Deus caritas is

Deus Caritas Is is the first encyclical of the pope Benoît XVI. It is dated from the December 25th 2005 but was made public the January 25th 2006. Its Latin title means “God is love” and comes from the First Letter of Jean saint: “God is love: that which remains in the love remains as a God, and God in him” (1 Jn 4,16).

Context of publication of the Encyclical

Summary

Benoit XVI wrote this encyclical in order to explain the Christian direction of the Amour. Too much often, says it, the name of God is associated with the revenge or even with the duty of hatred and violence. For this reason it wishes speech of the love of god that the Église must transmit.

First part: the unit of the love in the creation and the history of the hello

The letter establishes a distinction and a bringing together between the love Eros and the love Agapè . Christianity does not devalue the body, as Nietzsche affirmed it, he teaches rather than body and heart forms only one reality.

L' Eros is an ascending and sensual love. L' reunion is a oblatif love descending and . In Occident, one often opposed these two designs, by affirming that one was Greek and the other Christian woman. In fact, “fascination for the great promise of happiness” which pushes towards l' Eros becomes thereafter a concern for the happiness of the other in l' reunion .

The man cannot live only in reunion , it must also receive l' Eros . The Théologie of the body affirms that the love is a single reality. However, if one detaches l' Eros of l' reunion , one preserves only one reducing form of the love. The biblical faith does not want to build a world with share of human realities, but rather to accept the man such as it is by proposing a relation between love and God.

The Logos , paramount reason, ennoblit l' Eros and purifies it in l' reunion . The mystical experiments related to the Cantique of the Canticles are an example in the religious literature of the need to link itself with God in the same spirit. The unit creates the love, which can be a command, because it is already given.

In addition, l' Eros of God for the man is entirely reunion , because it is a free love and a love which forgives. In the Old Testament, the forgiveness of God towards Israel is a sign heralding the Passion. The Christians become only one body while taking part in the Eucharistie. The relations between men and women are reciprocal whereas only the Church is submitted to Christ in the sacraments.

Benoit XVI concludes the first part of the encyclical by discussing the command which us enjoint to love God: how to love God who is invisible? how to order the love, which is not subjected to the will? He answers by locating the divinity through his demonstrations and by describing the love of god as “yes of our will that of God” who includes, well beyond the only feeling, the will and the intelligence.

Second part: Caritas - the exercise of the love on behalf of the Church as a community of the love

The task of the Church is triple: announces Word, celebration of the sacraments and service of charity (diaconie). The caritas - reunion exceeds the borders of the Church, family of God throughout the world.

Benoit XVI points out that the caritative service of the Church was criticized by the Marxisme at the 19th century. The Church was already leaning on the problem of the injustice but was to recognize that it was posed in a new way: Mgr Ketteler thus engaged against poverty with Mainz since 1863. The encyclicals Rerum Novarum, MATER and Magistra, Populorum progressio, Laborem exercens, Sollicitudo rei socialis and Centesimus ass approached all the social Doctrine of the Church.

The letter specifies the relationship between the Church and the State. If the purpose of the policy is to ensure “the order right of the company and the State”, the faith is a “purifying force for the reason”: it enables him to better achieve its task. The Church should not be put at the place of the State to build the structures of a company righter, but in return the State must respect the sphere of the Church like expression of the Christian faith.

The Christian caritative activity must be independent of the political ideologies. It should not make proselytism but it must rather seek to meet Christ by the reunion - caritas . Without being reduced to social assistance, it brings an answer to the immediate needs in a given situation: to satisfy the famished ones, to dress those which do not have clothing. But it goes beyond, while giving a human support for the people in distress. Vis-a-vis the rise of secularism, the faith and in particular the prayer can support the action in favor of the others, as shows it the example of Mère Teresa in Calcutta.

Conclusion

The pope launches a call to consider the saints who, in the face-to-face discussion with God, felt the requirement to transform their life towards the exercise of charity. Saint Martin is an exemplary model of this testimony. Marie is holy par excellence because she wants to only be the maidservant of the Lord, as in the song of the Magnificat. Like his predecessor Jean-Paul II, Benoît XVI concludes his encyclical on a prayer with the mother from Jesus.

External bonds

the French encyclical
the Latin encyclical
Summarized of Zenit

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