Memory and Identity: Modern Democracy

In this chapter John Paul II gives a simple presentation of historical political systems and in which he particularly analyses democracy.

First, he describes the three forms of political organisation (from the perspective of who has power). In a Monarchy power resides in an individual, in an Aristocracy power resides in a social group, and in a Democracy power resides in the whole of society. Each of these systems is valid so long as the purpose of exercising power is to serve the common good, that fundamental moral norms are respected, and that civic virtues are actually exercised. If this is not the case, then Monarchy (and Aristocracy) degenerates into Tyranny, and Democracy into Ochlocracy (domination by the populace).

Democracy, understood not simply as a political system, but also as an attitude of mind and a principle of conduct, does not, in practice, allow for the direct exercise of power by the whole of society; power resides in representatives of the people who are designated by free election.

Catholic social morality favours Democracy because it corresponds more closely to the rational and social nature of man.

Democracy comes into being through a 'state of law', in which social life is established by parliaments with legislative power, and is regulated by law. Thus, Democracy is able to form free citizens who jointly pursue the common good.

Now the Divine Law also comes into play for man, this was given through Moses and is binding, even on those who do not accept Revelation, as natural law. The Decalogue (the Ten Commandments), or natural law, is foundational for any human legislation, precisely because they seek the fundamental good of personal and social life. If any of these commandments is placed in doubt, both human society and man's moral existence is put at risk. This is because law rests not upon human judgement, but upon the truth of being, the truth of God, of man, of all reality.

Memory and Identity: the relationship between Church and State.

The Council describes this relationship in Gaudium et Spes 76, saying that both Church and State are autonomous and independent of each other, yet both are devoted to nurturing the personal vocation of man, though under different titles.

The totalitarian States of the last century attempted to separate the Church from the State and extinguish it; for them the world belonged exclusively to the State. The Church's view is clearly in conflict with this, because for the Church the world is both a task and a challenge. This is particularly the case for lay people who are called to Christianise society and culture.

Today again, some politicians are trying to redefine the relationship between Church and State, colouring the Church's position as one of purely subjective faith (or opinion). We have seen this for instance from Barack Obama and Tony Blair. And, at the same time we have witnessed a certain passivity from believing citizens and a failure to defend basic human truths and rights. Indeed, we have also witnessed great efforts in society (for instance, the media) to intrude in people's consciences and to lead them to stop believing in Christ.

Here today lies the great challenge for the Church: a new evangelisation, which must begin with the task of rehumanising the world.

(Incidentally, the German wartime theologian Bonhoeffer said that the Christian's purpose in the State is to try to make the State a better State. He was executed by the Nazis two weeks before the end of WWII.)

A visit from overseas

On Monday this week George Weigel was the guest speaker at "Theology on Tap" in Sydney. What a tremendous teacher he is and how privilaged we were to host him in our monthly event for young people. He spoke to us about Bl John Paul II and how he showed the world that being a radically converted Christian is the greatest human endeavour.

You may be interested to follow Professor Weigel's weekly column here.

Seventy minutes

If you have seventy minutes to spare I recommend that you listen to a talk given by Archbishop Mark Coleridge. He was speaking last year in Perth, Australia, at a meeting of ICEL on the subject of the renewal of the Liturgy and the new translation of the missal. His understanding of this subject is superb. You can find the link here; scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the audio file.

Memory and Identity: The Mission of the Church

The Mission of the Church is the context in which we live the Christian life, for the Church is missionary by nature; she is called at all times to proclaim the Gospel, and her attitude must always be humble but courageous. And so today, an enormous ammount of work is needed on the the part of the Church, in particular the lay apostolate.

Christ and the Church are inseparable. There is no Christ without the Incarnation, and the Incarnation is prolonged in history in the Church. The Church exists then, because Christ belongs to the history of all humanity. God's plan has always been to unite and to transform all humanity in Christ His Son.

Today's "secular" world intends to live as if separated from God, yet this same world is called to fulfilment in Christ. The Church is called to pave the way for this "secular" world to receive its glory from God.

(I took the above photo while driving in Sydney a couple of years ago.)

Memory and Identity: The positive fruits of the Enlightenment.

We should not limit ourselves to considering the destructive aftermath of the Enlightenment, but consider also its positive aspects.

The Enlightenment prepared the way for a better understanding of human rights (even if these were already known to be rooted in the nature of man created by God.) During the Enlightenment the rights of nations to exist, to maintain their own cultures and to exercise political sovereignty came into focus, and with it came the idea that "fraternity" is a bond which not only unites men, but nations also.

During the Industrial revolution, which did great harm to the fabric of society, in which men were exploited by industry and commerce, some of the values of the Enlightenment led to a profound rediscovery of the truths contained in the Gospel.

Likewise, the birth of Communism led to a clearer understanding of the Church's social mission. This came to be expressed in her Social teaching.

The teaching of the Second Vatican Council can be seen as a synthesis of the relationship between Christianity and the Enlightenment: that the Church is called to engage with the world, not in a polemical or condemnatory way, but through a desire to lead the world to Christ - to evangelise the world. For, "it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man becomes clear." (Gaudium et Spes, 22) Christ is the light of men, first in their interior lives, and then in their vocation and destiny. In Christ, man knows who he is and how he is called to live. For uniquely, in Christ, man's whole life is a unity, his interior life, his spiritual life, his social life, he affective life, his moral life and his political life is united. Man is made whole in Christ. Apart from Christ man remains divided in himself, he remains an enigma to himself.

The mission of the Church then, is to man, wherever he is and in whatever state he is in; the Church's mission is to lead him to transformation in Christ.

(The extraordinary photo above was taken in Sydney city centre in July 2009.)

Memory and Identity: Europe as native land.

In this cahpter, the Holy Father looks at Europe through the prism of Christianity which, as we will see, is also the root of today's Europe.

The evangelisation of Europe began with a mysterious call which St Paul received, to cross from Asia to Europe and preach the Gospel there (Acts 16: 9). Within a few hundred years Ireland, the western most part of the continent, had become itself a missionary centre of the faith.

Building upon the fabric of the ancient world, it was evangelisation which formed Europe; the Faith favouring the formation of different cultures, different nations, but all linked to the common patrimony of the Gospel. However, it is only with the advent of the Modern Era, when the known world was extended to Asia, the Americas, to Africa and Australia, that Europe was seen in a more objective way.

St Paul's address at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17: 22-31) holds the key for what would take place in the wider Europe. In this speech St Paul first recognises the religion of the ancient world and, in so doing, prepares his hearers for a proclamation of the Incarnation and the Redemption. The Church would go on to achieve a profound integration of faith and culture in the peoples of Europe.

The first great 'wounding' of Europe was the 'Great Schism' of 1054 when the Eastern and Western Churches ceased to function together. Then, at the beginning of the Modern Era disputes arose with the Protestant reformation, and the Western Church suffered further divisions.

During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries - the era of the Enlightenment - Christ began to be rejected in Europe. The Enlightenment was not an outright rejection of God, but an attempt to exclude Christ from thought and from Europe's history.

Today a cultural drama continues for those who reject Christ; for the ideas of these secularists are, in fact, profoundly rooted in Christianity, so deeply has the Gospel marked Europe.

Christ himself gives us a Theology of the Incarnation and Redemption. In the metaphore of the Vine and the branches (John 15: 5ff), Christ shows how God cares for and cultivates his creature. He grafts it onto the stock of the divinity of His Son. From the beginning man has been called into existence in God's image and likeness. By agreeing to be grafted onto Christ, man can fully become himself. By refusing this grafting man is condemning himself to an incomplete humanity.

So, in the European Enlightenment man has endeavoured to cut himself off from the Vine, and thereby he opened up the path that would lead to the devastating experience of evil in the Twentieth century.

According to St Thomas Aquinas evil is the absence of good. For man to deprive himself of the good of being a part of the Vine is to deprive himself of that fullness which God intends for man.

(The above photo I took a few years ago in the churchyard in the village of Birstall in North Yorkshire. It is the gravestone of the late Christopher Dawson, the Catholic sociologist whose life's work was given over to helping Europe rebuild itself on the foundations of the Gospel after the Second World War.)

Memory and Identity: Nation and Culture.

The origin of history and culture is found in the Book of Genesis: the decision by the Creator to make man in His own image and likeness, blessing man, charging him to be fruitful and placing him at the forefront of the world. In one verse (Gen 1: 28) we have the earliest and most complete definition of human culture.

In the second account of Creation (Genesis chapter 2), we are given man's original experiences of solitude, unity and nakedness, together with the losing of original innocence in sin.

Man's mission then, which belong's equally to men and women, is to discover and confirm the truth about ourselves, and to receive the world as a gift and as a task. In order to undertake this mission we must be guided by the truth about ourselves and about the world.

Man's mission to the visible world has evolved throughout history, and we can see that where there have been problems, we have not been faithful to the truth about ourselves. Civilisation has always been linked to knowledge of the truth about the world, together with knowledge about ourselves.

Deeply ingrained in human culture is the element of beauty; that man reflects in his own life and work the beauty and goodness which is present in the created universe - man's testimony to God's work. This is a foundational element of the human experience and one which is expressed in the culture of a nation. It is this experience, by which man represents what is true, which reveals man's sovereignty in the world, his greatness. And for the same reason, the nation (natural society) is greater than the State (political organisation), for the nation's link to truth is more organic and foundational than is the State's.

Today, it can be said of many Western countries that they have arrived at the stage of "post-identity". That their relationship with truth and their own sense of sovereignty is now much diminished, and that consequently the citizens of these countries cannot give a testimony to their culture (man reflecting his own truth and the truth about the world). Instead, culture has in many cases been overwhelmed by false values, modern destructive trends in liberalism and economics.

A weekend of grace.

This past weekend the Seminary of the Good Shepherd held a public 40 Hours of Adoration (Quarantore) for the intention of vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life. The Blessed Sacrament was exposed on Friday evening at 9pm and finally reposed on Sunday at 1pm. The Seminary is grateful to the Sydney Archdiocese Vocations Office for their help and for providing such a great range of resources for spiritual reading and disernment during the 40 Hours.

There many times during the weekend, both during the day and during the night when our seminary chapel was vitually full, and you could 'feel' that a mighty work of grace was taking place. It was quite remarkable that there was a constant stream of young people visiting the chapel throughout the weekend. It was wonderful to see the Lord visibly at the head of His Church.

The 40 Hours ended with Solemn Benediction, which was followed by a mighty BBQ for all those who were present. We would certainly like to repeat this again next year.

Memory and Identity: History.

The whole created universe is subject to history; everything and everyone is subject to the course of events. Man however, unlike the plants and the animals, can reflect on history and give an account of it.

Communities of people, like individuals, have a historical memory; nations, for instance, seek to record what they remember. These histories are among the essential elements of culture, because they go to the heart of a nation's identity.

History for the Christian is not simply a question of acknowledging and understanding the past, it concerns rather, the whole of man's life: his origin, his historical experiences and his future, including his judgement before God. Such a perspective flows out of God's self-revelation; it is called "escatological". In other words, there is a diffrence between the history of nations and the history of man. A nation's history is confined to a course of events which have marked that nation. Man's history, as well as containing a course of events, also includes his divine origin and his divine vocation. This unique value within man's history is something which leaves its mark, and gives meaning to, the history of a nation.

(The above photo I took in 2007 inside the basement of the Bell Tower of the Tower of London. St Thomas More was confined in this cell before his trial and execution.)

Memory and Identity: the concept of a nation.

The term 'nation' designates a community based in a given territory and distinguished from other nations by its culture. Nation and family are natural societies - societies who basis is found within human nature, rather than in mere convention - and if replaced, it could only be in a contrived way. It is for this reason that the Church embraces these realities.

The nation therefore cannot be identified as the State, even though a nation may call itself a State. A State is not a natural society, but is rather the socio-political organisation which becomes established in a nation.

In Sacred Scripture we see that the 'nation' arises through one generation giving rise to the next through procreation. And that in Israel's case, she was chosen by God. This choice by God was made in order that He might reveal Himself, through Israel, to the nations. In time, Christ was born in Israel. Christ initiates generation of a different order; not now through proceation, but through rebirth in the Holy Spirit. Now all peoples have a new calling: not simply to belong to a nation, but to belong to the new People of God, who are taken from all nations.

Thus, every nation is affirmed in its identity because every nation is called to take its place in the history of salvation. The Church is the sacrament and sign of this call, in which men and women of every nation, possessing their unique attributes, now have equal rights of citizenship.

The Pope will return later in the book to consider the importance of the State.

(I took the above photo in 2007 in the undercroft of the White Tower in the Tower of London. I had taken a group of young people on a Martyrs Pilgrimage to London, and here in the undercroft, although totally remodelled in the eighteenth century, we saw the place where Catholic priests in the sixteenth century were tortured on the rack by the State.)

Memory and Identity: Patriotism.

Patriotism is a word and a notion which is much overlooked by many today, yet it continues to be, in reality, a foundational element of society. How is this the case?

Patriotism flows out of the Fourth Commandment: honour your father and mother. We venerate our parents because for us they represent God. They have shared with God in giving us life, and the spiritual patrimony of our native land, which we receive, comes to us first through our parents. From this flows our sense of love and duty towards our native land. The native land is also the common good of all its citizens, in which everyone has a duty to serve and nurture that people's culture and traditions.

Today, we need to ask, have we seen the final end of the development of human society? For we have seen the rise of globalisation, in which many small nations have been absorbed into larger political structures. And we have seen huge cultural changes taking place within societies.

Catholic social doctrine speaks about "natural societies". This indicates that both the family and the nation have a particular bond with human nature. It is clear that every society's formation takes place in and through the family. It is also true that the nation, when understood as the cultural and historical identity of a particular society, is also a part of human reality. It is clear then, that today natural societies - the family and the nation - are overlooked and attacked by other social forces, even though we need them.

Nationalism is not a heatly response to this dynamic, for nationalism represents the recognition and pursuit of one's own nation alone, without regard for others.

Patriotism, on the other hand, is a love of one's own nation that recognises the equal value of other nations; it is a properly orderd social love.

(The above photo was taken as I gave Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, 2007.)

Memory and Identity: the concept of "patria", native land.

Having reflected upon human freedom, the Pope now begins to unwrap the bases of human society. All people, he says, have a sense that they belong to a particular place or territory and have inherited their lives and their culture from their forebears. This inheritance is the totality of goods bequeathed to us by our forefathers and including their spiritual content. Thus, the concept of "patria", native land, implies a deep bond between the spiritual and the material, between culture and territory.

Humanity has been given another patrimony. Christ presents himself to humanity with a new patrimony - that of the Father - our eternal homeland. The culture of the Holy Trinity is the culture which Christ has lived from eternity; it is a culture which he shares with us in the Incarnation. And at his Ascension, Christ explicitly gives us this new homeland.

Thus, the inheritance which we receive from Christ orients our earthly patrimony towards heaven. Christ, by confirming the eternal laws of God, and by initiating a new culture, "cultivates" the world anew, and Christian culture in each sucessive age continues to be transformative of the culture of the world.

Now the heritage of the Father which Christ gives us passes through Our Lady's heart also, since she received him in her womb, gave birth to him, and upon whom He depended. Thus, Christ's patrimony was enriched by what Our Lady gave to it. Looking at this same mystery in a much wider context, we speak of the Church as the meeting of Christ with innumerable human hearts. In the Mystery of the Church we find the whole patrimony of Christianity; and so we speak of the Church as our Mother, guarding and nurturing this patrimony for us.

(The above photo was taken in Huddersfield in 2007 as I placed the Sacred Host into the monstrance.)

Memory and Identity: the Mystery of Mercy.

In this chapter of Bl JP II's book, he reflects upon the last and most important dimension of human freedom, a dimension that is largely overlooked today - that man's freedom exists only in relationship with God's love.

First, the Holy Father gives an exposition of Psalm 50, the psalm which speaks of the truth about man's moral fragility and the infinite Mercy of God. But how do we know about God's mercy? Our experience of God comes from God's self-revelation, ultimately in the death and resurrection of His Son.

Thus, the limit placed upon evil, of which man is both perpetrator and victim, is Divine Mercy. We might naturally presume to think that the limit placed upon evil would be Divine Justice. No, there is something greater than Divine Justice; Divine Mercy. For in mercy God draws good out of evil. The Paschal Mystery, which we celebrate in the Mass every day, confirms that good is ultimately victorious.

(The above photo was taken in 2007 as I celebrated Mass in my parish in Huddersfield.)

Memory and Identity: the lessons of recent history.

We have seen how Bl JPII speaks about human freedom; that grace doesn't take away our freedom but actually gives us our freedom. In this chapter the Pope speaks about the rise and the fall of the two great totalitarian systems in Europe during the last century; Communism and Nazism. He makes note of a very important factor here. That in Eastern Europe these systems were not only resisted, but that many people aspired to live by true values. Whereas in Western Europe the growth of false values has taken place alongside a certain marginalisation of true values.

Indeed, the West has actively taken part in the building of an "alternative civilisation", a civilisation which is not built upon true values. In such a civilisation men and women live as though God did not exist. This means that they live outside the parameters of good and evil. Such a civilisation is another form of totalitarianism, subtly concealed under the appearences of democracy. So, today B16 has spoken publicly of the "dictatorship of relativism".

How then, asks JPII, can we respond to this situation? We must return to the roots. We must return to the roots in both human and Christian terms.

In human terms, returning to the roots means reclaiming the fundamental truths and values about humanity, being able to see these clearly again. The purpose of this book, "Memory and Identity", is to help precisely with this. Reclaiming fundamental truths and values which were taken up by the Enlightenment and contemporary secularism and given either a false or a secondary meaning.

It also means returning to the person of Jesus Christ himself. "Learning Christ" anew, by penetrating into the depths of the revelation of the mystery of Christ, and experiencing anew the testimony of life which flows from Him, whilst recognising that God intervened powerfully in the events of the twentieth century.

(The above photo I took, a year ago, of a former presbytery of mine in Huddesrfield. The house is now delapidated and souless as it was when I moved into it. Yet for three years this unprepossessing house became an oasis of the Christian life for the mission of the Church; during these years I had named the house "Our Lady Mother of Grace House".)

Soho to Sydney

What a great joy it has been for the Church in Sydney to welcome Fr Alexander Sherbrooke of St Patrick's parish, London, on a week long visit. Fr Alexander was invited by the Archdiocese to give the main address at a colloquium which was titled "Parish renewal and the New Evangelisation". He addressed first the nature and significance of the New Evangelisation and then spoke about the Eucharistic Heart of the parish. These addresses together with a "pub talk' in the evening, in which he spoke about his work in London, were very well received. In the photo below Fr Alexander is speaking with Bishop Julian Porteous of Sydney who organised the colloquium. Below that is a photo of myself speaking at the event on the theme of the laity of the New Evangelisation.

The following day we were delighted to welcome him to the Seminary where he spoke, in an informal setting (photo below), about the need for priests to be alive in Christ and to keep His light alive in the Church. He spoke to us also of the freedom which faith and the language of faith still has in Australia, and how repressed are these dimensions of life in the UK; a call to these priests-to-be to promote and defend the faith in the public arena. Fr Alexander then made an overnight visit to the seminary in Melbourne to meet the seminarians there.

The following day he was welcomed at "Theology on Tap" in its pub venue in Parramatta. He spoke to over three hundred young people (photo below), calling them to participate in the New Evangelisation by seeking to develop their Christian formation, by adoring Christ in his Eucharistic Heart, and by being open to the poor and the way that God speaks to us through the poor.

We are extremely grateful to Fr Alexander for taking the time and the trouble to make the long return journey to Sydney and to give of himself to so many.

Memory and Identity: Freedom is for love.

The Pope has described how modern man has unsucessfully wrestled with his freedom, and that for freedom to truly be what it is, it needs grace. Man cannot be free on his own; man cannot be free without God. What then, the Pope asks, is freedom?

For Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, freedom is a property of the will which is realised by truth. Freedom is therefore a task which man accomplishes through virtue. Human freedom comes about when man reaches out, through virtue, for that which is true. (It is this moral vision which was taken up by St Thomas Aquinas the medieval theologian.) Thus, human freedom involves the four cardinal virtues: prudence has an overall guiding function, justice regulates the social order, temperance and fortitude discipline man's inner life (his desires and emotions).

Yet Aristotle is not here proposing an abstract moral system, rather he is taking up man's real experience. St Thomas includes, in this moral vision, the light of Revelation, because if freedom comes about when man reaches out for what is true, then the greatest truth of all is God's Commandment's and the Revelation of Jesus Christ. It is in Christ that human freedom finds its fullest realisation.

So, the truth about freedom is that it is not an end in itself; freedom is for something. Freedom is for love. Human beings are free because they are called to love. Love perfects human nature, and without freedom man could never become who he truly is.

Once we know what the fundamental human vocation is - to love - then we can look at the many different dimensions of this vocation. Human freedom is the basis of all Catholic personal and social moral teaching, in which the Church shows how man is called to accept and to implement the truth about the good. In this way man can escape from the possibility of embracing evil and making himself worse off than he was before.

Freedom then, is the implementation of the truth regarding the good, such that freedom becomes good in itself. If freedom ceases to be linked with truth, it becomes corrupted and evil becomes a part of man's life.

(I took the above photo in October 2010 from a small boat in Port Stephens on the NSW coast.)

Memory and Identity:the just use of freedom

Next the Pope turns to consider human freedom. The nature of this human faculty is the fundamental question today. If I use my freedom well I become good; if I don't use it well then evil takes root in me and around me. So what is the proper use of freedom? How can freedom be used so as to avoid evil?

A problem for us today is that we speak about freedom as though it has no connection with morality, no connection with goodness or evil. Today, the appeal is made to freedom alone - mere choice. However, in the past we recognised the need for a criterion with which to regulate the use of freedom; the criterion which is most employed today is that of utility or pleasure. So, I choose according to what will be most useful or cause the most happiness.

Now if we analyse what is going on in a person when they choose, we see that a person's will and intellect come together in such a way that the person is responsibile for his actions. And to identify the moral character of an action we have to distinguish between the just good, the useful good and the pleasurable good.

The just good represents real objective goodness. For instance, observing the Highway Code when driving. This good is the traditional object of moral choice.

The useful good represents the advantage which will be gained by the person who is making the choice. For instance, choosing to drive only on narrow country roads. Such an object is morally neutral. This good has become the basis of modern morality.

The pleasurable good is actually the joy which accompanies acheiving moral goodness. It is linked therefore to objective goodness, to the just good. However in the modern view, the pleasurable good has become an end in itself; seeking the pleasurable good has displaced seeking the just good. In this vision the pleasurable good is not linked to the just good, it is free to be sought after for itself, even at the expense of the just good.

The philosopher Emmanuel Kant has influenced our vision of morality. He observed that giving priority to pleasure in the analysis of human action threatens the very essence of morality. He proposed the notion of subjective obligation. That we are called to act justly becuase of the presence within us of 'moral categories'. However, building morality on the basis of subjective obligation means that you lose sight of what is objectively good.

The fundamental criterion of moral evaluation is in fact man's freedom - his will. It is man who chooses, it is man who decides what criterion to apply to his decision-making, whether this be the criterion of objective goodness or that of utilitarian advantage. But we find that real goodness and the happiness that goodness brings us remains an impossible goal, whether by seeking pleasure for itself, or constructing an subjective vision of goodness, or simply by failing to choose objective goodness - our freedom remains a question for us.

The question of freedom, today as before, is in fact the manifestation of man's need for a Redeemer - that man cannot acheive the fullness of his desire unaided, and that his freedom, far from being fulfilled is a problem for him.

JPII responds to this need in his Theology of the Body.

(I took the above photo in March 2008 at Stone in Staffordshire as a barge enters a canal lock.)

Memory and Identity: the mystery of evil 2.

Bl John Paul II begins his book speaking about the co-existence of good and evil because this is the basic context of our lives, and because it is this context that Jesus Christ enters into. It is God, not man who puts a limit on evil; man cannot do this because he is divided in himself, and the limit which God places upon evil is the Redemption. Evil is radically overcome by the Redemption.

If we look round the world we can see the places which have suffered most from the presence of evil: those are the places where the Cross is most clearly revealed.

Sin is the greatest evil which affects man, and Christ forgives sin, indeed, he destroys it. Man's true greatness therefore lies in his conversion, by which he returns to God. However, this return to the Father is not about human effort, it is about grace. Man needs grace, and in Christ he is given grace.

Christ's death and resurrection reveal the full truth about man: that he is called to participate in God's life, and that this call is given to us in God's unconditional love for us; we are called to live a new life. The gift of grace is like light, given to us here and now in our divided condition.

The Redemption then is an unimagined victory for us, but it is also a task. It is a question of us receiving this gift into our lives. The Redemption will change us, but will we allow ourselves to be changed?

And so, we must speak about the Spiritual Life - our, my, relationship with God. This involves the way that I seek to keep God's Commandments; allowing Christ to conquer sin in me. It involves a growth in virtue as I allow God's light to pervade me. And this will lead to a certain experience of closeness to God, even now before I die, in anticipation of what is destined to be ours in eternity. It is Christ who reveals and teaches this way and accompanies those who travel.

So, we don't just need a way of understanding evil, we actually need to embark on the Spiritual Life, in which we personally participate in Christ's mission in which he defeats evil and restores goodness to us in superabundance.

(I took the above photo in January 2008 in the Fleurie hills of the Saone valley in France. Smoke rises from the burning of the dead wood of the vines in preparation for the new growth that will come in the Spring.)

Memory and Identity: the mystery of evil.

It is perhaps surprising that Bl JPII should start his book by speaking about evil. This is because we all encounter evil in life, evil alongside goodness. It is goodness which we strive for but evil is always a problem for us. So a realistic approach to life involves recognising the presence of evil. Indeed, JPII says that we actually need to have what he calls a "philosophy of evil" - a way of understanding and "approaching" evil, so that we are able to continue building our lives, inspite of the presence of evil.
It is only in light of the truth that we can genuinely see evil for what it is and maintain our lives in the direction of goodness. Foundational Truth concerns the Mystery of God, of Creation and of Man. In the light of Revealed truth we can begin to see that evil is a mystery in which goodness, which should be overabundant, becomes reduced or even hidden. It is precisely to combat evil and restore goodness to man that God, in the three Persons of the Trinity, has undertaken what we call the Redemption.
However, today's secular vision of life reduces God to being merely an element of human consciousness. In the secular vision, God is no longer the God of Revelation but is the God who we can think of as we please. But, at the same time our way of understanding evil changes. Man, not God, is now the central player; if man now descides what God is, he also decides what is evil and what is good. We have seen this most terribly in the extermination of certain peoples by others.

Even so, we also see that evil is limited. Divine Providence allowed Nazism to exist for twelve years only. Yes, evil is limited by goodness.

The Church calls evil by its name in order to show that it can be overcome; it is overcome precisely when we open ourselves to the love of God. Most importantly and wonderfully, we know that Christ has definitively destroyed the evil that affects humanity. Thus, it is essential that we understand how Christ overthrows evil. In this, the Holy Spirit is Himself our guide - he guides us through the redeeming work of Christ.

(To be continued.)

The above photo was taken in May 2007 as I was blessing the Parish Boundaries of what was then my parish in Huddersfield.