“The material building of the Church exists so that the word of God can be heard, explained and understood,” and so that the Church “can act effectively as a force of truth and justice,” said the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin.
The Cardinal voiced this while presiding over a Mass, as the Pope’s Special Envoy, for the eighth centenary of the consecration of the Basilica of the Cistercian Abbey at Casamari, in Latium, on September 15, 2017, reported L’Osservatore Romano.
The Cardinal Secretary of State explained that Pope Francis decided to send his special representative, because he “wished once again to be with us in a special way, appointing a representative that brings to all, and especially to the Cistercian monks, his greetings, inviting to an ever more applied imitation of Christ’s life, to an ever more profound adherence to the Church and to the Gospel, and to daily growth in faith, hope and charity.”
“The Word of God and the edification of the city are closely linked,” stressed the Cardinal, so that the former “doesn’t remain only in words, but leads to edify. It is source of initiative, of concrete action and without it, there is neither city nor community.”
“The material building” of the Church” exists so that in the interior the eschatological feast can begin to which God wants humanity to take part in now.”
Basing himself on the First Reading taken from the Book of the prophet Nehemiah, who recounts the reconstitution of the people of Israel and of Jerusalem after their return from exile, the Cardinal explained that “It’s the word of God, proclaimed and explained solemnly, who convokes and reconstructs the people of the Old Covenant.”
It “inaugurates a new era of the history of Israel: all are sent to the solemn banquet and exhorted to generosity towards the indigent, so that each one can participate in the joy,” he specified.
Cardinal Parolin stressed that “we also, like them, are invited to recollect ourselves for the banquet in the course of which the Lord offers Himself, so that we can, in turn, offer ourselves to our neighbour in his material needs, in his thirst for truth, for life, to listen and to lead to Christ.”
In his reflections on the First Letter of Peter and the evangelical passage in which the Apostle confesses his faith in the Son of God, Cardinal Parolin explained that “to come close to Christ, living stone, means to share His destiny, in the measure to which He is and remains the stone rejected by men, but chosen and precious before God.” “Stone is usually associated to characteristics of materiality and heaviness, whereas here the stone is said to be ‘living’, as if to hold together the two aspects of the Paschal Mystery: Death and Resurrection,” he added.
“Peter makes this pressing appeal to come close to Christ, the corner stone, so that the building of an immaterial edifice will grow, a new temple, a spiritual edifice.” In fact, “by a mysterious action, in each stone and above all on the whole, the Spirit will constitute a spiritual ‘family,’ a holy nation, a chosen nation,” continued the Cardinal.
“The holy and universal Church is not a sacred building but a community of believers that profess the living and attesting God, as Peter, that Christ is the Redeemer of the world,” concluded cardinal Parolin.
JF
