October 5, Respect Life Sunday
John Paul II and Bishop William Giaquinta, spiritual fathers who accompany us on the road to holiness!
Both John Paul II and Bishop William Giaquinta dreamed and prayed for the holiness of our society. Their dream has been entrusted to us and challenges us to examine our fidelity in being "leaven in the world" and "building a culture of life".John Paul II and Bishop William Giaquinta, spiritual fathers who accompany us on the road to holiness!
Excerpts from Pope John Paul II's encyclical, Evangelium vitae:
"The Creator has entrusted man's life to his responsible concern, not to make arbitrary use of it, but to preserve it with wisdom and to care for it with loving fidelity. The God of the Covenant has entrusted the life of every individual to his or her fellow human beings, brothers and sisters, according to the law of reciprocity in giving and receiving, of self-giving and of the acceptance of others. In the fullness of time, by taking flesh and giving his life for us, the Son of God showed what heights and depths this law of reciprocity can reach. With the gift of his Spirit, Christ gives new content and meaning to the law of reciprocity, to our being entrusted to one another. The Spirit who builds up communion in love creates between us a new fraternity and solidarity, a true reflection of the mystery of mutual self-giving and receiving proper to the Most Holy Trinity. The Spirit becomes the new law which gives strength to believers and awakens in them a responsibility for sharing the gift of self and for accepting others, as a sharing in the boundless love of Jesus Christ himself."
"We need to bring the Gospel of life to the heart of every man and woman and to make it penetrate every part of society."
"All together, we must build a new culture of life: new, because it will be able to confront and solve today's unprecedented problems affecting human life; new, because it will be adopted with deeper and more dynamic conviction by all Christians; new, because it will be capable of bringing about a serious and courageous cultural dialogue among all parties. While the urgent need for such a cultural transformation is linked to the present historical situation, it is also rooted in the Church's mission of evangelization. The purpose of the Gospel, in fact, is 'to transform humanity from within and to make it new'. Like the yeast which leavens the whole measure of dough (cf. Mt 13:33), the Gospel is meant to permeate all cultures and give them life from within, so that they may express the full truth about the human person and about human life.
"Excerpts from Bishop Giaquinta's Love is Revolution:
"We cannot expect to overthrow society, but we must have the courage of presenting to everyone an exact idea of what a world of authentic brotherhood and sanctity would be like. True Christianity has more of a job than just making known the maximum of love toward God, or sanctity; it must also make the maximum of love toward the brethren lived, a maximum that derives from the vocation to holiness, the vocation to Christ’s brotherhood. This is the third dimension of sanctity."
"It is necessary for us to know and to make known this need for totality in our relationships, and to arouse everywhere therefore a need for generous and profound living of Christ’s brotherhood."
"If everyone would begin to believe these principles, to speak of them, to discuss them, to defend and spread them with every means available, we would already have accomplished a work of fundamental importance in leavening society."
No comments:
Post a Comment