Sunday, November 25, 2007

Lk 12, 54-59 Why do you not judge for yourselves?

(Lk 12, 54-59) Why do you not judge for yourselves?
[54] He also said to the crowds, "When you see (a) cloud rising in the west you say immediately that it is going to rain - and so it does; [55] and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south you say that it is going to be hot - and so it is. [56] You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time? [57] "Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? [58] If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate, make an effort to settle the matter on the way; otherwise your opponent will turn you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the constable, and the constable throw you into prison. [59] I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny."
(CCC 33) The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the "seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material" (GS 18 § 1; cf. 14 § 2), can have its origin only in God. (CCC 156) What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe "because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived" (Dei Filius 3: DS 3008). So "that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit” (Dei Filius 3: DS 3009). Thus the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church's growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability "are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all"; they are "motives of credibility" (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is "by no means a blind impulse of the mind" (Dei Filius 3: DS 3008-3010; Cf. Mk 16 20; Heb 2:4). (CCC 189) The first "profession of faith" is made during Baptism. The symbol of faith is first and foremost the baptismal creed. Since Baptism is given "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Mt 28:19). The truths of faith professed during Baptism are articulated in terms of their reference to the three persons of the Holy Trinity. (CCC 190) And so the Creed is divided into three parts: "the first part speaks of the first divine Person and the wonderful work of creation; the next speaks of the second divine Person and the mystery of his redemption of men; the final part speaks of the third divine Person, the origin and source of our sanctification" (Roman Catechism I, 1, 3). These are "the three chapters of our [baptismal] seal" (St. Irenaeus, Dem. Ap. 100: SCh 62, 170).

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