He Calls Us Friends E-Book

Antonio Maria Sicari

• Herausgeber: Associazione Culturale Archa
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

What would it be like if we were to finally become Christians? Are we ready to embark upon this formidable adventure of holiness? Such are the questions posed to the reader by Father Antonio Maria Sicari in this book. In these pages the author, who is also a founder of the ecclesiastical movement that makes up the overwhelming majority of faithful laymen, has profoundly advanced the teachings which he offers throughout these luminous pages, finally accessible to English-speakers as well.He invites us to overcome the imagined resistance between observing the commandments – a task required of everyone – and the practice of the evangelical counsels of virginity, poverty and obedience, reserved solely for the ordained. In order to do this, one must engage in a profoundly Christian train of thought, that is one which begins with the Mystery of Christ and our close relationship with Him.Through Jesus Christ, God reveals Himself to mankind. Living according to the evangelical counsels of virginity, poverty and obedience – those which Christ proffers to all of his friends – opens up to laymen, in every aspect of their lives (conjugal, familial, ecclesiastical, professional, civil), a new Life which is, from that very first moment, filled with the Mystery of God's Reign.The counsels appear for what they truly are: a path towards freedom, joy and complete fulfillment with the Son of God for every member of the Church, which is what we are and what we must fully become.Father Antonio Maria Sicari, born in 1943 in Italy, is a member of the Discalced Carmelite Order. He is a Doctor of Theology and holds a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies. In 1993 he founded the Ecclesiastical Carmelite Movement (currently present in Italy, Belgium, Romania, Lebanon, Latvia, Colombia and the U.S.A.) which puts forward to all laymen the mystical treasures (doctrinal and experiential) of the Carmelite Charisma.

Leseprobe

HE CALLS US FRIENDS

Laymen and Evangelical Counsels

Antonio Maria Sicari

Original title:

Ci ha chiamati amici. Laici e consigli evangelici

© 2001 Jaca Book, Milán

Translated by Lori Marchesin

Revised by Dennis Drudik and Micaela Di Candia

© 2015

Associazione Culturale Archa

Via Marconi 195 – 38057 Pergine Valsugana (TN)

[email protected]

First English language digital edition

Published May 2015

On the cover: Alessandra Slucca, The Church (2012)

ISBN 978-88-99036-04-1

To the Ecclesial Carmelite Movement

first addressee of the following pages

“a lectione in dilectionem”

“Christians: Christ-bearers,

Either we take Christ against the world,

or the world will take us against Christ.

To be baptized is not enough;

To observe the commandments of God

and the precepts of the Church is not enough;

To have a thorough knowledge

of the Catholic Doctrine is not enough.

The vital thing for our soul is

To make itself so poor and humble and chaste

To transform itself in the manger of Bethlehem;

Because only then Jesus will shine in it”.

(D. Giuliotti, Polvere dell’esilio,

Edizioni Logos, Roma 1980, pp. 92-93)

INDEX

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1

THE CHRISTIAN’S NEW LIFE

1. Novelty feeds on friendshipand friendship feeds on dialogue

2. The new Law is Jesus Himself

3. The three evangelical counsels

“Evangelical counsels” and “State of consecrated life”

4. The martyrs’ example

5. To listen to Christ’s counsels to go back to the originsand understand our destiny

Chapter 2

THE COUNSEL OF VIRGINITY“FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD”

1. In the beginning was virginal solitude

2. In the beginning was the gift of “communion”

3. In the beginning was the gift of the sexed body

5. Solitude and communion after sin

5. Waiting for salvation

6. The original virginity of God’s Son

7. The beginning of a new world: Mary

“The Lord is with thee”

“The Holy One born from you will be called God’s Son”

“The Holy Spirit will descend upon thee”

8. The realization of a new world: Jesus

9. Eucharistic marriage

10. The man welcomed in the new world: Joseph

11. The sacrament of “the new world”: the Church

12. To be examples of the new world:the virginity of the consecrated

Chapter 3

THE COUNSEL OF VIRGINITYFOR LAYMEN

1. The radical virginity of the whole creation

2. The counsel of virginity addressed to laymen

3. Introduction to the Christian method

4. The question of the sexed body

5. During “waiting” time

6. The question of “solitude” in conjugal relationship

7. The question of conjugal “communion”

8. The question of faithfulness in body and soul

9. The question of procreation

10. Virginity in children’s education

11. The edification of the Christian community

Chapter 4

THE COUNSEL OF EVANGELICAL POVERTY

1. In the beginning was the beatitude of poverty

2. Sick and scared poverty

3. “Thou he was rich…”

4. The wealth of a poor Church

5. The counsel of poverty in consecrated life

Chapter 5

THE COUNSEL OF EVANGELICAL POVERTYFOR LAYMEN

1. The first good news

2. A necessary conscience

3. The miracle of love that is poor

4. Experiences of “rich poverty”

5. Meditation on poverty

Chapter 6

THE COUNSELOF CHRISTIAN OBEDIENCE

1. In the beginning, obedience was freedom

2. Obedience denied

3. “Christ, although of divine nature…”

4. The freedom of an obedient Church

5. The counsel of obedience in consecrated life

Chapter 7

THE COUNSEL OF CHRISTIAN OBEDIENCEFOR LAYMEN

1. Freedom to be happy

2. Freedom as a response

3. Disorientation and false freedom

4. Existence as obedience

5. To obey one’s own vocation

6. To obey educating to obedience

7. Obedience to the Church in the community

8. “Spiritual obedience”

9. Obedience on the Cross

10. Obedience in the workplace and in social relationships

11. The dance of obedience

12. Obedience as prayer

CONCLUSION

BIBLICAL TEXTSFOR READING AND FOR MEDITATION

1. How to pass from the Old Lawto the New Law

2. To meditateon the counsel of Virginity

3. To meditateon the counsel of Poverty

4. To meditateon the counsel of Obedience

INTRODUCTION

Meditation on evangelical counsels started back in the first centuries of the Christian era, but it is not concluded yet. The presence in the Gospel of a Voice requiring not only what is commanded, but also what can be friendly suggested is a belief that has always given joy to those who wanted to consecrate their life to God: martyrs, virgins, monks have perceived it immediately.

Common Christians, however, have experienced a sort of regret: if we are all called to “love God with all our heart, soul and strength”, if we are all invited to surrender ourselves entirely to Christ, Lord and Master of life, how is it possible to say that some are called to follow Him “more closely”, “more intimately”?

The fact that there exists a difference in love intensity between more generous Christians and more tepid ones is evident; yet the question is whether there can be “something more” that distinguishes them based on their state of life and, thus, on the same vocation they were called to by the Lord. Let us leave to theologians the explanation of how a state of life can and must be better. Surely, this has nothing to do with its members’ cleverness, but with the fact that the mystery of the entire Church shines brightly in a certain state of life. It is important to emphasize the fact that, whatever the assigned vocation, individual holiness depends on love intensity.

But common faithful had the right intuition when they defended their spontaneous conviction that evangelical counsels should be able to apply to every vocation and every state of life. The thing is that theological meditation on this matter has been slow and laborious, and it has often been limited to require that everyone follows at least the “spirit of evangelical counsels”.

Reality, however, is plain and fascinating. The three great words with which the Christian tradition identified Jesus’ basic advice – virginity, poverty and obedience – not only express the possibility to follow Him in the so-called “consecrated life”: they describe, indeed, the same structure of the human being, as he was forged by God’s wise and provident hands. They are, therefore, words we recommend everybody practices on the path to the beatific “principle” in which each of us was conceived, wanted and loved “in Jesus Christ”.

The meditations in this book are not abstractions, they are the result of a constructive dialogue between consecrated persons and laymen,1 both willing to learn that the evangelical advice of virginity, poverty and obedience announce a type of human being, a new quality of life that must be lived and enjoyed by all Christians: each one according to his/her own state of life.

This work is an in-depth doctrinal study that – in the hope of turning into concrete experience – can be useful to all lay Christians, whichever “spiritual homeland” (Movements, Associations, Communities, Groups) they are gathered into by the Holy Spirit to let them enjoy the one and only Church.

Father Antonio Maria Sicari

Chapter 1

THE CHRISTIAN’S NEW LIFE

Christians are creatures regenerated by grace. Those who become aware of this spend their life as children longing to become more and more like Jesus, the only-begotten Son of the Father, who sent Him for the salvation of the world.

The New Testament often speaks of “new creation”, “new creature”, “new man”, “new life”, and we usually take these formula in an ascetic-moral sense. We ask ourselves which behaviors we should change or improve in order to enter this renewed existence. This is surely important, yet the novelty the Holy Scriptures refer to is far more radical. It happens even before we decide to change or renew ourselves. It reaches us unexpectedly, like a gift.

More than that, it is this same novelty which gives us the strength for any further change. It is similar to what parents experience when a long-desired child comes to life, to a boy/girl’s joy when he/she meets the person he/she falls in love with,2 or to what a lonely person feels on meeting a true friend.

In the life of Jesus’ disciples, the novelty was not only the remarkable change in their humanity that became evident after living with the Divine Teacher for some years: the main novelty was the total, unexpected gift they were given on the same day they met Him on the shore of the Tiberiad Sea, when they answered His call without even knowing where He would lead them. This new-born friendship already bore in itself the seed and gift of any further novelty.

The Christian experience always starts with the miracle of a renewing encounter. This happens when God is no longer just the Master and Lord who governs us with His commands: He becomes for us the Spouse who comes to reveal all His love, to welcome us in His intimacy and give us His own life. The novelty a Christian is asked to realize is not, therefore, to improve or change at all costs, but the desire to respond and adhere more and more and better and better to a love relationship. And Love has its own law: the law of more and more. Those who love Jesus are not satisfied with obeying His commands. They are willing to listen to anything that can help love grow: any suggestion, any piece of advice.3 Some examples from the Gospel can help us understand.

Publican Zacchaeus4 was still a sinner when he met Jesus. The novelty didn’t come with his moral change (with his giving up theft and giving back what he had stolen), but with the unexpected offer from Christ who said: “I will come to your house today” and this offer filled Zacchaeus with joy. From this gratuitous encounter Zacchaeus received not only the capacity to obey the commandments (“You shall not steal! You will give back what does not belong to you!”), but the generosity to spontaneously offer more for love (“Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much!”