Today St Luke's gospel gives us " Do you suppose that I am here to ........". And the reply guaranteed to wake the sleepiest listeners provokes mixed responses over the centuries. Of those collected in the Catena Aurea St Cyril's seems to be the only one questioning the Lord of Peace .
What say you, O Lord? Did you not come to give peace, Who art made peace for
us? making peace by your cross with things in earth and things in heaven; Who
said, My peace I give to you. But it is plain that peace is indeed a good, but
sometimes hurtful, and separating us from the love of God, that is, when by it
we unite with those who keep away from God. And for this reason we e teach the
faithful to avoid earthly bonds. Hence it follows, For from henceforth there
shall be five in one house divided, three against two, &c.
My moslem friends have always been good at quoting this passage to show that our gospels cannot be authentic for it is peace that is the main desire of the people of God and the main gift of God to man. And if I am to point out that our Gospels and Our Lord do not shirk from confronting reality; and do not produce words from God whenever a situation faced in the reality of 7th century Mecca/ Medina is inconvenient to Mohammad the man, words that will resolve it in his favour. "Be careful Mr John ; be careful", say they then and wag their finger; the peace of the tomb is easily granted to those who speak against the prophet and his god.
The Catholic Bloggers that I read are very much taken up with the results/nonresults of the Synod and none of this discussion helps me in my quandry as to what it is makes a new evangelist. What am I to do if I am to respond to our Lord's final command.
But the Church is still the Church regardless of the faults we find in her especially in Rome; and it is in Rome that we find our Pope Emeritus who talks as straight as anyone could wish and is still a German but not of the friendly ghost variety.
The Catholic Bloggers that I read are very much taken up with the results/nonresults of the Synod and none of this discussion helps me in my quandry as to what it is makes a new evangelist. What am I to do if I am to respond to our Lord's final command.
But the Church is still the Church regardless of the faults we find in her especially in Rome; and it is in Rome that we find our Pope Emeritus who talks as straight as anyone could wish and is still a German but not of the friendly ghost variety.
"The question of truth, which at the beginning of Christianity moved Christians more than anything else, in this mode of thinking is placed within parentheses. It presupposes that the authentic truth about God, in the last analysis, is unobtainable, and that at best one can make present what is ineffable only with a variety of symbols. This renunciation of truth seems convincing and useful for peace among the religions of the world.
This is, however, lethal to faith. In fact, faith loses its binding character and seriousness, if everything is reduced to symbols that are at the end interchangeable, capable of referring only from afar to the inaccessible mystery of the divine."
Of course we all used to know that we were members of the one true faith that comes from God and that the obligation placed on us was to ensure that we never departed from this faith and never gave up one iota of the teaching that comes from God. I pray that our leaders take note of these words of Pope Benedict and divest themselves of meaningless ecumenical forays and dialogues with those of other religions. What good can come of dialogue with a man who is certain that the Pope is the Antichrist or that belief in the Trinity constitutes polytheism.
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