God or Nothing

274 Pages·2015·1.29 MB·English

by  Cardinal Robert Sarah

GOD OR NOTHING
Robert Cardinal Sarah
with Nicholas Diat
God or Nothing
A Conversation on Faith
Translated by Michael J. Miller
IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO
Original French edition:
Dieu ou rien: Entretien sur la foi
© 2015 by Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris
Cover photo of Robert Cardinal Sarah by Stefano Spaziani
Cover design by Roxanne Mei Lum
© 2015 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-62164-050-9 (PB)
ISBN 978-1-68149-673-3 (E)
Library of Congress Control Number 2015939070
Printed in the United States of America
To Monsignor Louis Barry,
whose courage made him so great.
To Brother Vincent,
and to all those who take turns without a break at his bedside.
For nothing is impossible with God.
— Luke 1:37
Let all of you then live together, one in mind and heart, mutually giving honor to God in yourselves,
whose temples you have become.
— Saint Augustine, Rule
Because the man of the world wants to change his place, his destiny, his idols, and to change them
perpetually, the friend of God must remain and stay in the place where God has put him. Indeed,
between the friends of God and the world there is an antithesis and a rupture. What the one chooses,
the other rejects. Otherwise there would no longer be two camps, but only one: the world.
—Father Jérôme, Écrits monastiques
CONTENTS
Introduction
I Signs from God in the Life of an African Child
II The Star of the Magi
III From Pius XII to Francis, the Popes of a Lifetime
IV In Search of the Church
V Cornerstones and False Values
VI Issues in the Postmodern World
VII To Be in the Truth
VIII The Mystery of iniquity and Great Doubts
IX Evangelii Gaudium, the Joy of the Gospel according to Pope Francis
X God does Not Speak, but His Voice Is Clear
Notes
INTRODUCTION
God is found by the low paths.
—Father Jérôme, Car toujours dure longtemps. . .
There are radical encounters that change some aspect of our way of looking at
things. My encounter with Robert Cardinal Sarah was definitely of this sort.
There was no before and after, but the obvious fact of being with a man of God.
Father Jérôme, a monk at the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Sept-Fons of the Order
of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, wrote in L’art d’être disciple (The art of
being a disciple), “Do not ask your master to talk just for the sake of talking. Ask
him about the problems of human destiny and other related problems, problems
that are still relevant today. How does he himself experience them? How does he
manage to accept them with courage and peace of mind? Ask him what he
knows with certainty, what he no longer questions, what he considers
indisputable and unchanging. Have him talk about the drama of his true self, not
about the artificial role that may be imposed on him by circumstances. Have him
talk about his disappointments and his hopes, about his religious faith, his trust
in God, his prayer. Ask him how and to what extent he has been freed of himself
by giving himself. Find out the source of his clear-sighted self-denial. Let him
confide in you what he learns in his silence. Let him tell you where his tears
come from and what makes him smile. Get to the heart of this man. And if he
agrees to take up his schoolbooks or his apprenticeship tools again in order to
help you, thank him by your docility.”
Over these months of interviews with Robert Cardinal Sarah, I tried to put into
practice the simple yet demanding instructions of Father Jérôme. This saintly
Trappist monk was writing to a novice to encourage him to try to understand his
master’s counsel and requests better.
Robert Cardinal Sarah is an extraordinary spiritual master. A man great in his
humility, a gentle and firm guide, a priest who never tires of speaking about the
God he loves.
Robert Cardinal Sarah has had an exceptional life, even though he sincerely
thinks that it is, on the whole, rather commonplace.
Robert Cardinal Sarah is a friend of God, a merciful and forgiving man, a man
of silence, a good man.
When I think back to the long hours that we spent together working on this
book, I always come back to those first moments, when he spoke to me about his
childhood in the most remote parts of Guinea, deep in the bush, at the ends of the
world, about the little village of Ourous, about the half-light of the church, about
the missionaries, about his parents and his people, the Coniaguis.
I am certain God had his eye on the cardinal in a special way; I also think that
his expectations are immense. But God can rest assured, because the cardinal
loves him in the most beautiful way a man can love his Father.
In this book, the new prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the
Discipline of the Sacraments talks a lot about Benedict XVI. With admiration,
gratitude, and joy.
But the pontiff to whom Robert Cardinal Sarah feels closest is Paul VI. There
is, so to speak, a mysterious parallel between Giovanni Battista Montini and this
son of Africa. Their spiritualities, their theologies converge on the same simple
and ascetic road to God.
Certainly, in the final hours of his reign, Paul VI chose a priest with little
experience to make him the youngest bishop in the world. The name of this man
was Father Sarah. But the relation between them was more extensive, more
secret, more profound. The link between Paul VI and Cardinal Sarah is found in
their spirit of childhood, docility, and radicalism in following the demands of
truth, whatever the cost.
During his general audience on September 1, 1976, Paul VI was able to say,
“To build the Church, we must labor, we must suffer. The Church must be a
strong people, a people of courageous witnesses, a people that knows how to
suffer for its faith and for spreading it throughout the world, in silence,
gratuitously, and always through love.” Two years later, Paul VI left this world.
Yet these few words could be spoken once again by Cardinal Sarah, who has
never forgotten that “the Church must be a strong people”, for nothing in his life
was ever easy or free. A man who lived through one of the bloodiest dictatorial
regimes in Africa appreciates better than anyone the value of this meditation of
Paul VI from the year 1963, when the successor of Peter was just starting on his
path: “Does God speak to the troubled soul or to the peaceful soul? We know
perfectly well that in order to listen to his voice, a bit of calm and tranquility
must reign. We must keep ourselves far from all intimidating excitement or