Open Reflections

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All that is mine is yours too

,,,and all that is yours is mine, (John 17,10). This is how Jesus prays to His Father and once more emphasizes the union between the Father and himself, i.e. the Son.

To the degree we are close to Christ we make His prayer our own. Jesus freely gives to us all He has; the Father gives us His Son; the Son offers His life for us and through the Cross and resurrection gives us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes us children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus.

As Saint Paul writes: “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (! Cor.3, 22).

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How often do we consider this truth? This unsurpassed favour and grace of God lavished upon us? God is love. What is love but the complete offering of the one who loves to the one who is loved? God’s love is like a continuous life-giving stream for us.

The Spirit blows wherever he pleases (John: 3, 8) and everywhere He blows He breathes life! So, when we pray like Jesus we begin to think like Him, to see like Him, to act like Him and to love like Him; when this happens we experience our “personal” Pentecost.

It is no wonder: we belong to the Church and the Church continues to live the Pentecost since that first blessed and glorious day when He filled the room where the Apostles and Mary were praying and flooded them with His gifts (Acts 2: 2, 3).

 

Spirit-carrying  /  Pneumatophoros

In the Oriental Church the attribute Pneumatophoros or Spirit-carrying is exclusively reserved for the Blessed Mother of God.

She was from conception “full of grace, with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. By accepting God’s will she became a channel of the Spirit for all those who approach her with confidence, leading them to Christ.

 

Historical Memory

Thus, it is evident how historical oblivion bears a danger for the integrity of human nature in all its dimensions. The Church, called by God the Creator to fulfil the duty of defending mankind and its humanity, has at heart an authentic historical culture, the effective progress of historical sciences.  Indeed, high-level historical research also concerns the specific interest of the Church in a strict sense. Even when it does not precisely concern Church history, historical analysis commonly concurs with the description of that vital space in which the Church has carried out, and carries out, her mission down the ages. Undoubtedly, her life and ecclesial activity have always been determined, facilitated or made more difficult by the various historical contexts. The Church is not of this world, but lives in it and by means of it.

Now let us take into consideration Church history from the theological viewpoint, highlighting another important aspect. Its essential duty, in fact, turns out to be the complex mission to investigate and clarify that process of reception and transmission, of paralépsis and of paràdosis, through which was substantiated, in the course of the ages, the Church’s raison d’être. Indeed, it is beyond a doubt that the Church can draw inspiration for her choices by drawing on her centuries-old treasury of experience and memory.

Pope Benedict XVI addressing the Members of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, 7 March 2008.

 

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