'SPE SALVI': REPORTS IN THE CATHOLIC MEDIA
People need God to have hope,
pope says in new encyclical
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY, Nov. 30 (CNS) - In an encyclical on Christian hope, Pope Benedict XVI said that, without faith in God, humanity lies at the mercy of ideologies that can lead to "the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice."
The pope warned that the modern age has replaced belief in eternal salvation with faith in progress and technology, which offer opportunities for good but also open up "appalling possibilities for evil."
"Let us put it very simply: Man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope," he said in the encyclical, "Spe Salvi" (on Christian hope), released Nov. 30.
The 76-page text explored the essential connection between faith and hope in early Christianity and addressed what it called a "crisis of Christian hope" in modern times.
It critiqued philosophical rationalism and Marxism and offered brief but powerful profiles of Christian saints -- ancient and modern -- who embodied hope, even in the face of suffering.
The encyclical also included a criticism of contemporary Christianity, saying it has largely limited its attention to individual salvation instead of the wider world, and thus reduced the "horizon of its hope."
"As Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking: How can I save myself? We should also ask: What can I do in order that others may be saved?" it said.
It was the pope's second encyclical and followed his 2006 meditation on Christian love. He worked on the text over the summer during his stay in the Italian mountains and at his villa outside Rome.
The pope said the essential aspect of Christian hope is trust in eternal salvation brought by Christ. In contrast with followers of mythology and pagan gods, early Christians had a future and could trust that their lives would not end in emptiness, he said.
Yet today the idea of "eternal life" frightens many people and strikes them as a monotonous or even unbearable existence, the pope said. It is important, he said, to understand that eternity is "not an unending succession of days in the calendar, but something more like the supreme moment of satisfaction."
"It would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time -- the before and after -- no longer exists," he said. This is how to understand the object of Christian hope, he said.
The encyclical's main section examined how the emphasis on reason and freedom -- embodied in the French revolution and the rise of communism -- sought to displace Christian hope. Redemption was seen as possible through science and political programs, and religious faith was dismissed as irrelevant and relegated to a private sphere.
While praising Karl Marx for his great analytical skill, the pope said Marx made a fundamental error in forgetting that human freedom always includes "freedom for evil," which is not neutralized by social structures.
In the same way, the pope said, those who believe man can be "redeemed" through science and technological advances are mistaken.
"Science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the world unless it is steered by forces that lie outside it," he said.
The pope said that while Christians have a responsibility to work for justice, the hope of building a perfect world here and now is illusory. Hopes for this world cannot by themselves sustain one's faith, he said.
"We need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God," he said.
The second half of the encyclical discussed how Christian hope can be learned and practiced -- particularly through prayer, acceptance of suffering and anticipation of divine judgment.
The pope called prayer a "school of hope," and as an example he held out the late Vietnamese Cardinal Francois Nguyen Van Thuan, who spent 13 years in prison, nine of them in solitary confinement.
In this "situation of seemingly utter hopelessness," the fact that he could still listen and speak to God gave him an increasing power of hope, the pope said.
He emphasized that prayer should not be isolating and should not focus on superficial objectives. Nor can people pray against others, he said.
"To pray is not to step outside history and withdraw to our own private corner of happiness," he said.
"When we pray properly we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well," he said.
Suffering is part of human existence, and the sufferings of the innocent appear to be increasing today, the pope said. He said Christians should do whatever they can to reduce pain and distress.
Yet suffering cannot be banished from this world, and trying to avoid anything that might involve hurt can lead to a life of emptiness, he said. Instead, Christians are called to suffer with and for others, and their capacity to do so depends on their strength of inner hope, he said.
"The saints were able to make the great journey of human existence in the way that Christ had done before them, because they were brimming with great hope," he said.
The pope recalled that in the not-too-distant past, many Christians would "offer up" to Christ their minor daily disappointments and hardships. Perhaps that practice should be revived, he said.
The pope said the idea of judgment -- specifically the Last Judgment of the living and the dead -- touched strongly on Christian hope because it promises justice.
"I am convinced that the question of justice constitutes the essential argument, or in any case the strongest argument, in favor of faith in eternal life," he said.
It is impossible for the Christian to believe that the injustices of history will be the final word, he said.
The Last Judgment should not evoke terror, however, but a sense of responsibility, the pope said. It is a moment of hope, because it combines God's justice and God's grace -- but "grace does not cancel out justice," he said.
"(Grace) is not a sponge which wipes everything away, so that whatever someone has done on earth ends up being of equal value," he said. "Evildoers, in the end, do not sit at table at the eternal banquet beside their victims without distinction, as though nothing had happened."
The pope said the idea of purgatory, as a place of atonement for sins, also has a place in the logic of Christian hope. Heaven is for the "utterly pure" and hell for those who have destroyed all desire for truth and love, but "neither case is normal in human life," he said.
Thus, the souls of many departed may benefit from prayers, he said.
The pope began and ended his encyclical with profiles of two women who exemplified Christian hope. The closing pages praised Mary for never losing hope, even in the darkness of Jesus' crucifixion.
The encyclical opened by describing a similar sense of hope in a 19th-century African slave, St. Josephine Bakhita, who after being flogged, sold and resold, came to discover Christ.
With her conversion, St. Bakhita found the "great hope" that liberated and redeemed her, the pope said.
The pope emphasized that this was different from political liberation as a slave. Christianity "did not bring a message of social revolution," he said, but something totally different: an encounter with "a hope stronger than the sufferings of slavery, a hope which therefore transformed life and the world from within."
'Spe Salvi' at a glance
By John Thavis
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Here at a glance are the main points of Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical,
Spe Salvi (on Christian hope), released Nov. 30:
-- Jesus Christ brought humanity the gift of a "trustworthy hope" in salvation and eternal life, a hope that is directly connected with faith.
-- In the contemporary world, however, religious faith has been replaced with faith in progress and technology, provoking a "crisis of Christian hope."
-- Ideologies like Marxism tried to do without religion and create a perfect society through political structures. Instead, this led to the "greatest forms of cruelty," proving that "a world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope."
-- Some have placed their hope in the mistaken belief that man could be redeemed through science -- but science can destroy the world unless it is guided by religious values.
-- Experience shows that anyone who does not know God "is ultimately without hope," the great hope that sustains life.
-- Christianity cannot limit its attention to the individual and his salvation; Christianity's transforming role includes the wider society.
-- Prayer is an effective "school of hope," as demonstrated by the saints through the centuries. Prayer should not isolate Christians, but make them more responsive to others.
-- Suffering cannot be eliminated in this world but can be transformed by Christian hope. The measure of humanity, for individuals and society, lies in compassion for the suffering.
-- The prospect of divine judgment also offers hope, because it promises God's grace and justice.
'Spe Salvi' challenges modern society a
nd today's Christianity to self-examination
Vatican City, Nov 30, 2007 (CNA).- “Spe Salvi — by hope we were saved,” with these words Pope Benedict XVI begins his second encyclical, which was released today.
He asserts in the second half of his teaching that what is needed today, in a world often considered hopeless, is a self-critique of modern society along with the rediscovery and living of Christian hope.
Beginning in Paragraph number 22 of
Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict challenges both modernity and Christianity to a self-critique.
Modernity must enter into a “dialogue with Christianity and its concept of hope. In this dialogue Christians too, in the context of their knowledge and experience, must learn anew in what their hope truly consists, what they have to offer to the world and what they cannot offer.
Flowing into this self-critique of the modern age there also has to be a self-critique of modern Christianity, which must constantly renew its self-understanding setting out from its roots,” the Pope writes.
The first step that he takes in this analysis is to say that “we must ask ourselves: what does “progress” really mean; what does it promise and what does it not promise?”
Once this is done, the Holy Father explains, “the ambiguity of progress becomes evident.” “Without doubt, it offers new possibilities for good, but it also opens up appalling possibilities for evil — possibilities that formerly did not exist.”
“Yes indeed, reason is God's great gift to man,” the Pope stresses, “and the victory of reason over unreason is also a goal of the Christian life.”
Benedict XVI’s conclusion is that “very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope.”
In this part of the encyclical, the Holy Father analyzes the ways that the condition of mankind affects society and what saves man from this state.
He begins by saying, “[t]he right state of human affairs, the moral well-being of the world can never be guaranteed simply through structures alone, however good they are.”
The pontiff’s second point is that there will never be a perfect government. “Since man always remains free and since his freedom is always fragile, the kingdom of good will never be definitively established in this world. Anyone who promises the better world that is guaranteed to last for ever is making a false promise; he is overlooking human freedom,” insists the Pope.
He summarizes his point by saying, “In other words: good structures help, but of themselves they are not enough. Man can never be redeemed simply from outside.”
After showing that government cannot save man, Pope Benedict engages the other modern belief in salvation by science. “Science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the world unless it is steered by forces that lie outside it,” insists Benedict.
However, modern Christianity has not adequately responded to this need. The Holy Father writes that “we must also acknowledge that modern Christianity, faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the individual and his salvation. In so doing it has limited the horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the greatness of its task—even if it has continued to achieve great things in the formation of man and in care for the weak and the suffering.”
Above all, “It is not science that redeems man: man is redeemed by love,” he insists. “In this sense, it is true that anyone who does not know God, even though he may entertain all kinds of hopes, is ultimately without hope,” the Pope reasons.
Continuing his analysis, he raises the question: “are we not in this way falling back once again into an individualistic understanding of salvation, into hope for myself alone, which is not true hope since it forgets and overlooks others? Benedict XVI answers, “Indeed we are not!”
Contrary to being individualistic, “being in communion with Jesus Christ draws us into his “being for all”; it makes it our own way of being. He commits us to live for others, but only through communion with him does it become possible truly to be there for others, for the whole,” the Holy Father explains.
In man’s day to day experience, he lives through “many greater or lesser hopes, different in kind according to the different periods of his life. Young people can have the hope of a great and fully satisfying love; the hope of a certain position in their profession, or of some success that will prove decisive for the rest of their lives,” relates the Pope.
Drawing on these experiences, “Spe Salvi” looks at their normal results. “When these hopes are fulfilled, however, it becomes clear that they were not, in reality, the whole. It becomes evident that man has need of a hope that goes further. It becomes clear that only something infinite will suffice for him, something that will always be more than he can ever attain,” writes Benedict.
“Thus, the Pope reflects, “Biblical hope in the Kingdom of God has been displaced by hope in the kingdom of man, the hope of a better world which would be the real ‘Kingdom of God’.”
Summarizing his dialogue Pope Benedict writes, “[l]et us say once again: we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain.”
Eager to teach people how to live in hope, the Holy Father spends this section of his encyclical on “settings for learning and practicing hope”.
The “first essential setting for learning hope is prayer,” instructs the Pope. Prayer is “a school of hope” about which one can say, “when no one listens to me any more, God still listens to me,” “Spe Salvi” explains.
Contrary to what some might say, praying “is not to step outside history and withdraw to our own private corner of happiness. When we pray properly we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well,” he relates.
“For prayer to develop this power of purification”—Benedict tells his readers—“it must on the one hand be something very personal, an encounter between my intimate self and God, the living God. On the other hand, it must be constantly guided and enlightened by the great prayers of the Church and of the saints”.
Benedict XVI’s second place for learning hope is in “action and suffering”. “All serious and upright human conduct is hope in action,” he says.
“Yet our daily efforts in pursuing our own lives and in working for the world's future either tire us or turn into fanaticism, unless we are enlightened by the radiance of the great hope that cannot be destroyed,” cautions the Pope.
“Like action, suffering is a part of our human existence.”
What heals man, the Holy Father teaches, is not “sidestepping or fleeing from suffering …but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.”
Critiquing modern society, Benedict XVI emphasizes that a “society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through “com-passion” is a cruel and inhuman society.”
“In the end, even the ‘yes’ to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my ‘I’, in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded,” he insightfully explains.
Furthermore, Christian suffering means suffering “with the other and for others; to suffer for the sake of truth and justice; to suffer out of love and in order to become a person who truly loves—these are fundamental elements of humanity, and to abandon them would destroy man himself.”
“Let us say it once again: the capacity to suffer for the sake of the truth is the measure of humanity,” the pontiff reiterates.
Another facet of the Christian encounter with suffering that the Pope recommends is a “devotion—perhaps less practised today but quite widespread not long ago—that included the idea of ‘offering up’ the minor daily hardships that continually strike at us like irritating ‘jabs’, thereby giving them a meaning.”
“Maybe we should consider whether it might be judicious to revive this practice ourselves,” he proposes.
“In the modern era,” the Holy Father explains, “the idea of the Last Judgment has faded into the background: Christian faith has been individualized and primarily oriented towards the salvation of the believer's own soul, while reflection on world history is largely dominated by the idea of progress.”
Yet, “for the great majority of people—we may suppose — there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God,” the Pope reflects.
Meditating on the Last Judgment, Benedict writes, “[w]hat happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter?”
For some, their interior openness to the truth, in the concrete choices of life, “gets covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul,” he says.
Continuing his meditation, the Holy Father writes, that our “encounter with him is the decisive act of judgment. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation.”
Pope Benedict XVI goes on to exhort people to live with others in mind saying, “[o]ur lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve.”
He concludes his reflection by way of a question: “what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may rise?”
Pope's new encyclical explores
'crisis of Christian hope'
VATICAN CITY, Nov. 30, 2007 (CWNews.com) -
Spe Salvi, the 2nd encyclical letter of Pope Benedict XVI, is a profound, tightly reasoned, but surprisingly accessible meditation on the theological virtue of hope.
Following the usual practice, the encyclical takes its title from the first words of the document, a quotation from the 8th chapter of St. Paul's epistle to the Romans:
Spe salvi facti sumus - "For in this hope we were saved."
The 76-page document, presented in 8 chapters, explains the Christian understanding of hope, and contrasts it with the hope that modern secularists place in ideological systems.
Pope Benedict opens the encyclical with the observation that "according to the Christian faith, 'redemption' - salvation - is not simply a given." But the promise of salvation provides 'trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present.'
Christians have confidence in their eternal fate, the Pope said. "The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life."
This sort of hope is not possible, the Pope argues, "without God in the world." But for the believer, hope is enough to changes one's approach to life, one's essential attitude. Thus, the Pope says, the virtue is "not just 'informative' but 'performative.'"
In the early days of Christianity, many people lived in slavery and servitude of various kinds. But Jesus was not a political liberator like Spartacus or Barabbas, Spe Salvi points out. Christ offered hope of a different sort of freedom - a hope that transformed the way his followers looked upon life.
Christians also experienced a new sort of hope with the realization that their salvation lay in a loving personal God, and that through all the difficulties of life they remained children of this loving Father. The faithful no longer saw themselves as helpless in the face of inexorable physical forces or unseen cosmic powers. The Pope writes, "it is not the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but reason, will, love - a Person."
In modern times, however, men have come to place their trust on different powers, the Pope says. Relying more and more heavily on scientific reason, men have pursued a cult of progress, in the belief that reason can ultimately bring about a "kingdom of man," a "new and perfect human community."
This secular faith is at odds with Christian belief, the Pope says. It is also a distorted reflection of the Christian confidence in God. He says: "The present-day crisis of faith is essentially a crisis of Christian hope."
First in the French Revolution and again in Marxist ideology, political thinkers sought to establish a system of society based on reason, thinking that it would ensure the ultimate in human freedom. In fact, the Pope observes, the result was a "trail of appalling destruction."
The problem of these ideological systems, the Pope argues, is their failure to address the innate spiritual dimension of human nature. Refusing to place their trust in God, ideologues ended by leaving men with no hope at all. "Let us put it very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope."
Pope Benedict encourages Christians to cultivate the virtue of hope in several different ways. The first is prayer. "When no one listens to me any more," the Pope writes, "God still listens to me." This is a source of hope, and prayer strengthens the virtue.
"Hope in a Christian sense is always hope for others as well," the Pope continues. Therefore a Christian both shows and strengthens his hope through apostolic work. And when life brings setbacks and suffering - as it inevitably will - these too can be 'settings' for learning hope", the Pontiff writes. While we do our best to ease suffering, he writes, we grow "by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it, and finding meaning through union with Christ, Who suffered with infinite love."
Christian hope points toward the future, the afterlife, and the Final Judgment, Pope Benedict reminds us. "There is justice. There is an 'undoing' of past suffering, a reparation that sets things aright." So the thought of a final reckoning is another 'setting' for hope,
Spe Salvi teaches.
Pope Benedict concludes his encyclical with a chapter entitled "Mary, Star of Hope." The Blessed Virgin, he writes, is an inspiration and a guide for the faithful in learning the virtue of hope. He ends Spe Salvi with a prayer for her intercession, as the ultimate remedy for the current "crisis of Christian hope."