Page 20 - michael-journal-2019-may

u consequence of our inability to love God. Learning Western society is a society in which God is
to love God is therefore the path of human redemp- absent in the public sphere and has nothing left to
tion. offer it. And that is why it is a society in which the
Let us now try to unpack this essential content measure of humanity is increasingly lost. At indi-
of God’s revelation a little more. We might then say vidual points it becomes suddenly apparent that
that the first fundamental gift that Faith offers us is what is evil and destroys man has become a mat-
the certainty that God exists. ter of course.
A world without God can only be a world with- That is the case with pedophilia. It was theor-
out meaning. For where, then, does everything ized only a short time ago as quite legitimate, but it
that is come from? In any case, it has no spirit- has spread further and further. And now we realize
ual purpose. It is somehow simply there and has with shock that things are happening to our children
neither any goal nor any sense. Then there are no and young people that threaten to destroy them.
standards of good or evil. The fact that this could also spread in the Church
Then only what is stronger than the other can and among priests ought to disturb us in particular.
assert itself. Power is then the only principle. Truth Why did pedophilia reach such proportions?
does not count, it actually does not exist. Only if Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God. We
things have a spiritual reason, are intended and Christians and priests also prefer not to talk about
conceived — only if there is a Creator God who God, because this speech does not seem to be
is good and wants the good — can the life of man practical. (…)
also have meaning. A paramount task, which must result from the
That there is God as creator and as the measure moral upheavals of our time, is that we ourselves
of all things is first and foremost a primordial need. once again begin to live by God and unto Him.
But a God who would not express Himself at all, Above all, we ourselves must learn again to rec-
who would not make Himself known, would remain ognize God as the foundation of our life instead of
a presumption and could thus not determine the leaving Him aside as a somehow ineffective phrase.
form [Gestalt] of our life. I will never forget the warning that the great theolo-
But a God who would not express himself at all, gian Hans Urs von Balthasar once wrote to me on
one of his letter cards. “Do not presuppose the tri-
who would not make himself known, would remain une God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but present
an assumption and could thus not determine the them!” (…)
form of our life. For God to be really God in this
deliberate creation, we must look to Him to express (2) God became man for us. Man as His creature
Himself in some way. He has done so in many is so close to His heart that He has united himself
ways, but decisively in the call that went to Abra- with him and has thus entered human history in a
ham and gave people in search of God the orienta- very practical way. He speaks with us, He lives with
tion that leads beyond all expectation: God Himself us, He suffers with us and He took death upon Him-
becomes creature, speaks as man with us human self for us. We talk about this in detail in theology,
beings. with learned words and thoughts. But it is precisely
In this way the sentence “God is” ultimately in this way that we run the risk of becoming masters
of faith instead of being renewed and mastered by
turns into a truly joyous message, precisely be- the Faith.
cause He is more than understanding, because He
creates - and is - love. To once more make people Let us consider this with regard to a central
aware of this is the first and fundamental task en- issue, the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Our
trusted to us by the Lord. handling of the Eucharist can only arouse concern.
A society without God — a society that does The Second Vatican Council was rightly focused
on returning this sacrament of the Presence of the
not know Him and treats Him as non-existent — is Body and Blood of Christ, of the Presence of His
a society that loses its measure. In our day, the Person, of His Passion, Death and Resurrection, to
catchphrase of God’s death was coined. the center of Christian life and the very existence of
When God does die in a society, it becomes the Church. In part, this really has come about, and
free, we were assured. In reality, the death of God in we should be most grateful to the Lord for it.
a society also means the end of freedom, because And yet a rather different attitude is prevalent.
what dies is the purpose that provides orientation. What predominates is not a new reverence for the
And because the compass disappears that points presence of Christ’s death and resurrection, but a
us in the right direction by teaching us to distin- way of dealing with Him that destroys the great-
guish good from evil. ness of the Mystery. The declining participation in

20 MICHAEL May/June/July 2019 www.michaeljournal.org