The Pope knows that fireworks
do not provide enough light!
Translated from
9/15/09
Andrea Riccardi
[founder of the Sant'Egidio Community] wrote rightly in
Corriere della Sera: these mediatic fireworks, though they give the illusion of illuminating reality, betray instead the lack of vision' that afflicts our country: "We have few ideas about the present and the future".
We need someone who can 'warm hearts' again. Precisely what Benedict XVI is trying to do in the Church.
"Our contemporaries, when they meet us, want to see what they do not see anywhere else, " he said last week to bishops from Brazil.
And on Saturday, during his homily at the Mass for episcopal ordinations, he called on bishops to show 'faithfulness' in bringing to the people of God 'the word of eternal life' and not seek 'to adapt the faith to the fashion of the times'.
A certain contemporary mentality would dismiss all this as 'devotion' which has nothing to do with serious problems.
But for Papa Ratzinger, it is much much more: Faith, if its fervent, improves reality. That is the life sap of
Caritas in veritate: Openness to God opens up new prospects. 'Attention to the spiritual life' leads to coming out of oneself and committing with all one's human faculties to the common good. 'Looking up' makes us more aware of what is happening 'below'.
Secularization, because it cuts off the supernatural dimension of life, has left too many lacerations. The 'lack of vision' diagnosed by Riccardi is one of its consequences.
And it is time to repair these lacerations. Benedict XVI has begun to do that.