issionaries
9/1/2009
Zenit News Agency (www.zenit.org)
The Holy Father encouraged his students to read the Bible to listen to Jesus message and to know how God approaches us!
God has made himself known to us and has shown us how we must be and live, and [how he] is close...God listens to us, we can approach him and all this must give us joy.
CASTEL GANDOLFO (Zenit.org) - Christians become missionaries only if they know God and if his will causes them joy, says Benedict XVI.
The Pope affirmed this Sunday at Castel Gandolfo during a Mass to close a three-day meeting with his former students of the University of Regensburg.
The Holy Father encouraged his students to read the Bible to listen to Jesus' message and to know how God approaches us, Vatican Radio reported. If we wish to hear the full message of Jesus, the way God guides us, if we want to know how God approaches us, we must read the Old and New Testament, he said.
God's law for man is found in Scripture, the Pontiff explained, and this law must not be seen as a yoke or a type of slavery but, on the contrary, as a showering of wisdom and true knowledge. It is this law, the former university professor affirmed, that indicates how to be and live; it must be a cause of great joy.
"God has made himself known to us" and has shown us "how we must be and live, and [how he] is close," the Holy Father observed. "God listens to us, we can approach him," and all this must give us joy.
Benedict XVI went on to emphasize that joy must be the mark that distinguishes a Christian who knows the will of God, because this law is also an expression of God's friendship, it is the word that frees, that gives strength and purifies.
He also considered the issue of man's purity before God, stating that, when man encounters God, he discovers that he is wounded and cannot meet Him; thus arises the question of how to purify oneself.
(this is only done by the Holy Ghost.. and a catholic tradition).. or sacrement !)
James 3 (New International Version)
James 3
Taming the Tongue
1Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.
3When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
7All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. 10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11Can both fresh water and salt[a] water flow from the same spring? 12My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
Two Kinds of Wisdom
13Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. 16For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
17But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.
James 4:1-17
James 4:1-17 (New International Version)
James 4
Submit Yourselves to God
1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?[a] 6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble."[b]
7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
11Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
Boasting About Tomorrow
13Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.
Footnotes:
a.James 4:5 Or that God jealously longs for the spirit that he made to live in us; or that the Spirit he caused to live in us longs jealously
b.James 4:6 Prov. 3:34
Wisdom purifies us, and it does not come from ourselves; we can only receive it, the Pope explained.
And he pointed out that, in the measure in which we allow God to touch us, establishing a dialogue of love and friendship with him, we can also love as he loves.
Quoting St. Augustine, the Pope said: "Give what you command and command what you will," to point out that, through friendship with God, we make ourselves capable of his same love.
Study group
The 30-some students gathered Friday through Sunday for their annual event, which has been going on since 1971, long before their theology professor was elected Pope. Since 2005, when Cardinal Ratzinger was elected to the Chair of Peter, the group has continued meeting, discussing topics such as Islam and evolution. Last year, they considered the historical Jesus and his passion. For 2009, the Ratzinger Schulerkreis considered ecumenism and mission.
One of the members of the Pope's circle of former students, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, explained that for the Holy Father these meetings are "a moment of detachment from daily life to be able to be with his former students as he used to be so many years ago, when he was professor and we were students."
In regard to this year's topic, Cardinal Schönborn evaluated the possibility of a mission in collaboration with the different confessions present in Europe and said that Jesus himself "calls us to a common witness."
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