Acta Apostolicae Sedis - Commentarium Officiale644

standing".2 The Apostle prays that Christ may dwell in our hearts through

faith 3 and that we may come to "grasp, with all the saints, the breadth and

the length, the height and the depth" of that love. Through faith we come to

see God's word as a lamp for our steps and light for our path.4 Newman, like

the countless saints who preceded him along the path of Christian disciple-

ship, taught that the "kindly light" of faith leads us to realize the truth about

ourselves, our dignity as God's children, and the sublime destiny which

awaits us in heaven. By letting the light of faith shine in our hearts, and

by abiding in that light through our daily union with the Lord in prayer and

participation in the life-giving sacraments of the Church, we ourselves be-

come light to those around us; we exercise our "prophetic office"; often,

without even knowing it, we draw people one step closer to the Lord and

his truth. Without the life of prayer, without the interior transformation

which takes place through the grace of the sacraments, we cannot, in New-

man's words, "radiate Christ"; we become just another "clashing cymbal" 5 in

a world filled with growing noise and confusion, filled with false paths leading

only to heartbreak and illusion.

One of the Cardinal's best-loved meditations includes the words, "God has

created me to do him some definite service. He has committed some work to

me which he has not committed to another".6 Here we see Newman's fine

Christian realism, the point at which faith and life inevitably intersect. Faith

is meant to bear fruit in the transformation of our world through the power of

the Holy Spirit at work in the lives and activity of believers. No one who

looks realistically at our world today could think that Christians can afford

to go on with business as usual, ignoring the profound crisis of faith which has

overtaken our society, or simply trusting that the patrimony of values

handed down by the Christian centuries will continue to inspire and shape

the future of our society. We know that in times of crisis and upheaval God

has raised up great saints and prophets for the renewal of the Church and

Christian society; we trust in his providence and we pray for his continued

guidance. But each of us, in accordance with his or her state of life, is called

to work for the advancement of God's Kingdom by imbuing temporal life

2 Eph 3:14-21. 3 Cfr. Eph 3:17. 4 Cfr. Ps 119:105. 5 1 Cor 13:1. 6 Meditations on Christian Doctrine.