Will Russia Come Back to Life?

Weekly Briefing 18 December 2012 Putin Calls for Three-Child Family to Become the Norm by Steven W. Mosher and Elizabeth Crnkovich What do you do when your country is dying, one coffin at a time? Well, if you are Russian President Vladimir Putin, you call upon Russian couples to be fruitful and multiply, and have at least three children. It is hard to exaggerate the demographic straits that Mother Russia finds itself in. According to the projections of the UN Population Division--we are speaking here of the so-called “low variant,” historically the most accurate--the Russian population will shrink by more than 30 million by mid-century if current trends continue. The population will age rapidly, from an average age of 37.9 in 2010 to and average age of 49 by 2050. In other words, most Russians will be beyond their childbearing years, and Russia’s demographic fate will be sealed. The economy will follow the population into the tank. No economy can thrive when a population is moribund, filling more coffins than cradles. This is not the first time that Putin has urged his fellow citizens to be prolific. In fact, he has been working more than a decade to reverse his country’s demographic decline. Back in 2005, Putin announced that Russian couples would receive the equivalent of $9,000 upon the birth of a second child or higher order child. While this baby bonus created a bump in the birth rate, the numbers of births have begun to level off again. Many couples have already reached their desired number of children, received their bonuses, and are aborting any subsequent children they conceive. Abortion is still occurring in epidemic proportions in Russia. The birth rate has remained slightly higher than before, but is still too low to offset population losses. Russia continues to lose several hundred thousands people a year. Putin took the occasion of his annual State of the Nation address to issue a call for more children. “The three child family should become the norm in Russia,” he declared. Since the average Russian woman has only one child, this would mean a considerable increase in fertility. Along with encouraging Russian women to have more children, he said, Russia must also look for ways to support and help them once they have had the children. Putin was vague about what this additional support might entail, but his administration is in discussions with pro-life and pro-family groups on this point. For their part, hundreds of pro-life and pro-family organizations, together with large families and activists from all over the Russian Federation, are joining together into a National Parents Association (NPA). The CEO of the fledgling NPA, Alexey Komov, says that "President Putin, in his inaugural address, gave a clear message to everyone: Three children must become the norm in Russia or the country will face a serious demographic challenge going forward. We at the NPA are promoting the natural family-a husband and wife and their natural or adoptive children--and are in dialogue with State authorities to define effective family and demographic policy." One major obstacle to raising the Russian birthrate is the prevalence of abortion. The average Russian woman has seven abortions in her lifetime. As long as society fails to recognize the value of human life, and wantonly destroys it in large numbers, it will be difficult to establish a new three-child norm. Abortion must cease being a way of life in Russia if her people are to survive. Putin has given Russian families a tangible incentive, the baby bonus, to have children. He and his administration are now attempting to shift cultural norms in favor of the three-child family. But whether or not he succeeds will depend upon pro-life and pro-family advocates like Alexey Komov, and their efforts to turn Putin’s exhortations and financial support into a nationwide movement. On their success hinges the fate of the Russian people.

Escriva and Benedict XVI: On Similar Advent Experiences

This is Advent. This is the eschatology of “already” – “not yet.” Christ seems absent but He is already here in us as His images, baptized into  Him, but not yet fully achieved by self-giving in work and family life.

Escriva:

“I have told you that one day while looking at a map of the world, a man who was not a bad-hearted fellow but who had no faith said to me, ‘Look, from north to south, and from east to west. Do you see?’ ‘What is there to see?’ ‘The failure of Christ,’ he said. ‘For so many years he has been trying to open men’s hearts to his teaching, and you see the results. There are no Christians.’

                “At first I felt very sad. But that sentiment soon gave way to love and gratitude. For God our Lord, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, has left men completely free. And moreover the Son himself has become man: semetipsum exinanivit formam servi accipiens he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant). He took on our own wretched flesh: sinless, but flesh like ours. Let us look at Christ on the Cross, and his victory over death, his rising again. And the wonderful seed he sowed in the hearts of that group of holy men and women who worked alongside the first disciples.

                “But let us return to my unhappy friend’s assertion: the failure of Christ. You have heart me say so often that Christ has not failed, because  the teaching of Christ enriches the world today. Nevertheless God has willed that men should be free. It is we men who are unwilling. The Redemption is taking place at this very moment. And you and I are co-redeemers.”

Benedict XVI:

            “What really torments us today, what bothers us much more is the inefficacy of Christianity: after two thousand years of Christian history, we can see nothing that might be a new reality in the world; rather, we find it sunk in the same old horrors, the same despair, and the same hopes as ever. And in our own lives, too, we inevitably experience time and again how Christian reality is powerless against all the other forces that influence us and make demands on us. And if, after all our labor and efforts to live on the basis of what is Christian, we draw up the final balance sheet, then often enough the feeling comes over us that the reality has been taken away from us, dissolved, and all that remains in the end is just an appeal to the feeble light of our goodwill. And then in moments of discouragement like that , when we look back on the path we have traveled, the question forces its way into our minds: What is all this array of dogma and worship and Church, if at the end of it all we are still thrown back onto our own poor resources? That in turn brings us back again, in the end, to the question about the gospel of the Lord: What did he actually proclaim and bring among men? (...) Christ’s message can be summed up in one saying: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel’ (Mk. 1, 15).”

            The answer  of Benedict XVI is faith and the understanding that God cannot be seen as we see neon signs and dollar bills. Christ said so. When He received the messengers from John the Baptist asking if He was the one that was to come or should they look for another, He responded that miracles attesting to His presence: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them, and blessed is he who is not scandalized in Him… these miracles point to His presence here and now. But to see Him and not be scandalized, we have to keep going through conversion so that we can become “like Him” and therefore know Him.

            But St. Josemaria has something more concrete but no less mysterious: not only to become “like Him” but to become Him. The way is the same. It is faith, but faith with the deeds of small things in the ordinary life of work and family life.

            Most recently, Benedict XVI said the same at the end of his Schulerkreis on September 2, 2012: “Dear friends, let us ask the Lord to give us this gift. St James tells us today in the Reading: you must not limit yourselves to hearing the Word, you must put it into practice. This is a warning about the intellectualization of the faith and of theology. It is one of my fears at this time, when I read so many intellectual things: they become an intellectual game in which “we pass each other the ball”, in which everything is an intellectual sphere that does not penetrate and form our lives, and, thus, does not lead us to the truth. I think that these words of St James are directed to us theologians: do not just listen, do not just intellectualize — be doers, let yourself be formed by the truth, let yourself be led by it! Let us pray to the Lord that this may happen, and that like this the truth may have power over us, and acquire power in the world through us.”

An Email Exchange With Joe Wood

Joe sends me something very interesting on Vatican II and wishes me "a good Advent." I respond:

Joe,

   Yes, quite good, and grateful to have received it. A "good Advent" = a "good eschatology" of maranatha rather than a "dies irae," if I read Benedict and St. Josemaria correctly. (That may need explaining but I'll leave it at that). Merry Christmas if connections are disrupted before the 25th. Fr. Bob

Joseph Wood	3:52 PM (20 hours ago)
to me

Are dies irae and maran atha mutually exclusive?

Robert Connor	10:18 PM (14 hours ago)
To the question as to whether “maranatha” and “Dies Irae” are mutually exclusive?

Dear Joe,

   I suspect the short answer is to be found on pages 8-11 of Ratzinger's "Eschatology." They are mutually exclusive in that maranatha is Christian hope that Christ is present now in my becoming Him in the giftedness of self in work. It is all of Opus Dei. Christ lives (The Way 584 cf. the Rodriguez critical edition). Christ wants to be placed at the summit of all human activities - now. 

  Dies Irae means that Christ is in the past and in the future. He has gone to heaven and will come at the end of history to exercise the terrible judgment against sin. 

   In the meantime, we are bored, bourgeois, extrinsic, formalistic, living a minimalism and fearful of the final judgment. Ratzinger asks: "However did we arrive at that tedious and tedium-laden Christianity which we moderns observe and, indeed, know from our own experience?” (Ratzinger, p. 8). He asks again: "Isn't this shifting of the axis the real cause of the crisis in Christianity? Hasn't Christianity elected to make the past its preferred moment in time and so deprived itself of the future?" (p. 10). 

   Therefore, the distinction between the two expressions is immense. Fr. Bob

Joseph Wood	7:18 AM (5 hours ago)
to me

Thanks very much, as always.  I had a more limited notion of dies irae, to mean only a final day of judgment when Christ comes at the end of time, as the Catechism describes, and not ruling out the conclusion that we are in the end times since Christ came, that He continues to act, and that through self-giving we are indeed to put Him at the summit of all activities including work, in this beginning of eternal life we now travel through, until that final day.  

A question that continues to interest me, on which many of the Work seem reluctant to comment: does the purpose of the job or task at hand affect our ability to out Christ at its summit?  Many of the jobs we engage in seem aimed at what is essentially rent seeking, or extracting more value from activity (and from creation) than we put in.

Dear Joe,

   "Rent seeking" is to understand the self to be in the down time (desert) before the terrible finale of the "Dies Irae." Could this not be the entire point of the re-mystification of work as the self-given and therefore the activity of work itself as prayer (if intended as service to another), the giftedness of the work itself (and its concomitant quality) and the affirmation and sanctification of the other (apostolate)? Doesn't #6 of "Laborem exercens" explain that work is the act of a subject that actualizes itself (himself) as "gift?" And isn't this the point of "Charitas in Veritate" of BXVI where he says "The great challenge before us, accentuated by the problems of development in this global era and made even more urgent by the economic and financial crisis  is to demonstrate, in thinking and behaviour, not only that traditional principles of social ethics like transparency  honesty and responsibility cannot be ignored or attenuated, but also that in commercial relationships the principle of gratuitousness and the logic of gift as an expression of fraternity can and must find their place within normal economic activity. This is a human demand at the present time, but it is also demanded by economic logic. It is a demand both of charity and of truth" (#36).

    Add to this John Paul II's "Letter to Artists" where the work produced is fraught with quality of the person of the artist himself. 

   Isn't the point that Christ becomes incarnate ever again and persistently in my flesh and work within the world (as the subject - me)? and therefore "Maranatha"!! That is I am making him present in the world now – Come, Lord Jesus, Come now! -  and insofar as you and I are at the summit of all human activities, Christ is at the summit of all human activities - which is the deep meaning of “It is Christ passing by.” That is, this whole understanding of the difference of maranatha and "Dies Irae" is the very crisis of Christianity and of the global culture. Having a “good Advent” depends on this.

Fr. Bob

There Is A Place

There is a place prepared for little children

Those we once lived for, those we deeply mourn,

Those who from play, from learning and from laughter

Cruelly were torn.

There is a place where hands which held ours tightly

Now are released beyond all hurt and fear

Healed by that love which also feels our sorrow

Tear after tear.

There is a place where all the lost potential

Yields its full promise, finds its lost intent;

Silenced no more, young voices echo freely

As they were meant.

There is a place where God will hear our questions,

Suffer our anger, share our speechless grief.

Gently repair the innocence of loving

And of belief.

Jesus, who bids us to be like little children

Shields those our arms are yearning to embrace,

God will ensure that all are reunited;

There is a place.

by John Bell

Sent by Nick Finamore who heard it at a church in Concord, Ma. The lyrics are of a hymn by a Scottish hymn writer named John Bell - written in response to a very similar massacre at a school in Dunblane, Scotland in 1996. 

Icon of the Times

Christ, The Truth, Knows Me From Within: BXVI Schulerkreis 9/2/12

If we read today, for example, in the Letter of James: “You were made in the word and in the truth”, which of us would dare to rejoice in the truth that we have been given? The question immediately arises: but how can one have the truth? This is intolerance! Today the idea of truth and that of intolerance are almost completely fused, and so we no longer dare to believe in the truth or to speak of the truth. It seems to be far away, it seems something better not to refer to. No one can say: I have the truth — this is the objection raised — and, rightly so, no one can have the truth. It is the truth that possesses us, it is a living thing! We do not possess it but are held by it. Only if we allow ourselves to be guided and moved by the truth, do we remain in it. Only if we are, with it and in it, pilgrims of truth, then it is in us and for us. I think that we need to learn anew about “not-having-the-truth”. Just as no one can say: I have children — they are not our possession, they are a gift, and as a gift from God, they are given to us as a responsibility — so we cannot say: I have the truth, but the truth came to us and impels us. We must learn to be moved and led by it. And then it will shine again: if the truth itself leads us and penetrates us.

Dear friends, let us ask the Lord to give us this gift. St James tells us today in the Reading: you must not limit yourselves to hearing the Word, you must put it into practice. This is a warning about the intellectualization of the faith and of theology. It is one of my fears at this time, when I read so many intellectual things: they become an intellectual game in which “we pass each other the ball”, in which everything is an intellectual sphere that does not penetrate and form our lives, and, thus, does not lead us to the truth. I think that these words of St James are directed to us theologians: do not just listen, do not just intellectualize — be doers, let yourself be formed by the truth, let yourself be led by it! Let us pray to the Lord that this may happen, and that like this the truth may have power over us, and acquire power in the world through us.

The Church has set the words of Deuteronomy — “Where is there a people to whom God is so close as our God is close to us, every time we invoke him?” — at the centre of the Divine Office ofCorpus Christi, and gave it new meaning: where is there a people to whom God is as close as our God is to us? In the Eucharist this has become the full reality. It is of course not merely an exterior aspect: someone can stand near the tabernacle and, at the same time, be far from the living God. What matters is inner closeness! God came so close to us that he himself became a man: this should disconcert and surprise us again and again! He is so close that he is one of us. He knows the human being, he knows the “feeling” of the human being, he knows it from within; he has experienced all its joys and all its suffering. As a man, he is close to me, close “within earshot” — so close that he hears me and I am aware: He hears me and answers me, even though perhaps not quite as I imagined.

Let us be filled again with this joy: where is there a people to whom God is so close as our God is to us? So close that he is one of us, touches me from within. Yes, he enters me in the holy Eucharist. A bewildering thought. On this process, St Bonaventure once used in his communion prayers a formula that shakes, almost frightens, one. He said: my Lord, how did you ever think of entering the dirty latrine of my body? Yes, he enters into our misery, he does it knowingly and in order to penetrate us, to clean us and to renew us, so that, through us, in us, the truth may be in the world and bring salvation. Let us ask the Lord forgiveness for our indifference, for our misery that makes us think only of ourselves, for our selfishness that does not seek the truth but follows habit, and that perhaps often makes Christianity resemble a mere system of habits. Let us ask that he come with power into our souls, that he be present in us and through us — and that in this way joy may be born in us again: God is here, and loves me. He is our salvation! Amen.

Service is the Rent You Pay For Living

A very experienced person recently wrote the above topic:  “Service is the rent you pay for living.”

December 14, 2012 St. John of the Cross

  I take this to be the grounding of John Paul II to which he applied St. Thomas’s metaphysics of being and the phenomenology of Husserl (through Scheler) and came up with the “I” to get at the “I Am” of the burning bush of Exodus 3, 14. So that by experiencing self as “I” going out of self he would be able to give an account of the “I Am” of Christ: “When I am lifted up from the earth you will know that I am” (Jn. 8, 28). In my mind this is presupposed in Ratzinger’s Thesis 3 of “Behold the Pierced One;” that is, you cannot know who Christ is as “I –Son” loving and obeying the Father unless you have a like experience yourself (since like is known by like).

Tomorrow’s feast of St. John of the Cross [Wojtyla’s mentor] (December 14):

This excerpt from A Spiritual Canticle by St. John of the cross (Red. B, str. 36-37) was written amidst great suffering while the Saint was in prison.  It is used in the Roman office of readings for the feast (liturgical memorial) of St. John of the Cross on December 14.  It makes clear why is he known as Saint John of the Cross--he expresses here that the only path to profound knowledge of God and the joy that this brings is through tribulation and suffering.  But this difficult path is worth traveling.  For Christ, the destination, is like a mine with many pockets containing great treasures.  So he encourages us to dig deeply into Christ! “Though holy doctors have uncovered many mysteries and wonders, and devout souls have understood them in this earthly condition of ours, yet the greater part still remains to be unfolded by them, and even to be understood by them. We must then dig deeply in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many pockets containing treasures: however deep we dig we will never find their end or their limit. Indeed, in every pocket new seams of fresh riches are discovered on all sides. For this reason the apostle Paul said of Christ: In him are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. The soul cannot enter into these treasures, nor attain them, unless it first crosses into and enters the thicket of suffering, enduring interior and exterior labors, and unless it first receives from God very many blessings in the intellect and in the senses, and has undergone long spiritual training. All these are lesser things, disposing the soul for the lofty sanctuary of the knowledge of the mysteries of Christ: this is the highest wisdom attainable in this life. Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there its consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross. Saint Paul therefore urges the Ephesians not to grow weary in the midst of tribulations, but to be steadfast and rooted and grounded in love, so that they may know with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height and the depth – to know what is beyond knowledge, the love of Christ, so as to be filled with all the fullness of God. The gate that gives entry into these riches of his wisdom is the cross; because it is a narrow gate, while many seek the joys that can be gained through it, it is given to few to desire to pass through it.”

Advent 2012

If you view Advent as a time of purification, of evacuating the self to make room for Christ in you at Christmas, it will appear as a little Lent. It would be likening Advent to the state of desert, which is precisely the meaning of Lent as desert experience. Benedict XVI explained that the German word for Lent is “Season of Fasting,” of overcoming the self in order to stand fast against the natural tendency to dissipation.

                Advent has a different and bigger meaning. It is salvation history itself writ small. Its proper understanding demands refocusing the meaning of “God-with-us.” Indeed, God has become man in Jesus Christ and is with us, and continues to be with us. He has not gone off to heaven leaving us alone in what can seem to be a desert. Recall that the apostles returned from Olivet – the mount of the Ascension – rejoicing. He continued to be with them invisibly in much the same way that He was with the two disciples – unrecognized - on the road to Emmaus.

   In an early sermon (1964), Benedict explained that because of the discrepancy between Christ’s announcement that “the time is accomplished: the kingdom of God has arrived,”[1] and the apparent failure of said arrival, “Christian theology… turned the kingdom of God into a kingdom of heaven that is beyond this mortal life; the well-being of men became a salvation of souls, which again comes to pass beyond this life, after death.”[2] In a word, the expectation of the kingdom of God taking place on this earth was put aside and vaulted out of reach into the beyond of space and time. Heaven is “up there” and beyond the “now.” The presence of Christ on earth is put on hold and stored. It now made sense that He would not be recognized since He was not here now.

                Even when physically present, He also seemed not to be recognized by John the Baptist. From jail, John sent out messengers asking Christ if He was really the Messiah or “shall we look for another?”[3] Christ responds: “Go and tell John what it is that you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.”[4] Of course, John identified Christ at the Baptism when He heard the voice of the Father and saw the Dove; yet he himself testified twice “And I did not know Him” (Jn. 1, 31, 33). Puzzling! He sees, hears, gives testimony with a burning triumphalism that He, the Messiah,“ will clean out his threshing floor” and “the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire” (Lk. 3, 17). And so, John knows, but doesn’t know.

                And so it is with Advent. Benedict describes it with a kind of short hand: “already,” “not yet.”[5] That is, Christ is present already but not fully so yet. What does this mean?

                First consider the remarks of St. Josemaria Escriva concerning the locution he received during Mass on August 7, 1931: “At the moment of elevating the Sacred Host, without losing proper recollection, without being distracted… there came to my mind, with extraordinary force and clarity, the phrase of Scripture ‘et si exaltatus fuero a terra, Omnia/omnes traham ad me ipsum” [And I , if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all things/men to myself] (Jn. 12, 32). Ordinarily, in the face of the supernatural, I am afraid. Afterward comes the ne timeas [do not be afraid], it is I. And I understood that it would be the men and women of God who would lift the Cross with the doctrines of Christ over the pinnacle of all human activity… And I saw Christ our Lord triumph, drawing all things to himself.

                “Despite feeling  empty of virtue and knowledge (humility is truth…, without beating around the bush), I wanted to write books of fire that would run through the world like a living flame, filling mean with their light and warmth, converting poor hearts into read-hot coals, to offer them to Jesus as rubies of his royal crown” [see ftn. #6 below]

                Coverdale continues, “Reflecting years later on this experience, Escriva said that he understood our Lord to be saying those words to him ‘not in the sense in which the Scripture says them. I say it to you in the sense that you are to raise me up in all human activities, in the sense that all over the world there should be Christians with a personal and most free dedication, that they be other Christs”[6] (emphasis mine).

                Recently, to my astonishment because of its identity with this locution of Escriva, I discovered Chapter VII of Vatican II’s “Lumen Gentium” #48 to read: “Christ, having been lifted up from the earth has drawn all men to Himself. Rising from the dead He sent His life-giving Spirit upon His disciples and through Him has established His Body which is the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation. Sitting at the right hand of the Father [this is not a place but the locus of supreme power], He is continually active in the world that He might lead men to the Church and through it join them to Himself and that He might make them partakers of His glorious life by nourishing them with His own Body and Blood. Therefore the promised restoration which we are awaiting has already begun in Christ, is carried forward in the mission of the Holy Spirit and through Him continues in the Church…” (emphasis mine).

 And the next paragraph begins with “Already the final age of the world is with us (cf. a Cor. 10, 11) and the renewal of the world is irrevocably under way;’ it is even now anticipated in a certain real way, for the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real though imperfect.” This “sanctity… real though imperfect” is explained in the next paragraph with “we are truly called and indeed are children of God (cf. 1 Jn.  3, 1) though we have not yet appeared with Christ in glory (cf. Col. 3, 4) in which we will be like to God, for we will see him as he is (cf. 1 Jn. 3, 2).  This ultimately means that to see God as He is, we must be like God since only God knows God.[7] That is, since there is only one one Son of God, to be children of God we must all become other Christs.

                It means that Christ is present in the world here and now insofar as you and I have become “other Christs.” It does not refer to an objectified institution - an “It” - such as Christendom. It refers to the transformation of “I’s” into the “I Am” of the burning bush[8] - subjects into the Subject -  Jesus Christ as face and name of God. St. Paul speaks about a growth of Christ in the world by a transformation of persons into Christ. It is not simply a following of Christ or an imitation of Christ. John Paul II quotes St. Augustine saying to the baptized: “Let us rejoice and give thanks for we have become not only Christians, but Christ (…) Marvel and rejoice: we have become Christ!”[9] Christ becomes progressively present in the world by the transformation of Christians – and others - into Christ.

                Emphasis should be put on the words “in the world” since this most personal and intimate encounter with Christ can take place in the exercise of ordinary work and family life. Did not Vatican II emphasize that the laity seek the kingdom of God – which is the Person of Christ Himself[10] - by engaging in temporal affairs.[11] And did not John Paul II emphasize that this becoming Christ by working in the world is the meaning of “secularity” as the “characteristic” of the laity?[12]

                And is not the whole point of the Year of Faith the recovery of the enthusiasm for having the Lord with us? Doesn’t Benedict XVI see the present state of affairs – without and within the Church - as a practical atheism that is like the chosen people in the desert? At one point in his “Eschatology,” Ratzinger quipped “However did we arrive at that tedious and tedium-laden Christianity which we moderns observe and, indeed, know from our own experience?”[13] The task before us is similar to the People of God who had traversed the desert with Moses and was on the point of taking the Promised Land. At the negative report of the scouts who had been sent to reconnoiter it, the people, turned back on themselves and counting only on their own strength, grumbled against the Lord and against Moses. Caleb and Joshua alone trusted in the Lord with faith: “The country which we went through and explored is a fine, rich land. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us in and give us that land, a land flowing with milk and honey. But do not rebel against the Lord! You need not be afraid of the people of that land… Their defense has left them, but the Lord is with us. Therefore, do not be afraid of them.”[14]

                “It is Advent… The first thing we have to accept is, ever and again, this reality of an enduring Advent. If we do that, we shall begin to realize that the borderline between ‘before Christ’ and ‘after Christ’ does not run through historical time, in an outward sense, and cannot be drawn on any map; it runs through our own hearts. Insofar as we are living on a basis of selfishness, of egoism, then even today we are ‘before Christ.’ But in this time of Advent, let us ask the Lord to grant that we may live less and less ‘before Christ,’ and certainly not ‘after Christ,’ but truly with Christ and in Christ; with him who is indeed Christ yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13, 8). Amen.”[15]

---

[1] J. Ratzinger, “What It Means to Be a Christian,” Ignatius (2006)28.

[2] Ibid

[3] Lk. 7, 19.

[4]Ibid.

[5] J. Ratzinger, “Dogma and Preaching,” Franciscan Herald Press (1985) 71-77.

[6] J. Coverdale, “Uncommon Faith,” Scepter (2002) 89-90.

[7] “No one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Mt. 11, 27).

[8] Exodus 3, 14.

[9] John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor #21.

[10] “The kingdom of God is not a concept, a doctrine or a program subject to free interpretation, but it is before all else a person with the face and name of Jesus of Nazareth, the image of the invisible God;” John Paul II, “Redemptoris Missio” #18.

[11] “By reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will. They live in the world, that is, they are engaged in each and every work and business of the earth and in the ordinary circumstances of social and family life which, as it were, constitute their very existence. There they are called by God that , being led by the spirit to the Gospel, they may contribute to the sanctification of the world, as from within like leaven, by fulfilling their own particular duties;” LG #31.

[12] John Paul II “Christifideles Laici” #15.

[13] J. Ratzinger, “Eschatology,” CUA (1988) 8.

[14] Numbers 14. 8-9.

[15] J. Ratzinger, “What It Means To be a Christian,” op. cit. 40.