Meeting 2 — God’s View of Man¶
Introduction for the Animator¶
Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This, as has already been said, is why Christ the Redeemer “fully reveals man to himself”. If we may use the expression, this is the human dimension of the mystery of the Redemption. In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity. In the mystery of the Redemption man becomes newly “expressed” and, in a way, is newly created. He is newly created! “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly-and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being-must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to speak, enter into him with all his own self, he must “appropriate” and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself. If this profound process takes place within him, he then bears fruit not only of adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself. How precious must man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he “gained so great a Redeemer”, and if God “gave his only Son “in order that man “should not perish but have eternal life”.
In reality, the name for that deep amazement at man’s worth and dignity is the Gospel, that is to say: the Good News.
—John Paul II - Redemptor hominis
This text reflects everything we want to talk about today.
Introduction¶
Yesterday all day we talked about the spiritual condition of man. We tried to look closely at ourselves and think about who we are. In the evening we started talking about God who enters this life of ours. We want to look at ourselves once again now, but asking ourselves the question: what does “God’s presence” change in yesterday’s considerations.
We read the text from the introduction - fragment of the encyclical Redemptor Hominis.
We will now read this beautiful text sentence by sentence relating to our topic.
Jesus gives meaning to human life¶
Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it.
What love is this about? How do we read that we can understand ourselves only through meeting with Love?
Can we find the fullness of our humanity in love? Do we give it such “rank”?
It’s a bit like wanting to “learn” the mechanism of e.g. a printer without trying to print anything on it. Man is created for love, therefore only through contact with it (meaning answering with love) can he discover himself.
Full revelation of man to man¶
This, as has already been said, is why Christ the Redeemer “fully reveals man to himself”. If we may use the expression, this is the human dimension of the mystery of the Redemption. In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity. In the mystery of the Redemption man becomes newly “expressed” and, in a way, is newly created. He is newly created! “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.
Reading the above sentences, can we find this greatness, dignity in the image “Ecce Homo”?
What does it consist of, how do we feel it?
Can we also experience similar joy thinking that the Mystery of Redemption “creates us anew”?
Let’s pay attention to the fact that God comes to show man who he himself is! This full revelation of man to man means that we lost our own identity “earlier” - we do not know who we are. It was therefore very important for God that we find out about this.
Discovery of profound truth about oneself¶
The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly-and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being-must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to speak, enter into him with all his own self, he must “appropriate” and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself.
“Enter with all his own self”, “assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption” - these are incredibly demanding words. Do we feel fear, anxiety hearing such radical sentences? Why?
Do we have an experience of such an open approach to Christ with our whole selves?
This is what we talked about yesterday: a man who has already discovered his unrest, uncertainty, weakness, sinfulness still cannot understand his own meaning of life, has more questions than answers. It is at this stage that one must particularly turn to Jesus… Only he will give us the opportunity to search for answers to our questions deeper. We should not be ashamed that we do this to “know ourselves”.
Reflection on oneself¶
If this profound process takes place within him, he then bears fruit not only of adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself. How precious must man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he “gained so great a Redeemer”, and if God “gave his only Son “in order that man “should not perish but have eternal life”.
In what way do we ourselves care to initiate this process?
Can we see this great value in ourselves? Is it not so that often criticizing ourselves we take away this dignity from ourselves? (i.e. we make ourselves “too small” people)
Courageous acceptance of Love¶
God’s love, its enormity, can sometimes overwhelm us. Just as we said yesterday during the evening conference about letters. The intention of the one who bestows love is not for us to feel overwhelmed. It is hard to accept love.
Do we experience this suffering associated with accepting love? What do we do to give meaning to this suffering?
Suffering is inscribed in love (at least the one here on earth). Running away from this suffering implies running away from accepting the fullness of love. In the life of every human being there must be a moment of difficult decision to start loving (open up to being loved).
How do we deal with this decision? Can we accept our situation with optimism, serenity?
Let us read:
Every true Love must have its Good Friday.
—Card. Stefan Wyszyński
How do we understand these words of the cardinal?
It is not by accident that loving is compared to a burning candle - we burn ourselves for others. We come to the most important question:
Are we able to rejoice more in the light that others receive thanks to this than be sad because of our inconveniences?
Application¶
The Light-Life Movement method does not allow us to remain only at the level of knowledge and information. Each meeting should end with “application”, i.e. concrete introduction of content into life.
Proposal for each of us to make now one small resolution in connection with the discussed topic, which we hope to be able to realize still during this retreat.
Final prayer¶
Any prayer for the intention of good experience of the Paschal Triduum.