Estefan Mameng

“Anything not given me through Christ, the incarnate one, was not given to me by God. Anything not given me for the sake of Christ does not come from God. Our gratitude for the gifts of creation is offered through Jesus Christ, and our request for the merciful preservation of this life is made for Christ’s sake. Anytime I cannot be grateful for something for the sake of Christ, I may not be grateful for it at all lest it becomes my sin. Even the way to the “God-given reality” of that other person, with whom I live, must go through Christ, or it is a wrong way. All our attempts to bridge the chasm that separates us from others, or to overcome the unbridgeable distance, the otherness or strangeness of another person, by means of natural or psychic connections are doomed to fail. No human way leads from person to person. The most loving sensitivity, the most thoughtful psychology, the most natural openness do not really reach the other person—there are no psychic immediacies. Christ stands between them. The way to one’s neighbor leads only through Christ. That is why intercession is the most promising way to another person, and common prayer in Christ’s name is the most genuine community.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship