PB16 on Islands and Oases

Here, thanks to Sandro Magister, is an excerpt from a speech delivered by the Pope on April 6 in Rome:

[W]e all know that reaching a goal in sports or business requires discipline and sacrifice, but then all of this is crowned by success, by reaching the desired aim. And so it is with life itself: becoming men according to the plan of Jesus requires sacrifice, but this is not something negative; on the contrary, it helps us to live as men with new hearts, to live a truly human and happy life. Because there is a consumerist culture that wants to block us from living according to the Creator’s plan, we must have the courage to create first islands and oases, and then great landscapes of Catholic culture in which life follows the design of the Creator. . . .

We all ask ourselves what the Lord expects from us. It seems to me that the great challenge of our time – as the bishops on their “ad limina” visits, for example those of Africa, also tell me – is secularism: a way of living and presenting the world “quasi Deus non daretur,” as if God did not exist. The intention is to reduce God to the private sphere, to a feeling, as if he were not an objective reality, so that everyone creates his own life plans [...] and at the end, everyone is in conflict with each other. It is clear that this situation is decidedly unlivable. We must make God present in our societies once again. This seems to me the first necessity: that God be present again in our lives, that we not live as though we were autonomous, with the authorization to make up what freedom and life are. We must realize that we are creatures, realize that there is a God who has created us and that remaining in his will is not dependence, but a gift of love that makes us live. [...]

But what God? There are, in fact, many false images of God, of a violent God, etc. The second question, therefore, is this: recognizing the God who showed us his face in Jesus, who suffered for us, who loved us to the point of dying and so overcame violence. We must make present, above all in our lives, the living God, the God who is not someone unknown, invented, or just a figment of the mind, but a God who has revealed himself, who has shown himself and his face. Only in this way does our life become real, authentically human, and so also the criteria of true humanism become present in society. Here it also holds true, as we said in the first reply, that we cannot remain alone in building this just and upright life, but we must walk in the company of just and upright friends, companions with whom we can share the experience that God exists and that it is wonderful to walk with God. And to walk in the great company of the Church, which brings to us throughout the centuries the presence of the God who speaks, acts, and accompanies us.

Rod Dreher has some thoughts on the speech, here.