UNISINOS – RESIDÊNCIA CONCEIÇÃO

R. Aloysio Sehnem, 186                                                   17 March, 2011             XLI:1

UNISINOS

Cx. P. 101

93.001-970 São Leopoldo, RS

BRASIL                                                           e-mail:  [email protected]

Dear Colleagues, Benefactors, Family and Friends:

My personal insufficiency of Fortitude and proclivity to outright impatience embrace a time span measured more in decades rather than just years. My tendency is to Force results rather than allow them to emerge. Age and maturity have diminished the problem but I still lack perfection.

Force is a mysterious entity. Distinct from Power, it can most simply be considered as a body of energy. Given direction that energy can serve a purpose, beneficial or adverse.

Combined with evil, Force becomes violent. Violence turns otherwise laudable qualities into vice and ruin. It is common enough in a world where good and evil are mixed and confused. Born of evil, violence is a degenerative force that must confuse, perplex, disorient, and deceive before it can capture, possess, violate, degrade and finally destroy. Violence cannot function as force without deceit. Clearly present in any context, it would be openly rejected by anyone even of minimal virtue. Violence cannot “force” its vicious effects.

Yet Force combined with virtue yields Power, a benevolent presence of Divine origin. Power has many forms all of which are generous and even generative. Empowering any mortal being, Almighty God bequeaths upon that being immortal qualities, surprising and at times as frightening to the recipient as to the community of which he is a part. Ask any mystic. Their vocations verify this.

However Power, as with any other gift, demands specific self-discipline in its reception and exercise. Bestowed as a dynamic, its effects function as a dynamic OF GOD through the one empowered BY GOD. Applied with virtue, one’s power expands and amplifies. Abused in vice, power diminishes and degenerates to violent force. The pervert is content with  demonic power, violent force. The virtuous seeks better. That search (constant during one’s time in this life) is embodied in the life and vocation of every saint. They continually seek the best for and in Almighty God. Only in Eternal Union with God do they reach perfection.

That constant search is consecrated in Jesus Christ whose gift of Salvation empowers all of us for that search, navigating this life toward Eternal Union. On our own, we are absolutely incapable of that Union, yet in His Virtue (notwithstanding our weaknesses, vices and sins) we are well fitted to the task. We celebrate that empowerment each year in a special way in the Judeo- Christian Tradition at the Lenten-Easter Season, the Victory of Jesus Christ over the Satanic Forces, empowering us in Salvation to Eternal Life.

Have a Happy, Blessed and Holy Lenten-Pascal tide!

Sincerely in Jesus Christ

Pe. Ed Benya, S.J.