I would like to talk to you about the Pope= s encyclical. I= ll start out on a negative note. If you want to be miserable, if you want to be depressed then seek yourself. Live for yourself. Make yourself the center of your life and I= m sure what will happen is first of all consciousness will diminish, and then secondly you will be less and less aware of anything spiritual happening in your life.

It= s interesting that the Pope has focused on who God is and the implications of worshiping such a God. He quotes the epistle of John, "that God is love and those who abide in love abide in God." God is love. God is always giving himself. God is always communicating himself. God is always spreading his goodness. Constantly, the earth is a kind of image of God= s abundant goodness in the sense that every year we have spring and the harvest comes, etc. But there= s an important statement that follows that those who abide in love abide God. There= s a connection, an ebb and flow between God and his people if they are in a state of grace and are in the openness toward God. Whereas as those people who aren’t, there is no ebb and flow. So we are surrounded and sustained, guided and touched by God= s action if we are in the state of grace.

Then he goes on to say that we have come to know and believe in God= s love for us. Not just believe we have come to know it. Which means if we are really in the state of grace we come to have experiences of God= s presence in our life and we know that God is God and he exists and we have our own personal experience. I could witness myself but the fact is that we need both, the reason we need both is because life is an ongoing relationship and therefore we have to believe as know. But the fact is we know. So it= s not based upon merely an ideology or dogma or because somebody said so, I know God exists. So he goes on to make that statement that our faith is rooted not in dogma and in ideologies but in an actual encounter with a person that we know.

So the outcome of this is that we are to be a people of charity. That we are to be a loving presences and not people who are focused on ourselves. He then unfolds the implication of charity in the whole church and in the world. So we need to ask ourselves how do we know if we are loving or not loving in our presence? Well, all we have to do is look at the motives of our desires. Or look at the motives at why we feel offended by people. Or what is really behind the moments in which we are impatient, frustrated or depressed and see whether or not the real motive there is simply that things aren’t going my way. The way I want them to go. Then to say no to that. To refuse to go in that direction and to ask the Holy Spirit to give you the grace to become a more loving presence. God wants to give us this gift that= s another way of looking at salvation. God wants to make us fully alive, therefore, to free us and to make us loving presences. If we do this what will happen is that we receive the gifts of truth and light that comes from the Spirit. The graces of peace and joy and love and therefore we can begin to transform the world.