In Conversation with God – Volume 2 Part 2: Eastertide by Fernandez Francis

Author:Fernandez, Francis [Fernandez, Francis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scepter UK Ltd
Published: 2011-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

75.3 The basis and goal of justice.

Love for Jesus Christ is the great motivating source of the just person’s actions. The more faithful we are to our Lord the more just we will be, the more committed we will be to true justice. A Christian knows that his neighbour, the other person, is Christ himself, present in others, especially in the needy. Only with the light of faith can we appreciate what is at stake in the justice or injustice of our actions: it is a matter of accepting or of rejecting Jesus Christ himself.[438] That is the great driving force of our actions. That is something that Christians alone can see, with the light of faith: Christ is waiting for us in our fellow men. For I was hungry and you gave me no food; I was thirsty ... Omissions: Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.[439]

Our Lord is in each person who is in need. The poor of society – individual poor people – should receive special attention from the Church and from Christians; and certain areas of our towns and cities, the sick and the marginalised and certain ethnic and cultural groups, should also be given special and continuing attention. We need to increase our effort to be with them and to share in their difficulties; we should feel God calling us in the needs of our brothers and sisters, and change the whole of society so that it is more just and more welcoming to the poor.[440]

We must learn to recognise Christ when he comes out to meet us in our brothers, the people around us.[441] It would be good to see how much we respect justice, how much attention we give it, how keen are we on justice; and we should further enrich justice through the Christian virtue of charity: all that would tell us how faithfully we are following Christ. It’s also true the other way around: if we are friends of Christ and love him, that love and friendship will overflow into our relationship with others.

The spiritual and material responsibilities of the Christian towards others are demanding: he must know how to serve others willingly, with his heart, and in deeds. When faced with those responsibilities, with the help of God’s grace, the Christian will neither be cowed, on the one hand, nor get caught up in a frenzy of confused, ‘strange’ activity, on the other. But he mustn’t give in to passivity either: ‘caritas enim Christi urget nos’: the love of Christ urges us on (2 Cor 5:14).[442] It brings us beyond the demands of simple justice, but, obviously, it presupposes justice.

If this exercise of charity is to be above all criticism, and seen to be so ... – the Second Vatican Council tells us – the demands of justice must first of all be satisfied; that which is already due in justice is not to be offered as a gift of charity.

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