Month: October 2023

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What does being a Christian mean today, here and now?

Being a Christian has never been easy, nor is it easy today. Following Christ demands the courage of radical choices, which often means going against the stream. “We are Christ!”, St Augustine exclaimed. The martyrs and witnesses of faith yesterday and today, including many lay faithful, show that, if necessary, we must not hesitate to give even our lives for Jesus Christ.

In this regard, everyone is invited to a serious examination of conscience and lasting spiritual renewal for ever more effective missionary activity. As Pope Paul VI, wrote in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi towards the end of the Holy Year of 1975:  “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (EN 41).

These words are still valid today in the presence of a humanity full of potential and expectations, but threatened by a multitude of snares and dangers. One need only think, among other things, of social advances and of the revolution in genetics; of economic progress and of underdevelopment in vast areas of the globe; of the tragedy of hunger in the world and of the difficulties in safeguarding peace; of the extensive network of communications and of the dramas of loneliness and violence reported in the daily press.

Let us faithful, as witnesses to Christ who are especially called to bring the light of the Gospel to the vital nerve centers of society, be prophets of Christian hope and apostles of the One “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty!” (Revelations 1:4).

John Paul II, “Jubilee of the Apostolate of the Laity” homily  § 4, Vatican City, 26 November 2000, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/2000/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20001126_jubillaity.html

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In these troubled times, how can we have access to God?

As He said farewell to His disciples, Jesus gave them tranquility, He gave peace, with a promise: “I will not leave you orphans” (John 14:15-21). He defends them from that painful feeling of being orphans. In today’s world, there is a great sense of being orphaned: many people have many things, but they lack the Father. And in the history of humanity, this has repeated itself: when the Father is missing, something is lacking and there is always the desire to meet, to rediscover the Father. Today we can say that we live in a society where the Father is missing, a sense of being orphaned that specifically affects belonging and fraternity.

And so Jesus promises: “I am going away, but someone else will come who will teach you how to access the Father. He will remind you how to access the Father”. The Holy Spirit does not come to “make us His clients”; He comes to point out how to access the Father. That is what Jesus opened, what Jesus showed us. A spirituality of the Son alone or the Holy Spirit alone does not exist: the center is the Father. The Son is sent by the Father and returns to the Father. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father to remind us and to teach us how to access the Father.

Only with this awareness of being children, that we are not orphans, can we live in peace among ourselves. Wars, either small ones or large ones, always have a dimension of being orphans: the Father who makes peace is missing. And so when Peter and the first community respond to the people regarding why they are Christians (1 Peter 3:15-18), says: “do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear”, that is, the gentleness that the Holy Spirit gives. The Holy Spirit teaches us this gentleness, this tenderness of the Father’s children. The Holy Spirit does not teach us to insult. And one of the consequences of this feeling like orphans is insulting, wars, because if there is no Father, there are no brothers, fraternity is lost. This tenderness, reverence, gentleness are attitudes of belonging, of belonging to a family that is certain of having a Father.

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to remind us always, always about this access to the Father, that He might remind us that we have a Father. And to this civilization, with this great feeling of being orphaned, may He grant the grace of rediscovering the Father, the Father who gives meaning to all of life, and that He might unite humanity into one family.

Francis, “The Holy Spirit reminds us how to access the Father” homily, Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, Vatican City, 17 May 2020, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/cotidie/2020/documents/papa-francesco-cotidie_20200517_spiritosanto-accesso-al-padre.html

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Where does our soul go after death?

The Church teaches us that the immortal soul of the human being receives a particular judgment where it can begin its purification process before being able to be before the presence of God, or either enter directly into the blessedness of Heaven, or immediately condemn itself forever (CCC 1022).

Although our destiny as Catholics who follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ is that dwelling in the Kingdom of Heaven that our Lord has prepared for us (John 14:2). We gain that dwelling by following His teachings and fulfilling the sacraments that our Lord left us, especially with the sacrament of holy communion, through the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, truly present in the consecrated host and wine, through which we will have eternal life. (John 6:53-54). If our sins do not allow us to fulfill this sacrament, let us first go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, so that after sincere repentance they are forgiven, without forgetting to also comply with penance or reparation for them.

It is this last part that we must firmly comply with, since it is what allows us to enter directly into the presence of God when the time of our judgment arrives; failure to do so will lead our soul to a process of purification after death, in order to obtain the holiness necessary to be able to enter the joy of Heaven (CCC 1030).

It is also important to honor the memory of the deceased and offer suffrages in their favor, so that once purified, they can reach the beatific vision of God (CCC 1032). We can do this by dedicating masses and works of penance to them, as well as obtaining indulgences for the sanctification of the souls in purgatory.

Let us frequently participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, let us repent of all our sins, and faithfully carry out our penance so that we can share the glory with our Lord. Let us dedicate masses, works of penance and indulgences for the blessed souls in purgatory for their complete sanctification.

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Should I accept him as a brother when he is so different from me?

“But they are so different… Their customs are so different… they behave strangely…” these are some of the justifications that we sometimes give to ourselves when we encounter cultural or ethnic groups, different from the one we belong to, even in our own mother Church. Let us remember that the Catholic Church, from its beginnings, has welcomed the diversity of cultures, has made them its own and has not denied them the Gospel (Acts 2:1-11).

The grace of the sacrament of baptism, the door to salvation, and the good news of Jesus Christ was also extended to minorities, foreigners and according to the old law, imperfect. Just as Philip evangelized and baptized the Ethiopian eunuch by the advice of the angel of the Lord (Acts 8:26-39), we must extend the grace of the gospel to minorities who feel rejected from the Church, maybe by our own blindness of not wanting to see them as children of God.

The diversity of the Church is even immersed in its own name, when Saint Paul gives the name “ekklesia” (church) to the communities of Christians. In Greek “ekklesia” means “called-out assembly”, this assembly was made up of all those called out to the way of the Lord regardless of their previous affiliation. The apostle himself recognizes in several of his epistles the diversity of the charismas with which the Holy Spirit blesses the faithful (1 Corinthians 12:8-10, 1 Corinthians 12:28-30, Romans 12:6-8).

Let us recognize our Lord Jesus Christ in each of our brothers in faith, no matter how different from us they seem or how different their customs are. Let us welcome with mercy those who feel rejected and find themselves on the peripheries, keep in mind that everything we do for the least of God’s children, we are doing for Jesus Christ himself (Matthew 25:30-41)

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Who are the guardian angels?

In order that we are never left alone, God has put at each person’s side a guardian angel to support and protect us, to accompany us in life (CCC 336). It is up to us to perceive his presence, listening to his advice, with the docility of a child, in order to keep ourselves on the right path toward paradise.

God has always sent us help, to Moses he said “Behold, I will send an angel before you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have prepared” (Exodus 23:20-23). So, the Lord did not abandon but walked with his people. He walked with the man who had lost his friendship with Him: God’s heart is a father’s heart, and he never abandons his children.

Our guardian angel is always with us and this is a reality: he is like an ambassador of God with us. Again, in the passage from the Book of Exodus, the Lord counsels us: “Give heed to him!” (Exodus 23:21) Thus, when we, for example, do something bad and think we are alone, we have to remember that it isn’t so, because our angel is there. Here then, is the importance of heeding his presence and hearkening to his voice, because he advises us. This is why, when we feel that inspiration, ‘Do this… this is better… you shouldn’t do this’, the best thing to do is heed the advice and not rebel against your guardian angel.

He advises us, accompanies us, walks with us in the name of God. The Book of Exodus also points out the best attitude: “if you hearken attentively to his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries” (Exodus 23:22). But what does this mean? God’s response is clear: “I will be your protector, I will always defend you, guard you. ‘I!’, the Lord says, but because you have heeded the advice, the inspiration of the angel.

Let us ask the Lord for the grace of this docility, of hearkening to the voice of this companion, of this ambassador of God who is beside us in his name, so that we may be supported by his help, always on the way.

Francis, “The angel and the child” homily, Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, Vatican City, 2 October 2015, www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/cotidie/2015/documents/papa-francesco-cotidie_20151002_the-angel-and-the-child.html