Recolta viitoare

Often it seems that God does not exist: all around us we see persistent injustice, evil, indifference and cruelty. —PAPA FRANCIS, Evangelii Gaudium, n. 276

Today, such despair is all around us as atheism is making a new sweep of the world. With each year that passes, the argument continues that the Church is a historical deception, that Scriptures are fabrications, that Jesus never really lived, that we are not God’s children but merely random evolved particles of the “big bang.” And so goes the “Hymn of Pointlessness.”

But this kind of thinking is the product of essentially three things: a misinterpretation of the Scriptures, a lack of intellectual honesty (or desire to face the truth), and a crisis of evangelization. But here, I want to address the first point: what is meant by the above Scriptures, so that as the second reading says, we may go forward “by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures.”

When Jesus began to preach, He proclaimed that “the Kingdom of God is near.” ^[2]Luca 21: 31 The Messiah had arrived. But then, He went on to explain how the Kingdom of God is like a field into which a man sows, and then waits until it grows and is finally harvested. ^[3]cf. Marcu 4: 26-29 Jesus was that man who sowed the seed. He also commissioned His Apostles to go forth into the “missionary fields” of the world and sow the Word. This implies that the Kingdom of Heaven is a process of creştere. The question is, when is it time for harvest?

First, I would suggest that, just as there are many labour pains according to St. Paul, ^[4]Rom 8: 22 so too there are many “harvests” until the ultimul harvest at the very end of time. The Church will go through seasons of bearing great fruit, of pruning, and even seeming death at times.

Dar este, de asemenea, adevărat că, în mijlocul întunericului, ceva nou revine mereu la viață și, mai devreme sau mai târziu, produce roade. Pe un pământ zdrobit, viața pătrunde, încăpățânată, dar invincibilă. Oricât de întunecate ar fi, bunătatea reapare și se răspândește întotdeauna. În fiecare zi, frumusețea noastră se naște din nou, se înalță transformată prin furtunile istoriei. Valorile tind să reapară întotdeauna sub noi înfățișări, iar ființele umane au apărut din când în când din situații care păreau condamnate. Aceasta este puterea învierii și toți cei care evanghelizează sunt instrumente ale acestei puteri. —PAPA FRANCIS, Evangelii Gaudium, n. 276

At play here is what St. Paul calls a “mystery kept secret for long ages” but has now been “made known to all nations…” And what is that? “… to bring about the obedience of faith.Matei 22:21 ^[5]Rom 16: 25-26 Elsewhere, St. Paul describes this mystery as bringing forth the body of Christ “to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ. " ^[6]Eph 4: 13 What was the full stature of Christ? Complete ascultare to the will of the Father. The mystery of Christ, then, is to bring about this obedience of faith in the Bride of Christ before the end of time; to bring about the will of God on earth “as it is in heaven”:

… În fiecare zi, în rugăciunea Tatălui nostru, Îl rugăm pe Domnul: „Fie-se voia Ta, pe pământ, precum este în ceruri” (Matei 6:10)…. recunoaștem că „cerul” este locul în care se face voința lui Dumnezeu și că „pământul” devine „cer” - adică locul prezenței iubirii, a bunătății, a adevărului și a frumuseții divine - numai dacă pe pământ voia lui Dumnezeu este făcută. —PAPA BENEDICT XVI, Audiența generală, 1 februarie 2012, Vatican

Through the seasons of both fecundity and drought, the Holy Spirit has been preparing the Church for this stage of her growth by both tilling the fields of the world, and then seeding it with the Word and watering it with the blood of the martyrs. As such, she not only grows interiorly, but exteriorly as she draws more members into her mystical body. But there is coming a time when the final seeding ^[7]“until the full number of the Gentiles comes in, and thus all Israel will be saved.” cf. Rom 11:25 will come so as to bear a “mature” harvest:

Actul mântuitor al lui Hristos nu a restaurat de la sine toate lucrurile, pur și simplu a făcut posibilă lucrarea răscumpărării, a început răscumpărarea noastră. Așa cum toți oamenii participă la neascultarea lui Adam, tot așa toți oamenii trebuie să participe la ascultarea lui Hristos față de voința Tatălui. Răscumpărarea va fi completă numai atunci când toți oamenii vor împărtăși ascultarea sa. — pr. Walter Ciszek, El mă conduce, pag. 116-117; citat în Splendorul Creației, Pr. Joseph Iannuzzi, pg. 259

This is why the popes say that Isaiah’s vision of peace and justice on earth before the end of time is not a pipe dream, but is coming! And peace and justice are simply the fruits of living in the Father’s Divine Will. Jesus is coming to bring about the reign of His Kingdom such that the “earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD.” It will not be a state of perfection, ^[8]“The Church . . . will receive its perfection only in the glory of heaven. "-CVC, n. 769 dar de purificare in the Church as preparation for, and part of the last days. 

Let me conclude then with the words of two popes, and let the reader decide if we are not in fact approaching the days when Christ, with “winnowing fan” in hand, is preparing a great harvest of peace and justice for the Church and the world—the very reason you are being prepared with Mărturia ta pentru The New Missions. For “all who evangelize are instruments” of the power of the Resurrection!

At times we have to listen, much to our regret, to the voices of people who, though burning with zeal, lack a sense of discretion and measure. In this modern age they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin … We feel that we must disagree with those prophets of doom who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand. In our times, divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations which, by human effort and even beyond all expectations, are directed to the fulfilment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs, in which everything, even human setbacks, leads to the greater good of the Church. —BLESSED JOHN XXIII, Address for the Opening of the Second Vatican Council, October 11th, 1962; 4, 2-4: AAS 54 (1962), 789

Suntem departe de așa-numitul „sfârșit al istoriei”, deoarece condițiile pentru o dezvoltare durabilă și pașnică nu au fost încă articulate și realizate în mod adecvat. —PAPA FRANCIS, Evangelii Gaudium, n. 59

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• Papii și era răsăritului

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