Pope Get's Quote of the Year? Dictatorship of Relativism
LTI blog gives this quote by Pope Benedict QOTY status. I'm not sure
I'd do the same, but it's a darn good quote. I'll give him QOTD (with a substitution of "Word
of God" for "Creed of the Church"):
Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church Word of God, is often
labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is
letting oneself be tossed and `swept along by every wind of teaching’
looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are
moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize
anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego
and one’s own desires.
Joseph
Cardinal Ratzinger
Homily at the Mass for the Election of the Roman
Pontiff
St.
Peter's Basilica - April 18, 2005
Gracious Gift of Faith
"That any of us has believed is owing to the mighty work of God's grace
- the grace made possible by the blood of Christ. And this blood-bought
grace is essential to what makes the good news good.
"In the presence of this gracious gift of faith, God
justifies us "by his grace" (Rom. 3:23; Tit. 3:7) and
forgives our trespasses "according to the riches of his grace" (Eph. 1:7) and
saves us "through the grace of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 15:11) and "makes all grace abound" to us for
every good work" (2 Cor. 9:8) and makes his grace sufficient for all our
affliction (2 Cor. 12:9) and enables us "by the grace of God" to
work harder than we imagined we could (1 Cor. 15:10) and grants "grace to
help in time of need" (Heb 4:16) and gives us "eternal
comfort and good
hope through grace" (2 Thess. 2:16), so that in the end "the name of our Lord
Jesus may be glorified in you, and you
in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess. 1:12).
"In other words, every blessing that comes to redeemed sinners comes on the ground and by the power of God's grace...
"But for the most part, the good things mentioned [here] as essential
parts of the gospel are not the final good of the gospel and would not
prove to be good for us at all if the unmentioned supreme good were not
seen and embraced. That good is God himself seen and savored in all his
glory. Focusing on facets of a diamond without seeing the beauty of the
whole is demeaning to the diamond. If the hearers of the gospel do not
see the glory of Christ, the image of God, in all the events and gifts
of the gospel, they do not see what finally makes the gospel good news.
If you embrace everything that I have mentioned...about the facets of
the gospel, but do it in a way that does not make the glory of God in
Christ your supreme treaure, then you have not embraced the gospel.
"Until the gospel
events of Good Friday and Easter and the gospel
promises of
justification and eternal life lead you to behold and embrace God
himself as your highest joy, you have not embraced the gospel of God."
Pleasurable Prayer
Speaking of Ben Patterson,
"I can admire a person who gets up in the early morning
hours because prayer is important, but I hardly know what to make of a
man who gets out of bed in the dark because the act of prayer is so
pleasurable. Clearly, I have something to learn.
"In order to learn to love to pray, as opposed to loving the idea
of praying, one must experience the feeling while praying that you are
at the center of reality. This runs contrary to common notions—that
prayer, for instance, is a retreat from the real world, that prayer is
a kind of luxury that we hope someday to be able to afford"
