The Pope celebrated Mass for the bishops and cardinals who died in the past year on Wednesday. In his homily he addressed what I believe --and the Church has consistently taught-- are central themes of our Catholic faith which are too often misunderstood or not understood enough. The last line of this post is THE most important thought for us to contemplate on today. From the Vatican's Press Office we read:
The Pope remind his congregation that "eternal life" designates "the divine gift granted to humankind; i.e., communion with God in this world and its fullness in the next. Eternal life was opened to us by Christ's Paschal Mystery and faith is the way to attain it". Referring then to Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus, as recounted in today's Gospel, the Pope explained how in this exchange Jesus "reveals the most profound meaning of the event of salvation: ... The Son of man must be raised on the wood of the cross so that those who believe in Him might have life. ... The cross, paradoxically, from being a sign of condemnation, death and failure, becomes a sign of redemption, life and victory in which, with the eyes of faith, we can see the fruits of salvation."
The salvific significance of the cross
"consists in the immense love of God and in the gift of His only-begotten
Son. ... The verbs 'to love' and 'to give' indicate a decisive and definitive
action expressing the radical way in which God approached man in love, even
unto the total giving of self, ... lowering Himself into the abyss of our utter
abandonment, and crossing the portal of death. The object and beneficiary of
divine Love is the world, in other words humanity. This completely cancels the
idea of a distant God divorced from man's journey, and reveals His true
face." God "loves without measure. He does not show His omnipotence
in punishment, but in mercy and forgiveness."
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