“Today, in general, we are very sensitive to the idea of charity and caring about
the physical and material well-being of others, but almost completely silent about
our spiritual responsibility towards our brothers and sisters”, said Pope Benedict
Tuesday, calling on Christians worldwide to look-out for one another, in every sense,
as they prepare to enter the period of Lent .
“In a world which demands of
Christians a renewed witness of love and fidelity to the Lord, may all of us feel
the urgent need to anticipate one another in charity, service and good works ", as
we prepare for Easter as "members of the same body." Being concerned for one another
and fraternal correction were the focus of Pope Benedict XVI’s Message for Lent presented
Tuesday at the Vatican by the Pontifical Council Cor unum.
Inspired
by a passage in the Letter to the Hebrews (Heb 10:24): " Let us be concerned for
each other, to stir a response in love and good works ", the Holy Father underlines
the importance of "being concerned" for one another, which he said invites us to “not
to remain isolated and indifferent to the fate of our brothers and sisters”
All
too often he admonishes that “our attitude is just the opposite: an indifference and
disinterest born of selfishness and masked as a respect for “privacy’”. Today, “God
asks us to be “guardians” of our brothers and sisters". However, “the great commandment
of love for one another” also demands that we acknowledge our responsibility towards
others and want what is good for them “from every point of view: physical, moral and
spiritual”.
The Pope says “contemporary culture seems to have lost the sense
of good and evil, yet there is a real need to reaffirm that good does exist and will
prevail”. Good is whatever gives, protects and promotes life, brotherhood and communion”.
Concern for others means being aware of their needs and “the danger that our hearts
can become hardened by a sort of “spiritual anesthesia” which numbs us to the suffering
of others”.
Finally, Pope Benedict says being concerned for others, also entails
being concerned for their spiritual well-being. He points to an aspect of Christian
life, which has been quite forgotten: fraternal correction:“It is important to recover
this dimension of Christian charity. We must not remain silent before evil. I am
thinking of all those Christians who, out of human regard or purely personal convenience,
adapt to the prevailing mentality, rather than warning their brothers and sisters
against ways of thinking and acting that are contrary to the truth and that do not
follow the path of goodness. Christian admonishment, for its part, is never motivated
by a spirit of accusation or recrimination. It is always moved by love and mercy,
and springs from genuine concern for the good of the other”.
Below the
full text of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2012 Message for Lent: “Let us be concerned
for each other, to stir a response in love and good works” (Heb 10:24)
Dear
Brothers and Sisters,
The Lenten season offers us once again an opportunity
to reflect upon the very heart of Christian life: charity. This is a favourable time
to renew our journey of faith, both as individuals and as a community, with the help
of the word of God and the sacraments. This journey is one marked by prayer and sharing,
silence and fasting, in anticipation of the joy of Easter.
This year I would
like to propose a few thoughts in the light of a brief biblical passage drawn from
the Letter to the Hebrews: “Let us be concerned for each other, to stir a response
in love and good works”. These words are part of a passage in which the sacred author
exhorts us to trust in Jesus Christ as the High Priest who has won us forgiveness
and opened up a pathway to God. Embracing Christ bears fruit in a life structured
by the three theological virtues: it means approaching the Lord “sincere in heart
and filled with faith” (v. 22), keeping firm “in the hope we profess” (v. 23) and
ever mindful of living a life of “love and good works” (v. 24) together with our brothers
and sisters. The author states that to sustain this life shaped by the Gospel it is
important to participate in the liturgy and community prayer, mindful of the eschatological
goal of full communion in God (v. 25). Here I would like to reflect on verse 24,
which offers a succinct, valuable and ever timely teaching on the three aspects of
Christian life: concern for others, reciprocity and personal holiness.
1.
“Let us be concerned for each other”: responsibility towards our brothers and sisters.
This
first aspect is an invitation to be “concerned”: the Greek verb used here is katanoein,
which means to scrutinize, to be attentive, to observe carefully and take stock of
something. We come across this word in the Gospel when Jesus invites the disciples
to “think of” the ravens that, without striving, are at the centre of the solicitous
and caring Divine Providence (cf. Lk 12:24), and to “observe” the plank in our own
eye before looking at the splinter in that of our brother (cf. Lk 6:41). In another
verse of the Letter to the Hebrews, we find the encouragement to “turn your minds
to Jesus” (3:1), the Apostle and High Priest of our faith. So the verb which introduces
our exhortation tells us to look at others, first of all at Jesus, to be concerned
for one another, and not to remain isolated and indifferent to the fate of our brothers
and sisters. All too often, however, our attitude is just the opposite: an indifference
and disinterest born of selfishness and masked as a respect for “privacy”. Today
too, the Lord’s voice summons all of us to be concerned for one another. Even today
God asks us to be “guardians” of our brothers and sisters (Gen 4:9), to establish
relationships based on mutual consideration and attentiveness to the well-being, the
integral well-being of others. The great commandment of love for one another demands
that we acknowledge our responsibility towards those who, like ourselves, are creatures
and children of God. Being brothers and sisters in humanity and, in many cases, also
in the faith, should help us to recognize in others a true alter ego, infinitely loved
by the Lord. If we cultivate this way of seeing others as our brothers and sisters,
solidarity, justice, mercy and compassion will naturally well up in our hearts. The
Servant of God Pope Paul VI stated that the world today is suffering above all from
a lack of brotherhood: “Human society is sorely ill. The cause is not so much the
depletion of natural resources, nor their monopolistic control by a privileged few;
it is rather the weakening of brotherly ties between individuals and nations” (Populorum
Progressio, 66). Concern for others entails desiring what is good for them from
every point of view: physical, moral and spiritual. Contemporary culture seems to
have lost the sense of good and evil, yet there is a real need to reaffirm that good
does exist and will prevail, because God is “generous and acts generously” (Ps 119:68).
The good is whatever gives, protects and promotes life, brotherhood and communion.
Responsibility towards others thus means desiring and working for the good of others,
in the hope that they too will become receptive to goodness and its demands. Concern
for others means being aware of their needs. Sacred Scripture warns us of the danger
that our hearts can become hardened by a sort of “spiritual anesthesia” which numbs
us to the suffering of others. The Evangelist Luke relates two of Jesus’ parables
by way of example. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the priest and the Levite
“pass by”, indifferent to the presence of the man stripped and beaten by the robbers
(cf. Lk 10:30-32). In that of Dives and Lazarus, the rich man is heedless of the
poverty of Lazarus, who is starving to death at his very door (cf. Lk 16:19). Both
parables show examples of the opposite of “being concerned”, of looking upon others
with love and compassion. What hinders this humane and loving gaze towards our brothers
and sisters? Often it is the possession of material riches and a sense of sufficiency,
but it can also be the tendency to put our own interests and problems above all else.
We should never be incapable of “showing mercy” towards those who suffer. Our hearts
should never be so wrapped up in our affairs and problems that they fail to hear the
cry of the poor. Humbleness of heart and the personal experience of suffering can
awaken within us a sense of compassion and empathy. “The upright understands the
cause of the weak, the wicked has not the wit to understand it” (Prov 29:7). We can
then understand the beatitude of “those who mourn” (Mt 5:5), those who in effect are
capable of looking beyond themselves and feeling compassion for the suffering of others.
Reaching out to others and opening our hearts to their needs can become an opportunity
for salvation and blessedness. “Being concerned for each other” also entails being
concerned for their spiritual well-being. Here I would like to mention an aspect
of the Christian life, which I believe has been quite forgotten: fraternal correction
in view of eternal salvation. Today, in general, we are very sensitive to the idea
of charity and caring about the physical and material well-being of others, but almost
completely silent about our spiritual responsibility towards our brothers and sisters.
This was not the case in the early Church or in those communities that are truly mature
in faith, those which are concerned not only for the physical health of their brothers
and sisters, but also for their spiritual health and ultimate destiny. The Scriptures
tell us: “Rebuke the wise and he will love you for it. Be open with the wise, he
grows wiser still, teach the upright, he will gain yet more” (Prov 9:8ff). Christ
himself commands us to admonish a brother who is committing a sin (cf. Mt 18:15).
The verb used to express fraternal correction - elenchein – is the same used to indicate
the prophetic mission of Christians to speak out against a generation indulging in
evil (cf. Eph 5:11). The Church’s tradition has included “admonishing sinners” among
the spiritual works of mercy. It is important to recover this dimension of Christian
charity. We must not remain silent before evil. I am thinking of all those Christians
who, out of human regard or purely personal convenience, adapt to the prevailing mentality,
rather than warning their brothers and sisters against ways of thinking and acting
that are contrary to the truth and that do not follow the path of goodness. Christian
admonishment, for its part, is never motivated by a spirit of accusation or recrimination.
It is always moved by love and mercy, and springs from genuine concern for the good
of the other. As the Apostle Paul says: “If one of you is caught doing something wrong,
those of you who are spiritual should set that person right in a spirit of gentleness;
and watch yourselves that you are not put to the test in the same way” (Gal 6:1).
In a world pervaded by individualism, it is essential to rediscover the importance
of fraternal correction, so that together we may journey towards holiness. Scripture
tells us that even “the upright falls seven times” (Prov 24:16); all of us are weak
and imperfect (cf. 1 Jn 1:8). It is a great service, then, to help others and allow
them to help us, so that we can be open to the whole truth about ourselves, improve
our lives and walk more uprightly in the Lord’s ways. There will always be a need
for a gaze which loves and admonishes, which knows and understands, which discerns
and forgives (cf. Lk 22:61), as God has done and continues to do with each of us.
2. “Being concerned for each other”: the gift of reciprocity.
This
“custody” of others is in contrast to a mentality that, by reducing life exclusively
to its earthly dimension, fails to see it in an eschatological perspective and accepts
any moral choice in the name of personal freedom. A society like ours can become
blind to physical sufferings and to the spiritual and moral demands of life. This
must not be the case in the Christian community! The Apostle Paul encourages us to
seek “the ways which lead to peace and the ways in which we can support one another”
(Rom 14:19) for our neighbour’s good, “so that we support one another” (15:2), seeking
not personal gain but rather “the advantage of everybody else, so that they may be
saved” (1 Cor 10:33). This mutual correction and encouragement in a spirit of humility
and charity must be part of the life of the Christian community. The Lord’s disciples,
united with him through the Eucharist, live in a fellowship that binds them one to
another as members of a single body. This means that the other is part of me, and
that his or her life, his or her salvation, concern my own life and salvation. Here
we touch upon a profound aspect of communion: our existence is related to that of
others, for better or for worse. Both our sins and our acts of love have a social
dimension. This reciprocity is seen in the Church, the mystical body of Christ: the
community constantly does penance and asks for the forgiveness of the sins of its
members, but also unfailingly rejoices in the examples of virtue and charity present
in her midst. As Saint Paul says: “Each part should be equally concerned for all
the others” (1 Cor 12:25), for we all form one body. Acts of charity towards our
brothers and sisters – as expressed by almsgiving, a practice which, together with
prayer and fasting, is typical of Lent – is rooted in this common belonging. Christians
can also express their membership in the one body which is the Church through concrete
concern for the poorest of the poor. Concern for one another likewise means acknowledging
the good that the Lord is doing in others and giving thanks for the wonders of grace
that Almighty God in his goodness continuously accomplishes in his children. When
Christians perceive the Holy Spirit at work in others, they cannot but rejoice and
give glory to the heavenly Father (cf. Mt 5:16).
3. “To stir a response in
love and good works”: walking together in holiness.
These words of the Letter
to the Hebrews (10:24) urge us to reflect on the universal call to holiness, the continuing
journey of the spiritual life as we aspire to the greater spiritual gifts and to an
ever more sublime and fruitful charity (cf. 1 Cor 12:31-13:13). Being concerned for
one another should spur us to an increasingly effective love which, “like the light
of dawn, its brightness growing to the fullness of day” (Prov 4:18), makes us live
each day as an anticipation of the eternal day awaiting us in God. The time granted
us in this life is precious for discerning and performing good works in the love of
God. In this way the Church herself continuously grows towards the full maturity
of Christ (cf. Eph 4:13). Our exhortation to encourage one another to attain the
fullness of love and good works is situated in this dynamic prospect of growth. Sadly,
there is always the temptation to become lukewarm, to quench the Spirit, to refuse
to invest the talents we have received, for our own good and for the good of others
(cf. Mt 25:25ff.). All of us have received spiritual or material riches meant to
be used for the fulfilment of God’s plan, for the good of the Church and for our personal
salvation (cf. Lk 12:21b; 1 Tim 6:18). The spiritual masters remind us that in the
life of faith those who do not advance inevitably regress. Dear brothers and sisters,
let us accept the invitation, today as timely as ever, to aim for the “high standard
of ordinary Christian living” (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 31). The wisdom of the Church
in recognizing and proclaiming certain outstanding Christians as Blessed and as Saints
is also meant to inspire others to imitate their virtues. Saint Paul exhorts us to
“anticipate one another in showing honour” (Rom 12:10). In a world which demands
of Christians a renewed witness of love and fidelity to the Lord, may all of us feel
the urgent need to anticipate one another in charity, service and good works (cf.
Heb 6:10). This appeal is particularly pressing in this holy season of preparation
for Easter. As I offer my prayerful good wishes for a blessed and fruitful Lenten
period, I entrust all of you to the intercession of the Mary Ever Virgin and cordially
impart my Apostolic Blessing.