We consider Christmas as the encounter, the great encounter, the historical encounter, the decisive encounter, between God and mankind. He who has faith knows this truly; let him rejoice.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the significance of Christmas as a pivotal moment in human history where God meets humanity.
Pope Paul VI emphasizes the importance of Christmas not merely as a holiday, but as a profound moment in time that symbolizes the relationship between God and humanity. This 'great encounter' is the foundation of Christian faith, inviting believers to recognize and rejoice in the spiritual implications and transformative power of celebrating Christ's birth.
In practice
A pastor using this quote in a Christmas sermon to emphasize the spiritual significance of the holiday.
The important role of union organizations must be admitted: their object is the representation of the various categories of workers, their lawful collaboration in the economic advance of society, and the development of the sense of their responsibility for the realization of the common good.
There are those who ask what authority, what theological qualification, the Council intended to give to its teachings, knowing that it avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions backed by the Church's infallible teaching authority. The answer is known by those who remember the conciliar declaration of March 6, 1964, repeated on November 16, 1964. In view of the pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided proclaiming in an extraordinary manner any dogmata carrying the mark of infallibility.
This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. It is beauty, like truth, which brings joy to the heart of man and is that precious fruit which resists the year and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them share things in admiration.
All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are today.
The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid of value if it does not offer the hardness, the rigidity, the regularity, the luster on every interior and exterior facet, of the crystal.
The Eucharistic mystery stands at the heart and center of the liturgy since it is the fount of life by which we are cleansed and strengthened to live not for ourselves but for God and to be united in love among ourselves.
Reason died in 1914, November 1914 ... after that everybody began to rave.
No generalizing beyond the data, no theory. No theory, no insight. And if no insight, why do research.
For although we know that the years pass, that youth gives way to old age, that fortunes and thrones crumble (even the most solid among them) and that fame is transitory, the manner in which—by means of a sort of snapshot—we take cognisance of this moving universe whirled along by Time, has the contrary effect of immobilising it.
I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.
We cannot change ideas in the minds of men and races with machine guns or battle ships.
I sometimes find it half a sin, To put to words the grief i feel, For words like nature,half reveal, and half conceal the soul within.
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