Chapter One of the Compendium - outline and notes
Part One asserts
that if we intend to understand today’s problems, and if we intend to solve
them, then we must have some theological grounding. It provides this grounding
in four chapters:
·
Chapter
One: God’s plan of love for humanity
·
Chapter
Two: The Church’s mission and social doctrine
·
Chapter
Three: The human person and human rights
·
Chapter
Four: Principles of the Church’s social doctrine
So here’s
chapter one.
Chapter One, God’s
plan of love for humanity, has four sections, regarding:
·
God’s
liberating action in the history of Israel,
·
Jesus
Christ, the fulfillment of the Father’s plan of love,
·
the
human person in God’s plan of love, and
·
God’s
plan in the mission of the Church.
Regarding
liberation and the history of Israel, there are two key points:
a. God's gratuitous presence
b. The principle of creation and God's
gratuitous action
Regarding
Jesus fulfilling the plan of love, there are two key points:
a. In Jesus Christ the decisive event of
the history of God with mankind is fulfilled
b. The revelation of Trinitarian love
Regarding the
“human person” in this plan of love, there are four key points:
a.
Trinitarian
love, the origin and goal of the human person
b.
Christian
salvation: for all people and the whole person
c.
The
disciple of Christ as a new creation
d.
The
transcendence of salvation and the autonomy of earthly realities
Regarding
God’s plan of love and the mission of the Church, there are four key points:
a.
The
Church, sign and defender of the transcendence of the human person
b.
The
Church, the Kingdom of God and the renewal of social relations
c.
New
heavens and a new earth
d.
Mary
and her “fiat” in God's plan of love
God’s
liberating action in the history of Israel
(par
20-27, making two points)
God's
gratuitous presence (20-25)
20. Every
authentic religious experience, in all cultural traditions, leads to an
intuition …
God is the
origin of what is, and the measure of what should be
21. Israel –
striking in history. Gifts of freedom and land.
22. God’s
gift leads to a covenant, in which a moral life (Ten Commandments) is part of
our worship.
23. The Ten
Commandments shape our relationship with God and also with others, especially
the poor, including strangers.
24. The
sabbatical year and the Jubilee years include a commitment to re-establishing
social justice after we drift a bit.
25. The
Jubilee years are about the perennial struggle to make justice and solidarity
universal – an attitude we are called to have towards ALL men and women of
EVERY people and nation.
The
principle of creation and God's gratuitous action (26-27)
26. God is
gracious/generous and merciful, and we (humanity) are the instruments of that
generosity, custodians of the universe.
27. The
universe reveals God’s generosity, but our sin broke our relationship with God,
my understanding of myself, our relationships with others, and our bonds with
all creation.
Jesus
Christ, the fulfillment of the Father’s plan of love
(par
28-33, making two points)
In
Jesus Christ the decisive event of the history of God with mankind is fulfilled
(28-29)
28. Jesus is
the tangible and definitive manifestation of how God acts towards men and
women.
29. The love
that inspires Jesus' ministry is inspired by the love that he with the Father.
Jesus announces the liberating mercy of God to all, beginning with the poor,
the marginalized, the sinners. He invites all to follow him. He is aware of
being the Son, and his mission is to make all people share in this filial
relationship. Jesus models his actions on God's gratuitousness and mercy, and
his followers are called to live like him and in him, thanks to the
superabundant gift of the Holy Spirit who internalizes Christ's own style of
life in human hearts.
The
revelation of Trinitarian love (par 30-33)
The Face of
God, progressively revealed in the history of salvation, shines in its fullness
in the Face of Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. God is Trinity:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; truly distinct and truly one, because God is an
infinite communion of love.
The modern
cultural, social, economic and political phenomenon of interdependence, which
intensifies and makes particularly evident the bonds that unite the human
family, accentuates once more, in the light of Revelation, “a
new model of the unity of the human race, which must
ultimately inspire our solidarity.”
The
human person in God’s plan of
love (par 34-48, making four points)
Trinitarian
love, the origin and goal of the human person (34-37)
“… the Lord Jesus Christ, when praying to the Father
‘that they may all be one ... as we are one' (Jn 17:21-22), has
opened up new horizons closed to human reason by implying that there is a
certain parallel between the union existing among the divine Persons and the
union of the children of God in truth and love.” Gaudium et Spes, 24
Christian
salvation: for all people and the whole person (38-40)
38. The
salvation offered in its fullness to men in Jesus Christ by God the Father's
initiative, and brought about and transmitted by the work of the Holy Spirit,
is salvation for all people and of the whole person: it is universal and
integral salvation. It concerns the human person in all his dimensions:
personal and social, spiritual and corporeal, historical and transcendent.
See Gaudium
et Spes, 22.
The
disciple of Christ as a new creation (41-44)
“The
acknowledged priority of the conversion of heart in no way eliminates but on
the contrary imposes the obligation of bringing the appropriate remedies to
institutions and living conditions when they are an inducement to sin, so that
they conform to the norms of justice and advance the good rather than hinder
it”[43].
43. CCC
1888. Which in turn refers to Lumen Gentium 36.
Lumen
Gentium 36: “The
faithful, therefore, must learn the deepest meaning and the value of all
creation, as well as its role in the harmonious praise of God. They must assist
each other to live holier lives even in their daily occupations. In this way
the world may be permeated by the spirit of Christ and it may more effectively
fulfill its purpose in justice, charity and peace. The laity have the principal
role in the overall fulfillment of this duty. Therefore, by their competence in
secular training and by their activity, elevated from within by the grace of
Christ, let them vigorously contribute their effort, so that created goods may
be perfected by human labor, technical skill and civic culture for the benefit
of all men according to the design of the Creator and the light of His Word.
May the goods of this world be more equitably distributed among all men, and
may they in their own way be conducive to universal progress in human and
Christian freedom. In this manner, through the members of the Church, will
Christ progressively illumine the whole of human society with His saving
light.”
The transcendence of salvation and the autonomy of
earthly realities (45-48)
“If by the
autonomy of earthly affairs we mean that created things and societies
themselves enjoy their own laws and values which must be gradually deciphered,
put to use and regulated by men, then it is entirely right to demand that
autonomy.” (Gaudium et Spes, 36).
“If the
expression ‘the autonomy of earthly affairs' is taken to mean that created
things do not depend on God, and that man can use them without any reference to
their Creator, anyone who acknowledges God will see how false such a meaning
is.” (also G&S 35)
God’s
plan in the mission of the Church (par 48-59, making four points)
The
Church, sign and defender of the transcendence of the human person (49-51)
The Church
has “a saving and eschatological purpose which can be fully attained only in
the next life.”
The
Church, the Kingdom of God and the renewal of social relations (52-55)
God, in
Christ, redeems not only the individual person but also the social relations
existing between men.
The
transformation of the world is a fundamental requirement of our time also. To
this need the Church's social Magisterium intends to offer the responses called
for by the signs of the times, pointing above all to the mutual love between
human beings, in the sight of God, as the most powerful instrument of change,
on the personal and social levels.
New
heavens and a new earth (56-58)
The good
things — such as human dignity, brotherhood and freedom, all the good fruits of
nature and of human enterprise — that in the Lord's Spirit and according to his
command have spread throughout the earth, having been purified of every stain,
illuminated and transfigured, belong to the Kingdom of truth and life, of
holiness and grace, of justice, of love and of peace that Christ will present
to the Father, and it is there that we shall once again find them.
Mary and her “fiat” in God's plan of love (59)
“… the
truth about God who saves,
the truth about God who is the source of every gift, cannot be
separated from the manifestation of his love of preference for the poor and
humble, that love which, celebrated in the Magnificat, is later
expressed in the words and works of Jesus”[71].
71. John Paul
II, Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Mater, 37
