Following Christ
Essays on the Spiritual Life
by
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There is hell when the relationship to ourselves, to others and to God are falsified. Hell is synonymous with what is not human, a refusal or impossibility of recognizing the other as our equal and as worthy as our own life; where love is absent and where sin and evil seem triumphant. How so? Where is hell? Hell is in each or all of the following:
in our sufferings and physical deaths, in the disappearance of those we love, in the horror due to sickness, catastrophes, war, injustice. The situations where we feel abandoned, sick, alone.
in all our spiritual and moral deaths which impede our turning towards others: mistrust, egoism, self sufficiency, inclosing within ourselves, we are cut off from God and those around us. We feel abandoned and where we no longer have the strength to love.
in a state where we no longer perceive the light of Christ, where we no longer understand his word nor that of others. Hell is the apparent absence of every relationship of love.
The encounter with Christ is light which penetrates our darkness, transforms even now our way of being and opens a way of and to hope. And even when so often we are as yet blinded by our questions and our rebellion, we recognize the presence of the resurrected one who snatches us from death. The resurrected Christ is the light which invades our life and fills it. God is no longer absent from any place even where everything seems to be lost.
To exit from hell is to find the hand of the resurrected one extended to us which let us re-find hope. It is to enter into the dynamism of this movement which goes from the descent into hell to arise from it, from obscurity to light, from death to life. Christ in his suffering and death enters into all these hells of ours in whatever fashion they come to us and by the extended hand of his resurrection lifts us up to our own resurrection in his, to life and to hope.
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About the Book
This book is an attempt to give some insights into the spirituality of the New Testament and outlines from the same scripture on how to follow Christ. I try to cover who Christ is, his basic teachings, and how he understood his teaching as applied to the individual Christian: what does it mean to follow Christ in each of the salient points in the life of Christ? Who is Christ? What really did he mean? Why did he come? In what ways does he speak? What is the meaning of the pascal mystery and how does it apply to each one of us? What does Christ’s death and resurrection mean for each one of us? What does it even mean to follow Christ? What of the difficulties in Christ? Is all this even possible in our own lives and how? What are the obstacles for us in following Christ such as anger, violence, hatred, love of enemies, the demands of the gospels, etc? These many topics are covered.
This is a devotional book based squarely on the life of Christ in the New Testament which comes down to us from the primitive Christian community and embodied in these sacred writings. The book is comparatively short as are its chapters. But the teaching in each chapter is compact and insightful into the kind of spiritual life Christ calls his disciples to follow. As
About the Author
Mr. Riga is an author, novelist, theologian and lawyer. He has written thousands of articles and over 30 books on all subjects. He has written on theological subjects for years, particularly on Scripture. He is well versed in the subject and has a Ph. D in religion. His background is varied from Chaplain in