The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. Let us pray. Thou dost want it to come, your church, your choir, that ye, whom grace must give unto their devotional faith, should also receive the honor due to their name. Grant that all those people serving in your name may be found worthy of that bond of union, that your church may be gathered together unto you in fear and doubt of obedience. And so long as we all continue leading your footsteps, your people may be found fit to attain to their heavenly promises, ever having you for their guidance and reigns. Amen. I think I wanted to look at my things month, dot, new year's, from dreaming, from looking forward to that something that will celebrate together tomorrow, start and open to that beautiful euphoric, and think thoughts of peace, and not of adventure, or detention, or depression.

[01:22]

And the answer should be for us, for the Church, for all those who follow God. We are thinking and should think thoughts of peace and peace will begin during this month. Contemplating and experiencing the great and blessed mystery of the communion of all the saints as our union with the Holy Souls in Purgatory. And then especially as always in these weeks, the Pact on the Council in Session. You realize that often we apply that tonight, these thoughts of peace, reflections of the divisions of Christendom.

[02:24]

And we feel more and more these divisions of Christendom as to be a thought, a sin, and not the manifestation of richness. We also recognize, at the same time, that we are still, find ourselves, in a kind of calls for opposing claims to absolute truth, revealed truth. The Roman Catholic Church has made it clear that she could not make any compromise to the questions of the truth revealed, while the Protestants, especially the exiled Lutherans, are not willing in any way of the Gospel, so it will then arrive as a dead-end road.

[03:34]

Now in these weeks, I was reading a little, the pamphlets and sermons of the Toms, totally published just now, in which he proposes some principles which we have a bit of joy in our dealings with those who are separate from us, in the kind of proper Catholic And I wanted to present those principles tonight in a not complete way, but in a free way. The first basic principle that we have to follow always and that we have to apply here too is, we have spoken about that so often in the past, Whenever man is faced with any difficulties which destroy the peace of Christ in his soul, he should not deal with them, tackle them, in the heat of battle, as in the impetus of his first immediate reactions.

[04:56]

He should not meet them in anger, should not tackle him as long as he finds himself under the actual influence of enmity, of jealousy, and all those other works of the Fletchers in all cause. And this is certainly and especially the case there where the peace of Christ has to be restored. and as far especially as the attitude of the Catholic Church in this restoration of the peace of Christ is concerned. We must always keep clearly in mind that we as Catholics are not essentially eternal in our own position,

[06:00]

but in the opposition to somebody else. He must clearly make it clear to us that we do not have to maintain the truth of our position by being convinced in others. Our position does not depend interiorly intrinsically on a hostility towards anybody. In this way, our position is somehow different, not that of Protestant. Protestant, as the name says, protesting, originated on the basis of its separation from the Church, therefore originated from an anti-Catholic basis, and therefore the reason for its existence is the doctrinal and moral corruption of the Church of Rome.

[07:19]

Otherwise Protestantism would not run and inundate the sacred light of existence. It would not be a protest, because such protests would be legitimate only against something intrinsically evil. For the Catholics, we should be on our guard not to be infected, to be affected in our own attitude. Protestants are Protestants because they don't want to be Catholics. But we Catholics are not Catholics because we don't want to be Protestants, but because we want to hold on to the role copies as he lives on in his church, which he instituted for the legitimate administration of his truth and of his love to the men of all races and of all ages.

[08:37]

The role claim of the Catholic Church is not based on arrogance against others, but on faithfulness to Christ and His redeeming love for us. We existed as Christ's Church long before the adversaries of today existed. And when they were not yet in existence, We lived, certainly not to fight them, to shout them down, or to dominate them, but to cultivate union with and in Christ, much more through worship than through controversy. While no one was around to compete with the one church, the immortal monuments of worship

[09:39]

The cathedrals of the Middle Ages rose towards heaven to give witness of our love for Christ, but not of any opposition to any holiness. To this our position of inner independence from catharsis, based on our original and essential dependence on Christ, should enable us to meet the divisions of today in the peace of Christ. How does that mean? That means, for example, that we look that we meet these divisions spiritually, in the way of the Spirit. For example, the fact of separation. of so many Christians from the Church.

[10:44]

They should lead us, first of all, to the question, what are God's intentions in permitting this separation? It's certainly part of His plan with this Church. It serves a purpose. Accidentally, God's will in such a situation, God's purpose, cannot be simply the extermination of heresy. Birth must be, because therefore, our own salvation, the beauty of the divine of Christ. And therefore we are asked, through embracing the fact of this separation as such, and that, of course, you realize, is a general way in which we should meet any kind of separation, that we do not, again, first and immediately jump at the throat of the act,

[12:05]

But then we first return, as it were, upon ourselves. Upon ourselves. No division, no separation can be sealed against the same principle that has been announced before. Direct must be met indirectly. That means first, Going back, personally, as far as we are concerned, he includes the priest of Christ. That is, of course, as far as Catholics is concerned, that is a certain danger. Because the Catholic is, of course, inclined to identify himself with the Church. However, that is, of course, in an absolute sense, not possible.

[13:08]

No Catholic is personally identified with the holy, unblemished, unstained, faithful, ever faithful, immanent bride of Christ. Every member, every human member of the Church, the concrete person, not identified. If we would identify ourselves, we would simply then land up in the attitude of the scarcity. Nobody owns the church as his own personal possession. And therefore, in this room, as we know that, in this whole separation and question of separation from our others, from other Christian brothers, so much of it, You know, it's you at the church, by the way, also, as always, by Christ, that reminds you of the famous declaration of Pope Adrian the Sixth.

[14:22]

He was in a convocation to speak of the virility of the evangelical spirit. That, of course, is not just the Western's ability for this separation. It's not only a mess with our separated brethren, but that it, to a great extent, was caused by real, true abuses and vices reigning in the Church. Therefore, the first thing is a fluid interpretation of the next beautiful principle that our present Holy Father has announced, also formulated so clearly that the Council is first of all there to kind of clean our own house cleanly. and therefore a real, intentional turning towards ourselves, and we, as valuable and sinful members of Christ's body, may be in our own union with Christ, strengthened higher and deeper.

[15:50]

So that is the first. It's not true, I could It's miracle. It's the healing of every breach between men, between Christians especially, can only be done in that first miracle. But that actually is absolutely not healing. There is more that we should follow. There is another principle, and that is the principle of the spiritual presentation of the truth. As soon as controversy arises, because truth cancels evil, being, as I said, locked up, you know, in the conceptual categories. But the truth, the question of truth, is not, as we know, simply and merely an intellectual concept, but it is the person of Jesus Christ.

[17:00]

I am the truth. Therefore, not a concept, but a divine reality. And of this divine reality of a person, what can only be has to be, first of all, a witness. If the truth is a person, if the truth is Christ, the truth is placed in the form of a witness. We speak of him as his servant. that means inferior, mechanical, intrepid. The proclamation of the truth of Christ is really and truly, thus, a synthesis of what is an act of worship. That's the reason why the creed has found its way into the celebration of the Mass.

[18:02]

Therefore, it is negative formulation of the truth. That means the exclusion of error that's necessary and significant. And the rest is only a subordinate part of the Church's office of teaching. It's not the whole. The positive truth is that Christian truth is essentially redeeming. Therefore, when it is announced, whenever it is promulgated, it is promulgated as an invitation, first of all, a distinction, not as a condemnation. As an invitation, and as an invitation that one may, one has a right One can, one is enabled to accept, to believe, to enter into this redeeming truth of Christ's death for us.

[19:11]

Therefore, the proclamation of the truth is a liberation. One is encouraged to believe. Believe today. Don't be afraid. And it is in that way we serve in the church of the divisions of Christendom. That the church is, and that was of course not only in the time of Protestant heresy, that was long before, that any kind of error arising in the church then forces the church to a definition. leads to a clear division between the full faith of the Church and the error. But then the Church can only give these definitions in Ireland as a defense against the effect of error, but neither did it have the same real essential power.

[20:23]

over the way in which he proclaims the truth. That proclamation of the truth of the Church essentially, just as her inner essence is independent of her adversary, so also the proclamation of her truth is not deviant. essentially to the refuting of errors, but to the shining forth, making the apparent delights of the Divine Truth. But furthermore, so naturally, this in a positive attitude of the Church to the truth and to the question truth, that ever unity in this part, also leads the Church to recognize the plural of truth in the various professions of faith, as for example, the Reformation has formulated it.

[21:44]

Carmel of Yom Kippur, the Carmel of Newly, as once formulated that in a very beautiful way, and he said, we as Catholics should never meet the non-Catholic Christian as if he personally and deliberately were a heretic. Even this communion and this profession of faith, I mean, this communion that meets the community in which he appears, and his profession of faith should be made by us with his loving reverence, not with haughtiness. To truth should always love be joined, which is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude, nor quick to take on things. that we should recognize in these questions of the vision and in the whole dialogue with our separate weapon, the fact that the human formulation of dogmatic truth should again and again be confronted with the object of the divine reality

[23:16]

which is meant, which is intended. St. Thomas, the theologian, has formulated that. So will, or he said, the act of faith, it terminates not at the enunciation, that he said before, but it terminates in the object, in what is meant by the book. Because we put an enunciation only that in this way we may have at stake the contact or the cognition of the object. As Saint Thomas says, and as that is the case in science, so also it is in faith. Science is also a constant, newly renewed attempt

[24:17]

to approach and to formulate the reality, and so also faith. Faith, naturally, is in this way, on a different level, a substance, because it is a fuse, it is a gift, still a gift, a light, which is given to us, which is formulated in human thought. Therefore, in the documented statement of the documented rule and documented concepts, what we do is not constantly, let us say, through before the documented concepts, but to construct them in clearly again with the intended reality. The dialogue between Protestants and Catholics is a tremendous opportunity just for this purpose.

[25:21]

It just forces us to construct our own formula with the divine reality which is intended to be expressed by. And also, for example, the Council of Trent, it considers the transubstantiation of thought, the word thought, the formula for the presence of Christ in the Holy of Holies, through the word of transubstantiation, a formula which is artesina, which is artisanal, which is fit, most fit, to express the divine reality of the Eucharistic mystery. Nevertheless, we know very well how soon in using especially formulas which are again and again, daily repeated,

[26:25]

how easily we can, as I said, get stuck in it as a thought and lose the contact with the divine reality which this thought tries to express. Another important thing which is important here, the principle in this field, is that we should be always aware not to exaggerate doctrinal differences, but rather develop doctrinal concepts into the fullness which they all somehow intend. And that is, of course, still, you know, also in our days, and it will be in our days more than, for example, 50 years ago, is the inner intention and desire also on the part of our separated breath, and the approach and close approach to the divine reality as expressed revealed to us in Holy Scripture.

[27:42]

We are again to see a human being, and soon as you notice, know that from your own experience, As soon as you enter into the period of controversy, an element immediately of opposition and of hostility enters into it. And then especially personalities which in themselves are rigid, immediately tend to exaggerate these problems, and in that way to widen the gap that separates us. And that is humanly, again, very understandable, but in the peace of Christ, of course, it has, by all means, has to be avoided. For example, if we look at our own statements, for example, as the development of the idea and theology of the Church.

[28:46]

And there we see, to our great astonishment, that in this sentence, because the Reformers, they're really the first kind of official hands, primarily, attacked the concept of the Church. We on our side developed this concept of the Church. in the categories and in the field of what we call fundamental theology. That means in the field of apologetics. And that actually also means in the kind of atmosphere of apologetics. So that in somehow our development of the idea of the Church was to a certain extent determined by any Protestant attack on the Church. So that, therefore, because the main attack of the Protestants was directly against the visibility of the Church, against the Church as a legitimate institution, therefore also, and necessarily, our reaction to that, in the field of apocryphics, had to be with the absence and emphasis only of the institutional character of the Church.

[30:16]

We can also say maybe the juridical aspect of the church, the legitimacy of the church, the authority of the church, and all these questions. Why, in our days, and especially then, under the inspiration of the growing ecclesiastical movement, had they gone taken up by the archbishop's will, as a memory, in his incipienous article on the mystical body? Another, the positive aspect of the church, one can say, the biblical aspect of the church, as the church appeared in the New Testament, or a biblical narrative or a biblical concept has become to us more and more developed. Everything these last years has matured so tremendously, in many ways. And what a tremendous also that concept is, equates it naturally to equator positive understanding.

[31:25]

between Catholics and Protestants. Finally, on the other side, we see on the Protestant side, the original impulse against the Church as an institution, because there was the authority of the Pope, there was the hierarchy, there were councils, and this whole visible institution of the Church against them. Therefore, the attack on it and its emphasis on the invisible or spiritual character of the Church. Why today, when this initial impulse and this initial excitement has more and more yielded in our arms? Then also, more and more today, in contemplating the executional reality, that is, the invisible reality of literature, comes more and more to the fore.

[32:28]

were inclined by Tantor also to minimise the offence of poverty in the church. Today, the more objective study of the historical facts of church history, the more and more to a recognition to offer the fact that even in the earliest beginnings of the Church, already the hierarchical principle was of decisive importance. So then, as far as the concept of the Church is concerned, there through initial exaggeration and then a slow tooling, tooling down of these exaggerations and which were becoming a meeting, let's say, of more objective people. Then, another principle in this connection is the each party should try to recognize the elements of true

[33:40]

in a position to which it has judged as being heretical. And that is especially true of these two elements that I just pointed out. Real poverty has been visibility. The more and more we can seek them, and through the very necessities of is to say of the historic written development, and also the force of the repeated patterns of Holy Scripture itself, more and more refined by individualists. These quotations on Holy Scripture, they are always taken out of an arsenal of controversy. They'll say with me, they'll pick out, if you know what I'm saying, let's say from a concordance of cameras or of defence.

[34:43]

So today, more and more, also, leading our approach to early scripture is a different form. One approaches early scripture today more really on an objective basis, and that opens more the eyes. So we can object to truth, therefore, of all we have, the whole of Holy Scripture. So why still, as I say, 30 or 40 years from now, from our days, theology, Protestant as well as the Catholic, the dogmatic theology, use Holy Scripture as a kind of an arsenal to defend certain theses? to take more and more the wholeness, the wholeness of his picture in a context of his scene and explore some new avenues of meeting and of understanding our identity.

[35:53]

In the last poem that Brother Sartori did in his pamphlet, I will send another one which is in close connection with this, and that is actually the expression of law and gospel, law and gospel. And then in this expression, the gospel really has the triumphs. and not to the Lord. That is of course also the thing which is on both sides of great war. It is not in this meeting and in this dialogue, in this mutual confrontation. We don't meet one another from the very beginning as those who have to defend vested interests who have to defend their own heritage. But we have to meet under the living words of the gospel.

[37:02]

The institution as such is always inclined on the factual side as well as on the possible side to kind of crystallize in law, in rules and regulations, and in codes. Do as you do not. On the other, don't. On the other hand, be yet. The Holy Spirit, meeting in the peace of Christ, means, of course, a beating in the full life and under the rule of the Gospel. That is the beautiful ceremony which also the Holy Father has performed at the beginning of the Council, the solemn improvisation of the Gospel of the Order. We proclaim the supreme rule of that living Word of Christ.

[38:07]

And that is, of course, also really played a great role. It was always conscious also to Catholic tradition. For example, we read in St. Thomas that the letter, even the letter of the Gospel, would kill him, though the healing, living grace of faith were not present in the one who reads. And in another place, the immoral and sacramental actions are not the main thing in the New as it was the main thing in the Old Law. The Old Law was essentially a moral law and a ceremonial law.

[39:09]

That way, in the wider sense of the word, sacramental, because it was essentially an image and a shadow. But naturally, the New Law, the law of the gospel, is not a thing to be primarily moral action or sacramental action. But it is the Holy Spirit. The new law of the New Testament is the Holy Spirit, he said. The living yet, and therefore also that beautiful statement that St. Tom's made in relation to St. Augustine, who answered the question of church values, saying that our religion, our Catholic religion, which, according to God's merciful will, rejoices in liberty, and therefore has only

[40:19]

very basic and very universally known, and few rules for external action should not be burdened with burden of service. so that maybe at the end, as Stiglitz says, the situation of the Jews were more bearable, because they only were carrying the burden of the law, but not the burden of the human arrogance. so that these principles, if we consider them, and if we apply them patiently in the dialogue between Catholics and Protestants, I think there will be an already living and bearing fruit. So let us then also, in these days in which we repeat constantly ego-cogito-cogitationis, at least I think

[41:26]

thoughts of peace and not of affliction, and thus as Catholics do our part and ask God to strengthen us in the spirit of repentance, of true repentance, in the spirit of humility, to preserve us and free us from all our arrogance, and to lead us more and more loving, sympathetic understanding of all those vestiges of the original truth, which are all of us. Because all these, the communities that separate from the church, still carry in one way or the other the traces of their past, the traces of their mother. And it is for us, therefore, to find these places, and we, as Catholics, living in the wholeness, in the fullness.

[42:31]

We then also have a peaceful power, not violent, but peaceful power to restore, to put down the stones which are not belonging to the one great mosaic of the old ruler, the glorified Christ, put them all into their place, put them into their true order, into their true purpose. But in order to do that, we ourselves have to be happy. As long as we ourselves become in the heat of battle, you know, great, controversial lists and news that people and get absorbed and get eaten up by the, say, the acid of the actual bitter zeal of conga, we are not able to do that, we are not able to integrate.

[43:34]

And that is in all of our mutual relations, integration can only be done in the spirit of peace.

[43:42]

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