A Penitent Blogger
A reason for your hope
One week ago today, Pope Benedict XVI, the Successor of Saint Peter, prayed at Ground Zero and celebrated Mass at Yankee Stadium before returning to Rome, completing a historic Pastoral Visit to the United States that had the theme “Christ our hope.”
It was in many ways a very successful visit: Pope Benedict touched the minds and hearts of millions who now saw him and the Church in a better light and he spoke words of deep insight and faith that may be read and reread with spiritual benefits for a long time to come.
But there is more yet to be done in continuation of the mission of “Christ our hope”.
Pope Benedict’s predecessor, Saint Peter himself, gives us important advice in today’s second reading (1 Peter 3:15-18):
Always be ready to give an explanation
to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope,
but do it with gentleness and reverence,
keeping your conscience clear,
so that, when you are maligned,
those who defame your good conduct in Christ
may themselves be put to shame.
To begin with, we need to speak and act as the people of hope we are, for the hope we have in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is unassailable and its fulfillment unstoppable.
If we do that, people will notice and sooner or later they will ask.
Always be ready to give an explanation
to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope,
but do it with gentleness and reverence...
“Do it with gentleness and reverence” is a critically important three-fold guideline for how we should share our faith with others.
We need to be gentle: not flippant, arrogant, impatient, or defensive.
We need to be reverent: reverent for the other human being, who has been created in God’s image and who is in some way responding to God’s call, and also reverence for the Truth revealed perfectly by Christ and communicated through Christ’s Church.
But we should not just think of being gentle and reverent: we must do it – we must gently and reverently share our faith and give others an explanation of the reason for our hope in Jesus Christ our Lord.
It was in many ways a very successful visit: Pope Benedict touched the minds and hearts of millions who now saw him and the Church in a better light and he spoke words of deep insight and faith that may be read and reread with spiritual benefits for a long time to come.
But there is more yet to be done in continuation of the mission of “Christ our hope”.
Pope Benedict’s predecessor, Saint Peter himself, gives us important advice in today’s second reading (1 Peter 3:15-18):
Always be ready to give an explanation
to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope,
but do it with gentleness and reverence,
keeping your conscience clear,
so that, when you are maligned,
those who defame your good conduct in Christ
may themselves be put to shame.
To begin with, we need to speak and act as the people of hope we are, for the hope we have in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is unassailable and its fulfillment unstoppable.
If we do that, people will notice and sooner or later they will ask.
Always be ready to give an explanation
to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope,
but do it with gentleness and reverence...
“Do it with gentleness and reverence” is a critically important three-fold guideline for how we should share our faith with others.
We need to be gentle: not flippant, arrogant, impatient, or defensive.
We need to be reverent: reverent for the other human being, who has been created in God’s image and who is in some way responding to God’s call, and also reverence for the Truth revealed perfectly by Christ and communicated through Christ’s Church.
But we should not just think of being gentle and reverent: we must do it – we must gently and reverently share our faith and give others an explanation of the reason for our hope in Jesus Christ our Lord.
posted by Penitens | 10:00 AM
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