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Remember Jesus Christ

WHAT PLACE DOES CHRIST HAVE IN MODERN SOCIETY?

Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher to the papal household, posed that question in a series of Advent and Lent meditations presented to Pope Benedict XVI. In Remember Jesus Christ, which is based on these meditations, he explains that in order to bring people to Christ today, the church needs to proclaim, as simply and succinctly as the apostles did, that “Jesus Christ is Lord!” And the essential core of that proclamation is the passion and death of Jesus, because the cross of Christ is the supreme proof of God’s love for us. Scripture, personal testimonies, and allusions to works of art reinforce Cantalamessa’s powerful and prophetic message, leaving reachers with hope and expectant faith in the future of Christianity in the modern world.

“If we read this collection of meditations unhurriedly and let the Lord guide us in every new insight, it will open the way for a closer relationship with Jesus. It will also unite us in a personal way with our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, who heard these same words and thoughts from Fr. Canatalamessa, the papal preacher. Having just made my own retreat, I now regret that I did not have this book with me. I would have made a better retreat as would any one longing to encounter and to remember Jesus Christ.”

— Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick
Archbishop Emeritus of Washington

Table of Contents

Preface

Part I: Faith That Conquers the World

 Chapter 1

“Who Do Men Say That the Son of Man Is?”

Faith in Christ Today and at the Beginning of the Church

1. Presence/Absence of Christ
2. Kerygma and Didache
3. Rediscovering the Kerygma
4. Choosing Jesus as Lord Again

Chapter 2

“Do You Believe?”

The Divinity of Christ in the Gospel of John

1. “Unless You Believe That I Am …”
2. “The Work of God Is to Believe in Him Whom He Has Sent”
3. “Blessed Is He Who Takes No Offense at Me”
4. “I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life”
5. The Disciple Jesus Loved (and Who Loved Jesus!)

Chapter 3

“Freely Justified!”

Paul’s Faith in Jesus Christ

1. Justified by Faith in Christ
2. Justification and Conversion
3. Appropriation by Faith

4. Justification and Confession
5. “That I May Know Him”
6. “Forgetting What Lies Behind”

Chapter 4

“To You Is Born This Day … a Savior” How to Proclaim the Salvation of Christ Today

1. What Kind of Savior Does Humanity Need?
2. Do We Still Need a Savior?
3. Christ Saves Us from Space
4. Christ Saves Us from Time
5. Christ “My Savior”
6. The Mark of the Tide on the Rock

 Part II: Remembering His Blessed Passion

Chapter 5

“In Agony, He Prayed More Fervently”

1. Baptized into His Death
2. Gethsemane, a Historical Fact
3. Two Different Ways of Struggling with God
4. “Being in an Agony He Prayed More Earnestly”
5. “In Agony Even to the End of the World”

Chapter 6

“Obedient unto Death”

1. Sacrifice or Obedience?
2. Can God Obey?
3. Obedience to God in Christian Life
4. Obedience and Authority
5. Bringing Questions to God
6. Mary, the Obedient One

Chapter 7

“Let the Rocks Be Broken”

1. The Passion and the Shroud
2. The Passion of the Savior’s Soul
3. “Is It I, Lord?”
4. “I Stand at the Door and Knock”
5. “Far Be It from Me to Glory …”

Chapter 8

“God Shows His Love for Us”

1. “Be Graver, Christians, in Your Undertakings …”
2. Passion Preceded the Incarnation!
3. Three Orders of Greatness
4. Love That Forgives
5. The Duty to Love