: the reality + the call
- "Deus Caritas Est" Encyclical Letter by Pope Benedict XVI:
- "Love-caritas-will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbor is indispensible. The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person--every person--needs: namely, loving personal concern."
- "This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something which often is even more necessary than material support."
- "Following the example given in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Christian charity is first of all the simple response to immediate needs and specific situations: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for and healing the sick, visiting those in prison, etc. (...) Yet, while professional competence is a primary, fundamental requirement, it is not of itself sufficient. We are dealing with human beings, and human beings always need something more than technically proper care. They need humanity. They need heartfelt concern. Those who work for the Church's charitable organizations must be distinguished by the fact that they do not merely meet the needs of the moment, but they dedicate themselves to others with heartfelt concern, enabling them to experience the richness of humanity."
- "Love is free; it is not practiced as a way of achieving other ends. But this does not mean that charitable activity must somehow leave God and Christ aside. For it is always concerned with the whole man. Often the deepest cause of suffering is the very absence of God. Those who practice charity in the Church's name will never seek to impose the Church's faith upon others. They realize that a pure and generous love is the best witness to the God in whom we believe and by whom we are driven to love."
- "Practical activity will always be insufficient, unless it visibly expresses a love for man, a love nourished by an encounter with Christ."
: the response + the charism
- "Near the Cross Stood Mary" by Rev. Thierry de Roucy: "I ask you to join Mary along the 'via Crucis' and at the foot of her Son's cross. It doesn't matter that you can't join her physically; the important thing is to go and dwell in her heart. The mission of a missionary is nothing but to stand here, beside all the slums and destitution of the world, and to share the sufferings of the people, to console them, to offer them the most beautiful loving smile. (...) Mary is standing here. (...) She is united with Him, sharing His suffering, and, better, sharing love with Him. She therefore achieves the perfection of compassion."
- "He Began to Wash Their Feet" by Rev. Theirry de Roucy: "No more revolutionary gesture exists than the Washing of the Feet: it unseats all learning, it upsets all hearts. God, rubbing people's feet? So, it's God, is it? So, thats what His power is? So, thats how humanity's salvation is fulfilled? At Heart's Home we believe that true revolutions are not economic, political, or technical. They emanate from the order of love. Wasn't St. Vincent de Paul more revolutionary than Robespierre, Blessed Mother Teresa more than Marx or Che? And doesn't the one who kneels down make people happier than the one who foists a yoke on them? It seems quite simple, after the fashion of the Master, to restore people's dignity."
: art + compassion
- Contemplation of Beauty by Cardinal Ratzinger: "The encounter with the beautiful can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the heart and in this way opens our eyes, so that later, from this experience, we take the criteria for judgment and can correctly evaluate the arguments. For me an unforgettable experience was the Bach concert that Leonard Bernstein conducted in Munich after the sudden death of Karl Richter. I was sitting next to the Lutheran Bishop Hanselmann. When the last note of one of the great Thomas-Kantor-Cantatas triumphantly faded away, we looked at each other spontaneously and right then we said: "Anyone who has heard this, knows that the faith is true."
- "You are the Custodians of Beauty": Address to Artists in the Sistine Chapel by Pope Benedict XVI: "You are the custodians of beauty: thanks to your talent, you have the opportunity to speak to the heart of humanity, to touch individual and collective sensibilities, to call forth dreams and hopes, to broaden the horizons of knowledge and of human engagement. Be grateful, then, for the gifts you have received and be fully conscious of your great responsibility to communicate beauty, to communicate in and through beauty! Through your art, you yourselves are to be heralds and witnesses of hope for humanity!"
- "Letter of his Holiness Pope John Paul II to Artists": "In so far as it seeks the beautiful, fruit of an imagination which rises above the everyday, art is by its nature a kind of appeal to the mystery. Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, the artist gives voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption."
- "Art, Teacher of Compassion" by Laetitia Palluat de Besset (President of Heart's Home USA): "We can pass by a piece of art and judge it at a glance. We can also choose to spend time in front of a piece of art in an attitude of respect, asking for the grace to enter in communion with the, with the artist. Then, even if our intelligence does not understand everything, our judgment will be different. Very often suffering is beyond our understanding. That is why we'd rather pass by and not stay. Now we can stand in front of reality trying to listen rather than to speak, trying to welcome rather than to see what we want to see, trying to learn and not to teach, offering a question rather than an explanation. Then reality will be given to us as it is. Then the cross will take the face of a person, then a communion is possible, then compassion is possible."
