Forgiveness as the Restoration of Truth
- POPE BENEDICT XVI
A Jesus who agrees with everyone and everything, a Jesus without his holy anger, without the hardness of truth and genuine love, is not the real Jesus as he is depicted in the Scriptures, but a pitiable caricature.
A concept of "Gospel" that fails to convey the reality of God's anger has nothing to do with the Gospel of the Bible. True forgiveness is something quite different than weak indulgence.
Forgiveness is demanding and requires both parties, the one who forgives and the one who is forgiven, to do so with all their minds and hearts. A Jesus who sanctions everything is a Jesus without the Cross, for such a Jesus would not need the torment of the Cross to save mankind.
As a matter of fact, the Cross is being increasingly banished from theology and reinterpreted as just a vexatious mischance or a purely political event. The Cross as reconciliation, as a means of forgiving and saving, is incompatible with a certain modern mode of thought.
Only when the relationship between truth and love is rightly comprehended can the Cross be comprehensible in its true theological depth. Forgiveness has to do with the truth. That is why it requires the Son's Cross and our conversion.
Forgiveness is, in fact, the restoration of truth, the renewal of being, and the vanquishment of the lies that lurk in every sin; sin is by nature a departure from the truth of one's own nature and, by consequence, from the truth of the Creator God.
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Acknowledgement
Pope Benedict XVI. "Forgiveness as the Restoration of Truth." from Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations For Every Day of the Year (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1992).
This excerpt appeared in Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI.
The Author
Pope Benedict XVI is the author of Jesus of Nazareth, Vol II, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol I, Caritas in Veritate: Charity in Truth, Saved in Hope: Spe Salvi, God Is Love: Deus Caritas Est,The End of Time?: The Provocation of Talking about God, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, Salt of the Earth: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church at the End of the Millennium, God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time, In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, The Spirit of the Liturgy, The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church, Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Introduction to Christianity, Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today, Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977, Behold the Pierced One, and God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life.
