September 13, 2026
Dear St. Rita Parishioners,
I have spent a lot of time on the first several paragraphs of Magnifica Humanitas, partly because it is so important for us to have a firm foundation upon which to build. Cutting through our usual politicized framework to see the perennial truths of God is necessary if we are to engage in the Holy Father’s call to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Of course, he is not just talking about rebuilding walls; he is talking about rebuilding the whole city. The walls themselves simply delineate not only physical boundaries, but also moral and cultural ones. Those who live inside the walls live differently, and the culture they establish is distinct from the culture outside. This reality is not intended to be a proud judgment (though it could be misdirected as such). It is simply meant as a proclamation that there is goodness to be found within these rebuilt walls, and all who desire to live this way can have it.
Rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem has as its final archetype the “New Jerusalem ‘coming down out of Heaven from God’ (Rev 21:2) as a gift for all humanity” (MH 10), which means that the earthly community that we are (re-)building here and now can, by the presence of Divine Charity, reflect that New Jerusalem. Indeed, it must do just that, and Christians are the leaven to enable this rising, the raising of these new walls. The exercise of Divine Charity within the community is, stated clearly or not, the positive goal of synodality, which the Pope also mentions in the paragraph just quoted. Despite the attempts to co-opt synodality in order to promote false doctrine or relativism, or simply to water down the truths of the Gospel, the positive side of it – and the side that we must take hold of – is to infuse all of our relationships with the Charity that Christ has shown to us. This is difficult, painstaking, and often slow work, but it is an opportunity to encourage and guide those who are around us through their own limitations, weaknesses, apprehensions, misunderstandings, and even failings to the fullness of the Gospel and the Faith. We are each glad that Christ is patient with us, and that He has not destroyed us for our faults and failings, and so likewise we are patient with those whom God entrusts to us – family, friends, and neighbors – in order to guide them to Christ.
This patience, however, does not mean “zero boundaries” and a “You do you” attitude. The Pope spends a few paragraphs talking about the “common good” (MH 11-14), which we will have time to reflect on more fully in a later note. For our purposes today, we can highlight the main points in these paragraphs, which will help us to establish the right boundaries as we strive to live out our various relationships in Divine Charity. “Building a city founded on the common good implies, first and foremost, building on a firm relationship with God” (MH 11), it “means accepting the limits and weakness of humanity without considering them an error to be corrected” (MH 12), it “requires shared responsibility and courage” (MH 13), and it “requires an evangelical language” (MH 14).
I could probably spend a whole note talking about each of these 4 points, but I will try to synthesize and consolidate as best as I can. First, Divine Charity (relationship with God) is only possible in the life of man by means of Grace. I can’t access it by human means. Therefore, necessarily, Divine Charity is a gift from God, and an exercise of His Will in me. And, since Divine Charity is not stagnant nor simply passive, it also spurs me on and enables me to “love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34). Thus, all of my relationships must, according to true synodality, be animated and informed by Divine Charity, whose whole goal is man’s salvation and sanctification. And so, the question I must ask in every relationship is, “How would Jesus respond to this person right now?” He lives in you, and you, as a member of His Body, bring Him to those around you. For this purpose, we must spend time in prayer and with the Gospels.
One of the things that Jesus does not do is engage people as problems to be fixed. He is not trying to hurry things up and get it all solved so He can sit back in His Lazyboy and watch Notre Dame win a National Championship this year (believe it or not). On the contrary, Our Lord is very interested in walking with His people and loving them with Divine Charity wherever they happen to be, and so while the Pope cautions us specifically against seeing technology as a way to remove all of our human limitations, this truth also applies to our approach to moral weaknesses. My unbelieving neighbor is not a problem to be solved, but a person to be loved – which could be a messy prospect. Love helps to heal wounds, and because we are organic persons and not machines, the “fix” isn’t about tightening bolts or replacing parts, but about real growth. Accepting limits and weaknesses is the first step to growth, because it shows the direction that growth must take, and it helps us to become fully ourselves rather than something we are not (which, not so incidentally, means destruction of what I actually am).
Of course, for relationship to work, it takes two to tango. Everyone has to be onboard. Unrequited love drives us mad, and the Heart of Jesus is painfully consumed with the Mercy that His people do not want to accept (cf. Diary of St. Faustina, 1074). Pope Leo highlights the shared responsibility and courage required, then, to rebuild this city. Everyone who has been to Confession knows the courage that is required, especially when there is the shame of past sin. Therefore, those who know that turning from sin is absolutely worth it have the joyful task and opportunity to encourage others. Giving another courage – encouraging – also entails that there is some prospect (hope) of success. In this case, success isn’t just a pluralistic world without division, where we all get along despite our differences. Success is, in theological language, conversion, salvation, sanctification, coming to know Christ. But, the unbeliever may not, at first, understand success like that. He is looking for fulfillment, peace, or some other happiness described in terms other than Christ. And so rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem with him begins with finding common ground, with the hope that that common ground will, soon enough, be Christ Himself, the Cornerstone that the builders rejected (cf. Ps 118:22).
Before, however, we can establish the common ground of Christ, we do have the common ground and language of Catholic Social Teaching: “the dignity of the human person, the universal destination of goods, the preferential option for the poor, care for our common home and peace” (MH 14). While as Catholics, we know that without Christ, these realities become vacuous, political, and usually socialist (which political system has been condemned within Catholic Social Teaching), using the language of CST can and should be an opportunity to show to unbelievers the wisdom of the Gospel revealed by God. This is an express purpose of God’s giving of law and doctrine both in the Old and New Testament: Moses says to the people of Israel about the Laws of God, “Keep them and do them; for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’” (Dt 4:6). And in the Sermon on the Mount, Our Lord says, “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in Heaven” (Mt 5:16).
You can see, hopefully, that the Pope is drilling down to some deeper foundations, since the language we use on the surface for such conversations often carries with it baggage and biases. And, even if we have the right surface language (theology, e.g.), if it is built on a weak or rotten foundation, it will crumble when placed under too much stress. Therefore, we can strengthen our own foundations by focusing first on our own relationship with God, allowing Divine Charity to love me in the depths of my own being, and strengthening me to witness to the fullness of the Gospel to those entrusted to me.
In Christ,
Fr. Christensen