Editor's
note: The
following Letter On the Year of Faith was presented by Cardinal Jorge Mario
Bergoglio, S.J., now Pope Francis, on October 1, 2012, the Feast of Saint
Thérèse of the Child Jesus, to the Catholics of the Archdiocese of Buenos
Aires. It is published with the express permission of the Archdiocese of Buenos
Aires.
By Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J.
Dear brethren:
One
of the most powerful impressions in recent decades has been the experience of
finding closed doors. Growing insecurity has been leading people, little
by little, to lock the doors, to install safety devices and security cameras, to distrust the stranger who
calls at the door. Nevertheless, in some neighborhoods there still are
doors that are open. The closed door is a perfect symbol of today’s
world. It is something more than a simple sociological fact; it is
an existential reality that characterizes a life style, a way to stop
confronting reality, dealing with others, and facing the future. The
closed door of my house, which is the intimate place of my dreams, my hopes and
sufferings and also of my joys, is closed to others. And this is not just
about my material house; this is true also of the enclosed area of my
life, my heart. Fewer and fewer people can cross this threshold.
The security of some shuttered doors guards the insecurity of a life that is
becoming more fragile and less susceptible to the risks of life and to the love
of others.
The
image of an open door has always been the symbol of light, friendship, joy,
freedom, confidence. How we need to recover these things! The
closed door harms us, paralyzes us, separates us.
We
are beginning the Year of Faith, and paradoxically the image that the Pope
suggests is that of the door, a door that we have to go through so as to be
able to encounter the One whom we need so much. The Church, through the
voice and heart of her Shepherd, Benedict XVI, is inviting us to cross the
threshold, to take a step that is a free, interior
decision: to encourage us to enter into a new life.
The
door of faith reminds us of the Acts of the Apostles: “And when they
arrived, they gathered the Church together and declared all that God had done
with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts
14:27). God always takes the initiative and does not want anyone to be
excluded. God calls at the door of our hearts: “Behold, I stand at
the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will
come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev 3:20). Faith is a
grace, a gift from God. “Only through believing, then, does faith grow
and become stronger... in a continuous crescendo of self-abandonment into the
hands of a love that seems to grow constantly because it has its origin in God”
(Apostolic Letter Porta fidei, 7).
Passing
through this door involves setting out on a journey that lasts a lifetime,
while we walk onward past so many doors that nowadays are opened to us, many of
them wrong doors that very attractively but deceptively invite us to take
another path; doors that promise an empty, narcissistic happiness with an
expiration date; doors that lead us to cross-roads where, whatever option
we follow, it will in the short or long term cause anxiety and bewilderment;
self-referential doors that tire themselves out with no guarantee of a
future. While the doors of the houses are closed, the doors of the
shopping malls are always open. Someone goes through the door of faith,
this threshold is crossed, when the Word of God is proclaimed and the heart
allows itself to be molded by the grace that transforms it. A grace that
bears a specific name, and this name is Jesus. Jesus is the door (Jn
10:9). He, and He alone, is and always will be the door. No one
goes to the Father except through Him (see Jn 14:6). If there is no
Christ, there is no way to God. As a door He opens up for us the way to
God, and as the Good Shepherd He is the only One who cares for us at the cost
of his own life.
Jesus
is the door and calls at our door so that we will let him cross the threshold
of our life. “Be not afraid ... open the doors to Christ,” Blessed John
Paul II told us at the beginning of his pontificate. Open the doors of
the heart as the disciples did in Emmaus, asking the Lord to remain with
us so that we can go through the doors of faith: the same Lord leads
us to understand the reasons why we believe, so as then to go out and
proclaim him. Faith involves deciding to be with the Lord so as to
live with him and to share him with our brethren.
We
give thanks to God for this opportunity to appreciate our life as children of
God, through this journey of faith that started in our life with the waters of
baptism, the inexhaustible and fruitful shower that makes us children of God and
brothers and sisters as members of the Church. The goal, the destination
or the purpose is the encounter with God with whom we have already entered into
communion and who desires to restore us, purify us, lift us up, sanctify us,
and give us the happiness that our heart yearns for.
We
wish to thank God because He sowed in the heart of our Archdiocesan Church the
desire to spread and to give with open hands this gift of Baptism. It is
the result of a long journey that began with the question, “How can we be the
Church in Buenos Aires?” and proceeded by way of the [Archdiocesan] Synod
Report [Estado de Asamblea] so as to take root in the [Archdiocesan]
Mission Statement [Estado de Misión] as a permanent pastoral
option.
Beginning
this Year of Faith is a new call to deepen in our lives this faith that we have
received. Professing the faith with our mouths implies living it in our
hearts and showing it in our works: a witness and a public
commitment. The disciple of Christ, son or daughter of the Church, can
never think that believing is a private act. This is an important and
intense challenge for every day, since we are convinced that “he who began a
good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil
1:6). Considering our reality, as missionary disciples, we ask:
“What does crossing the threshold of faith challenge us to do?”
Crossing the threshold of faith challenges us to discover that although
it seems today that death reigns in its various forms and that history is ruled
by the law of the most powerful or the most cunning, and although hatred and
ambition operate as driving forces of so many human struggles, nevertheless we
are absolutely and decisively convinced that this sad reality can change and
must change, because “if God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31,
37).
Crossing the threshold of faith means not being ashamed to have the
heart of a child who, because he still believes in impossible things, can live
in hope—the one thing that is capable of giving meaning and transforming
history. To ask for it without ceasing, to pray without fainting and to
adore so as be transfigured by what we contemplate.
Crossing the threshold of faith leads us to beg for each one of us the
“mind... which was in Jesus Christ” (Phil 2:5), so that we may experience a new
way of thinking, of communicating, of being in the family, of planning the
future, of living out the virtue of charity and our vocation.
Crossing the threshold of faith is acting, trusting in the power of the
Holy Spirit present in the Church and who also manifests himself in the signs
of the times; it is accompanying the constant movement of life and of
history without falling into the paralyzing defeatism that regards any time in
the past as being better; it is a sense of urgency to think of something
new, to contribute something new, to create something new, kneading into life
“the new leaven of justice and holiness” (cf. 1 Cor 5:8).
Crossing the threshold of faith implies keeping our sense of wonder and a
heart that has not lazily settled into a routine, but is capable of recognizing
that every time a woman brings a child into this world she is logically betting
on life and on the future, that when we protect the innocence of children we
guarantee the truth of a tomorrow, and when we act as caregivers for an elderly
person we perform an act of justice and cherish our roots.
Crossing the threshold of faith is work performed with dignity and a
vocation of service, with the self-denial of someone who in either case goes
back to daily life to begin again without slackening, as though all that had
already been done were just one step in the journey toward the kingdom, the
fullness of life. It is the silent hope after the daily sowing,
contemplating the fruit gathered and thanking the Lord because He is good and
asking him not to abandon the work of his hands (Ps 138).
Crossing the threshold of faith demands striving for freedom and peaceful
coexistence even though everyone around us is faltering, in the certainty that
the Lord is asking us to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with
our God (Micah 6:8).
Crossing the threshold of faith entails the ongoing conversion of our
attitudes, the manners and the standards by which we live; voicing our
thoughts in new, unvarnished terms, without papering over differences;
offering the new form that Jesus Christ imprints on anyone whom He has touched
with his hand and his Gospel of Life, encouraging one another to do something
unprecedented for society and for the Church; because “if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17-21).
Crossing the threshold of faith leads us to forgive and to be able to
put on a smile; it is drawing near to everyone who lives a marginalized
existence and calling him by name, it is caring for the frailties of the
weakest and supporting their tottering steps, certain that whatever we do for
the least of our brethren we do for Jesus himself (Mt 25:40).
Crossing the threshold of faith means celebrating life, allowing
ourselves to be transformed so that we become one with Jesus at the table of
the Eucharist celebrated in community, and being there with our hand and our
heart busy working on the great project of the Kingdom: all the rest will
be given us as well (Mt 6:33).
Crossing the threshold of faith is living in the spirit of the [Second
Vatican] Council and of Aparecida [Brazil, site of the Fifth General Conference
of Latin American Bishops in 2007], in the Church of the open doors, not only
so as to receive the Gospel but fundamentally so as to go out and fill with the
Gospel message the streets and the lives of the people of our times.
Crossing the threshold of faith for our Archdiocesan Church means to
feel that we are confirmed in the Mission to be a Church that lives, prays and
works in a missionary key.
Crossing the threshold of faith is, finally, accepting the newness of
the life of the Risen Lord in our poor flesh so as to make it a sign of his new
life.
Meditating
on all these things, we look to Mary, that She, the Virgin Mother, might
accompany us in this crossing of the threshold of faith and draw down upon our
Church in Buenos Aires the Holy Spirit, as in Nazareth, so that just like her
we might adore the Lord and go out to proclaim the marvels that He has done
among us.
October 1, 2012,
Feast of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J.
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