I am indebted to you for this post. You have no idea how it came to me at a time when I most needed it.
I am passing it on to two prople who I love very much—each one in his own way will understand this analogy, each one to his own benefit.
It’s like shedding a very great burden to begin reading things like this on the FR Religion Forum, replacing the tone that had come about and which I am relieved is—at leasy for this moment in time—being set aside for the true meaning of grace and redemption. That grace and redemption is that God loves us and that we are to be the ambassadors of His love to others. We can’t do that effectively with rancour and bitter disputes.
Mark, you have made my day.
Once again I have to say: spellcheck is my friend. :-)
Bears repeating.
Perhaps this is an outgrowth the graces of this year's Holy Week. The Holy Father, in his Message for Lent, 2007, said the following:
In the Lenten journey, memorial of our Baptism, we are exhorted to come out of ourselves in order to open ourselves in trustful abandonment to the merciful embrace of the Father (cf. St John Chrysostom, Catecheses, 3, 14ff.). Blood, symbol of the love of the Good Shepherd, flows into us especially in the Eucharistic mystery: "The Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation... we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving" (Encyclical Deus caritas est, n. 13). Let us live Lent, then, as a "Eucharistic" time in which, welcoming the love of Jesus, we learn to spread it around us with every word and deed. Contemplating "him whom they have pierced" moves us in this way to open our hearts to others, recognizing the wounds inflicted upon the dignity of the human person; it moves us in particular to fight every form of contempt for life and human exploitation and to alleviate the tragedies of loneliness and abandonment of so many people. May Lent be for every Christian a renewed experience of God's love given to us in Christ, a love that each day we, in turn, must "re-give" to our neighbour, especially to the one who suffers most and is in need. Only in this way will we be able to participate fully in the joy of Easter.
The FReeper to really thank for this thread (and thus that post to which you refer) is BTL. 'Twas BTL who provided the gentle nudge that hopefully will result in the establishment of a "Christian Caucus."
It’s like shedding a very great burden to begin reading things like this on the FR Religion Forum, replacing the tone that had come about and which I am relieved is—at leasy for this moment in time—being set aside for the true meaning of grace and redemption. That grace and redemption is that God loves us and that we are to be the ambassadors of His love to others. We can’t do that effectively with rancour and bitter disputes.
Mark, you have made my day.
= = =
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
THANKS TONS.