Fr. David Cinquegrani, C.P.
My trip home at Christmastime found me delayed in the Detroit Metro Airport for five long hours. Just enough time to read and ponder Pope Benedict XVI's new encyclical Spes Salvi (In Hope We Are Saved). The Latin title comes fromthe words in Romans 8:24 ("For in hope we are saved") and leads the reader into the understanding that without faith in God, the human race falls into despair and so can be capable of cruelty and injustice, but with hope, can be capable of almost any good and generous act. Benedict centers on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ but asserts that we put too much emphasis on personal salvation and not enough on the communal nature of redemption and what we must do for people around us as part of our moral obligation as Christians.
To bring these points home, the Pope, in this 76 page document, reviews the lives of saints from various times in history. Unfortunately, he did not include any lay persons in his examples of heroic Christians, though we all know many in our lives. As I sat in the airport, I watched intently as a family with three children, one of whom had Downs Syndrome, tried to pass the five hours in patient waiting. The love between and among them gave me a personal example of hope and reminded me that God is alive in each one of us and can be recognized easily by those who are searching.
My trip home at Christmastime found me delayed in the Detroit Metro Airport for five long hours. Just enough time to read and ponder Pope Benedict XVI's new encyclical Spes Salvi (In Hope We Are Saved). The Latin title comes fromthe words in Romans 8:24 ("For in hope we are saved") and leads the reader into the understanding that without faith in God, the human race falls into despair and so can be capable of cruelty and injustice, but with hope, can be capable of almost any good and generous act. Benedict centers on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ but asserts that we put too much emphasis on personal salvation and not enough on the communal nature of redemption and what we must do for people around us as part of our moral obligation as Christians.
To bring these points home, the Pope, in this 76 page document, reviews the lives of saints from various times in history. Unfortunately, he did not include any lay persons in his examples of heroic Christians, though we all know many in our lives. As I sat in the airport, I watched intently as a family with three children, one of whom had Downs Syndrome, tried to pass the five hours in patient waiting. The love between and among them gave me a personal example of hope and reminded me that God is alive in each one of us and can be recognized easily by those who are searching.
