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The Message of the
Parables Jesus of Nazareth,
46-63 1. According to Pope
Benedict, “The parables speak in a
hidden way … of the mystery of the Cross; they do not
only speak of it — they
are part of it themselves.” What does he
mean? 2. According to Pope
Benedict, in the parable of the sower,
Jesus is not only the sower. What else? 3. What, according to
Pope Benedict, is the reason Jesus
uses parables? 4. Pope Benedict claims
that “a twofold movement is involved”
in the parables. What
are they? 5. Pope Benedict says
that, in order to make the mystery of
God accessible to us, “he shows how the divine light
shines through in the things
of this world and in the realities of our everyday
life.” Why
is this necessary?
How is Pope Benedict’s discussion here
similar to themes we encountered in Fr. Alexander
Schmemann’s For the Life
of the World? 6. Pope Benedict spends
some time discussing the Parable of
the Good Samaritan.
What is the question
to which the parable is an answer? 7. According to Pope
Benedict, the parable shows that “the
issue is no longer whích other person is a neighbor to
me or not.” What
is the question the parable poses? 8. In Jacques
Maritain’s discussion of St. Paul, he spoke of
the “universality” of the Gospel. Pope
Benedicts says that, in this parable, “a new
universality is entering the scene.” What does it
rest on? 9. What does Pope
Benedict mean when he says: “we always give
too little when we just give material things”? 10. How do the Church
fathers interpret this parable? 11. The parable says
that the victim of assault was, first,
stripped, and second, beaten half dead.
How did medieval theologians interpret these two? 12. How, according to
Pope Benedict, does the road from
Jerusalem to Jericho turn out to be an image of human
history? 13. Pope Benedict
suggests that “the two characters in this
story are relevant to every single human being.” How? 14. How is Pope
Benedict’s interpretation of the parable
similar to the one in “Faithful for Life: A Moral
Reflection”? |