Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Lk 18, 24-27 Then who can be saved?

(Lk 18, 24-27) Then who can be saved?
[24] Jesus looked at him (now sad) and said, "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! [25] For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." [26] Those who heard this said, "Then who can be saved?" [27] And he said, "What is impossible for human beings is possible for God."
(CCC 2547) The Lord grieves over the rich, because they find their consolation in the abundance of goods (Lk 6:24). "Let the proud seek and love earthly kingdoms, but blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven" (St. Augustine, De serm. Dom. in monte 1, 1, 3: PL 34, 1232). Abandonment to the providence of the Father in heaven frees us from anxiety about tomorrow (Cf. Mt 6:25-34). Trust in God is a preparation for the blessedness of the poor. They shall see God. (CCC 928) "A secular institute is an institute of consecrated life in which the Christian faithful living in the world strive for the perfection of charity and work for the sanctification of the world especially from within" (CIC, can. 710). (CCC 929) By a "life perfectly and entirely consecrated to [such] sanctification," the members of these institutes share in the Church's task of evangelization, "in the world and from within the world," where their presence acts as "leaven in the world" (Pius XII, Provida Mater; cf. PC 11). "Their witness of a Christian life" aims "to order temporal things according to God and inform the world with the power of the gospel." They commit themselves to the evangelical counsels by sacred bonds and observe among themselves the communion and fellowship appropriate to their "particular secular way of life" (Cf. CIC, can. 713 § 2). (CCC 930) Alongside the different forms of consecrated life are "societies of apostolic life whose members without religious vows pursue the particular apostolic purpose of their society, and lead a life as brothers or sisters in common according to a particular manner of life, strive for the perfection of charity through the observance of the constitutions. Among these there are societies in which the members embrace the evangelical counsels" according to their constitutions (Cf. CIC, can. 731 §§ 1 and 2).

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