How to make a flower bloom in the desert?
That’s sort of the bottom line of a short message a Vatican representative gave a gathering of African bishops in Tanzania. It’s quick to read in passing and then move on to the next news release. But wait…..messages from Pope Benedict are profoundly simple, and simply profound.
This one is about ‘New Ways to Present the Immutable Truth of the Gospel’. Looking at it is a reminder of the reason ‘the elephant on the table’ has become such an understandable cliche. The Pope said we need to find new ways to present old truths, like…the joy of living. How basic is that?  (But how many of us seem enthused to be alive today….hmm?)
He mentions respect for the unborn. With great efforts for civil rights and universal human rights, you’d think we understand the value of all life. But we clearly don’t with abortion and euthanasia spreading globally.
Benedict again raises the importance of the family (as he did several times on his apostolic visit to the US), and we certainly get that, right? But same sex marriage laws are being passed and pushed all over the place, dramatically restructuring what civilization has known throughout history as the family. And divorce rates are higher than ever because, he gently suggests, forgiveness and sacrifice are so hard (or so foreign to our culture). So, children are suffering and society is suffering. And it’s all….changeable.
But it’s a global challenge, which is why Benedict’s message was titled “Cultural Challenges of Secularism, Propagated Through Globalization”.
Among the challenges [Vatican spokesman] Archbishop Ravasi mentions are “oblivion to the common good, social behaviour guided by the logic of the market, the destruction of models of life transmitted by family, school and parish, and the exaltation of individualism”.
On a positive note….crises provide opportunities, and the Church has one now,
to make “Christian humanism” flower, “re-proposing the great moral values” and proclaiming “the Word of God, which is capable of making deserts of indifference and superficiality bear fruit”.
Sounds like a call for random acts of kindness. Like the letter a gentleman sent me by email yesterday. He graciously took the time to write this gracious, kind, supportive and reflective message and shared some poignant stories he recalled about my father-in-law, a former professor. Besides the message of the words, I took away the inspiration that something so simple as writing a letter can make someone’s day, and leave a lasting impression.