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| (Job by Léon Bonnat) |
“I believe the real temptation for someone who is a Christian, as we experience it today, does not just consist in the theoretical question of whether God exists; or even the question of whether he is three in one; or even the question of whether Christ is God and man in one person. What really torments us today, what bothers us much more is the inefficacy of Christianity: after 2,000 years of Christian history, we can see nothing that might be a new reality in the world; rather, we find it sunk in the same old horrors, the same despair, and the same hopes as ever. And in our lives, too, we inevitably experience time and time again how Christian reality is powerless against all the other forces that influence us and make demands on us.
. . . Observing Advent simply means talking with God the way Job did. It means just seeing the whole reality and burden of our Christian life without fear and bringing it before the face of God as judge and savior, even if, like Job, we have no answer to give about it all, and the only thing left is to leave it to God himself to answer.”
~Benedict XVI
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