Lux Mundi: Archbishop Muller: we must make shine out

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Archbishop Muller: we must make shine out

Archbishop Muller, Prefect for the CDF

I came across this article on an interview Archbishop Muller, the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave to the Vatican newspaper ‘L'Osservatore Romano’. Here is part of it with some emphasis and comment. Special note, I came across this on news.va, the Vatican news website. A good place for some decent articles every now and then.

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The crucial factor
We must make what has been entrusted to us shine out
“We can always learn something new and acquire an even deeper under standing of the riches of the Revelation.” These are the words of Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in an interview with the Vatican newspaper, ‘L'Osservatore Romano’.
In his conversation with reporter Astrid Haas, spoke about his new position.
“The problems we seem to be facing are immense, if we look at the universal Church, with the many challenges to be confronted and in the face of a certain despondency which is spreading in certain milieus and which we must overcome,” he said. “We also have the problems of groups – right- or left-wing, as people say – which take up much of our time and attention. This often gives rise to the danger of losing sight of our main task, which is to proclaim the Gospel and to explain the doctrine of the Church in a practical manner. We are convinced that there is no alternative to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The Revelation responds to the great questions of the people of our time”.(I would say of all times)

“Faith is characterized by the greatest openness. It is a personal relationship with God which contains all the treasures of wisdom. For this reason our finite reason is in perpetual motion towards the infinite God. We can always learn something new and acquire an ever deeper understanding of the riches of the Revelation. We shall never be able to exhaust them”.
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When the Archbishop was appointed to head the CDF, it brought quite a bit of controversy. His controversial comments on such things as the true presence and the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Mother brought a host of questions. However I think the early signs are good. His Excellency acknowledges the serious problems in the Church and better yet says they are detracting from our true mission, the mandatum as it is known, go out to all the nations. His explanations of faith are exciting. He calls it the container of "all the treasures of wisdom". Still he admits the immense infinity of God and the need for total reliance on the Revelation of Christ. These are words of unity. These words do not specifically call out one group, but they incite the whole church as complicit in our failures.

But it was the title exclamation of the Archbishop I took notice of, "We must make what has been entrusted to us shine out". On this day in particular when we are launching this new blog, the Prefect of the CDF tells us to shine out. This fits perfectly with our theme. We have been entrusted with the Truth, with the Gospel, and it is our duty to let the light that is Christ shine out from us. It is time to stop attempting to dim His light (as if we ever really could). What we have done is distort the Light of Christ by making everything about us! Challenge after challenge, we have made it all about us, about our relationships, about our preferences and our feelings! How sad it is that we have forgotten the great mandate, "go and make disciples of all nations." It is time to stop being lost in our own selfishness and let the Light shine out from us. "We are all missionaries," as the late missionary apostolic to France Blessed William Chaminade once said. Please, no more disunity. Yes there are problems, for Judas (one of the twelve) truly did betray the Lord. But instead of accusing each other, let us put our faith in Christ and His Church, and return to work! The Light of the World (Lux Mundi) must shine out through us. As for the Archbishop, I reserve judgement, so far he seems to be doing the will of the Holy Father. However, he is quite right that we must make the Light of Christ shine out, and better yet we must refrain from shielding our eyes!

AMDG
God Love you,

Peter James d`Aquino

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First of all we are all young people and proudly Catholic. We are a group of close friends in college and we are lively and practicing young men and women who have devoted our lives to the service of Christ and His Church in whatever way the Lord sees fit! That is partially the most exciting part of this group. We all went to high school together, and we met in our senior year. A string of circumstances brought us together to pray and discuss our faith. It was a truly incredible time! For now there are only a few of us working on this blog but we hope some others will join us as time goes on.

This Blog was my idea. I have been looking for a way to get involved in spreading the Gospel in a real and effective way for two years. I cannot stand being on the side lines. One day some inspiration came to me: A blog by Catholic youth for everyone. Since I can remember there has been a lack of an intense youthful presence in the Church. That is most certainly changing, and I want to be part of it! In my many experiences with catholic blogs, I have had to go to several places to read all the information and discussion I wanted, so my thought was to create a one stop blog, simple and easy, which has several “voices” with one directed sound. I don’t know if that makes sense. I want to have one direction with several different authors and perspectives but all young. I also don’t want the writing to be overly elevated nor obsessively analytical, which can sometimes scare people away. But we also can’t dumb down the faith; to do that would be an insult to the one true faith. That, for the most part was the idea! There are things similar, but none like what I was really hoping to do. One night I was blessed with this inspiration. But I have been frightened to take it on, that is one of my faults, misguided fear. The idea wouldn’t go away and I figured I needed to try but I couldn’t do it alone. There was only one group of people who could help me do this and so I enlisted the help of my friends; and here we are.

A little bit on our beliefs: We are most definitely and unapologetically Catholic. So, although this may be a cliche, if you need more information, google the phrase Nicene-Constantinople Creed. That should sufficiently point out our doctrinal backgrounds. One thing we do wish to express explicitly is our total reliance on the authentic authority of God, both in Heaven and on Earth. We commonly encounter that which is on Earth, although it is eternally united to that of the Lord! What we are saying is we submit ourselves to the judgment and guidance of the Holy Father and the Magisterium. That is of the utmost importance. Many Catholics today neglect authentic Revelation (i.e. Tradition) and authentic authority! But that is for another time!

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