Dialogue between faith, reason and science [242-243] Ecumenical dialogue [244-246] Relations with Judaism [247-249] Interreligious dialogue [250-254] Social dialogue in a context of religious freedom [255-258]
61. We also evangelize when we attempt to confront the various challenges which can arise.[56] On occasion these may take the form of veritable attacks on religious freedom or new persecutions directed against Christians; in some countries these have reached alarming levels of hatred and violence. In many places, the problem is more that of widespread indifference and relativism, linked to disillusionment and the crisis of ideologies which has come about as a reaction to any-thing which might appear totalitarian. This not only harms the Church but the fabric of society as a whole. We should recognize how in a culture where each person wants to be bearer of his or her own subjective truth, it becomes difficult for citizens to devise a common plan which transcends individual gain and personal ambitions.
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78. Today we are seeing in many pastoral workers, including consecrated men and women, an inordinate concern for their personal freedom and relaxation, which leads them to see their work as a mere appendage to their life, as if it were not part of their very identity. At the same time, the spiritual life comes to be identified with a few religious exercises which can offer a certain comfort but which do not encourage encounter with others, engagement with the world or a passion for evangelization. As a result, one can observe in many agents of evangelization, even though they pray, a heightened individualism, a crisis of identity and a cooling of fervour. These are three evils which fuel one another.
97. Those who have fallen into this worldliness look on from above and afar, they reject the prophecy of their brothers and sisters, they discredit those who raise questions, they constantly point out the mistakes of others and they are obsessed by appearances. Their hearts are open only to the limited horizon of their own immanence and interests, and as a consequence they neither learn from their sins nor are they genuinely open to forgiveness. This is a tremendous corruption disguised as a good. We need to avoid it by making the Church constantly go out from herself, keeping her mission focused on Jesus Christ, and her commitment to the poor. God save us from a worldly Church with superficial spiritual and pastoral trappings! This stifling worldliness can only be healed by breathing in the pure air of the Holy Spirit who frees us from self-centredness cloaked in an outward religiosity bereft of God. Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of the Gospel!
111. Evangelization is the task of the Church. The Church, as the agent of evangelization, is more than an organic and hierarchical institution; she is first and foremost a people advancing on its pilgrim way towards God. She is certainly a mystery rooted in the Trinity, yet she exists concretely in history as a people of pilgrims and evangelizers, transcending any institutional expression, however necessary. I would like to dwell briefly on this way of understanding the Church, whose ultimate foundation is in the free and gracious initiative of God.
170. Although it sounds obvious, spiritual accompaniment must lead others ever closer to God, in whom we attain true freedom. Some people think they are free if they can avoid God; they fail to see that they remain existentially orphaned, helpless, homeless. They cease being pilgrims and become drifters, flitting around themselves and never getting anywhere. To accompany them would be counterproductive if it became a sort of therapy supporting their self-absorption and ceased to be a pilgrimage with Christ to the Father.
208. If anyone feels offended by my words, I would respond that I speak them with affection and with the best of intentions, quite apart from any personal interest or political ideology. My words are not those of a foe or an opponent. I am interested only in helping those who are in thrall to an individualistic, indifferent and self-centred mentality to be freed from those unworthy chains and to attain a way of living and thinking which is more humane, noble and fruitful, and which will bring dignity to their presence on this earth.
246. Given the seriousness of the counter-witness of division among Christians, particularly in Asia and Africa, the search for paths to unity becomes all the more urgent. Missionaries on those continents often mention the criticisms, complaints and ridicule to which the scandal of divided Christians gives rise. If we concentrate on the convictions we share, and if we keep in mind the principle of the hierarchy of truths, we will be able to progress decidedly towards common expressions of proclamation, service and witness. The immense numbers of people who have not received the Gospel of Jesus Christ cannot leave us indifferent. Consequently, commitment to a unity which helps them to accept Jesus Christ can no longer be a matter of mere diplomacy or forced compliance, but rather an indispensable path to evangelization. Signs of division between Christians in countries ravaged by violence add further causes of conflict on the part of those who should instead be a leaven of peace. How many important things unite us! If we really believe in the abundantly free working of the Holy Spirit, we can learn so much from one another! It is not just about being better informed about others, but rather about reaping what the Spirit has sown in them, which is also meant to be a gift for us. To give but one example, in the dialogue with our Orthodox brothers and sisters, we Catholics have the opportunity to learn more about the meaning of episcopal collegiality and their experience of synodality. Through an exchange of gifts, the Spirit can lead us ever more fully into truth and goodness.
253. In order to sustain dialogue with Islam, suitable training is essential for all involved, not only so that they can be solidly and joyfully grounded in their own identity, but so that they can also acknowledge the values of others, appreciate the concerns underlying their demands and shed light on shared beliefs. We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries in the same way that we hope and ask to be received and respected in countries of Islamic tradition. I ask and I humbly entreat those countries to grant Christians freedom to worship and to practice their faith, in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries! Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.
It is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions which the herd sodiligently follow. The traveller who stops at the best houses, so called, soondiscovers this, for the publicans presume him to be a Sardanapalus, and if heresigned himself to their tender mercies he would soon be completelyemasculated. I think that in the railroad car we are inclined to spend more onluxury than on safety and convenience, and it threatens without attaining theseto become no better than a modern drawing room, with its divans, and ottomans,and sun-shades, and a hundred other oriental things, which we are taking westwith us, invented for the ladies of the harem and the effeminate natives of theCelestial Empire, which Jonathan should be ashamed to know the names of. Iwould rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on avelvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart with a freecirculation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train andbreathe a malaria all the way.
The Jesuits were quite balked by those Indians who, being burned at the stake,suggested new modes of torture to their tormentors. Being superior to physicalsuffering, it sometimes chanced that they were superior to any consolationwhich the missionaries could offer; and the law to do as you would be done byfell with less persuasiveness on the ears of those who, for their part, did notcare how they were done by, who loved their enemies after a new fashion, andcame very near freely forgiving them all they did.
I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with hisfellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his privateail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over hiscouch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology. My excusefor not lecturing against the use of tobacco is, that I never chewed it; thatis a penalty which reformed tobacco-chewers have to pay; though there arethings enough I have chewed, which I could lecture against. If you should everbe betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand knowwhat your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning andtie your shoe-strings. Take your time, and set about some free labor.
All that I could say, then, with respect to farming on a large scale, (I havealways cultivated a garden,) was, that I had had my seeds ready. Many thinkthat seeds improve with age. I have no doubt that time discriminates betweenthe good and the bad; and when at last I shall plant, I shall be less likely tobe disappointed. But I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long aspossible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether youare committed to a farm or the county jail.
Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were longago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error uponerror, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion asuperfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. Anhonest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extremecases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity,simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or athousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts onyour thumb nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such arethe clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowedfor, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom andnot make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculatorindeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it benecessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce otherthings in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of pettystates, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannottell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all itsso called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external andsuperficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, clutteredwith furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedlessexpense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households inthe land; and the only cure for it as for them is in a rigid economy, a sternand more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives toofast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, andexport ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour,without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live likebaboons or like men, is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, andforge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering uponour lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And ifrailroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stayat home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on therailroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are thatunderlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irish-man, or a Yankee man. Therails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars runsmoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you. And every few yearsa new lot is laid down and run over; so that, if some have the pleasure ofriding on a rail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon. And when theyrun over a man that is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary sleeper in thewrong position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop the cars, and make a hueand cry about it, as if this were an exception. I am glad to know that it takesa gang of men for every five miles to keep the sleepers down and level in theirbeds as it is, for this is a sign that they may sometime get up again. 2ff7e9595c
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