TWO CITIES

It seems that in our world have originated two opposite thoughts with resonance to Saint Augustine. Many people are attracted to the Catholic Church in view of the image of unity in doctrine and the moral authority of its teachings.

However, we see that Catholics fall into the infidelity, are absorbed by moral relativism and leave the religious practice. The outside noise can override the inner silence that faith needs to grow.

The respect for human life from conception to death; the dignity of the person; the central character of the family or the sanctity of marriage and the solidarity are determining factors for that dilemma. In this game we must not forget the pressure exerted by the media content, as on their programs as on advertising, which contributes to the loss of moral or the strength of family values, perhaps without the person is aware of its influence.

In many cases it seems that the faith has ceased to have the support of the reading doctrine of the Sacred Scripture. Pope John Paul II in his letter "At the beginning of the new millennium", is still saying that "it would be a contradiction to settle for a mediocre life, lived according to a minimalist ethic and a superficial religiosity". The childhood experience of walking on the edge of the pavement shows us how the road disappear but in the case of the faith is not a game.

In that letter, the Pope John Paul II continues warning that according to this practice would not be mediocre Christians, but "Christians with risk" which "would be the insidious risk that their faith will gradually erode, and perhaps they will surrender to the seduction of the substitutes, even welcoming alternative religious proposals and tolerating extravagant forms of superstition."

The personal experience will show examples of these situations that would surely not have been produced from one moment to another. For example, the fall in the temptation of evil or the election of an inappropriate behavior model is not something sudden, it happens little by little. First, there is something insignificant, then injected of moral relativism, is transformed into something that move us away from the first way, displacing the old habits in other new that makes us a different person.

The ability to act with principles that ensure the dignity of the person has deteriorated. For example, we have shortly gone from the respect for human life to widespread abortion, research of embryonic stem-cell artificially fertilized and then sacrificed and euthanasia.

We have made that marriage is the contract less consistent; to be able to be broken by the mere will of any of the parties. A Copernican revolution that some people may find themselves vulnerable to the misconception that it is an inexorable change of the development of the times.

Perhaps, the replacement of the personal ambition for the collectivism, of the truth for the relativism is the more relevant transformation in our times.

We have been instilled that beliefs are to be relegated to the personal and intimate field. As a result of this people retract to express or transmit to others their convictions, and worse when such transmission is omitted in the family. In this breeding ground of the loss of identity, the unbelief carries its roots. If we have something in the heart it has to be transmitted. The inaction shows our weakness of faith.

The crossroads that leads us to the two cities is complex since it repeated from one stretch to another and indicators may not be sufficiently explicit. For this reason, we must take the risk in the best decision, knowing that the risk of loosing grows when we are not awake and drowse by siren sons: what is close enough to touch to the light is hidden and deletes in the twilight.

Agustín PÉREZ CERRADA

Filed under: http://www.theleader.info/article/45412/

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