Christian experience (Chapter II)
CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE
Chapter II: THE EXPERIENTIAL HIGHWAYS OF THE CHRISTIAN
Author: Felipe Santos, OSB
Faith
To have faith for a believer is to live according to their spiritual convictions. They are often based on a fundamental angular message, which is what gives meaning to existence.
For the Christian, faith is a relationship with God who receives his Word. It is as much a matter of the heart as of the intelligence, even if the believer continually questions and reflects on his faith and on the consequences that it can have in his daily life and in his commitments to society.
That is why the position of certain sectors of the current socialists in the Spanish government seems totally absurd to me. They want religion and the vital impulse of faith to be reduced to the sphere of the merely private, that is, that of the sacristy and not for the street and politics.
If faith is adherence to a set of truths and its knowledge is supposed, then it must be said that it is a bond with Jesus Christ, who reveals God to us.
It is an act of trust and a source of joy. Faith never calls anyone to sadness, nor to a boring conception of life. Whoever thinks like this is at the antipodes of a true conception and experience of faith.
Faith is manifested and translated into concrete acts of love, peace and reconciliation, in the name of the Gospel.
I don’t know where or what resentments these people live who try to “underhandedly” extirpate and banish from Spanish social life the faith that has been, for no less than 2000 years, the spiritual food that has launched thousands and millions of Spaniards to the creation of art, the shaping of a culture with a Christian stamp and the commitment to go beyond our borders to lead the Christian life incarnated and lived by those intrepid evangelizers.
She is the fabric of our cultural and spiritual heritage. Why does she want to banish him from the public and send her to the private? An absurd.
Having faith is not owning a book but being a living witness of the one in whom one believes.
In the Gospel, Jesus often addresses the humble and the little ones.
The God of the Christians is one God in three persons: the Father, the Son and the Spirit. He is the Trinity.
The faith of Christians is rooted in the mystery of the Trinity. They are baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” God is incarnated in Jesus Christ. He places himself entirely at the disposal of the Father and does his will until his death on the cross. The unity of the Father and the Son is realized in the Spirit.
Faith is a theological virtue like hope and charity.
The Latin word “credo” means: “I believe”; is used to designate the profession of Christian faith, that is, the essentials of faith for a Christian. It is proclaimed at Mass after the Gospel reading and is recited at baptism. The two best known texts are: The symbol of the Apostles (the oldest) and the symbol of Nicaea-Constantinople (year 381.
Texts:
Seek and know God
– Abraham’s faith: Genesis 12,1-9
– The faith of the centurion of Capernaum: Matthew 8,5-13
– Mara’s faith in the Marriage of Cain: John 2,1-12
– The faith of the good thief: Luke 23,39-43
Proclaim the faith:
Solomon’s Prayer: First Book of Kings 22-30
Confession of Saint Peter: Matthew 16:13-16
Confession of the crowd on Palm Sunday: Mark 11:9-10
Confession of faith of the centurion at the foot of the cross: Luke 23,42.
Charity
Today, with the passage of time and especially since Walessa introduced the term solidarity for the union he led, this word has become fashionable and has replaced “charity”.
But for the Christian, solidarity is a translation of the evangelical requirement of love of neighbor.
Men and women are committed to being at the side of their disadvantaged brothers, whether in difficulty, loneliness, illness or the breakdown of all order.
The needs are immense and of great diversity. These men and women exercise charity by caring for their brothers.
Charity is demonstrated with facts, but also with ideas, intentions and attitudes. He goes out of his way for the other to make him grow and restore his dignity.
Is there any other institution in the world that cares more about the poor than the Church? None. No political party – not even those on the left, which should be among the workers and poor – carry out the work that the Church does throughout the world with the marginalization and elevation of the cultural level of the peoples.
It is curious that, after 2000 years of doing good in Europe in all areas – at the time of drafting the European Constitution for 25 countries – they have been recalcitrant in introducing in their articles any reference to Christian thought that permeates the cultural and religious heritage. of every city and town of the Old Continent.
If the goods that the Church has done and is doing by divine mandate and those that have been done by the various political and social regimes were placed in the balance, the difference would be abysmal.
Where is the real communism? Among the Christians of yesterday and today. I speak, naturally, of Christians who take charity or solidarity as an active projection of their faith.
But the gentlemen of the left, some at least, only pay attention to the tragic events of the Spanish Inquisition and other topics that they do not want to leave even if the light blinds their eyes.
They are ancestral prejudices that are transmitted from generation to generation without a reason to support them. The Church herself has asked forgiveness for her human errors. Angels do not inhabit the Church, but human persons with their successes and errors.
But the mana of seeing it as centuries and centuries ago does not change. They want to make it one more institution that follows political, ideological, moral and ethical fashions or trends.
In Christianity, charity is a theological virtue, that is: it has God himself as its object; it is both the love that God gives to each man and the reception that man makes of this love.
Charity is summed up in a single commandment: to love is to agree to forget oneself in order to care for the other.
Texts
. Matthew 25:34-40: “I was hungry and you gave me food”
.John 13:34: “I give you a new commandment. Love one another as I have loved you.”
. First letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians (13,1-7): “Even if I speak all the languages of earth and heaven, if I do not have charity, if I lack love, I am nothing more than a sounding metal. ”
. Saint Paul to the Romans 13,10: “Love does no harm to anyone. The perfect fulfillment of the law is love.
If what guides the Church is dedication to others, why does it suffer so many attacks yesterday and today? Not be because those who defend truth and freedom see it with bad eyes those who do the opposite?
sacraments
It is in your best interest to remember what a sacrament is just in case you have forgotten.
Sacrament is an act that carries a dense symbolic meaning (gesture, word), which allows us to understand and live a reality of a spiritual nature.
In the sacrament, it is God who acts, commits himself and gives himself life to the full.
The sacraments mark the life of the believer from birth to death.
The sacraments are acts that unite men to God and to their brothers.
There is no Church without sacraments, visible signs of invisible grace and of the disposition of men in their trust with God and in letting themselves be begotten by Him.
A sacrament is an act whose ritual is public, that is, anyone can attend and be a witness to it at the same time.
It expresses itself through ordinary material elements that constitute the habitual world of men.
In them are found: water, bread, wine, food (Eucharist), oil, fire, light, colors that are given strong symbolic meanings.
There are seven sacraments in the Church: baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist, penance (reconciliation), anointing of the sick, order (by which one becomes a deacon, priest, or bishop), and marriage.
Baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist constitute the so-called sacraments of “Christian initiation”.
Most of the sacraments are administered by ordained ministers (priest or deacon).
The sacrament of baptism, in case of emergency (danger of death) can be administered by any baptized person.
sacraments
signs
Celebrant’s Phrase
biblical reference
Baptism
Water
“I beat you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”
“Go, then, to all the world, make my disciples, baptizing them…”
(Matthew 28,19)
confirmation
The laying on of hands. The holy chrism.
N. s marked by the Holy Spirit, the gift of God…”
“Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22)
“everyone was filled with the Holy Spirit”
Eucharist
bread and wine
“This is my body, take and eat… This is my blood, take and drink”
“Take and eat… take and drink” (Mark 14:22-24)
reconciliation
The laying on of hands
“I forgive all your sins in the name of the Father…”
“Those whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven” (John 20:23)
Marriage
Exchange of consents. The spouses exchange their rings.
“I receive you as a wife and give myself to you…”
“What God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Mark 10:9)
Order
Imposition of hands.
The healthy chrism
“…We beg you Almighty Father, to grant your servant to enter the order of bishops, priests, deacons…”
“Just as the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:20).
sacrament of the sick
Oil and the laying on of hands
By this holy Anointing May the Lord comfort you by the grace of the Holy Spirit
Pray for him after anointing him with the oil in the name of the Lord. (James 5, 14)
No sacrament can be given or received outside of a celebration, even if it is reduced to a minimum in case of danger of death (baptism, reconciliation).
Each sacrament is endowed with a ritual that specifies the development of the celebration. The sacrament is not of a “magical” order. It is a gift that God gives to those who desire it and whoever receives it commits to live as a good Christian believer.
The ten Commandments
The commandments are a strong and insistent recommendation from God that allows men to establish a relationship leaving them free of their actions.
It is a call to love and freedom that structure the relationship with people.
The Ten Commandments or Decalogue
The Decalogue (ten words) is understood first of all in the context of the Exodus which is the great liberating event of God at the center of the Old Covenant.
Whether formulated as negative precepts or as positive commandments, these “ten words” indicate the conditions of a life freed from bondage.
It is a life path that separates from an unethical environmental practice.
In the Christian faith, the ten words are articulated around the one and the same commandment of love of God and neighbor.
It frequently opposes the morality of the Ten Commandments (the law), that of the Beatitudes (the promise).
This opposition is factual. The two texts designate two different faces of the same “morality”.
1) If God wrote the commandments today he would send…