Category: The SOCIAL TEACHING of the Church

Thought for the Day – 25 June – Monday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, Year B – Today’s Gospel Matthew 7:1-5 & The Memorial of St Maximus of Turin (? – c 420)

“Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye”

Love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace.   It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth.   Each person finds his good by adherence to God’s plan for him, in order to realise it fully:  in this plan, he finds his truth, and through adherence to this truth he becomes free (cf. Jn 8:32)…

Charity is love received and given.   It is “grace”.   Its source is the wellspring of the Father’s love for the Son, in the Holy Spirit.   Love comes down to us from the Son.   It is creative love, through which we have our being; it is redemptive love, through which we are recreated.   Love is revealed and made present by Christ (cf. Jn 13:1) and “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5).   As the objects of God’s love, men and women become subjects of charity, they are called to make themselves instruments of grace, so as to pour forth God’s charity and to weave networks of charity.

This dynamic of charity received and given is what gives rise to the Church’s social teaching…: the proclamation of the truth of Christ’s love in society.   This doctrine is a service to charity but its locus is truth…   Development, social well-being, the search for a satisfactory solution to the grave socio-economic problems besetting humanity, all need this truth.  What they need even more is that this truth should be loved and demonstrated.   Without truth, without trust and love for what is true, there is no social conscience and responsibility and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation, especially in a globalised society at difficult times like the present….Pope Benedict XVI Encyclical « Caritas in veritate 

“To illustrate this view of Maximus’ ministry in his city, I would like to point out for example Sermons 17 and 18, dedicated to an ever timely topic:  wealth and poverty in Christian communities.   In this context too, the city was fraught with serious tensions.   Riches were accumulated and hidden.   “No one thinks about the needs of others”, the Bishop remarked bitterly in his 17th Sermon.   “In fact, not only do many Christians not share their own possessions but they also rob others of theirs.   Not only, I say, do they not bring the money they collect to the feet of the apostles but in addition, they drag from priests’ feet their own brethren who are seeking help”.   And he concluded:  “In our cities there are many guests or pilgrims.   Do what you have promised adhering to faith, so that what was said to Ananias will not be said to you as well:  “You have not lied to men but to God'” (Sermon 17, 2-3).”…Pope Benedict Homily on St Maximus 31 October 2007

St Maximus of Turin, Pray for us!