1
/
of
1
MM SNYDER
CHRISTIANITY
CHRISTIANITY
Regular price
$1.99 USD
Regular price
Sale price
$1.99 USD
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Quantity
Couldn't load pickup availability
Suffering and Death Have Meaning
A fatalism in Greco-Roman thought often crushed the chance for any real personal hope, or any final victory for human beings in their short lives. Thus, many classical tragedies are based on the utter chaos and despair produced by the fates, the forces of nature, and the machinations of the gods and goddesses either for or against mankind.
Pope Benedict XVI makes this one of the central observations in his recent encyclical Spe Salvi (We Are Saved in Hope). In the end, the wise pagan can only suffer patiently, without understanding the reason for suffering. But Christians looked at pain and suffering in a completely different way: They believed firmly in a life beyond death and in the positive value of suffering. "For those who love God, all things work together for the good," Paul of Tarsus wrote (Rom. 8:28). Suffering, rejection, sickness, even death had meaning for them, since all of these connected them with the suffering and victory of Christ crucified. Because of this, Christians did not live in a chaotic, hopeless universe but in a world that reflected God's love for them and his ultimate victory over sin and death. For this reason they could practice charity in an extraordinary way, treating slaves as their brothers and sisters in Christ.
We Cannot Live without the Eucharist
For an early Christian to miss the Sunday Eucharist was unthinkable. At the beginning of the fourth century, 49 Christians in northern Africa went to their deaths rather than miss the weekly Mass (Cf. Message of the XI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, October 22, 2005). "We cannot live without the Eucharist" was a statement repeated by early Christians. St. Justin Martyr, who taught in Rome between A.D. 140 and 165, wrote one of the earliest accounts of the Mass. It had essentially the same structure as it has today: gathering of the faithful, readings from the inspired books, homily or exhortation, offering of gifts, eucharistic prayer, reception of Communion, final dismissal. It was in the Eucharist that these early believers participated most intimately in the life and sacrifice of Christ, sharing in the power of their God which then overflowed into the rest of their day. This conviction and practice was so strongly rooted in them that not until later times--when some Christians began to grow lax in their worship--did the Church institute the law of Sunday observance, binding under grave sin.
A fatalism in Greco-Roman thought often crushed the chance for any real personal hope, or any final victory for human beings in their short lives. Thus, many classical tragedies are based on the utter chaos and despair produced by the fates, the forces of nature, and the machinations of the gods and goddesses either for or against mankind.
Pope Benedict XVI makes this one of the central observations in his recent encyclical Spe Salvi (We Are Saved in Hope). In the end, the wise pagan can only suffer patiently, without understanding the reason for suffering. But Christians looked at pain and suffering in a completely different way: They believed firmly in a life beyond death and in the positive value of suffering. "For those who love God, all things work together for the good," Paul of Tarsus wrote (Rom. 8:28). Suffering, rejection, sickness, even death had meaning for them, since all of these connected them with the suffering and victory of Christ crucified. Because of this, Christians did not live in a chaotic, hopeless universe but in a world that reflected God's love for them and his ultimate victory over sin and death. For this reason they could practice charity in an extraordinary way, treating slaves as their brothers and sisters in Christ.
We Cannot Live without the Eucharist
For an early Christian to miss the Sunday Eucharist was unthinkable. At the beginning of the fourth century, 49 Christians in northern Africa went to their deaths rather than miss the weekly Mass (Cf. Message of the XI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, October 22, 2005). "We cannot live without the Eucharist" was a statement repeated by early Christians. St. Justin Martyr, who taught in Rome between A.D. 140 and 165, wrote one of the earliest accounts of the Mass. It had essentially the same structure as it has today: gathering of the faithful, readings from the inspired books, homily or exhortation, offering of gifts, eucharistic prayer, reception of Communion, final dismissal. It was in the Eucharist that these early believers participated most intimately in the life and sacrifice of Christ, sharing in the power of their God which then overflowed into the rest of their day. This conviction and practice was so strongly rooted in them that not until later times--when some Christians began to grow lax in their worship--did the Church institute the law of Sunday observance, binding under grave sin.
Share
