he added, "we could allow those in the Catholic community to feel safe in knowing our app is for building upon our Church's great history and tradition, while embracing new media."

New media

The press release referenced the words of Benedict XVI in his message for the 45th World Communications Day, in which he affirmed that new media, "if used wisely, can contribute to the satisfaction of the desire for meaning, truth and unity which remain the most profound aspirations of each human being."

"Our desire is to invite Catholics to engage in their faith through digital technology," Leinen said.

He noted that "the app has already aided one man in returning to the sacrament after 20 years."

Leinen told ZENIT that the company's future plans include "looking into the possibility of converting the app for Droid users," which is "our biggest request."

"Secondly," he continued, "we would like to continue to create dynamic applications that can aid Catholics in their daily lives."

The developer affirmed: "Our tag line is: Little iApps is a mobile applications development start-up with a Roman Catholic twist. I think that rings true of us."


source: http://www.zenit.org/

EVOLUTION IN CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

 Some Basic Data

What is it evolution? Changes that create a kind of creature advanced to a higher degree is called macro-evolution, and that is what is generally meant by the word "evolution." Here it is to explain how evolutions should distinguish micro-evolution and macro-evolution, although Professor Glinka did not agree with that distinction.
Micro-evolution is evolution that occurs in a particular species, or wombed and produced by the close species.The evolution of this type is justified because it was held one hundred percent every day by humans in places or in the laboratory breeding of plants, to improve the seeds.

Micro-evolution is evolution that occurs in a particular species, or wombed and produced by the close species.The evolution of this type is justified because it was held one hundred percent every day by humans in places or in the laboratory breeding of plants, to improve the seeds.

Macro-evolution, as new noted above that the change which makes a kind of creature climbed to a higher degree. For example, a fish turned as a snake, a snake into birds, and others. Such changes appear to contain new organs, such as legs, wings, lungs. Should not be analyzing about the facts “which witnessed”, because humans have never seen a fish turn into a snake, or a snake to a bird. Nevertheless, molecular biology has confirmed that such changes were possible that the mutations in the "code" or when genetically developed.

After Jean-Baptiste de Monet Lamark, the French (1744-1829), and especially after Charles Robert Darwin, the British (1809-1882), biological sciences seek to discover evolution.The factors used in the nineteenth century can be held accountable, for the most part, microevolution only. Lamark highlights the influence of environment and adaptation of living beings in that environment.

To explain macro-evolution, science biology must be used. Science is already familiar with the spectacular progress since it illuminates the role of radicals from the genetic code that gaze in the mother-cells of living things; this code to control the entire development of the organism. In the degree that the essential processes of evolution, particularly macroevolution, must be placed, because of modifications of the genetic code which could account for the birth of the structures of new organic, but still need to seek the powers of the new mutations. And not at all satisfactory to rely on mutations that occur by chance alone to explain about movement and the finality of evidence that characterizes the movement.
The role of the biological sciences is not yet known when Darwin was talking about evolution. And the shortage is also what makes old-fashioned Darwinism is fundamental if not equipped with what is in front of our new record, and is often called neo-Darwinism.

The evolution takes billions of years, and presents to the paleontologist an untold number of species in which many are already gone, because the history of life affected by a variety of impasse and regression. However, when viewed in its entirety, revealing a line of evolution is incredible ride, not only in terms of diversity of sentient creatures in the world of plants and animal world, but also and more than the greater perfection in living animal, which culminating with Homo species.


Evolution in Christian Perspective

If John Paul II, a few years ago, saying that there is no conflict between evolution and Christian understanding (especially of creation), he mentioned the name of Darwin, because that's the name that is still the most representative of the evolution of the public. And it is said that Darwinism is not contrary to Christian understanding. But that does not mean that Pope equalizes evolution with Darwinism. As we noted earlier, Darwinism, if not fundamentally equipped with other natural laws, especially with biology (DNA and "genetic code"), then it is skipped, because it is too simplistic.

Additionally, if the Pope reminded the Christians that there is no conflict between evolution and religion, he did not expect that he said something new, as if it had just and for the first time the official Magisterium of the Church does not object to evolution. However, there are two popular opinions that need to be blamed, because of mistake. The first mistake, the identification of evolution with Darwinism as the opinion of Christian understanding in general and of Pope John Paul II recently. And the second mistake, which reported the Pope's recent speech in such a way that makes the readers think that the recognition and positive acceptance of evolution of the Church is something new. In fact, recognition is already there at least since 60 years. Was not John Paul II's speech was reminiscent of the encyclical “Humani Generis” of Pius XII (1950) which says that the general opinion was that time in the Christian world that does not deviate towards fundamentalism?

In this light, the French magazine L’ Actualite Religieuse, (N.150, 15 December 1996) published an article entitled “Evolustion bien comprise” (Evolution in the true meaning).This article commends on the declaration of John Paul II about our new annunciation. As it was reported that on October 23, 1996, on the occasion of the Pontifical Academy Session Plenarium Sciences Empirical that the Pope faced the theme of evolutionism. He agreed to admit that the theory of evolution is "not just a hypothesis only", but a fact. However, he negates theories that consider the human spirit (the spiritual dimension of man) as a result of material forces alone, or think the spirit is nothing more than a epiphany of that material. "Cardinal Carlo Martini, archbishop of Milan, Italy, wonders to see how the Pontifical speech that resulted in "surprise" so big in some circles: "I did not find anything new in the text of the Pontifical it. Evolutionist hypothesis has been recognized by Pius XII in 1950 … just to remind the Pope that since the creation is realized (made) by an evolutionary process, then the process was worth ignored, but to remain conscious that the Christian values, namely the spiritual dimension of man and fate (destination) eternal-not depends on scientific discoveries.

In short, today, theological difficulties (in front of the science) are gone. Thanks to advances in the exegesis, thanks to the kinds of literary distinction, we know how to find the religious message of Scripture in the formulation of symbolic and figurative. The message is clear that God is the Creator of all that exists. So, if the species originated proposal from one another since the first forms of life, it means that evolution is a disaggregated by God to create all the creatures in each, including humans in the biological dimension. All creatures depend on God who gave all to them, both the existence and evolutionary dynamism.
If so, why, at the beginning of the theory of evolution, most of the religious world rejects? Evolution is presented to the world for the first time, as an explanation of material developments until the emergence of life, and the emergence of humans, the scientific experts tend to see that this new understanding is something contrary to creation of the universe by God. Why? Especially because at the end of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth century "scientism" was the one who still rule the science world. No wonder Karl Marx in this harsh climate materialist, taking the opportunity theory of evolution to write: "The creation of the earth has been shaken hard by the evolution, the science that describes the form and the earth as a process, a growth of life itself. Growth is spontaneous practical refutation only against creation theory”.
Many other materialists use evolution as a weapon to attack religion. In short time the general tendency is to look at the evolution through the narrow lens of "scientism", and thus, equalize with a form of materialism. That is why many religious believers feel the need to reject evolution, which is always interpreted as if it should be materialists and deny God. However, it is worth noting that the “dogma of ‘scientism’ was never supported by major figures in the field of exact science”. But very unfortunately, "that's something that is not recognized by most people."

But, gratefully that chaos, due to lack of philosophical reflection, has passed. Teilhard de Chardin and role in the debate was not small. However, still many people not knowing how evolution and creationism articulates each other. So the error still exists in the following form: or evolution, or creation. The dilemma is entirely fictitious. Why? Because evolution is a scientific idea, while the creation including the field of philosophical and theological. Someone who is religious and would not deny the fact of evolution is ensured by so much evidence (although how the fact of evolution took place and according to rules which were far from clear) will recognize both evolution and creation. This can be described as follows: a series of data bound to each other in an evolutionary sort of horizontal lines, each point of the line is tied to the Creator thanks to a vertical relationship. Vertical relationship is the bond of creation. There is no contradiction whatever between the two types of lines.


Evolution, Intelligibility of the Shining Mirror

But it is based on the vision of evolution and religion (especially in terms of creationism) should be added that evolution makes clearer the need for God as the Creator. “It is clear that a theist interpretation of evolution at all coherent, and even, in my opinion, it is far more convincing interpretation, from the rational and religious, rather than naturalistic interpretation, namely evolution without God Professor Emeritus Bonansea expressed the same opinion: "Concerning the doctrine of creation, not only is there no conflict between science and religion, but rather science is de facto supporting the doctrine of creation".

Why? Because this world, through evolution, reflecting an increasingly brilliant intelligibility. "The development of evolution does not take place in any direction. He lasted in the direction of a structure that plays old games.. complex, leading to a complex matter, in life and consciousness ... There is a pre-adaptation to a synthesis, a 'tendency' to integrate them in a new form, higher; in the direction of a formation. “As a result, according to Jean Doros, Professor Titularis Department of Zoology (University of Paris), he led for ten years:

“World order is the evident. Order was given to the world published by a superior power which I call God. And this is where faith meets with science. Faith that, far from being in opposition with science, in contract to complete it by a more modest understanding of the world. Preparation of the living world for a few billion years cannot be imagined without a plan, and that's why I was forced to admit the existence of a supreme power. The preparation of the world's living things cannot be understood by others. "

The whole evolution is something that “is thought". And the result is living creatures "which contains within itself a large quantity of intelligence, greater than that required to build a Cathedral. Intelligence is called" information "(which is etched in the structure of matter), but it does not change the nature of the problem. Stated Intelligence is a condition sine qua non of life. Where is that intelligence? That problem becomes interesting for both biologists, as well as for philosophers. And empirical science cannot (not competent) to solve it. Because the material itself does not think, but it is inhabited by the dynamic principle, “ideas”, organizing programs, which hold the election, selection, make calculations, and pave the way for “intelligent”, then that matter can only restore in our election, a regulator of transcendent wisdom. Thus, the universe can be seen as a kind of participation, a disclosure of the Mind and Wisdom incarnate divine transcendence. Would not this mean that so often appear in many Psalms, concerning the heavens and the earth that Enarrant Gloriam Dei? (Declare the glory of God).

Intelligibility of the universe is "an argument for the defense of theism, because it proves that behind its laws (patterns) there is a Creator Intelligence." Thus a brief opinion J. Polkinghorne, Mathematical Physics expert, lecturer at Cambridge, a member of the Royal Society, who obtained his doctorate in theology to deepen the relationship between science and religion, about the intelligibility of the universe as the Creator’s instructions.

Myth of "Coincidence"

Darwin argued that the explanation to replace the finality (the plans, projects, and goals) in the universe with a chance to explain everything, as if it shifts the creationism theory. That is a extrapolation which not only exceed the methodological limits of science, but especially something that is denied by the law of mathematics. The universe is billions and billions of times younger and less extensive to explain, through pure coincidence, the emergence of a single protein alone! However, do not deny the existence of coincidence. What is undeniable is the coincidence as a basic factor of evolution. Conversely, the finalization is so strong that, if it happened by chance a combination of positive elements of his riches, then it will use a combination of being realized. In other words, coincidence was finalized.

In his comments about the whole issue of evolution by Darwin and intellectual climate of his day coloring, MA Corey, a philosophical relationship between science and religion, wrote: "It would be foolish if denied the finality of the divine (divine teleology) just because we're about to find part of the natural tools used by God to hold the universe. In fact, characteristic teleological (finalists) world more visible again with the theory of evolution because the theory is based on natural selection (natural selection), and thus shows that the dynamism, dynamism naturalistic really determined to result in an outcome terminal natural selection (natural selection), and thus shows that dynamism-naturalistic dynamism was determined to result in an outcome as a destination terminal. "

To be added here that the same opinion of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1820), grandfather of Charles Darwin: "It could happen that the world is made step by step, based on starting points very small (very small Beginnings) via the activity of inner principles contained in material, rather than born this world at once and all of a sudden in its entirety. What a brilliant and wonderful, the idea, namely the infinite power of God, who created the causes of the results, rather than creating their own direct of after another. "

New Opinions

It is interesting to see how the flow of positive thoughts about the evolution of Christian scholars has been coloring a lot since 1920-1930, especially in philosophy and theology experts. For example, A.D. Sertillanges, Op, who are close friends with Henri Bergson, writing: “if the hypothesis of evolution is true, then God ‘proven’ twice: once through the world of its own, and once again through the evolution…if evolution does not exist-and that was the situation, then, evolution is proven, other great powers of God, His discretion also generous thanks to Him that He acts through his own work after he makes the work dynamic and power. "
Therefore, 70 years ago, evolution is not seen as a threat or an objection to creationism. Instead, mainly thanks to the influence of Teilhard de Chardin, evolution is seen as a concrete way how creation is manifested in time and space by a Creator who does not temporal and spatial dimension. Therefore, for God, “one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is equal to one day”. "The Church appreciates the natural sciences in their respective fields and does not consider them as a danger but rather as a very impressive revelation of Allah Creator" (John Paul II).
“Science can purify religion from error(error) and superstition, religion can purify science from idolatry(idolatri), and from the things that is absolutely false, Science and religion each can incorporate each other into a wider world, a world where both can flourish” (John Paul II)

Longing for your comments please!

Glossary

Sentient: a) Having sense of perception, conscious, b) experiencing sensation
Reminiscent: recalling of something in the past
Deviate: To differ or move away from an established course, way, or prescribed mode of behavior.
Fundamentalism: a) A Protestant movement holding the Bible to be the sole authority. b) A movement marked by rigid adherence to basic principles.
Exegesis: Critical interpretation or explanation of a text.
Hypothesis: Idea or suggestion used as a starting point for reasoning or explanation.
Annunciation: Announcement; proclamation.
Epiphany: when you suddenly feel that you understand, or suddenly become conscious of, something that is very important to you or a powerful religious experience.
Disaggregate: to separate, and multiply from combination
Extrapolation: to guess or think about what might happen using information that is already known



Written by Paul

Love

Without qualification, without ifs, ands, or buts, God's word tells us, straight as a left jab, that love is the greatest thing there is (1 Cor 13: 13). Scripture never says God is justice or beauty or righteousness, though he is just and beautiful and righteous. But "God is love" (1 Jn 4:8). Love is God's essence, his whole being. Everything in him is love. Even his justice is love. Paul identifies "the justice of God" in Romans 1:17 with the most unjust event in all history, deicide, the crucifixion, for that was God's great act of love. ABut no word is more misunderstood in our society than the word love. One of the most useful books we can read is C. S. Lewis' unpretentious little masterpiece The Four Loves. There, he clearly distinguishes agape, the kind of love Christ taught and showed, from storge (natural affection or liking), eros (sexual desire), and philia (friendship). It is agape that is the greatest thing in the world.

The old word for agape in English was charity. Unfortunately, that word now means to most people simply handouts to beggars or to the United Fund. But the word love won't do either. It means to most people either sexual love (eros) or a feeling of affection (storge), or a vague love-in-general. Perhaps it is necessary to insist on the Greek word agape (pronounced ah-gah-pay) even at the risk of sounding snobbish or scholarly, so that we do not confuse this most important thing in the world with something else and miss it, for there is enormous misunderstanding about it in our society. 

The first and most usual misunderstanding of agape is to confuse it with a
feeling. Our feelings are precious, but agape is more precious. Feelings come to us, passively; agape comes from us, actively, by our free choice. We are not responsible for our feelings-we can't help how we feel-but we are responsible for our agape or lack of it, eternally responsible, for agape comes from us; feelings come from wind, weather, and digestion. "Luv" comes from spring breezes; real love comes from the center of the soul, which Scripture calls the heart (another word we have sentimentalized and reduced to feeling). Liking is a feeling. But love (agape) is more than strong liking. Only a fool would command someone to feel a certain way. God commands us to love, and God is no fool.

Jesus had different feelings toward different people. But he loved them all equally and absolutely. But how can we love someone if we don't like him? Easy-we do it to ourselves all the time. We don't always have tender, comfortable feelings about ourselves; sometimes we feel foolish, stupid, asinine, or wicked. But we always love ourselves: we always seek our own good. Indeed, we feel dislike toward ourselves, we berate ourselves, precisely because we love ourselves; because we care about our good, we are impatient with our bad.

We fall in love but we do not fall in agape. We rise in agape.

God is agape, and agape is not feeling. So God is not feeling. That does not make him or agape cold and abstract. Just the opposite: God is love itself, feeling is the dribs and drabs of love received into the medium of passivity. God cannot fall in love for the same reason water cannot get wet: it is wet. Love itself cannot receive love as a passivity, only spread it as an activity. God is love in action, not love in dreams. Feelings are like dreams: easy, passive, spontaneous. Agape is hard and precious like a diamond.

This brings us to a second and related misunderstanding. Agape's object is always the concrete individual, not some abstraction called humanity. Love of humanity is easy because humanity does not surprise you with inconvenient demands. You never find humanity on your doorstep, stinking and begging.

Jesus commands us to love not humanity but our neighbor, all our neighbors, the real individuals we meet, just as he did. He died for me and for you, not for humanity. The Cross has our names on it, not the name "humanity". When Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd, he said he "calls his own sheep by name" (Jn 10:3). The gospel comes to you not in a newspaper with a Xeroxed label, "Dear Occupant", but in a handwritten envelope personally addressed to you, as a love letter from God to you alone. One of the saints says that Jesus would have done everything he did and suffered everything he suffered even if you were the only person who had sinned, just for you. More than that, he did! This is no " if" ; this is fact. His loving eyes saw you from the Cross. Each of his five wounds were lips speaking your name.


A third, related, misunderstanding about love is to confuse it with kindness, which is only one of its usual attributes. Kindness is the desire to relieve another's suffering. Love is the willing of another's good. A father can spank his child out of love. And God is a father.

It is painfully obvious that God is not mere kindness, for he does not remove all suffering, though he has the power to do so. Indeed, this very fact-that the God who is omnipotent and can at any instant miraculously erase all suffering from this world deliberately chooses not to do so-is the commonest argument unbelievers use against him. The number one argument for atheism stems from the confusion between love and kindness.

The more we love someone, the more our love goes beyond kindness. We are merely kind to pets, and therefore we consent that our pets be put to death "to put them out of their misery" when they are suffering. There is increasing pressure in America to legalize euthenasia (so far only Nazi Germany and now Holland have ever legalized euthenasia), and this evil too stems from the confusion between love and kindness. We are kind to strangers but demanding of those we love. If a stranger informed you that he was a drug addict, you would probably try to reason with him in a kind and gentle way; but if your son or daughter said that to you, you would probably do a lot of shouting and screaming.

Grandfathers are kind; fathers are loving. Grandfathers say, "Run along and have a good time"; fathers say , "But don't do this or that." Grandfathers are compassionate, fathers are passionate. God is never once called our grandfather, much as we would prefer that to the inconveniently close, demanding, intimate father who loves us. The most frequently heard saying in our lives is precisely the philosophy of a grandfather: "Have a nice day." Many priests even sanctify this philosophy by ending the Mass with it, though the Mass is supposed to be the worship of the Father, not the Grandfather.

A fourth misunderstanding about love is the confusion between "God is love" and "love is God." The worship of love instead of the worship of God involves two deadly mistakes. First it uses the word God only as another word for love. God is thought of as a force or energy rather than as a person. Second, it divinizes the love we already know instead of showing us a love we don't know. To understand this point, consider that "A is B" does not mean the same as "A equals B." If A = B, then B = A, but if A is B, that does not mean that B is A. "That house is wood" does not mean "wood is that house." "An angel is spirit" does not mean the same as "spirit is an angel." When we say "A is B", we begin with a subject, A, that we assume our hearer already knows, and then we add a new predicate to it. "Mother is sick" means "You know mother well, let me tell you something you don't know about her: she's sick." So "God is love" means "Let me tell you something new about the God you know: he is essential love, made of love, through and through." But "Love is God" means "Let me tell you something about the love you already know, your own human love: that is God. That is the ultimate reality. That is as far as anything can ever go. Seek no further for God." In other words, "God is love" is the profoundest thing we have ever heard. But "love is God" is deadly nonsense.

A fifth misunderstanding about love is the idea that you can be in love with love. No, you cannot, any more than you can have faith in faith, or hope in hope, or see sight. Love is an act, a force, or an energy, but persons are more than that. What we love with agape can only be a person, the realest thing there is, because a person is the image of God, who is ultimate reality, and God's name is I Am, the name for a person. If anyone says they are in love with love, that love is not agape but a feeling.

A sixth misunderstanding about love is the idea that "God is love" is unrelated to dogmatic theology, especially to the doctrine of the Trinity. Everyone can agree that "God is love", it seems, but the Trinity is a tangled dogma for an esoteric elite, isn't it? No. If God is not a Trinity, God is not love. For love requires three things: a lover, a beloved, and a relationship between them. If God were only one person, he could be a lover, but not love itself. The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and the Spirit is the love proceeding from both, from all eternity. If that were not so, then God would need us, would be incomplete without us, without someone to love. Then his creating us would not be wholly unselfish, but selfish, from his own need.

Love is a flower, and hope is its stem. Salvation is the whole plant. God's grace, God's own life, comes into us by faith, like water through a tree's roots. It rises in us by hope, like sap through the trunk. And it flowers from our branches, fruit for our neighbor's use.

Faith is like an anchor. That's why it must be conservative, even a stick-in-the-mud, like an anchor. Faith must be faithful. Hope is like a compass or a navigator. It gives us direction, and it takes its bearings from the stars. That's why it must be progressive and forward-looking. Love is like the sail, spread to the wind. It is the actual energy of our journey. That's why it must be liberal, open to the Spirit's wind, generous.

Agape is totally defenseless against an objection like Freud's: "But not all men are worthy of love." No, they are not. Love goes beyond worth, beyond justice, beyond reason. Reasons are always given from above downward, and there is nothing above love, for God is love. When he was about six, my son asked me, "Daddy, why do you love me?" I began to give the wrong answers, the answers I thought he was looking for: "You're a great kid. You're good and smart and strong." Then, seeing his disappointment, I decided to be honest: "Aw, I just love you because you're mine." I got a smile of relief and a hug: "Thanks, Daddy." A student once asked me in class, "Why does God love us so much?" I replied that that was the greatest of all mysteries, and she should come back to me in a year to see whether I had solved it. One year later to the day, there she was. She was serious. She really wanted an answer. I had to explain that this one thing, at least, just could not be explained.

Finally, there is the equally mind-boggling mystery of the intrinsic paradox of agape: somehow in agape you give yourself away, not just your time or work or possessions or even your body. You put yourself in your own hands and hand it over to another. And when you do this unthinkable thing, another unthinkable thing happens: you find yourself in losing yourself. You begin to be when you give yourself away. You find that a new and more real self has somehow been given to you. When you are a donor you mysteriously find yourself a recipient-of the very gift you gave away.

There is more: nothing else is really yours. Your health, your works, your intelligence, your possessions-these are not what they seem. They are all hostage to fortune, on loan, insubstantial. You discover that when you learn who God is. Face to face with God in prayer, not just a proper concept of God, you find that you are nothing. All the saints say this: you are nothing. The closer you get to God the more you see this, the more you shrink in size. If you scorn God, you think you're a big shot, a cannonball; if you know God, you know you're not even buckshot. Those who scorn God think they're number one. Those who have the popular idea of God think they're "good people". Those who have a merely mental orthodoxy know they're real but finite creatures, made in God's image but flawed by sin. Those who really begin to pray find that compared with God they are motes of dust in the sun. Finally, the saints say they are nothing. Or else (Saint Paul's words) "the chief of sinners". Sinners think they're saints and saints think they're sinners.

Who's right? How shall we evaluate this insight? Unless God is the Father of lies (the ultimate blasphemy), the saints are right. Unless the closer you get to God the wronger you are about yourself, the five groups in the preceding paragraph (from scorners to saints) form a hierarchy of insight. Nothing is ours by nature. Our very existence is sheer gift. Think for a moment about the fact that you were created, made out of nothing. If a sculptor gives a block of marble the gift of a fine shape, the shape is a gift, but the marble's existence is not. That is the marble's own. But nothing is our own because we were made out of nothing. Our very existence is a gift from God to no one, for we were not there before he created us. There is no receiver of the gift distinct from the gift itself. We are God's gifts.

So the saints are right. If I am nothing, nothing that is mine is anything. Nothing is mine by nature. But one thing is mine by my free choice: the self I give away in love. That is the thing even God cannot do for me. It is my choice. Everything I say is mine is not. But everything I say is yours is mine. C. S. Lewis, asked which of his many library books he thought he would have in heaven, replied, "Only the ones I gave away on earth and never got back". The same is true of our very self. It is like a ball in a game of catch: throw it and it will come back to you; hold onto it and that ends the game.

source:http://www.peterkreeft.com

What is God's Answer to Human Suffering?

The answer must be someone, not just something. For the problem (suffering) is about someone (God—why does he... why doesn't he ...?) rather than just something. To question God's goodness is not just an intellectual experiment. It is rebellion or tears. It is a little child with tears in its eyes looking up at Daddy and weeping, "Why?" This is not merely the philosophers' "why?" Not only does it add the emotion of tears but also it is asked in the context of relationship. It is a question put to the Father, not a question asked in a vacuum. The hurt child needs not so much explanations as reassurances. And that is what we get: the reassurance of the Father in the person of Jesus, "he who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9).

The answer is not just a word but the Word; not an idea but a person. Clues are abstract, persons are concrete. Clues are signs; they signify something beyond themselves, something real. Our solution cannot be a mere idea, however true, profound, or useful, because that would be only another sign, another finger, another clue—like fingers pointing to other fingers, like having faith in faith, or hope in hope, or being in love with love. A hall of mirrors.

Besides being here, he is now. Besides being concretely real in our world, he, our answer, is also in our story, our history. Our story is also his-story. The answer is not a timeless truth but a once-for-all catastrophic event, as real as the stories in today's newspapers.

It is, of course, the most familiar, the most often-told story in the world. Yet it is also the strangest, and it has never lost its strangeness, its awe, and will not even in eternity, where angels tremble to gaze at things we yawn at. And however strange, it is the only key that fits the lock of our tortured lives and needs. We needed a surgeon, and he came and reached into our wounds with bloody hands. He didn't give us a placebo or a pill or good advice. He gave us himself.

The answer is not just a word
but the Word;
not an idea but a person.

He came. He entered space and time and suffering. He came, like a lover. Love seeks above all intimacy, presence, togetherness. Not happiness. "Better unhappy with her than happy without her"—that is the word of a lover. He came. That is the salient fact, the towering truth, that alone keeps us from putting a bullet through our heads. He came. Job is satisfied even though the God who came gave him absolutely no answers at all to his thousand tortured questions. He did the most important thing and he gave the most important gift: himself. It is a lover's gift. Out of our tears, our waiting, our darkness, our agonized aloneness, out of our weeping and wondering, out of our cry, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" he came, all the way, right into that cry.

In coming into our world he came also into our suffering. He sits beside us in the stalled car in the snowbank. Sometimes he starts the car for us, but even when he doesn't, he is there. That is the only thing that matters. Who cares about cars and success and miracles and long life when you have God sitting beside you? He sits beside us in the lowest places of our lives, like water. Are we broken? He is broken with us. Are we rejected? Do people despise us not for our evil but for our good, or attempted good? He was "despised and rejected of men." Do we weep? Is grief our familiar spirit, our horrifyingly familiar ghost? Do we ever say, "Oh, no, not again! I can't take any more!"? He was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Do people misunderstand us, turn away from us? They hid their faces from him as from an outcast, a leper. Is our love betrayed? Are our tenderest relationships broken? He too loved and was betrayed by the ones he loved. "He came unto his own and his own received him not." Does it seem sometimes as if life has passed us by or cast us out, as if we are sinking into uselessness and oblivion? He sinks with us. He too is passed over by the world. His way of suffering love is rejected, his own followers often the most guilty of all; they have made his name a scandal, especially among his own chosen people. What Jew finds the road to him free from the broken weapons of bloody prejudice? We have made it nearly impossible for his own people to love him, to see him as he is, free from the smoke of battle and holocaust.

Withness—that is the
word of love.

How does he look upon us now? With continual sorrow, but never with scorn. We add to his wounds. There are nineteen hundred nails in his cross. We, his beloved and longed for and passionately desired, are constantly cold and correct and distant to him. And still he keeps brooding over the world like a hen over an egg, like a mother who has had all of her beloved children turn against her. "Could a mother desert her young? Even so I could not desert you." He sits beside us not only in our sufferings but even in our sins. He does not turn his face from us, however much we turn our face from him. He endures our spiritual scabs and scars, our sneers and screams, our hatreds and haughtiness, just to be with us. Withness—that is the word of love.

Does he descend into all our hells? Yes. In the unforgettable line of Corrie ten Boom from the depths of a Nazi death camp, "No matter how deep our darkness, he is deeper still." Does he descend into violence? Yes, by suffering it and leaving us the solution that to this day only a few brave souls have dared to try, the most notable in this century not even a Christian but a Hindu. Does he descend into insanity? Yes, into that darkness too. Even into the insanity of suicide? Can he be there too? Yes he can. "Even the darkness is not dark to him." He finds or makes light even there, in the darkness of the mind—perhaps not until the next world, until death's release.

For the darkest door of all has been shoved open and light from beyond it has streamed into our world to light our way, since he has changed the meaning of death. It is not merely that he rose from the dead, but that he changed the meaning of death, and therefore also of all the little deaths, all the sufferings that anticipate death and make up parts of it. Death, like a cancer, seeps back into life. We lose little bits of life daily—our health, our strength, our youth, our hopes, our dreams, our friends, our children, our lives—all these dribble away like water through our desperate, shaking fingers. Nothing we can do, not our best efforts, holds our lives together. The only lives that don't spring leaks are the ones that are already all watery. The only hearts that do not break are the ones that are busily constructing little hells of loveless control, cocoons of safe, respectable selfishness to insulate themselves from the tidal wave of tears that comes sooner or later.

But he came into life and death, and he still comes. He is still here. "As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me" (Mt 2 5:40). He is here. He is in us and we are in him; we are his body. He is gassed in the ovens of Auschwitz. He is sneered at in Soweto. He is cut limb from limb in a thousand safe and legal death camps for the unborn strewn throughout our world, where he is too tiny for us to see or care about. He is the most forgotten soul in the world. He is the one we love to hate. He practices what he preaches: he turns his other cheek to our slaps. That is what love is, what love does, and what love receives.

Love is why he came. It's all love. The buzzing flies around the cross, the stroke of the Roman hammer as the nails tear into his screamingly soft flesh, the infinitely harder stroke of his own people's hammering hatred, hammering at his heart—why? For love. God is love, as the sun is fire and light, and he can no more stop loving than the sun can stop shining.

He may not yet wipe tears away, but he makes them his.

Henceforth, when we feel the hammers of life beating on our heads or on our hearts, we can know—we must know—that he is here with us, taking our blows. Every tear we shed becomes his tear. He may not yet wipe them away, but he makes them his. Would we rather have our own dry eyes, or his tear-filled ones? He came. He is here. That is the salient fact. If he does not heal all our broken bones and loves and lives now, he comes into them and is broken, like bread, and we are nourished. And he shows us that we can henceforth use our very brokenness as nourishment for those we love. Since we are his body, we too are the bread that is broken for others. Our very failures help heal other lives; our very tears help wipe away tears; our being hated helps those we love. When those we love hang up on us, he keeps the lines open. His withness with us enables us to be with those who refuse to be with us.

Perhaps he is even in the sufferings of animals, if, as Scripture seems to say, we are somehow responsible for them and they suffer with us. He not only sees but suffers the fall of each sparrow.

All our sufferings are transformable into his work, our passion into his action. That is why he instituted prayer, says Pascal: to bestow on creatures the dignity of causality. We are really his body; the Church is Christ as my body is me. That is why Paul says his sufferings are making up in his own body what Christ has yet to endure in his body (Col 1:24).

Thus God's answer to the problem of suffering not only really happened 2,000 years ago, but it is still happening in our own lives. The solution to our suffering is our suffering! All our suffering can become part of his work, the greatest work ever done, the work of salvation, of helping to win for those we love eternal joy.

How? This can be done on one condition: that we believe. For faith is not just a mental choice within us; it is a transaction with him. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone... opens the door, I will come in and eat with him" (Rev 3:20). To believe, according to John's Gospel, is to receive (Jn 1:12), to receive what God has already done. His part is finished ("It is finished," he said on the cross). Our part is to receive that work and let it work itself out in and through our lives, including our tears. We offer it up to him, and he really takes it and uses it in ways so powerful that we would be flattened with wonder if we knew them now.

You see, the Christian views suffering, as he views everything, in a totally different way, a totally different context, than the unbeliever. He sees it and everything else as a between, as existing between God and himself, as a gift from God, an invitation from God, a challenge from God, something between God and himself. Everything is relativized. I do not relate to an object and keep God in the background somewhere; God is the object that I relate to. Everything is between us and God. Nature is no longer just nature, but creation, God's creation. Having children is procreation. My very I is his image, not my own but on loan.

Our suffering now becomes the work of love.

What then is suffering to the Christian? It is Christ's invitation to us to follow him. Christ goes to the cross, and we are invited to follow to the same cross. Not because it is the cross, but because it is his. Suffering is blessed not because it is suffering but because it is his. Suffering is not the context that explains the cross; the cross is the context that explains suffering. The cross gives this new meaning to suffering; it is now not only between God and me but also between Father and Son. The first between is taken up into the Trinitarian exchanges of the second. Christ allows us to participate in his cross because that is his means of allowing us to participate in the exchanges of the Trinity, to share in the very inner life of God.

Freud says our two absolute needs are love and work. Both are now fulfilled by our greatest fear, suffering. Work, because our suffering now becomes opus dei, God's work, construction work on his kingdom. Love, because our suffering now becomes the work of love, the work of redemption, saving those we love.

True love, unlike popular sentimental substitutes, is willing to suffer. Love is not "luv." Love is the cross. Our problem at first, the sheer problem of suffering, was a cross without a Christ. We must never fall into the opposite and equal trap of a Christ without a cross. Look at a crucifix. St. Bernard of Clairvaux says that whenever he does, Christ's five wounds appear to him as lips, speaking the words, "I love you."

In summary, Jesus did three things to solve the problem of suffering. First, he came. He suffered with us. He wept. Second, in becoming man he transformed the meaning of our suffering: it is now part of his work of redemption. Our death pangs become birth pangs for heaven, not only for ourselves but also for those we love. Third, he died and rose. Dying, he paid the price for sin and opened heaven to us; rising, he transformed death from a hole into a door, from an end into a beginning.

Resurrection was so important to Christ's disciples that when Paul preached the good news in Athens, the inhabitants thought he was preaching two new gods, Jesus and resurrection.

That third thing, now—resurrection. It makes more than all the difference in the world. Many condolences begin by saying something like this: "I know nothing can bring back your dear one again, but.. ." No matter what words follow, no matter what comforting psychology follows that "but," Christianity says something to the bereaved that makes all the rest trivial, something the bereaved longs infinitely more to hear: God can and will bring back your dear one again to life. There is resurrection.

What difference does it make? Simply the difference between infinite and eternal joy and infinite and eternal joylessness. Resurrection was so important to Christ's disciples that when Paul preached the good news in Athens, the inhabitants thought he was preaching two new gods, Jesus and resurrection (anastasis) (Acts 17). The same Paul said, "If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. ... If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied" (1 Cor 15:14, 19).

Because of resurrection, when all our tears are over, we will, incredibly, look back at them and laugh, not in derision but in joy. We do a little of that even now, you know. After a great worry is lifted, a great problem solved, a great sickness healed, a great pain relieved, it all looks very different as past, to the eyes of retrospection, than it looked as future, as prospect, or as present, as experience. Remember St. Teresa's bold saying that from heaven the most miserable earthly life will look like one bad night in an inconvenient hotel!

If you find that hard to believe, too good to be true, know that even the atheist Ivan Karamazov understands that hope. He says,

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.

Why then does Ivan remain an atheist? Because though he believes, he does not accept. He is not a doubter; he is a rebel. Like his own character the Grand Inquisitor, Ivan is angry at God for not being kinder. That is the deepest source of unbelief: not the intellect but the will.

The story I have retold in this chapter is the oldest and best known of stories. For it is the primal love story, the story we most love to tell. Tolkien says, "There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true." It is suggested in the fairy tales, and it is why we find the fairy tales so strangely compelling. Kierkegaard retells it beautifully and profoundly in chapter two of Philosophical Fragments, in the story of the king who loved and wooed the humble peasant maiden. It is told symbolically in the greatest of love poems, the Song of Songs, favorite book of the mystics. And the very loveliness of it is an argument for its truth. Indeed, how could this crazy idea, this crazy desire, ever have entered into the mind and heart of man? How could a creature without a digestive system learn to desire food? How could a creature without manhood desire a woman? How could a creature without a mind desire knowledge? And how could a creature with no capacity for God desire God?

Let's step back a bit. We began with the mystery, not just of suffering but of suffering in a world supposedly created by a loving God. How to get God off the hook? God's answer is Jesus. Jesus is not God off the hook but God on the hook. That's why the doctrine of the divinity of Christ is crucial: If that is not God there on the cross but only a good man, then God is not on the hook, on the cross, in our suffering. And if God is not on the hook, then God is not off the hook. How could he sit there in heaven and ignore our tears?

There is, as we saw, one good reason for not believing in God: evil. And God himself has answered this objection not in words but in deeds and in tears. Jesus is the tears of God.

source:http://www.peterkreeft.com