In him, God brings his project of love for humanity to fulfillment, establishing his lordship over creatures and sowing the seed of divine life in human history, transforming it from within.

Certainly the Reign of God should not be identified or confused with some earthly or political achievement.

Nor should it be envisioned as a purely interior reality, one that is merely personal and spiritual, or as a promise that concerns only the world to come.

Instead, Christian faith lives by a fascinating and compelling "paradox," a word very dear to the Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac.

It is what Jesus, forever joined with our flesh, is accomplishing here and now, opening us up to God the Father, bringing about an ongoing liberation in our lives, for in him the Reign of God has already drawn near (Mark 1:12-15).

At the same time, for as long as we exist in this flesh, God's reign remains a promise, a deep yearning that we carry within us, a cry that arises from a creation still marred by evil, one that suffers and groans until the day of its full liberation (Romans 8:19-24).

Therefore the Reign announced by Jesus is a living and dynamic reality. It invites us to conversion, asking our faith to emerge from the stasis of an individual religiosity or from its reduction to legalism.

It wants our faith to become instead a continuous and restless searching for the Lord and his Word, one that calls us each to cooperate with the work of God in different situations of life and society.

In different ways, often anonymous and silent, even in the history of our failures and our woundedness, the Reign of God is coming true in our hearts and in events happening around us.

Like a small seed hidden in the earth (Matthew 13:31-32), like a bit of yeast that leavens the dough (Matthew 13:24-30), Jesus brings into our life story the signs of the new life he has come to start, asking us to work together with him in this task of salvation.

Every one of us can contribute to realizing the work of the Reign of God on earth, opening up spaces of salvation and liberation, sowing hope, challenging the deadly logics of egoism with the brotherly and sisterly spirit of the Gospel, dedicating ourselves in tenderness and solidarity for the benefit of our neighbors, especially the poorest.

We must never neutralize this social dimension of the Christian faith.

As I mentioned also in Evangelii gaudium, the kerygma or proclamation of the Christian faith itself has a social dimension.

It invites us to build a society where the logic of the Beatitudes and of a fraternal world of solidarity triumphs.

The God Who Is Love, who in Jesus invites us to live out the commandment of sibling love, heals with that same love both our personal and social relationships, calling us to be peacemakers and builders of sisterhood and brotherhood among ourselves:

The Gospel is about the kingdom of God (Luke 4:43); it is about loving God who reigns in our world. To the extent that He reigns within us, the life of society will be a setting for universal fraternity, justice, peace, and dignity. Both Christian preaching and life, then, are meant to have an impact on society (Evangelii gaudium, 180).

In this sense, caring for our Mother Earth and building a society of solidarity as fratelli tutti or siblings all are not only not foreign to our faith; they are a concrete realization of it.

Jesus asks us to work together with him in this task of salvation

This is the foundation of the Church's social teaching

It's not just a simple social extension of Christian faith, but a reality with a theological grounding: God's love for humanity and his plan of love—and of sisterhood and brotherhood—that he accomplishes in human history through Jesus Christ his Son, to whom all believers are intimately united through the Holy Spirit.

I'm grateful to Cardinal Michael Czerny and Fr. Christian Barone, brothers in faith, for their contribution on the subject of brother- and sisterhood.

I'm also grateful that this book, while intended as a guide to the encyclical Fratelli tutti, endeavours to bring to light and make explicit the profound link between the Church's current social teaching and the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.

This link is not always noticed, at least not at first. I'll try to explain why.

The ecclesial climate of Latin America, in which I was immersed first as a young Jesuit student and then in ministry, had enthusiastically absorbed and taken possession of the theological, ecclesial, and spiritual intuitions of the Council, actualizing and enculturating them.

For the youngest among us, the Council became the horizon of our belief, and of our ways of speaking and acting.

That is, it quickly became our ecclesial and pastoral ecosystem.

But we didn't get into the habit of reciting conciliar decrees, nor did we linger on speculative reflections.

The Council had simply entered our way of being Christian and our way of "being Church"—and as life went on, my intuitions, my perceptions, and my spirituality were quite simply born out of the suggestions from the teachings of Vatican II.

There wasn't much need to quote the Council's documents.

Today, after many decades, we find ourselves in a world—and in a Church—deeply changed, and it's probably necessary to make more explicit the Second Vatican Council's key concepts, its theological and pastoral horizon, its topics, and its methods.

In the first part of their valuable book, Cardinal Michael and Fr. Christian help us with this.

They read and interpret the social teaching I am trying to carry out, bringing to light something a little hidden between the lines—that is, the teaching of the Council as the fundamental basis, and point of departure for the invitation I'm making to the Church and the whole world with this ideal of brotherhood and sisterhood.

It's one of the signs of the times that Vatican II brings to light, and the thing that our world—our common home, in which we're called to live as siblings—most needs.

That's how we should always journey: always together

In this connection, their new book also has the merit of rereading, in today's world, the Council's intuition of an open Church in dialogue with the world.

In the face of the questions and challenges of the modern world, Vatican II tried to respond with the breath of Gaudium et spes; but today as we follow the path marked out by the Council Fathers, we realize that there's a need not only for the Church to be in dialogue with the modern world, but, most of all, for it to put itself at the service of humanity, taking care of creation as well as announcing and working to realize a new universal sisterhood and brotherhood, in which human relations are healed of egoism and violence and are founded instead on reciprocal love, welcome, and solidarity.

The joys and the hopes,

the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age,

especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted,

these are the joys and hopes,

the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.

Indeed, nothing genuinely human

fails to raise an echo in their hearts.

For theirs is a community composed of men and women.

United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit

in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father

and they have welcomed the news of salvation

which is meant for every man and woman.

That is why this community realizes

that it is truly linked with humanity

and its history by the deepest of bonds.

(Gaudium et Spes Number 1)

If this is what today's world is asking of us—especially in a society strongly marked by imbalances, injuries, and injustices—we realize that this, too, is in the spirit of the Council, which invites us to read and listen to the signs of human history.

This book also has the merit of offering us a reflection on the methodology of post-conciliar theology—a historical-theological-pastoral methodology, in which human history is the site of God's revelation.

Here theology develops its orientation through reflection, and pastoral ministry incarnates theology in ecclesial and social praxis.

This is why papal teachings always need to be attentive to history, and why they require the contributions of theology.

Finally, this collaboration between a cardinal and a young theologian is itself an example of how study, reflection, and ecclesial experience can be joined, and it also indicates a new method: an official voice and a young voice, together.

That's how we should always journey: the magisterium, theology, pastoral praxis, official leadership. Always together.

Our bonds will be more credible if in the Church we too begin to feel like we are siblings all, fratelli tutti, and to live our respective ministries as a service to the Gospel, the building up of the Reign of God, and the care of our common home.

• Pope Francis
• Translated by Griffin Oleynick
• This article first appeared in Commonweal Magazine
• Adapted from the pope's preface to Fraternità—segno dei tempi: il magistero sociale di Papa Francesco by Cardinal Michael Czerny and Fr. Christian Barone, which will be published in Italy by Libreria Editrice Vaticana on September 30.
• The English-language version, Siblings All, Sign of the Times: The Social Teaching of Pope Francis, will be published by Orbis Books in 2022.

And that all important calling from the Lord is not just to be seriously considered on All Saints Day - but every day!

It is no coincidence that the Catholic Church proclaims the Gospel passage of the Beatitudes on the Solemnity of All Saints. For in this most wonderful teaching from the Son of God, we are shown the way to holiness, to blessedness, to joyfulness.

Situated in St. Matthew's Gospel within the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes chart a sure course on how to be "blessed," that is, how to be joyful!

The deeply spiritual scientist and theologian Jesuit Father Teilhard de Chardin said, "Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God."

In our hearts, you and I long for joy, that joy to the full that Jesus promises us, the joy that only he can give us. And the Beatitudes teach us the way!

And so it is that when we are

• "poor in spirit" - totally trusting and dependent on God;
• "mournful" - and allow God to comfort us;
• "meek" - living with gentle strength;
• "hunger and thirst for righteousness" - striving to live in right relationship with God, all others and ourselves;
• "merciful" to all;
• "clean of heart" - thinking, feeling and acting with purity and honesty;
• "peacemakers" - praying and working for peace within ourselves, within our families, within our nation and within our world; and
• persecuted for faithfully living out these Beatitudes, let us "rejoice and be glad" for our reward will be great in heaven! (Matt. 5:1-12).

Pope Francis in his Apostolic Exhortation "Gaudete et Exsultate" (Rejoice and be Glad) urges us to apply the Beatitudes to the life and death situations facing our world.

He writes, "Our defence of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development.

"Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.

"We cannot uphold an ideal of holiness that would ignore injustice in a world where some revel, spend with abandon and live only for the latest consumer goods, even as others look on from afar, living their entire lives in abject poverty".

Daily I receive in my inbox the "Saint of the Day" from Franciscan Media. I always find the brief biography and refection interesting and inspiring.

Blessed are those who live the Beatitudes, for they are experiencing a wonderful taste of heaven right here on earth!

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net.

These structures vary in size and shape, but will usually accommodate a busload of pilgrims for a mass or service. Because there are so many people on pilgrimage, a chapel must be booked well in advance.

We were a group of New Zealand Catholics with Bishop Pat Dunn, and we were in the Galilee area, with a chapel reserved for the afternoon.

But something had gone wrong with our booking. There was nothing available for us.

Our bus driver pulled over to the side of the road and phoned other churches. One after another, the answer was the same. No chapel available.

Just as we were ready to accept defeat, the driver found a vacancy at the Church of the Beatitudes. It was the only one free, a basic altar and bench seats on the brow of a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee.

The day was very windy, which was probably why the exposed chapel was not being used.

Below us, the water was misted with spray. Wind rushed up the hill with great energy. It tore at vestments and clothes, ruffled pages, and the hosts on the altar had to be covered.

We all agreed, though, that we had a spectacular view and that the Holy Spirit was vigorous.

Bishop Pat managed the flapping pages of the lectionary to find the day's gospel. He paused, then smiled. "The reading today is the Beatitudes."

The Beatitudes! We looked at each other, and we too smiled. No one seemed surprised. The Holy Spirit had a fine sense of humour

The Beatitudes in Matthew 5 are profound but can seem stark in their brevity. I‘ve paraphrased them to suit where I am this day. I suggest you do the same.

1. Blessed are those who are not full of themselves, for they have room for God.
2. Blessed are those in sorrow, for although grief is painful, it has a cleansing effect and can make space for new growth.
3. Blessed are the meek. Because they are not self-absorbed, they will feel connected with everyone and everything.
4. Blessed are those whose hearts are hungry, for God is the shape of that hunger.
5. Blessed are those who show kindness, for what they do for others they also do for themselves.
6. Blessed are those who are in love with God, for they will know God in all creation.
7. Blessed are those who are not judgmental. They will see as God sees.
8. Blessed are those who meet criticism with love, for God is love, and they are replacing ignorance with an experience of God.

When we are young, the Beatitudes make little or no sense. In our youth, we are gatherers, accumulating experience, a sense of identity, a place in the world. Jesus' words in this reading may even seem to threaten us.

It is only when we have a mature understanding of who we are, and are at the stage of letting go, that we see the beatitudes as a rich blessing.

They are all about emptying ourselves so that we can be filled with God's presence.

It sounds easy on paper, but achieving it is the work of a lifetime.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.