Faith (24)
The fulfillment of life: perennial dialogue with God
Written by Super UserThirtieth dialogue, and last on the "Creed"
by G. Gennari
Last time we were left with the question of the meaning of suffrage for the deceased. If dying is also the full realization of the creature whose freedom has the possibility of choosing for Life or Death, Heaven or Hell, as human freedom demands, and therefore in dying, thanks to the necessary purification accepted or rejected it is also the definitive reality, resurrection and eternal life or eternal and desired deprivation of happiness, then what is the point of praying for the deceased? When we pray for them they are already - and I note this already - in their definitive reality, and therefore suffrage is useless...by Gianni Gennari
I resume my reflection on the mystery of dying. Death is a true "mystery", as is life, and if a meaning is not found in death, life also risks losing its...by Gianni Gennari
Almost at the end of the journey! After "I believe in the Church" here is "the communion of Saints, the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life". Here that "almost" applies.The “communion of saints”
Resurrection? Beyond dying, therefore…
Death: an end and an end, “punishment” and “sister”
Walking, building, bearing witness for a holy church
Written by Super Userby Gianni Gennari
Here we are again... The long journey has led us to the Church: "I believe in the Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic". The Church, institution and mystery. In the institutional reality a variation of accents, the enrichment and sometimes the burdening of cultures of the past, but with the guarantee - which is given to us directly by the Lord: "I will be with you until the end of the ages" - that no betrayal, no sin of men, even of the Church - and there have been many, we know - will be able to cancel this promise of a continuous future and present. Church "one", even if today it would appear "divided".
"I believe in the Church, one, holy and apostolic"
by Gianni Gennari
With courage, with hands full of works of mercy
by Gianni Gennari
Still on the “Creed”. After the Resurrection the Ascension of the Lord Jesus "to the right hand of the Father". Last time on the "mission", which is precisely the first consequence of the Ascension: the Lord Jesus, Son of God, God himself and son of Mary, crucified, dead and resurrected, makes his disciples, witnesses of his resurrection, "see" also his return to the Father, manifested in the appropriate way of his time: God "in the highest". Here therefore: "What we have seen with our eyes", to recall the text of the First Letter of Saint John, is enriched by the last actual "vision". it is the image, told by themselves, of the "ascent" to Heaven of Him who at the same moment entrusts them, through the angelic voice, the mission of the announcement: "What are you doing with your eyes towards heaven? Go and announce..."
by Gianni Gennari
The task of the mission is born in us with baptism and is realized in different ways, but the essence is the same for everyone. The commitment of the mission with Pope Francis resonates with different tones, but the message is ancient: "Go into all the world".
In the previous meeting we read in the "he descended into Hell" the mystery of salvation in the dead and risen Christ offered to all men from always and forever. However, this does not mean that everything is only a thing of God. For those who have received them, therefore for us, Baptism and Confirmation are the basis of the Christian mission. Salvation, as much as it depends on God, is offered in a mysterious way to the freedom of all men, of all times and places, by the infinite mercy of God's grace...
by Gianni Gennari
Let us resume our "journey" in stages on the "road" of the Creed, a road paved by the grace of the Holy Spirit poured out at Pentecost on the Apostles and on Mary, then on the Church over the centuries and little by little then, precisely in the "Creed", formulated during the first centuries, which came down to us with the seal of the "deposit" of faith. We are at meeting no. 22, if I'm not mistaken... We went through three successive meetings (18, 19 and 20) through the revelation of the adventure of the Son, the unique "image" of God.
by Gianni Gennari
I believe... We have arrived at what can be said and is the center of our journey in the articulation of the "Christian" Creed, namely Jesus Christ. We thought of "God before us", Creator of heaven and earth, creator of man in his very similar image as "male and female" (Gen. 1, 26), who opened the way for humanity on the move.
the first stumble followed, a sign of the limitations of the creature who does not want to recognize himself as such and claims to "be like God", represented in the mysterious story of "original sin", the rupture of man as a creature with the Creator's plan. But this rupture, followed by a series of negative consequences – the temptation of man's domination over woman, self-insecurity in nakedness, death, pains of childbirth, the strain of work, sibling rivalry, rebellion of nature trying to submerge humanity in the "flood" and more - is accompanied from the first moment by the promise of salvation and redemption. The whole history of Israel, the people of the promise and the alliance, is oriented towards this promise: the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed of the Lord, the Savior of Israel...
by Gianni Gennari
Last time we came to the description of the biblical story in chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis. The implicit question arises from the affirmation that God created everything, and that everything is good, or rather that after the creation of man, intended to be male and female and a "very similar image" of God himself, everything is "very good". in the text, but explicit in the life of every man who opens his eyes to reality, to the reason for the evidence of what appears "not good", death, illness, hatred, rivalries between men, conflicts, forces of nature that crush the fragility and even the pride of men, the lack of understanding even in language among the children of Adam...
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by Gianni Gennari
We have reached the "creator" God, and creator of everything: that is, of "heaven and earth". The biblical narrative of creation - seen in the previous dialogue - is the authoritative explanation that enumerates all the creatures of the one God and arranges them in a precise order, with the double category of "division" first, and then "filling".
The first division is given by the creation of light divided from darkness, and filled with the sun and stars. The second division is above between the waters of heaven and earth, the former originating from the rain and hosting the birds, and the latter with the fish of the sea. Then follows the division of the waters below from the dry land, this filled with animals and plants. The last creation, which perfects everything, is that of man, male and female, a very similar image of God the creator. Here everything is not only "good", but after the creation of man and woman "God saw that it was very good"!
by Gianni Gennari
“I believe”, and then “I believe in God”: so from the beginning of these dialogues, then up until now “Almighty Father”, with the strong warning that this “Father” is only a consequence of the revelation of the incarnate “Son”, not spontaneous name given to the unknown by our human feeling of inferiority produced by the experience of limits and that the "omnipotent" is not the immeasurable expansion of the reverse of our failures and our impotence of knowledge and power, which in the religions invented by men produce "myths" and "rites", but perception profoundly changed by listening and remembering the reality revealed and given in our history with the Son Jesus of Nazareth, crucified, dead and risen.
A special Father, therefore, certainly not in the image of what our often contradictory experience calls "fatherhood". It is not for nothing that every religion invented by men, from Persia, to Egypt, to Greece, to Rome, had always led to imagining the paternity of the divinity as jealous of the growth of children, rival and hostile to them. The divinity conceived in this way by us required the sacrifice of what was dearest, the firstborn, and the offering of all the firstfruits.
It is appropriate to remember, here, that chapter 22 of the Book of Genesis is not "new" because Abraham thinks that Isaac's sacrifice is a divine will, but because his "new" God, who called him to start from Ur and set out towards the future he refuses the sacrifice of his firstborn son, and thus opens up that prospect which the Fathers of the Church definitively described thus: what God did not ask of Abraham, he did for us, sacrificing his Son on the tree, the Cross, and on the mountain, Calvary…
by Gianni Gennari
Up until now, for a year, we have been thinking about believing, and then about the way in which the Judeo-Christian faith has gradually presented itself in the history of man, with the progressive revelation of a God who calls to salvation, promises liberation , he speaks and with his words indicates that knowing him and recognizing him means observing his "words".
In these, after presenting himself as unique, different from the silent idols, He asks to be recognized in his "very similar image" which is man created male and female, and called to definitive salvation in the course of history, that is, in time. However, this is revealed to us as a premise and promise of credible eternity, because the Eternal One himself was introduced into it, the Word who became flesh, and came to live among us. Jesus of Nazareth, eternal son of the Father and son of Mary in time, is the presence of God, the God who is himself, one single reality with his Father who also becomes our Father if in our freedom we welcome his living image, Christ and the neighbor, and which is installed in the heart of redeemed humanity as the eternal "breath" of life, the "ruàh" of God, the Holy and sanctifying Spirit.
by Gianni Gennari
I concluded our last dialogue by recalling the first passage of the first writing of the entire New Testament, the First Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians, which certainly dates back to the end of the 40s, noting that there is already, explicitly, the whole reality of our faith: God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Church, the Apostle as "episcopos", overseer of communion and also our human life enlivened by the three theological virtues.
This is the consequence of the revelation and gift of God which is perfected in Jesus of Nazareth, God and Man, in whom everything was created and everything is saved from the dominion of sin and with his historical story concluded with the revelation-gift of the mystery Paschal: Passion, death, resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, creation in the Holy Spirit of the new Community of salvation which is the Church-Mystery, the Mystical Body of Christ which lives through the historical event of the all-priestly People of God institution of the "royal priesthood" of all the baptized, as Saint Peter teaches from the beginning, and in which there are different ministries and charisms which over the centuries have manifested the grace and goodness of God united in his mercy even with the limitations and miseries that come from us , men of Baptism and all the Sacraments, when we want to substitute our "ways" for his. I realized that the period is long, but have the patience to read it little by little, without rushing to the next word...