How to talk about God? Benedict XVI responded in the Year of Faith

Pope Benedict XVI answered the question “How to talk about God?”, on a day like today, November 28, 2012, during the Year of Faith that he called.

“The first answer is that we can talk about God because He has spoken to us. The first condition of speaking with God is, therefore, listening to what God himself has said,” the Pontiff indicated in the General Audience of that day.

The Holy Father specified that “God is not a distant hypothesis about the origin of the world; It is not a mathematical intelligence very far from us. God is interested in us, he loves us, he has personally entered into the reality of our history, he has communicated himself until he became incarnate” in Jesus who teaches the “art of living”, the path to happiness; “to free us from sin and make us children of God.”

Benedict XVI then highlighted that “speaking about God means, above all, being very clear about what we must bring to the men and women of our time: not an abstract God, a hypothesis, but a concrete God, a God who exists, that has entered history and is present in history; the God of Jesus Christ as an answer to the fundamental question of why and how to live.”

For this reason, “talking about God requires familiarity with Jesus and his Gospel; It supposes our personal and real knowledge of God and a strong passion for his project of salvation, without giving in to the temptation of success, but following the method of God himself” which is “that of humility—God becomes one of us—” .

“It is the method carried out in the Incarnation in the simple house of Nazareth and in the grotto of Bethlehem, that of the parable of the mustard seed. It is necessary not to fear the humility of small steps and to trust in the yeast that penetrates the dough and slowly makes it grow,” Pope Benedict XVI exhorted then.

In that sense, he stressed, “we must be attentive to perceive the signs of the times in our time, that is, to identify the potential, the desires, the obstacles that are found in current culture, in particular the desire for authenticity, the desire for transcendence, sensitivity for the protection of creation, and fearlessly communicating the response that faith in God offers.”

This speaking of God has a privileged place in the family, since parents are called to assume “the responsibility of educating, of opening the consciences of the little ones to the love of God as a fundamental service to their lives, of being the first catechists.” and teachers of the faith for their children.”

It is important to help everyone in a family that “faith is not a burden, but a source of deep joy; It is perceiving the action of God, recognizing the presence of good that does not make noise; and offers precious guidance to live one’s own existence well.”

Benedict XVI finally stressed that “to speak of God, then, means to make it understood with word and life that God is not the rival of our existence, but rather its true guarantor, the guarantor of the greatness of the human person.”