LIVING ‘AS IF GOD DOES NOT EXIST’ IS HARMFUL, POPE

WE ARE ALL IN DANGER OF LIVING AS IF
“GOD DID NOT EXIST”, SAID THE POPE

VATICAN CITY (AsiaNews) - But God has “a thousand ways to show that He exists and we must pay attention to” signs with which God touches us, as was the experience of the Blessed Angela of Foligno, to whom Benedict XVI dedicated his general audience. “We are all in danger of living as if God did not exist, but God has a thousand ways, for each one of us he has his own way to make his presence felt in our soul, to show us that he knows us and loves us and wants us to be attentive to those signs with which God touches us”, this is what Blessed Angela of Foligno shows us.

On Wednesday Pope Benedict XVI, dedicated his catechesis to the mystic of the thirteenth century, a late convert to the faith who knew “the heights of experience of union with God”, the latest in s series of lessons illustrating the great female figures of the medieval Church. To 40 thousand people in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope said that “usually people are fascinated by the heights of her experience of union with God, but few consider just the first part of life.”

Angela was born in 1248 into a wealthy family in Foligno. Introduced in worldly circles, she met a man whom she married when she was 20 years old and had children. At that time her life was “certainly not that of a fervent disciple of the Lord”, so much so she despised so-called penitents, as were called those who out of devotion “sold their possessions and lived in prayer, fasting, charity and service to the Church”. “Let us pray - concluded Benedict XVI - that God will make us attentive to the signs of his presence, to teach us to truly live”. The pope, finally, in his greetings in Spanish, prayed for the success of the rescue of the miners in Chile, “I continue to hopefully entrust the miners - he said - to divine goodness.”


Religious indifference in ancient Christian areas, especially in the West, is alarming. These countries are increasingly secularized and they are also powerfully impregnated with the indifference, secularism, relativism and atheism. As Pope said, this idea of living ‘as if God does not exist’ has revealed itself to be harmful. Rather, the world needs to live ‘as if God does exist’; otherwise all it produces is ‘inhuman humanism’. We need to restore faith in the Supreme Lord in order to be able to revive our true spiritual identity.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

The Shrimad-Bhagavatam (11.2.42) declares that along with devotional surrender and direct perception of the Supreme Lord, aversion to, and detachment from matter occur simultaneously. ... The pilgrim undertaking a journey on the path of devotion must have faith (sraddha), a faith synonymous with the firm conviction to act on the words and the instructions of devotional scriptures. Faith is of two kinds: svabhaviki (natural) and balotpadika (inspired by an external force). Faith gives birth to the desire to surrender to a bona fide spiritual master and to learn from him the proper rules and etiquette of the devotional science. Sincerely following the spiritual master's instructions bestows upon a disciple the good fortune of wanting to associate with an elevated saint experienced and absorbed in the same devotional mood as the disciple himself aspires for-min other words, a like-minded saintly instructor. At this point begins the stage of bhajana-kriya, the platform of serious devotional activities.

Śrī Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura :
"Madhurya Kadambini" - Cloud Bank of Nectar
"The Second Shower of Nectar"
http://nitaaiveda.com/Compiled_and_Imp_Scriptures/Madhurya_Kadambini/Full_Madhurya_Kadambini.htm