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VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXII - N° 216
DATE 28-11-2012
Summary:
- SPEAKING ABOUT GOD IN OUR TIMES
- APPEAL FOR WORLD AIDS DAY 2012
___________________________________________________________
SPEAKING ABOUT GOD IN OUR TIMES
Vatican City, 28 November 2012 (VIS) - "How do we speak to God in our times?
How can we communicate the Gospel to open the way to its salvific truth?" The
Holy Father offered an answer to these questions in his catechesis during
today's general
audience, held in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall.
"In Jesus of Nazareth", the Pope said, "we encounter the face of God,
descended from Heaven to immerse Himself in the world of mankind and to teach
'the art of living', the road to happiness; to free us from sin and to make us
true children of God".
He continued, "speaking about God means, first and foremost, being clear about
what we must bring to the men and women of our time. God has spoken to us,
… not an abstract or hypothetical God, but a real God, a God Who
exists, Who entered history
and remains present in history: the God of Jesus Christ ... as a response to
the fundamental question of why and how to live. Therefore, speaking about God
requires a continual growth in faith, familiarity with Jesus and His Gospel, a
profound knowledge
of God and strong passion for His plan for salvation, without giving in to the
temptations of success. … We must not fear the humility of taking small
steps, trusting in the leaven that makes the dough rise slowly and
mysteriously. In speaking
about God, in the work of evangelisation under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit, we must return to the simplicity and essential nature of proclamation:
the concrete Good News of God Who cares about us, the love of God which Jesus
Ch
rist
brought close to us, even unto the Cross, and which in the Resurrection opens
us to life without end, to eternal life".
The Pope explained that for St. Paul, communicating the faith did not mean
"showing himself, but rather saying openly and publicly what he had seen and
heard in his encounter with Christ, and how much his life had been transformed
by that encounter.
… The Apostle was not satisfied with merely proclaiming the words, but
committed his entire existence to the great work of faith. … To speak
about God, we must make space for Him, confident that He acts upon our
weakness. We must make
space for Him without fear, with simplicity and joy, in the profound
conviction that the more we place Him - and not ourselves - at the centre of
our lives, the more fruitful our communication will be. ... This also holds
true for Christian communities.
They are called to communicate the transforming action of God's grace,
overcoming individualism, closure, selfishness and indifference, bringing the
love of God to daily relationships. We must must act to ensure ... we always
announce Ch
rist,
not ourselves".
"At this point", the Holy Father continued, we must ask ourselves "how Jesus
Christ Himself communicated. Jesus … spoke about His Father (Whom He
called 'Abba') and about the Kingdom of God, looking with compassion on the
discomforts and
difficulties of human existence. … From the Gospel we see how Jesus was
interested in every human situation He encountered, He immersed Himself in the
lives of the men and women of His time, with complete trust in the help of the
Father. …
In Him, proclamation and life were entwined: Jesus acted and taught, always
taking as a starting point His intimate relationship with God the Father. This
approach gives fundamental indications to Christians: living in faith and
charity is a way of
speaking about God in our times, because it demonstrates the credibility of
what we say in words through a life lived in Christ. We must take care to
grasp the signs of our times, and thereby to identify the potential, the
desires and the obs
tacles
we encounter in contemporary culture, in particular the desire for
authenticity, the yearning for transcendence, the sensibility for protecting
creation. And we must communicate without fear the answer offered by faith in
God".
"Speaking about God, therefore, means enabling others to understand through
words and acts that God is not a competitor in our existence but rather its
true guarantor, the guarantor of the greatness of the human person. Thus we
return to the beginning:
speaking about God means communicating, with power and simplicity, through
words and the life we lead, that which is essential: the God of Jesus Christ,
the God Who showed us a love so great that He took on human flesh, died and
rose again for us; the
God Who asks us to follow Him and to allow ourselves to be transformed by His
immense love in order to renew our lives and our relationships; the God Who
gave us the Church, to allow us to journey together and, through the Word and
the Sacraments, to
renew the entire City of Man so that it might become the City of God",
concluded the Pope.
___________________________________________________________
APPEAL FOR WORLD AIDS DAY 2012
Vatican City, 28 November 2012 (VIS) - "World AIDS Day, a United Nations
initiative intended to draw attention to a disease that has caused millions of
deaths and tragic human suffering, will fall on 1 December", said the Pope
following his catechesis
at this morning's general audience. "HIV/AIDS particularly affects the poorest
regions of the world, where there is very limited access to effective
medicines. My thoughts turn in particular to the large number of children who
contract the virus from
their mothers each year, despite the treatments which exist to prevent its
transmission. I encourage the many initiatives that, within the scope of the
ecclesial mission, have been taken in order to eradicate this scourge".
___________________________________________________________
Per ulteriori informazioni e per la ricerca di documenti consultare il
sito: www.wisnews.org e www.vatican.va
Il servizio del VIS viene inviato soltanto agli indirizzi di posta
elettronica che ne hanno fatto richiesta. Se per qualunque motivo
non si desidera continuare a riceverlo, si prega di visitare nostra pagina
dinizio:
http://212.77.1.245/news_services/press/vis/italinde.php
Copyright (VIS): Le notizie contenute nei servizi del Vatican
Information Service possono essere riprodotte parzialmente o totalmente
citando la fonte: V.I.S. - Vatican Information Service.
--Boundary_(ID_OV/hIUM4A27zrgBxxcI9eA)
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VISnews121128
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE YEAR XXII - N° 216DATE 28-11-2012
Summary: - SPEAKING ABOUT GOD IN OUR
TIMES - APPEAL FOR WORLD AIDS
DAY 2012
Vatican City, 28 November 2012 (VIS) - "How do we speak to God in our
times? How can we communicate the Gospel to open the way to its salvific
truth?" The Holy Father offered an answer to these questions in his catechesis
during today's general
audience, held in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall.
"In Jesus of Nazareth", the Pope said, "we encounter the face of God,
descended from Heaven to immerse Himself in the world of mankind and to teach
'the art of living', the road to happiness; to free us from sin and to make us
true children of
God".
He continued, "speaking about God means, first and foremost, being clear
about what we must bring to the men and women of our time. God has spoken to
us, … not an abstract or hypothetical God, but a real God, a God Who
exists, Who entered
history and remains present in history: the God of Jesus Christ ... as a
response to the fundamental question of why and how to live. Therefore,
speaking about God requires a continual growth in faith, familiarity with
Jesus and His Gospel, a profound
knowledge of God and strong passion for His plan for salvation, without giving
in to the temptations of success. … We must not fear the humility of
taking small steps, trusting in the leaven that makes the dough rise slowly
and mysteriously. In
speaking about God, in the work of evangelisation under the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, we must return to the simplicity and essential nature of
proclamation: the concrete Good News of God Who cares about us, the love of
God which
Jesus Christ brought close to us, even unto the Cross, and which in the
Resurrection opens us to life without end, to eternal life".
The Pope explained that for St. Paul, communicating the faith did not mean
"showing himself, but rather saying openly and publicly what he had seen and
heard in his encounter with Christ, and how much his life had been transformed
by that encounter.
… The Apostle was not satisfied with merely proclaiming the words, but
committed his entire existence to the great work of faith. … To speak
about God, we must make space for Him, confident that He acts upon our
weakness. We must make
space for Him without fear, with simplicity and joy, in the profound
conviction that the more we place Him - and not ourselves - at the centre of
our lives, the more fruitful our communication will be. ... This also holds
true for Christian communities.
They are called to communicate the transforming action of God's grace,
overcoming individualism, closure, selfishness and indifference, bringing the
love of God to daily relationships. We must must act to ensure ... we
always announce Christ, not ourselves".
"At this point", the Holy Father continued, we must ask ourselves "how
Jesus Christ Himself communicated. Jesus … spoke about His Father (Whom
He called 'Abba') and about the Kingdom of God, looking with compassion on the
discomforts and
difficulties of human existence. … From the Gospel we see how Jesus was
interested in every human situation He encountered, He immersed Himself in the
lives of the men and women of His time, with complete trust in the help of the
Father. …
In Him, proclamation and life were entwined: Jesus acted and taught, always
taking as a starting point His intimate relationship with God the Father. This
approach gives fundamental indications to Christians: living in faith and
charity is a way of
speaking about God in our times, because it demonstrates the credibility of
what we say in words through a life lived in Christ. We must take care to
grasp the signs of our times, and thereby to identify the
potential, the desires and the obstacles we encounter in contemporary culture,
in particular the desire for authenticity, the yearning for transcendence, the
sensibility for protecting creation. And we must communicate without fear the
answer offered by
faith in God".
"Speaking about God, therefore, means enabling others to understand through
words and acts that God is not a competitor in our existence but rather its
true guarantor, the guarantor of the greatness of the human person. Thus we
return to the
beginning: speaking about God means communicating, with power and simplicity,
through words and the life we lead, that which is essential: the God of Jesus
Christ, the God Who showed us a love so great that He took on human flesh,
died and rose again
for us; the God Who asks us to follow Him and to allow ourselves to be
transformed by His immense love in order to renew our lives and our
relationships; the God Who gave us the Church, to allow us to journey together
and, through the Word and the
Sacraments, to renew the entire City of Man so that it might become the City
of God", concluded the Pope.
Vatican City, 28 November 2012 (VIS) - "World AIDS Day, a United Nations
initiative intended to draw attention to a disease that has caused millions of
deaths and tragic human suffering, will fall on 1 December", said the Pope
following his
catechesis at this morning's general audience. "HIV/AIDS particularly affects
the poorest regions of the world, where there is very limited access to
effective medicines. My thoughts turn in particular to the large number of
children who contract the
virus from their mothers each year, despite the treatments which exist to
prevent its transmission. I encourage the many initiatives that, within the
scope of the ecclesial mission, have been taken in order to eradicate this
scourge".
Per ulteriori informazioni e per la ricerca di documenti consultare il
sito: www.wisnews.org e www.vatican.va Il servizio del
VIS viene inviato soltanto agli indirizzi di posta elettronica che ne
hanno
fatto richiesta. Se per qualunque motivo non si desidera continuare a
riceverlo, si prega di visitare nostra pagina dinizio: http://212.77.1.245/news_services/press/vi
/italinde.php
Copyright (VIS): Le notizie contenute nei servizi del Vatican
Information Service possono essere riprodotte parzialmente o totalmente
citando la fonte: V.I.S. - Vatican Information Service.
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