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Father Cantalamessa Evaluates Weekly Meditations

Preacher Completes Entire Liturgical Cycle

By Jesús Colina

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 21, 2008 (Zenit.org).- There are many means for those looking for God's will to find it through meditation on Scripture, says Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa.

Father Cantalamessa, the Pontifical Household preacher, has written a weekly commentary for ZENIT on the Gospel of the Sunday liturgy for three years, covering the entire liturgical cycle. Today his last commentary appears in this dispatch.

Before he goes, he gave ZENIT one last opportunity to learn from him. In this interview, the preacher offers advice on how to listen for the voice of God when reading the Word of God.

Q: The first question is that which readers also pose: What do you do to write your homilies?

Father Cantalamessa: [Laughs] What do I do? I read the Word of God. Before pondering on my reflections, I try to focus on the Word of God, to discover what the message is for this particular moment in which we find ourselves, in which I find myself, in which the Word of God emerges.

Usually, at the beginning it is a little light that is later confirmed little by little, consolidated, revealing a relation with a situation or present problem. Very helpful in this regard is a climate of prayer, of listening to the Holy Spirit, because it is he who has inspired sacred Scripture and only he can explain it, only he can apply it to today's world.

Q: What is your advice to Christians who want to meditate on the Word and draw lessons for their own lives or make useful decisions in life under the gaze of God?

Father Cantalamessa: It depends to a degree on the state, on the duties of the person. If it is only a question of personal use of the Word of God for one's life, the best thing is to begin to use the Word of God that the Church offers us through the liturgy: the Liturgy of the Hours, the Mass, etc, because often when the Lord speaks he uses the Church's choice, the readings of the day.

To be attentive to the readings of the day often reveals that it is an answer to a particular problem. A word seems to be made to measure for us to the point that one is constrained to say: "This was written precisely for me!" Hence, one must greatly value not the personal, but the community choice made by the Church in the liturgy.

Then there is the personal choice, namely, rereading the passages of Scripture that in the past have had a certain importance for us, have spoken to us. Often the Lord speaks through the same texts and says things that are always new and appropriate to the situations we are living. One must appreciate those Words of God that in the past have given us important guidelines.

Then, there is another means happily used by the Charismatic Renewal, but not only by it, and it is that -- after having prayed -- an act of faith is made, opening the Bible and thinking that we will find an answer from the Lord, or at times even decisions to be made based on the Word of God which we understand under our eyes.

This is a means not invented today by the Charismatic Renewal. For example, it is the means that happened to St. Augustine, who at the crucial moment of his conversion, had with him the Letters of St. Paul and opening them he decided to take as the Word of God the first passage he read, it happened to be Romans 13, where it says: "Do not be impure or licentious," "put on the armor of light." He felt immediately upon him while reading such a light and serenity that he understood he could live chastely.

The same happened to St. Francis. When he still did not know what to do, he went into a church and opened the Gospel three times and every time he came across a passage that spoke about the sending of the Apostles without a walking-stick or knapsack, without money, without two tunics, and said: This is what the Lord wants for us. But the examples are multiplied down to our days. St. Thérèse of Lisieux did not know what to do; she opened the Letter to the Corinthians and there found her vocation to be the heart, to be charity.

I have had so many personal confirmations, and also that of others who have found in the Gospel the Word of God. I never tire of mentioning a very delightful episode. I was preaching a mission in Australia, and on the last day a laborer -- a very simple person -- came up to me to tell me that in his family there was a big problem. He had an 11-year-old son who was not baptized because his wife, who had become a Jehovah's witness, did not want the baptism to take place.

Because of this he asked me: "What should I do? If I baptize him there will be a problem; if I don't baptize him I am not at peace because when we married we were both Catholics." I answered him: "Let me reflect on this tonight." The next day arrived and he said to me: "Father, I have found the solution. Yesterday, on my way home I prayed, then I saw the Bible opened and what emerged was the episode in which Abraham takes his son Isaac to be immolated. And I saw that on that occasion, Abraham did not say anything to his wife." It was a perfect discernment because, in fact, rabbis say that Abraham said nothing to his wife precisely to avoid his wife from impeding him from obeying God. I myself baptized the child.

Of course, we must avoid a magical use of Scripture, opening it to read without having prayed. This use of Scripture can only be made when one lives in a spiritual climate of obedience to God. One cannot play games with God, because God is not consulted by joking; above all he is consulted when one is determined to do that which he will make one understand.

See, there are so many means, from the public to the more personal, to guide one's life with the Word of God.

Q: For three years we have been publishing your homilies in seven languages and we receive thousands of messages of gratitude from readers. What has this experience of preaching from the Internet pulpit meant for you?

Father Cantalamessa: It was also a discovery for me, in the sense that in the beginning I did not suppose, perhaps neither did you suppose, that it would be so well received. Then, traveling around the world I was also reminded that the majority of those who did not know me personally knew me through ZENIT, through these commentaries to the Gospel.

From the desert of Arizona to Africa, from Asia to France: everywhere. It was for me on one hand a happy discovery, and for you, I believe, an encouragement. Today this is an important vehicle for the Gospel. There are many more people than we suppose that are seeking such biblical, evangelical contents on Internet, and who use them. It is a very concrete use, because many use them to prepare for Mass, some priests use them to prepare their homilies. They are not only useful for those who read them, because many also adapt and re-propose them, and they do not do this word for word. They are seeds that fall on so many hearts.

Q: What do you say to ZENIT readers who will miss your weekly column?

Father Cantalamessa: I intend to publish all these commentaries in a volume, because I have been requested to do so. In part it will be comments published by ZENIT, but in part they will be new, or those I have done on television. Comments in the same style, brief, of a page each, and will be issued in a volume. In due time ZENIT's readers will come to know them. Thus, whoever wishes to will be able to go back to these comments. However, if you have the possibility of their being continued by someone else, I urge readers to read and listen to the new commentator.

ZE08112102 - 2008-11-21
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-24323?l=english
Before Him All Nations Will be Gathered

Gospel Commentary for Solemnity of Christ the King

By Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap

ROME, NOV. 21, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The Gospel of the last Sunday of the liturgical year, the Solemnity of Christ the King, presents us with the concluding moment of human history: Judgment Day.

Jesus says in Matthew 25: “When the Son of man will come in glory with all his angels, he will sit upon the throne of glory, and before him all nations will be gathered and he will separate them one from another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats and he will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.”

The first message contained in this Gospel does not have to do with the form or the outcome of the judgment, but the fact that there will be a judgment, that the world does not come from chance and does not end in chance. This world begins with: “Let there be light ... Let us make man.” And ends with: “Come, blessed of my Father ... Depart from me, accursed ones.” At the beginning of the world and at its end there is a decision of an intelligent mind and a sovereign will.

This beginning of the millennium is characterized by a heated debate over evolutionism and creationism. Reduced to its essentials, on the one side there are those who, appealing -- not always rightly -- to Darwin, believe that the world is a fruit of blind evolution, dominated by natural selection, and, on the other side, those who, although they admit a form of evolution, see God at work in the evolutionary process itself.

Some days ago at the Vatican there was a plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which treated the theme "Scientific Insight Into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life." Distinguished scientists from around the world participated: some believers, some not, some were Nobel Prize recipients.

On the RAI 1 program on the Gospel that I host I interviewed one of the scientists, Professor Francis Collins, former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health in the US. I asked him: “If evolution is true, is there still room for God?” He answered: “Darwin was right in formulating his theory according to which we descend from a common ancestor and there have been gradual changes over long periods of time, but this is the mechanical aspect of how life came to form this fantastic panorama of diversity. This does not answer the question of why there is life.”

“There are aspects of humanity,” he continued, “that are not easily explained: Like our moral sense, the knowledge of good and evil that sometimes leads us to make sacrifices that are not dictated by the laws of evolution. These laws would suggest that we preserve ourselves at all costs. This is not a proof, but does it not perhaps indicate that God exists?”

I also asked Collins whether he had first believed in God or in Jesus Christ. He said: “Until the age of about 25 I was an atheist, I did not have a religious formation, I was a scientist who reduced almost everything to the equations and laws of physics. But as a doctor I began to meet people who were faced with the problem of life and death, and this made me think that my atheism was not an idea that had a basis. I began to read texts about rational arguments for faith that I did not know.

"First I arrived at the conviction that atheism was the least acceptable alternative, and little by little I came to the conclusion that a God must exist who created all of this, but I did not know about this God. This led me to conduct research to find out what the nature of God is, and I found it in the Bible and in the person of Jesus. After two years of research I decided that it was not more reasonable to resist and I became a follower of Jesus.”

A major promoter of evolutionism in our days is the Englishman Richard Dawkins, the author of the book “The God Delusion.” He is now promoting a public campaign to put placards on buses in English cities that read: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy life.” If I put myself in the shoes of a parent with a handicapped, autistic or gravely sick child, or a farm worker who has lost his job, I wonder how such a person would react to that announcement: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy life!” "Probably": He doesn't even exclude the possibility that God could exist! But if God doesn't exist, the believer loses nothing. On the other hand, the nonbeliever loses everything.

The existence of evil and injustice in the world is certainly a mystery and a scandal, but without faith in a final judgment, it would be infinitely more absurd and more tragic. For many millennia of life on earth, man has become accustomed to everything; he has adapted to every climate, become immune to every disease. But there is one thing that he has not gotten used to: injustice. He continues to feel it intolerable. And it is to this thirst for justice that the universal judgment will respond.

Not only God will desire it, but, paradoxically, men will too, even the wicked ones. “On the day of the universal judgment, it will not only be the Judge who will descend from heaven,” the French poet Paul Claudel wrote, “but the whole earth will rush to the meeting.”

The solemnity of Christ the King, with the Gospel of the final judgment, responds to the most universal of human hopes. It assures us that injustice and evil will not have the last word and at the same time it calls on us to live in such a way that justice is not a condemnation for us, but salvation, and we can be those to whom Christ will say: "Come, blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

http://www.h2onews.org/_page_videoview.php?id_news=1308

Today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King, who has made us his brothers and sisters as well as heirs of his heavenly kingdom. Although emperors and kings exist today mostly in history books, we nevertheless honor Christ as King of the Universe and as King of our hearts by allowing him to take control of our lives. In millions of human hearts all over the world, Jesus still reigns as king. The cross is his throne and the Sermon on the Mount is his rule of law. His citizens need obey only one law; “Love others as I have loved you.” His love is selfless, compassionate and unconditional. He was a king with a saving and liberating mission: to free mankind from all types of bondage, to enable us to live peacefully and happily on earth, and to inherit eternal life in heaven. That is why in designating the feast of Christ the King in 1925, Pope Pius XI proclaimed: “Pax Christi in regno Christi” (the peace of Christ in the reign of Christ). This feast was established and proclaimed by the Pope to reassert the sovereignty of Christ, and of the Church, over all forms of government.

As we celebrate the kingship of Christ today, Jesus invites us as he did 2000 years ago: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart" (Matthew 11:29). Let us ask ourselves how far we have responded to his loving invitation: Let us try to cultivate the mind of Christ in our dealing with one another, especially in our dealings with those who are different from us. By cultivating in our lives the gentle and humble mind of Christ we show others that Jesus Christ is indeed our King.

Susan C. Kimber, in a book called “Christian Woman,” shares a beautiful piece of advice she received from her little son. “Tired of struggling with my strong-willed little son, Thomas, I looked him in the eye and asked a question I felt sure would bring him in line: "Thomas, who is in charge here?" Not missing a beat, our Sunday-school- bred toddler replied, "Jesus is, and not you mom”. Today’s feast of Christ the King reminds us of this great truth that Christ must be in charge of our lives, giving him sovereign power over our lives, our thoughts, our heart, our will. Let us ask ourselves the question, "What does Jesus, my King, want me to do or say?" Are we praying daily that he will give us the right words to say to the people we meet each day in order for us to be true ambassadors for Jesus? Does our home life as well as the way we conduct ourselves with our friends, come under the Kingship of Jesus? Or do we try to please ourselves rather than Him.

Christ has come to serve and to be of service to others. Hence we are called to service. What kind of service? We are called to be of service to the truth. What truth? The truth that God is love, that God is "Abba," (Father), that we are members of the one Body, children of the one Father in Heaven. Whatever we do for the sisters and brothers of Jesus, we do for Him. Hence we are called to be a people who reach out to embrace the enemy and the stranger, a people called to glory in diversity, a people who will endlessly forgive, a people who will reach out in compassion to the poor and to the marginalized sectors of our society, a people who will support one another in prayer, a people who realize that we are called not to be served, but to serve. In other words, servant-leadership was the model that Jesus gave to us.

Citizens of Christ’s kingdom are expected to observe only one law - the law of love. “Love your God with your whole heart and love your neighbor as yourself.” “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”. Jesus expects a higher degree of love from his followers.” “Love one another as I have loved you.” On this great feast of Christ the King, let us resolve to give him the central place in our lives and promise to obey his commandment of love by sharing what we have with all his needy children.