Sunday, December 22, 2013
Matthew 9, 14-17 + CSDC and CV
(CV 12c) Social
doctrine is built on the foundation handed on by the Apostles to the Fathers of
the Church, and then received and further explored by the great Christian
doctors. This doctrine points definitively to the New Man, to the “last Adam
[who] became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45), the principle of the charity
that “never ends” (1 Cor 13:8). It is attested by the saints and by those who
gave their lives for Christ our Saviour in the field of justice and peace. It
is an expression of the prophetic task of the Supreme Pontiffs to give
apostolic guidance to the Church of Christ and to discern the new demands of
evangelization. For these reasons, Populorum
Progressio, situated within the
great current of Tradition, can still speak to us today.
CSDC 70. The Church has the right to be a teacher
for mankind, a teacher of the truth of faith: the truth not only of dogmas but
also of the morals whose source lies in human nature itself and in the Gospel [95].
The word of the Gospel, in fact, is not only to be heard but is also to be
observed and put into practice (cf. Mt 7:24; Lk 6:46-47; Jn
14:21,23-24; Jas 1:22). Consistency in behaviour shows what one truly
believes and is not limited only to things strictly church-related or spiritual
but involves men and women in the entirety of their life experience and in the
context of all their responsibilities. However worldly these responsibilities
may be, their subject remains man, that is, the human being whom God calls, by
means of the Church, to participate in his gift of salvation.
Notes: [95] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, 14: AAS 58 (1966), 940; John Paul
II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, 27, 64, 110: AAS 85 (1993),
1154-1155, 1183-1184, 1219-1220.
[14] Then the
disciples of John approached him and said, "Why do we and the Pharisees
fast (much), but your disciples do not fast?" [15] Jesus answered them,
"Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The
days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will
fast. [16] No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for
its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. [17] People do
not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills
out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins,
and both are preserved."
CSDC 4. Discovering that they are loved by God,
people come to understand their own transcendent dignity, they learn not to be
satisfied with only themselves but to encounter their neighbour in a network of
relationships that are ever more authentically human. Men and women who are
made “new” by the love of God are able to change the rules and the quality of
relationships, transforming even social structures. They are people capable of
bringing peace where there is conflict, of building and nurturing fraternal
relationships where there is hatred, of seeking justice where there prevails
the exploitation of man by man. Only love is capable of radically transforming
the relationships that men maintain among themselves. This is the perspective
that allows every person of good will to perceive the broad horizons of justice
and human development in truth and goodness.
[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)]
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