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Bishop: Christian hope does not involve resignation

Bishop Mario Moronta Rodriguez of San Cristobal in Venezuela said last week, “Thanks to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, we have been born again” to a new hope that is not “the fatalistic resignation of someone who hopes someone or something will solve his problems” but rather “points towards fullness,” reports Catholic News Agency.

This new life, he said, is the salvation that “transforms us into new men and women” and which St. Paul described as a way. “With baptism we are incorporated into the death and resurrection of Jesus and thus we begin to journey in the newness of life” that “radically changes our existence by converting us into children of God the Father and disciples of Jesus.”

Responding to the question of why we are born again in the Lord, Bishop Moronta said that St. Peter “gives us a clear and direct answer: for a living hope” that is “redundant, as all true hope will always be living.”

Hope “does not consist in conforming oneself or in the fatalistic resignation of someone who hopes someone or something will solve his problems” but rather “points towards fullness,” he said.

Likewise, Bishop Moronta pointed out that hope is living because “it is born of the Lord himself who has given us the resurrection and life” and who keeps us on the “road to fullness,” and it “allows us to show that we are called to an encounter with God in this earthly existence as well as in the definitive life in heaven.”

Thus as disciples of Jesus and people of hope, he went on, believers have the responsibility to “reach out to others and make them disciples.

“This is a good time to reaffirm that Catholics in Venezuela and the rest of the world believe in the God of the resurrection. Therefore, we do not only feel like we are a new creation, we act and journey in a living hope,” the bishop said.

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[04/01/2008]

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