How extraordinary must the virtue of faith seem in our secular age; that of all possibilities, it is this virtue which has the capacity of establishing human beings in reality, and how great that reality is discovered to be - the love of the Living God. Today, the virtue of faith appears like a flower in a desert. The welcoming and the integration of this gift into life takes place in the person through an authetic experience of freedom: freedom in the face of all that life offers, and above all, freedom of will in being able to make decisions on the basis of Light - the light of Christ - and to give oneself for the building up of God's Kingdom.
Faith then, is not about self-improvement, it is about the exercise of all the virtues, that the whole person might be perfected by grace. Do we want to live the virtues? Then we must look beyond the secular vision which we have unleashed upon ourselves to He who comes to us, the Christ of God.
This call has a particular urgency for the Church, for in his new Motu Proprio Ubicumque et Semper, the Holy Father quotes JPII's Christifideles Laici: "Without doubt a mending of the Christian fabric of society is needed in all parts of the world. But for this to come about what is needed is first to remake the Christian fabric of the ecclesial community itself present in these countries and nations."
Yes, the world needs to convert, but it needs us to convert first so that we can be the instruments of grace that God is looking for. Will we be the first today to listen to the words of the Messiah and to take them as the basis of life?
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