Remember Jesus Christ: Responding to the Challenges of Faith in Our Time

by Raniero Cantalamessa

Book Overview

What place does Christ have in our modern society? Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher to the papal household, posed that question in a series of Advent and Lent meditations presented to Pope Benedict XVI. In Remember Jesus Christ, which is based on these meditations, he explains that in order to bring people to Christ today, the Church needs to proclaim, as simply and succintly as the apostles did, that "Jesus Christ is Lord " And the essential...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1593251092
• ISBN13: 9781593251093
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Word Among Us Press
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Cantalamessa takes me by hand to the depths of Christ, oh what riches!

People get deceived and deceive others when they think that the Catholic Church doesn't begin with Jesus. This book is a collection of meditations presented to the pontifical household in the presence of Pope Benedict XVI. It is based on a verse from the Bible in 2 Timothy 2: 8 as the apostle Paul exhorts Timothy, his true son in the faith, to "remember Jesus Christ". Fr Cantalamessa, a real favourite theologian of mine, quotes in chapter 1 What Augustine had to say commenting on Christ's answer to Peter: "Upon this rock I will build the faith which you have just confessed. Upon what you have said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, I will build my church." I enjoyed reading this part over and over again. If we really think about it, that is what all Christian doctrine is primarily founded upon: You are Christ the Son of the Living God. That is the only foundation that the Church is founded upon. Catholics don't claim anything otherwise. It is always about "faith in Christ" and his centrality in our lives, whether we are Catholics or any type of Christian denomination. On p. 31, Fr Cantalamessa asserts that Chris is the specific and primary object of belief.On p. 46 he asserts that the doctrine of justification freely given through faith is not Paul's invention but is the clear teaching of Christ. Jesus went about proclaiming, "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel"(Mark 1: 15). What Christ meant by the expression "the Kingdom of God"- God's salvific initiative, his offer of salvation to all humanity- is called the righteousness of God by St. Paul. The "Kingdom of God" and the "righteousness of God" are set alongside each other by Jesus Himself when he says "Seek first the Kingdom of God his righteousness" (Matt. 6:33). Whenever Jesus said,"Repent and believe in the Gospel" he was already teaching justification by faith. Before him, repenting always meant "turning back" (which is the literal meaning of "shub" , the Hebrew word for "repent"). It means turning back, through a renewed observance of the law to the covenant that had been broken. To convert, consequently, has primarily an ascetic, moral and penitential signification, and it is implemented through changing one's behaviour. Repentance is seen as a condition for salvation; it means "repent and you will be saved; repent and salvation will come to you". On p. 48 Fr Cantalamessa makes a beautiful observation: If we had been told that the door to enter salvation is innocence, or the exact observance of the commandments, or this or that virture, we would be in trouble! Who could hope to be saved? [ This brought to my mind people in the Western culture who say, I am good and I hurt nobody and so I am just as good as you are if you are "saved"]. But instead we are told that the door is faith, and the possibility is not too high for you and not too far from you; it is not "beyond the sea" (see Deut. 30: 13). It is "on your lips

Outstanding

This book reflects on what made it possible for the early message (Kerygma) of the Christians be able to take hold. He deeply respects the contributions of the reformers from Luther to Wesley and points how the essence of the message was simply Christ. Christ is the point of origin which left behind a wake. The wake being the Church. While the Church certainly dwells on the doctrine, it must be ever more focused on its source, Christ, if it hopes to penetrate the culture that has regressed back to a pagan or hedonistic past.