THE CHURCH, SIGN AND DEFENDER OF THE TRANSCENDENCE OF THE HUMAN PERSON
49.
“The Church, the community of those who have been brought together by the Risen Christ and who have set out to follow him, is ‘the sign and the safeguard of the transcendent dimension of the human person.’”
“The Church places herself concretely at the service of the Kingdom of God above all by announcing and communicating the Gospel of salvation and by establishing new Christian communities.”
“According to the plan of God brought about in Christ, there corresponds to the identity and mission fo the Church in the world ‘a saving and eschatological purpose which can be fully attained only in the next life.’”
“The transformation of social relationships that responds to the demands of the Kingdom of God is not fixed within concrete boundaries once and for all. Rather, it is a task entrusted to the Christian community, which is to develop it and carry it out through reflection and practices inspired by the Gospel.”
“Jesus Christ reveals to us that ‘God is love’ and he teaches us that ‘the fundamental law of human perfection, and consequently of the transformation of the world, is the new commandment of love.’”
“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.”
“God’s promise and Jesus Christ’s resurrection raise in Christians the well-founded hope that a new and eternal dwelling place is prepared for every human person, a new earth where justice abides.”
“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.”
“The complete fulfillment of the human person, achieved in Christ through the gift of the Spirit, develops in history and is mediated by personal relationships with other people, relationships that in turn reach perfection thanks to the commitment made to improve the world, in justice and peace.”
“Conforming himself to Christ the Redeemer, man perceives himself as a creature willed by God and eternally chosen by him, called to grace and glory in all the fullness of the mystery in which he has become a sharer in Jesus Christ.”
