Build the Civilization of Truth and
Love
To participants at the "Meeting for Friendship Among
Peoples"
in Rimini, August 29th, 1982
Dearest Brothers and Sisters,
1. I am very happy to be here among you to conclude this
third Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples". Just pronouncing
these words already gladdens one' s heart. "Meeting" ! "Meeting
of friendship" ! "Friendship among peoples" ! Words
that acquire a special significance in these times, often dramatic,
of the world' s history. I therefore greet you with the joy of
the Psalms. It is the very joy of God: "Behold, how good it
is, and how pleasant, where brethren dwell at one!" (Ps 132).
Today we are living a special hour, which must be understood thoroughly. The
reasons are so many.
2. Above all, we are living a meeting.
Each one of you, during these days, has been able to have this experience.
You have meetings not only with the hundreds and thousands of other persons
who have filled the lecture halls, but also with various personalities who
brought here the contribution of their reflection and creativity. But this
meeting has been made possible and almost necessary by another Meeting. The
Meeting was in fact born from the friendship of a group of Christians from
this city. As I have been told, it was born from the passion for communication,
for creativity, for dialogue that the Christian faith, integrally lived,
always brings with it.
Yes, the faith lived as a reverberation of and in continuity with those first
meetings that the Gospel documents, the faith lived as a certainty and a claim
for Christ' s presence in every situation and occasion of life, makes it possible
to create new forms of life for man, makes him desirous of communicating and
knowing, of meeting and putting to good use.
The meeting with Christ, which is renewed in a permanent way in the sacramental
memorial of His death and resurrection, makes possible and encourages the meeting
with brethren and all men. Truly St Paul's words to the Thessalonians can be
taken up again here, as a conclusion and a teaching of this attempt of yours: "Test
everything and retain what is good" ( 1 Thess 5:21).
I am pleased that the initiative is an expression of the vitality of the Catholic
laity in Italy. Such a laity, "aware and active, is an estimable treasure
for each local Church", as I said to the bishops of Liguria last 8 January.
An aware laity, that is, conscious of the communion that binds it to Christ
and the Church, and an active one, that is, desirous of expressing in the freedom
of its initiatives the beauty and the humanity of what it has encountered.
This is the beautiful reality of this meeting.
3. This year you have focused your attention on a particularly
stimulating theme, "Man's Resources". Shall we reflect
on it together?
In general, man's resource is everything that comes to his aid
in his effort to earn his living and subdue the earth. But things
truly become man' s resources
only when man encounters them through work. Through work man subdues nature
and puts everything at his service. Through work man takes care of the earth,
uses its riches for his life, and at the same time improves and protects the
earth. I am therefore pleased to note how your theme has reference above all
to the Church's great current preoccupation for human work, which was expressed
in my recent Encyclical Laborem Exercens. In fact, man communicates with external
reality only through his inner nature. It is the internal resources of his
mind and heart that allow him to rise above things and rule over them. Man'
s worth is not in what he "has" but in what he "is". For
this reason it is necessary to meditate with particular depth on that decisive
resource of man that is work, in order to understand the unselfish, pure, nonutilitarian
importance that is at the basis of human work and confers on it its significance.
4. This however is linked - and we are taking a step forward
- with another fundamental resource of man: the family.
Man works to support himself and his family. If to work is to take care of
one's being, cooperating in the creative work of God, this general principle
becomes evident and existentially concrete for the greater part of men in the
fact that by working man takes care of the person of his loved ones. If it
is certainly true that man, as all the animals, feels the instinct for self-preservation,
it is also true that it is not right to posit as the principle of work an intention
that is only utilitarian and selfish. Even the instinct for self-preservation
exists in man in a specifically human, personalistic form as the will to exist
as a person, as the will to safeguard the value of the person in himself and
in others, beginning with his loved ones. This fact defines the limit of every
utilitarian and economic interpretation of human work.
Work, through which man subdues nature, is the work of the entire human community
throughout all its generations. Every one of these generations has its obligations
to take care of the earth in order to hand it over to future generations, still
and ever more fit to be man's home. May I recall in this context, even if incidentally,
that when the bond of solidarity that must bind men among themselves and with
future generations is broken, this care of the earth is lessened. And then,
the ecological catastrophe that is threatening mankind today has a deep ethical
root in the forgetfulness of the true nature of human work and especially of
its subjective dimension, its value for the family and social community. It
is the Church's duty to recall men's attention to this truth.
5. But we must go to greater depths. The resources of which
we have spoken, though sacrosant and primary, still touch man on
the surface. It is necessary to pay attention principally to the
resources that man has within himself: in his human nature, in
the dignity of the image and likeness of God (cfr. Gen 1:27), which
man bears impressed in the essence of his personality. The wellknown
words of the great St Augustine, whose feast we celebrated yesterday,
still always come to mind: Fecisti nos ad te: "You have made
us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they
rest in You" (Confessions 1:1 ).
Yes, brothers and sisters, we are made for the Lord, who has stamped
in us the immortal mark of His power and His love. Man's great
resources are from
here, they are here, and only in God do they find their safeguard. Man is great
through his intellect, through which he knows himself, others, the world and
God. Man is great through his will, through which he gives himself in love,
to the extent of reaching the heights of heroism. On these resources man's
irreprensible yearning finds its foundation: the yearning that reaches towards
truth - this is the life of the intellect - and that which reaches towards
freedom - this is the sight of the will. Here man acquires his great incomparable
stature, which no one can trample on, which no one can scorn, which no one
can take away from him: the stature of "being", to which I have already
referred.
This value, proper to man, through which every man is truly man, rests on the
foundation of culture. It is above all in culture that man's essential resources
are manifested. As I said at Unesco headquarters in Paris, "Man lives
a truly human life through culture... Culture is that by which man as man becomes
more man, 'is' more, enters more into 'being' . . . Culture is always placed
in essential and necessary relation to what man is, while his relation with
what he has, with his 'having' is not only secondary; but totally relative...
In the cultural sphere man is always the first fact: man is the primordial
and fundamental fact of culture. And this is what man always is: in the integral
unity of his spiritual and material subjectivity. If the distinction between
spiritual culture and material culture is correct in the function of the character
and the content of the products in which culture is manifest, it is necessary
to note at the same time that on the one hand the works of material culture
always make a 'spiritualization' of matter appear, a subjection of the material
element to the spiritual element, to the spiritual powers of man, that is to
his intellect and his will. On the other hand, the works of spiritual culture
manifest in a specific way a 'materialization' of the spirit, an incarnation
of the spiritual."
So culture thus becomes the foundation af man's abilities to discover and utilize
all his resources, those given to his spiritual being and those given to his
material being. Provided he knows how to discover them! Provided he does not
destroy them! Brothers and sisters, think of the enormous responsibility you
hold in your hands! Do not waste it, do not neglect it! You need all your powers
to do this, but above all you need Him who is the power of God and man, "Christ,
the power of God and wisdom of God" ( 1 Cor 1:24).
6 . Here we are, therefore, at the unavoidable focal point
of the question. Man's greatest "resource" is Christ,
Son of God and Son of Man. In Him are discovered the outlines of
the new man, realized in all his fullness, man per se. In Christ,
crucified and risen, there is revealed to man the possibility and
the way for everyone to assume his nature in profound unity. Here
is, I would say, the unifying principle of your Meeting, dedicated
to man's resources. It is like a wire between all the various moments
of your work program: the risen Christ, the inexhaustible source
of life for man. Christ, man' s resource: this is how you wanted
to announce the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
He did not disdain to assume the nature of man, and not in an abstract
way, since "He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave... He humbled himself,
obediently accepting even death, death on a cross" (Phil 2:7, 8). The
humanity of Christ, through the mystery of the cross and resurrection, has
become the place where man, conquered but not annihilated by sin, has rediscovered
his own humanity.
Strengthened by this unique and unrepeatable experience of her founder, the
Church has been able to define herself through the mouth of Paul VI an "expert
in humanity". It is under this title, founded on the authority of the
Master and reinforced by two thousand years of existence, that the Church today
appears on the scene of history, desirous of reproposing to man the central
core of her message: Christ, the first fruits and root of the new man.
After all, right here in Rimini you have had the living testimony of people
who have given themselves fully to Christ in the exercise of their profession
and whose example continues to shine ever more: the engineer Alberto Marvelli,
whose cause for beatification has begun, and Doctor Igino Righetti, collaborator
of the future Paul VI of happy memory, and with him the founder and first president
of the Catholic graduates. Two laymen, two apostles, two men who knew how to
draw from "Christ the resource". They drew for themselves - in intense
interior activity, in prayer, in the sacramental life - and they have left
for others a model and a call.
7. To speak of Christ as man's resource is to testify that
even today the essential ends of civilization are in fact, consciously
and unconsciously, referred to the Christ event, which has become
the daily announcement confessed by the Church.
The man of today is strongly committed to reformulate his relationship
with the world that surrounds him, with science and technology.
He wants to discover
ever new resources for his life and for coexistence among peoples; he is striving
to realize a process that everyone would like to be peaceful and to exalt art
as an expression of his own free creativity. Despite this, peace is gravely
threatened today, science and technology risk generating an unbalanced load
of negative consequences in the relationship between man and man, between man
and nature, between nations and nations. From this contradiction, which seems
unstoppable because it is structurally connected with the mystery of evil,
it is necessary that our gaze be directed to the "artisan of our salvation" in
order to generate a civilization that is born of truth and love. The civilization
of love! In order not to be in agony, in order not to burn out in unbridled
egoism to the pain of others. Brothers and sisters, build this civilization
without ever becoming tired!
It is the task I leave you today. Work for this, pray for this, suffer for
this!
And with this good wish, I bless you all in the name of the Lord.
The Holy Father then spoke with the young people and answered
some questions. This is the first question:
Since the beginning of your pontificate you have defined young people as the
hope of the Church. What does this mean for our life?
The Pope answered:
Life for young people means to discover man's resources: this is peculiar to
youth and it is done especially in the early years of life. The hope for the
future is tied to this discovery. If young people of our time have discovered
man's resources in the right way - because you can discover them even in evil
- if they have discovered them in truth, in love, then we can be full of hope
in the future.
The second question:
Living daily our problems in our family, at work, at school, we see great problems.
But even the economical and social problems of our time imply a deep existential
insecurity. What does all this mean for Christians?
This is the Pope's answer:
It is a deep and indeed very right perception: the perception of the drama
of human existence. And we can and must think about it, as it is a phenomenon
that has many facets. There are several reasons, I could say that the very
essence of the human drama is different. But if we reflect about the different
aspects of this drama of human existence, we arrive at a central point: the
basic human drama is the failure to feel the meaning of life, not to possess
the meaning of one's life, to live without meaning. Here we touch again upon
the theme of resources. Not to discover the meaning of human life means not
to know what man's resources are. All the resources, those offered to man by
external nature, those offered by human nature, his personality, and finally
the supernatural resources open to man in Christ. That is the way we can help
others. Many times we find ourselves without possibilities; we cannot find
the way to help others in the different dramas of human life. But I think that,
in this drama which seems to me central and basic, we can perhaps do more,
we can try to give to others the meaning of life, we can try to make them discover
man's resources and, in this way, give them the meaning of life. I think this
is also your apostolate: to help others to discover the meaning of human existence.
Here is the third question:
Your Holiness, since the beginning of your pontificate you have tirelessly
spurred peoples and nations to peace.Today, what are the basic elements for
this construction?
The Holy Father answered:
Well, first of all a methodological observation. I was told: "Come to
Rimini and we will listen to you." But indeed the reality is a bit different: "You
have to come to Rimini, we are listening to you but we are examining you as
well!"
I have spoken many times about peace. Of course words are not the most important
things, but they are still important. I would repeat what was perhaps essential
in my speech at the United Nations where, following the traditional teachings
of the Church especially of the recent popes, Pope John and Pope Paul, I tried
to convince the great assembly: if we want to achieve peace we must fully respect
the various human rights. They have different aspects: they are strictly speaking
rights of the person, but then they become larger and become rights of the
family, the rights of peoples. According to a good theory, by observing all
these rights you exclude war, you create peace. So there is a program. On the
other hand we know that, although the program exists, there are still wars
and threats.
The fourth and last question was:
Holy Father, our basic concern has been and is that of giving testimony to
the Christian fact. Why and how does an initiative like this one of the Meeting
contribute to this witnessing?
The Pope answered as follows:
I am convinced that it contributes to giving a Christian witness. I would even
say, it contributes to showing a dimension of the Church, precisely that dimension
on which we have meditated so much in the teaching of Vatican II and which
we left for the future. We used to think of the Church in a rather static way
as of something definitively constituted: this was and still is true. The Church
is a divine institution. Yet Vatican II has shown us the Church as a people
on a journey, the people of God. It has shown us the Church above all as a
mission that comes from the Holy Trinity and enters into each baptized, into
each Christian, as a part of him, even, in a certain sense, into each man of
good will. This great mission of the truth, of good and of love has become
what constitutes our vision of the Church. I think that you who are a movement,
and who with this Meeting give an expression to your movement, to the aims
of this movement, try to express with this Meeting the Church's particular
character, the mission proper to her. The mission proper to the Church is always
an historical one, although transcendent, although divine. It is historical,
part of the history of our time. With your Meeting you are trying to show the
journey of the Church of our time. You are trying to express the meaning of
the mystery of salvation, the work of salvation. You mean, with the different
methods and especially with this Meeting, to incarnate this work of salvation,
to make it present among men. Here, in short, like this, not to say too many
words. |
