“The soul of man is full of wild animals,” if Christ is missing in this said desert monk Makarios in front of 1,600 years. Jesuit father Eberhard von Gemmingen, the Catholic Church asks: Is that the same today?
Christ does not want to camp between mental garbage bags.
The modern media user, loves goose bumps, the shock, the Dramatic. Since many people tick today, so, I want you to be a bit of a shock with a Text from a completely different world. He should scare you goose bumps. The author of the Egyptian desert monk Macarius in the fourth century.
Macarius argues: The soul of man is not full of wild animals, if Christ lives in you. He writes: “Woe to the soul, if the Lord lives in you and with his voice the evil animals are not scared away! Not Woe to the house if the Lord lives in him! Woe to the earth if the farmer is missing, the built. Woe to the ship without a helmsman, because it will be driven on the raging waves of the sea and perishes. Woe to the soul, if you have the real tax man Christ is missing. She drives on the bitter sea of darkness is shaken by the waves of the passions, from the tempest of evil spirits afflicted and goes down. It is barren, full of thorns and thistles, and in the end you expected, instead of the harvest, consuming fire. If the Lord, Christ no longer dwells in her, she is filled with the musty smell of the passions, a Dwelling place of Evil.“1
Full of wild animals
Maybe we would say: The Makarios is crazy! It’s not very many socially active citizens well, even without the Faith? They are not crazy words from an unenlightened time? Is Macarius of their own mental health problems?
If I but with an attentive glance through Munich, on the one hand, the people see, on the other hand, the Movie tie-in with your intemperate provocations, the commercial advertising with their promise of luck, I’m afraid that Makarios but a little right. Are not “wild animals” in the souls? A wild animal roars: “KAUF dich glücklich!”, another: “Eat Yourself happy!” Educated people see through the nonsense. But the advertising was a success. The professionals know how to get your message across. Or? The majority of Europeans make a decent impression. But what are you advertising and movie posters, television programs to see, but a little to the fact that many souls wounded strange and empty. The advertising professionals will show what the people want. And the Offered shows destroyed souls. Souls will be filled with fun, with Kick, with Aggression. Because many souls are bored and no large targets have to be delivered to your arguments and issues, which displace the Emptiness. It must be fun and tingling.
In the disposal of household waste, we Germans are world Champions. But we are also in the delivery of the soul garbage? We protect the environment. But we destroy the inner world? And the most – especially young people – hardly realize how your inner world is broken. The Christian Faith says: “Christ wants to remain in the soul of the Baptized living, and all garbage should be out there.” Christ does not want to camp between mental garbage bags.
For a more independent search of Jesus Christ
What is the Whole? And how can we counteract this? I would dare to say: in Many cases, there is a lack of independent Thinking! Most people are convinced that they think critically. I allow myself to doubt. We ask the advertising professionals. I suspect they would tell us that the vast majority of people are very manipulable. Therefore, world-views, political parties and the seller of the Goods people their ideas in the “souls” of the. The man is manipulated.
The starting point of the desert monk Makarios the quiet, the solitude, the search for the meaning of life was, for the treasure of the soul. For him he was Jesus Christ. For all the Baptized, it should be Jesus Christ.
We today not only need better Church structures, and more understanding of the people, less of celibacy and more of a woman priesthood. We need to fight against the wild animals in our souls and the self-employed in search of Jesus Christ.
1 Macarius, the Fifty spiritual homilies.
Father Eberhard von Gemmingen SJ, born in 1936 in Bad Rappenau. After he joined in 1957 in the Jesuit order, he studied in 1959, philosophy in Pullach near Munich, and theology in Innsbruck and Tübingen. In 1968 consecration of his priests. Father Eberhard von Gemmingen SJ was a member of the Ecumenical lay movement, action 365, the Bishop’s representative at the ZDF and head of the German editors of Radio Vatican. Since 2010, he is the Fundraiser of the German Jesuits.