Categoria: Books

God’s Abode with Man: The Mystery of Divine Grace (Os Justi Studies in Catholic Tradition)

Pubblicato da catholicafides

There is only one way for God to be with us, to abide with man: the gift of His grace. The prophets’ sigh, begging the heavens to rend that God may come down, has been answered in Jesus Christ: He is the true temple, God’s living presence in our midst. The one who loves the Son will be loved by His Father, and the Triune God will come to him to make their “abode” with him. Grace therefore brings about the mystery of the inhabitation of the Most Holy Trinity in the soul. This surpassing gift stands at the heart of the Christian life and leads us into eternal life, the happiness for which we were created. Hence, we must safeguard that divine life poured out upon us and seek to grow in it with the help of theological and moral virtues, alongside the gifts of the Holy Spirit. What a treasure a soul possesses, to be in the state of grace, that is, to be beloved of God and a lover of Him! In this little work, Fr. Lanzetta distills the teaching of Sacred Scripture on the mystery of grace, assisted by the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church—above all, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas—and in light of the Church’s Magisterium. Grace is shown to be Christian theology’s inner structure, opening up the understanding of Divine Revelation and enabling us to live according to its demands. So far from being metaphorical, ethereal, or obscure, grace is as real as our lives: it is the life of the soul, as the soul is the life of the body.

Semper Virgo: Mary’s Virginity as the “Form” of Christian Life

Pubblicato da catholicafides

We are victims of a contagious amorphism which dilutes the mysteries of faith into a current of humdrum uniformity. We have lost the form, the principle that determines the essence of a thing, distinguishing it from all others. The invitation to become perfect is open to everyone, but we have forgotten that there is a hierarchy of levels in the states of Christian life. Consequently, both marriage and the consecrated life are going through a profound crisis, having been flattened into the same level to ease the universal call to holiness. It is a crisis that also afflicts the celibate life, which has for a long while been subjected to the epicurean transformation of our times.

A solution is found in looking to the Virgin Mary. Her perpetual virginity is the original form that molded Christ and, in Him, every Christian and every Christian vocation. In her unsullied virginity we have the beginning and the fulfillment. The mystery of Mary’s virginity is the assurance of God’s primacy in the world. It is the confirmation that the Kingdom that Christ brought forth does not begin in the flesh but in the spirit-“God is spirit” (Jn 4:24) -whereby the flesh is ennobled, and man elevated into a higher dimension: that of the Kingdom in its plenitude, where God “worketh all in all” (1 Cor 12:6). Mary is the virginal womb in which the mystery of Christ and of the Church are safeguarded, enshrined, and treasured.

The Door of Faith: When Reason and Love Meet

Pubblicato da catholicafides

Faith as a door is a fascinating image. A new horizon appears at precisely the moment when a man decides to cross the threshold and look out at the reality that is beyond his doorstep. Yet, faith turns out to be an absurdity in today’s post-Christian society. Reason would no longer be able to furnish us with certainties, such as the foundational role of truth to undertake the study of any discipline. Consequently, God is nonsensical. But while reason has seen its oblivion, there is however an attempt, in a dominant relativism, to overcome the role of reason with love. Love would mean and do more than truth. Love without truth-namely without its bond with reason- is empty, a mere sentiment, as, on the contrary, truth without love is a cold system of causality. Reason and love have rather to go hand in hand. Their circularity on a natural level, which includes the harmonic relation between intellect and will, is the condition for faith and charity to work out their indispensable complementarity. The paradigm “reason and love” is then propaedeutic to verifying for instance the correct relationship between doctrine and pastoral care or to showing how dangerous it is to ignore it. Bad effects of a denied encounter between reason and love can be seen in religious fundamentalisms or in a religious freedom that easily prefers social religious stability to the priority of the true God and true religion.

The Symphony of Truth: Theological Essays

Pubblicato da catholicafides

Theology is in fact the intellectus fidei-the intelligence of the one faith, the same yesterday and today, composed of distinct but analogical mysteries. The truth is symphonic, as Hans Urs von Balthasar says. It is like one piece of music played by many instruments. The greater the variety of instruments playing the same piece, the better they express the beauty of that one musical score. The same should be true of the multitude of believers around the world. If this is not the case, there is some lack, not in the mystery, but in the approach to the faith. The role of a single instrument is only clear within the context of the whole symphony. Similarly, it is only within the context of the whole faith, starting with the faith of the Church, that one can distinguish the peculiarity of a single mystery. This is what I tried to do by bringing together individual tiles of theology-theological opinions offering an interpretation of dogma and its defence when necessary, holding on as close as possible to revealed dogma-in order to compose one grand mosaic.