Mark 9, 14-27 + CSDC and CV

Mark 9, 14-27 + CSDC and CV

CV 79c. Christians long for the entire human family to call upon God as “Our Father!” In union with the only-begotten Son, may all people learn to pray to the Father and to ask him, in the words that Jesus himself taught us, for the grace to glorify him by living according to his will, to receive the daily bread that we need, to be understanding and generous towards our debtors, not to be tempted beyond our limits, and to be delivered from evil (cf. Mt 6:9-13).

At the heart of the issue of culture we find the moral sense rooted in the religious sense

CSDC 577b. Certainly, there is a long and difficult road ahead; bringing about such a renewal will require enormous effort, especially on account of the number and gravity of the causes giving rise to and aggravating the situations of injustice present in the world today. But, as history and personal experience show, it is not difficult to discover at the bottom of these situations causes which are properly ‘cultural', linked to particular ways of looking at man, society and the world. Indeed, at the heart of the issue of culture we find the moral sense, which is in turn rooted and fulfilled in the religious sense”[1212].

Notes. [1212] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, 98: AAS 85 (1993), 1210; cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 24: AAS 83 (1991), 821-822.

(Mk 9, 14-27) Mute and deaf spirit, I command you: come out of him

[14] When they came to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and scribes arguing with them. [15] Immediately on seeing him, the whole crowd was utterly amazed. They ran up to him and greeted him. [16] He asked them, "What are you arguing about with them?" [17] Someone from the crowd answered him, "Teacher, I have brought to you my son possessed by a mute spirit. [18] Wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they were unable to do so." [19] He said to them in reply, "O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring him to me." [20] They brought the boy to him. And when he saw him, the spirit immediately threw the boy into convulsions. As he fell to the ground, he began to roll around and foam at the mouth. [21] Then he questioned his father, "How long has this been happening to him?" He replied, "Since childhood. [22] It has often thrown him into fire and into water to kill him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." [23 Jesus said to him, " 'If you can!' Everything is possible to one who has faith." [24] Then the boy's father cried out, "I do believe, help my unbelief!" [25] Jesus, on seeing a crowd rapidly gathering, rebuked the unclean spirit and said to it, "Mute and deaf spirit, I command you: come out of him and never enter him again!" [26] Shouting and throwing the boy into convulsions, it came out. He became like a corpse, which caused many to say, "He is dead!" [27] But Jesus took him by the hand, raised him, and he stood up.

CSDC 130. Openness to transcendence belongs to the human person: man is open to the infinite and to all created beings. He is open above all to the infinite — God — because with his intellect and will he raises himself above all the created order and above himself, he becomes independent from creatures, is free in relation to created things and tends towards total truth and the absolute good. He is open also to others, to the men and women of the world, because only insofar as he understands himself in reference to a “thou” can he say “I”. He comes out of himself, from the self-centred preservation of his own life, to enter into a relationship of dialogue and communion with others. The human person is open to the fullness of being, to the unlimited horizon of being. He has in himself the ability to transcend the individual particular objects that he knows, thanks effectively to his openness to unlimited being. In a certain sense the human soul is — because of its cognitive dimension — all things: “all immaterial things enjoy a certain infiniteness, insofar as they embrace everything, or because it is a question of the essence of a spiritual reality that functions as a model and likeness of everything, as is the case with God, or because it has a likeness to everything or is ‘in act' like the Angels or ‘in potential' like souls”[245].

     

Notes: [245] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Commentum in tertium librum Sententiarum, d. 27, q. 1, a. 4: “Ex utraque autem parte res immateriales infinitatem habent quodammodo, quia sunt quodammodo omnia, sive inquantum essentia rei immaterialis est exemplar et similitudo omnium, sicut in Deo accidit, sive quia habet similitudinem omnium vel actu vel potentia, sicut accidit in Angelis et animabus”; cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 75, a. 5: Ed. Leon. 5, 201-203.  

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Initials and Abbreviations.- CSDC: Pontifical Council for Justice And Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church; -  SDC: Social Doctrine of the Church; - CV: Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in truth)]