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Love the greatest justice
In preparation for the upcoming Liturgical Season of
Lent, which will begin on Ash Wednesday, 17 February, we publish
Benedict XVI's Lenten Message. The theme of this year's Message is "The
justice of God has been manifested through faith in Jesus Christ" (cf.
Rm 3:21-22).
Dear Brothers and Sisters!
Each year, on the occasion of Lent, the Church invites us to a sincere
review of our life in light of the teachings of the Gospel. This year, I
would like to offer you some reflections on the great theme of justice,
beginning from the Pauline affirmation: “The justice of God has been
manifested through faith in Jesus Christ” (cf. Rm 3, 21-22).
Justice: “dare cuique suum”
First of all, I want to consider the meaning of the term “justice,”
which in common usage implies “to render to every man his due,”
according to the famous expression of Ulpian, a Roman jurist of the
third century. In reality, however, this classical definition does not
specify what “due” is to be rendered to each person. What man needs most
cannot be guaranteed to him by law. In order to live life to the full,
something more intimate is necessary that can be granted only as a gift:
we could say that man lives by that love which only God can communicate
since He created the human person in His image and likeness. Material
goods are certainly useful and required
—
indeed Jesus Himself was concerned to heal the sick, feed the crowds
that followed Him and surely condemns the indifference that even today
forces hundreds of millions into death through lack of food, water and
medicine —
yet “distributive” justice does not render to the human being the
totality of his “due.” Just as man needs bread, so does man have even
more need of God. Saint Augustine notes: if “justice is that virtue
which gives every one his due ... where, then, is the justice of man,
when he deserts the true God?” (De civitate Dei, XIX, 21).
What is the Cause of Injustice?
The Evangelist Mark reports the following words of Jesus, which are
inserted within the debate at that time regarding what is pure and
impure: “There is nothing outside a man which by going into him can
defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him …
What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from within, out of
the heart of man, come evil thoughts” (Mk 7, 14-15, 20-21). Beyond the
immediate question concerning food, we can detect in the reaction of the
Pharisees a permanent temptation within man: to situate the origin of
evil in an exterior cause. Many modern ideologies deep down have this
presupposition: since injustice comes “from outside,” in order for
justice to reign, it is sufficient to remove the exterior causes that
prevent it being achieved. This way of thinking
—
Jesus warns
—
is ingenuous and shortsighted. Injustice, the fruit of evil, does not
have exclusively external roots; its origin lies in the human heart,
where the seeds are found of a mysterious cooperation with evil. With
bitterness the Psalmist recognises this: “Behold, I was brought forth in
iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps 51,7). Indeed, man
is weakened by an intense influence, which wounds his capacity to enter
into communion with the other. By nature, he is open to sharing freely,
but he finds in his being a strange force of gravity that makes him turn
in and affirm himself above and against others: this is egoism, the
result of original sin. Adam and Eve, seduced by Satan’s lie, snatching
the mysterious fruit against the divine command, replaced the logic of
trusting in Love with that of suspicion and competition; the logic of
receiving and trustfully expecting from the Other with anxiously seizing
and doing on one’s own (cf. Gn 3, 1-6), experiencing, as a consequence,
a sense of disquiet and uncertainty. How can man free himself from this
selfish influence and open himself to love?
Justice and Sedaqah
At the heart of the wisdom of Israel, we find a profound link between
faith in God who “lifts the needy from the ash heap” (Ps 113,7) and
justice towards one’s neighbor. The Hebrew word itself that indicates
the virtue of justice, sedaqah, expresses this well. Sedaqah, in fact,
signifies on the one hand full acceptance of the will of the God of
Israel; on the other hand, equity in relation to one’s neighbour (cf. Ex
20, 12-17), especially the poor, the stranger, the orphan and the widow
(cf. Dt 10, 18-19). But the two meanings are linked because giving to
the poor for the Israelite is none other than restoring what is owed to
God, who had pity on the misery of His people. It was not by chance that
the gift to Moses of the tablets of the Law on Mount Sinai took place
after the crossing of the Red Sea. Listening to the Law presupposes
faith in God who first “heard the cry” of His people and “came down to
deliver them out of hand of the Egyptians” (cf. Ex 3,8). God is
attentive to the cry of the poor and in return asks to be listened to:
He asks for justice towards the poor (cf. Sir 4,4-5, 8-9), the stranger
(cf. Ex 22,20), the slave (cf. Dt 15, 12-18). In order to enter into
justice, it is thus necessary to leave that illusion of
self-sufficiency, the profound state of closure, which is the very
origin of injustice. In other words, what is needed is an even deeper
“exodus” than that accomplished by God with Moses, a liberation of the
heart, which the Law on its own is powerless to realize. Does man have
any hope of justice then?
Christ, the Justice of God
The Christian Good News responds positively to man’s thirst for justice,
as Saint Paul affirms in the Letter to the Romans: “But now the justice
of God has been manifested apart from law … the justice of God through
faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction;
since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are
justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in
Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be
received by faith” (3, 21-25). What then is the justice of Christ? Above
all, it is the justice that comes from grace, where it is not man who
makes amends, heals himself and others. The fact that “expiation” flows
from the “blood” of Christ signifies that it is not man’s sacrifices
that free him from the weight of his faults, but the loving act of God
who opens Himself in the extreme, even to the point of bearing in
Himself the “curse” due to man so as to give in return the “blessing”
due to God (cf. Gal 3, 13-14). But this raises an immediate objection:
what kind of justice is this where the just man dies for the guilty and
the guilty receives in return the blessing due to the just one? Would
this not mean that each one receives the contrary of his “due”? In
reality, here we discover divine justice, which is so profoundly
different from its human counterpart. God has paid for us the price of
the exchange in His Son, a price that is truly exorbitant. Before the
justice of the Cross, man may rebel for this reveals how man is not a
self-sufficient being, but in need of Another in order to realize
himself fully. Conversion to Christ, believing in the Gospel, ultimately
means this: to exit the illusion of self-sufficiency in order to
discover and accept one’s own need
—
the need of others and God, the need of His forgiveness and His
friendship. So we understand how faith is altogether different from a
natural, good-feeling, obvious fact: humility is required to accept that
I need Another to free me from “what is mine,” to give me gratuitously
“what is His.” This happens especially in the sacraments of
Reconciliation and the Eucharist. Thanks to Christ’s action, we may
enter into the “greatest” justice, which is that of love (cf. Rm 13,
8-10), the justice that recognises itself in every case more a debtor
than a creditor, because it has received more than could ever have been
expected. Strengthened by this very experience, the Christian is moved
to contribute to creating just societies, where all receive what is
necessary to live according to the dignity proper to the human person
and where justice is enlivened by love.
Dear brothers and sisters, Lent culminates in the Paschal Triduum, in
which this year, too, we shall celebrate divine justice
—
the fullness of charity, gift, salvation. May this penitential season be
for every Christian a time of authentic conversion and intense knowledge
of the mystery of Christ, who came to fulfill every justice. With these
sentiments, I cordially impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing.
From the Vatican, 30 October 2009
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