Novenas - Totus2us

Day 8, Novena to Mary Immaculate, Star of Hope. Quote from Benedict XVI's encyclical on hope, Spe Salvi: "Christians likewise can and must constantly learn from the strict rejection of images that is contained in God's first commandment (cf Ex 20:4). The truth of negative theology was highlighted by the Fourth Lateran Council, which explicitly stated that however great the similarity that may be established between Creator and creature, the dissimilarity between them is always greater. In any case, for the believer the rejection of images cannot be carried so far that one ends up, as Horkheimer and Adorno would like, by saying “no” to both theses — theism and atheism. God has given himself an “image”: in Christ who was made man. In him who was crucified, the denial of false images of God is taken to an extreme. God now reveals his true face in the figure of the sufferer who shares man's God-forsaken condition by taking it upon himself. This innocent sufferer has attained the certitude of hope: there is a God,