April 19, 2012 — 7th Anniversary of the Election of Pope Benedict XVI

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Seven Years… And a Prayer for Seven More

“And now, at this moment, weak servant of God that I am, I must assume this enormous task, which truly exceeds all human capacity. How can I do this? How will I be able to do it? All of you, my dear friends, have just invoked the entire host of Saints, represented by some of the great names in the history of God’s dealings with mankind. In this way, I too can say with renewed conviction: I am not alone. I do not have to carry alone what in truth I could never carry alone. All the Saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me. And your prayers, my dear friends, your indulgence, your love, your faith and your hope accompany me.” —Pope Benedict XVI, Homily at the Mass for the Imposition of the Pallium and Conferral of the Fisherman’s Ring for the Beginning of the Petrine Ministry of the Bishop of Rome, St. Peter’s Square, April 24, 2005

“The purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men. And only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary. There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him. The task of the shepherd, the task of the fisher of men, can often seem wearisome. But it is beautiful and wonderful, because it is truly a service to joy, to God’s joy which longs to break into the world.” —Ibid.

“My dear friends – at this moment I can only say: pray for me, that I may learn to love the Lord more and more. Pray for me, that I may learn to love his flock more and more – in other words, you, the holy Church, each one of you and all of you together. Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.” —Ibid.

The sun in Rome is shining on this 19th of April, the 7th anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s election to the See of Peter. It is a holiday in the Vatican for that reason.

I remember this day seven years ago. It was a Tuesday evening, about 6 p.m., when the smoke began to fly up from the Sistine Chapel roof. It looked grey, then, white, then grey again, and then fully white. The Pope had been elected. Who was he?

A few minutes later the Square was filled, and people were pouring in through all the columns of the colonnade. And then the announcement came: “We have a Pope. His name is Joseph Ratzinger. He has chosen to call himself Benedict XVI.”At the balcony, Benedict’s first words to the crowd, given in Italian before he gave the traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing in Latin, were:

“Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals have elected me, a simple, humble laborer in the vineyard of the Lord. The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to act even with insufficient instruments comforts me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers. In the joy of the Risen Lord, confident of his unfailing help, let us move forward. The Lord will help us, and Mary, His Most Holy Mother, will be on our side. Thank you.”

Then the new Pope appeared. He seemed happy, peaceful.

The most important thing to say is to wish the Holy Father well (he turned 85 three days ago, on April 16).

My prayer for him would be something like this:

May the Lord be with you as you continue in the task God has called you to, of leading and ruling Christ’s Church, of teaching the truths of the faith, and of bearing witness to the final, eternal reality, the glorious holiness and the immeasurable justice, mercy and loving-kindness of the triune God. May you be consoled in moments of difficulty, may you be strengthened in moments of weakness — moments all flesh is heir to — and may you be protected by Mary, the Mother of God, and of the Church, and richly blessed with profound joy and peace as you continue your mission. Ad multos annos… unto many more years. As you yourself prayed on Holy Saturday, just 12 days ago, “Let us pray to the Lord at this time that He may grant us to experience the joy of his light; let us pray that we ourselves may become bearers of his light, and that through the Church, Christ’s radiant face may enter our world (cf. LG 1). Amen.”

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“It Was On the Third Day of the Council…”

“On 29 June 1976, (Archbishop) Lefebvre went ahead with planned priestly ordinations without the approval of the local Bishop and despite receiving letters from Rome forbidding them. As a result Lefebvre was suspended a collatione ordinum, i.e., forbidden to ordain any priests. A week later, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops informed him that, to have his situation regularized, he needed to ask the Pope’s pardon. Lefebvre responded with a letter claiming that the modernisation of the Church was a ‘compromise with the ideas of modern man’ originating in a secret agreement between high dignitaries in the Church and senior Freemasons prior to the Council. Lefebvre was then notified that, since he had not apologised to the Pope, he was suspended a divinis…” —Wikipedia, Marcel Lefebvre, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Lefebvre

 

“On 18 September 1991, Cardinal Silvio Oddi, who had been Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 1979 to 1986, visited Lefebvre’s tomb, knelt down at it, prayed, afterwards saying aloud: “Merci, Monseigneur”. Thereafter Cardinal Oddi said he held Archbishop Lefebvre to have been ‘a holy man’ and suggested that the Society of St Pius X could be granted a personal prelature by the Holy See like that of Opus Dei. —Ibid.

 Lefebvre, the Council, the Mass…

The report which follows concerns a matter of great importance — a matter that cannot be dealt with in one email. I will try to follow the story as it unfolds, as it is, in some ways, the story of the Church, and her trials, in our age…

Yesterday, the Vatican Press Office released a little note which almost all observers agree marks a pivotal moment in one of the most important developing news stories in the Church, and in the world, at this time.

The note said that a letter had been received in the Vatican from the head of the Society of St. Pius X.

That is all the note said.

And yet, the internet and the press was soon filled with reports that this note marked a “breakthrough” in the multi-year process of negotiations between Rome and Society of St. Pius X, which is not in full communion with Rome.

Here is the text of the note, entitled: Communique of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” (a commission now under the auspices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the chief doctrinal office in the Church).

The communique reads:

“The text of the response of His Excellency Bp. Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, requested during the meeting in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of March 16, 2012, was delivered on April 17, 2012. This text will be examined by the Dicastery and submitted afterwards to the judgment of the Holy Father.”

Why is this little note generating so much excitement?

Because many believe the note presages a solution to the break between Rome and the Society, and expect that solution to be announced within days, or weeks.

Some are even saying that this letter received, referred to in this note, is a “birthday present” to the Holy Father on his 85th birthday.

However, that goes beyond what we know for sure.

Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., the spokesman of the Holy Father, yesterday in the Press Office, had this to say (the following is a transcription of his oral comments to journalists; I bold-face the two phrases which are the “news” in this comment):

“Today’s news means that yesterday Bp. Fellay’s response, that had been requested by Cardinal Levada at the last meeting, was delivered to the Congregation, to the Ecclesia Dei Commission, to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Now, this response, it is a reponse that, according to the words of those who could see it, is a very different response from the previous one, and this is encouraging, we proceed forward. But, naturally, we also find in the response the addition of some details or integrations to the text of the doctrinal preamble that had been proposed by the Congregation for a doctrinal agreement, and this response will be discussed, it will be examined first by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in one of its meetings of the next few weeks and, afterwards, it will also naturally be examined directly by the Pope. It can be said that steps forward have been taken, that is to say, that the response, the new response, is rather encouraging, but there are still developments that will be made, and examined, and decisions that should be taken in the next few weeks. I think the wait will not be long because there is the desire to reach a conclusion in these discussions, in these contacts.”

A spokesman for the Society of St. Pius X was, if anything, even less positive about this letter than Lombardi. He said the following:

Communiqué of the General House of the Society of Saint Pius X

The media are announcing that Bishop Bernard Fellay has sent a “positive response” to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and that consequently the doctrinal question between the Holy See and the Society of St. Pius X is now resolved.

The reality is different.

In a letter dated April 17, 2012, the Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X responded to the request for clarification that had been made to him on March 16 by Cardinal William Levada concerning the Doctrinal Preamble delivered on September 14, 2011. As the press release dated today [April 17] from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith indicates, the text of this response “will be examined by the dicastery then submitted to the Holy Father for his judgment”.

This is therefore a stage and not a conclusion.

Menzingen, April 18, 2012

How this matter is resolved — and how it will finally be resolved is still not at all clear — will have much to do with how Benedict XVI’s pontificate is viewed by future historians.

Benedict now finds himself at the center of many very powerful interests who will wish to sway his judgment as he decides this matter. For this reason, he will need our prayers.

But more important than the effect on the historical judgment of this pontificate, the way this matter is resolved will have a profound impact on the Church herself, on how she views herself and her mission in the world, in time, in history, and, therefore, on how the Church orients her activity and life with regard to the secular world outside of the Church.

The matter at issue is the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X and whether it will be received back into full communion with Rome, but the deeper question is the Second Vatican Council and how that Council should be interpreted.

Therefore, the matter directly concerns several hundred thousand Catholics who followed and sympathized with the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, and who ended up in an irregular position on the edges of the Church — “Traditionalist Catholics,” they are labeled — after Lefebvre was suspended a divinis (from all sacramental activities) by Pope Paul VI in the 1970s, and then excommunicated latae sententiae (i.e., automatically) by Pope John Paul II in 1988, after he ordained four bishops against the Pope’s explicit request not to do so.

Lefebvre died in 1991. I did not know him personally, but I have spoken with cardinals who did know him, including with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI). All have praised him for his upright moral character, his personal integrity, and his profound desire to be faithful to Catholic tradition; in short, for his personal goodness. Lefebvre was a missionary for many years in Africa, and then one of many bishops — for the sake of simplicity, let us say there were about 600 of them — who at the Second Vatican Council composed a “conservative” group concerned that the Council was moving too far, too fast. So he was by no means unique, or marginal, or “bizarre,” at that time. It is a sign of how rapidly and profoundly the times and mentalities have changed that he should be so regarded by some today. In the 1960s, he was well within the “norm” of a large group of bishops who agreed with him.

But, he was the only bishop who, after the Council, founded a functioning Society which had a structure capable of surviving over time, and of carrying on his ideas which, in effect, were the ideas of the 600 conservative Catholic bishops at the Council.

For those who loved and followed him, he was a modern St. Athanasius, alone against the world. (St. Athanasius in the 4th century was arrested, deposed from his see in Egypt, had to flee into exile, and was opposed by hundreds of bishops who had become Arian in their theology, that is, heretics, but was supported by the Pope of the time. That is why we speak of St. Athanasius as “Athanasius contra mundum” — Athanasius against the world. And when we speak of him using that phrase, we are praising him for his intransigence, for not giving in to the majority…)

(Note: In his biography of Lefebvre, The Horn of the Unicorn, David Allen White said that Lefebvre received a small number of votes — variously reported as three or “several” — in the August 1978 conclave that elected Pope John Paul I, a matter that, he said, caused some consternation among the cardinals, as Lefebvre was not a cardinal, and casting a vote for a non-cardinal in a papal election is unusual, although permitted by Church law.)

Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict, came to know Lefebvre well, for the two met personally to negotiate a possible agreement in the spring of 1988. (That negotiation was preceded by a 1987 investigatory visitation of the Lefebvre seminary at Econe and their houses and centers elsewhere by Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, whom I knew. Gagnon was impressed by the piety and discipline he observed.)

In fact, an agreement between Rome and Lefebvre was reached, and Lefebvre signed the agreement on May 5, 1988. The agreement would have avoided the schism that then occurred, and it suggests that Lefebvre found reason to trust Ratzinger enough to sign the agreement.

But that very night, Lefebvre, having returned to Albano outside of Rome — just next to Castel Gandolfo, the Pope’s summer residence — felt uneasy in spirit. His assistants told me that he stayed up late praying in his private chapel. He was on his knees for most of the night, asking for God’s guidance. (I went out to visit that chapel, and to talk to his assitants, not long after that night.)

In the morning, Lefebvre changed his mind. He felt, his assistants told me, that he could trust Cardinal Ratzinger, but not the Vatican, that the document he had signed allowed too much leeway for Vatican authorities to eventually influence who would become the leaders (the bishops) of his Society, and that the outwardly secure, safe agreement that Ratzinger had urged him to sign, and which he had agreed to sign, would slowly be unraveled, in time, by others, and that all his work would risk, eventually, being dismantled.

“He simply could not make a leap of trust,” one observer close to the negotiations told me.

But why could he not make that “leap” of trust?

Some argue that it was because of his character, that he was by nature a bit “rigid,” not “expansive” and trusting.

But others say there were solid reasons for his lack of trust. They note, especially, that he had observed how some actions in the Church had been “pushed through” even by almost violent means, breaking procedures previously agreed upon.

In order to understand this better, one must go back to the Council itself. And, in order to do that, I thought I needed to go talk with someone who had been present at the Council. So I went to talk to Monsignor Brunero Gherardini.

Gherardini lives inside the Vatican, in the Fabbrica of San Pietro, the palace between the Paul VI Hall and the back of St. Peter’s. He lives on the 5th floor.

He is a tall, slender, white haired-man with friendly eyes and a ready smile. He is almost 90, but his mind is crystal clear. He taught theology for decades at the Pontifical Lateran University. He is considered a “conservative” and some say he is the last great representative of the “Roman School” in theology.

I rang three times, and he wasn’t in — I was late for our meeting. I waiting five minutes, then left. I would have missed him, but he was walking into the archway below, with a newspaper he had gone out to purchase. “Hello!” he said. “Turn around and come back upstairs with me and we’ll talk.”

And so I joined him in his apartment. He moved two chairs until they faced each other, and we began to talk. We spoke of the Pope’s anniversary today, and then I asked about the possible reconciliation with the Lefebvrists. He said these days are historic, and he is hopeful of a good result.

Then I asked about the Council. Whenever I think about the Council, I said, I always have one image in my mind: an aging Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, now blind, about age 80, limping, the head of the Holy Office and so the chief doctrinal officer of the Church, born in Trastevere to parents who had many children, so a Roman from Rome, from the people of Rome, takes the microphone to speak to the 2,000 assembled bishops. And, as he speaks, pleading for the bishops to consider the texts the curia has spent three years preparing, suddenly his microphone was shut off. He kept speaking, but no one could hear a word. Then, puzzled and flustered, he stopped speaking, in confusion. And the assembled fathers began to laugh, and then to cheer…

“Yes,” Gherardini said. “And it was only the third day.”

“What?” I said.

“Ottaviani’s microphone was turned off on the third day of the Council.”

“On the third day?” I said. “I didn’t know that. I thought it was later, in November, after the progressive group became more organized…”

“No, it was the third day, October 13, 1962. The Council began on October 11.”

“Do you know who turned off the microphone?”

“Yes,” he said. “It was Cardinal Lienart of Lille, France.”

“But then,” I said, “it could almost be argued, perhaps, that such a breech of protocol, making it impossible for Ottaviani to make his arguments, somehow renders what came after, well, in a certain sense, improper…”

“Some people make that argument,” Gherardini replied.

Father Joseph Ratzinger was among the leaders of the progressive movement at the Council, along with Karl Rahner, Dominique Chenu, Yves Congar — “Congar was the master-mind of the group,” Gherardini said — and others.

But the ways of God are mysterious. Ratzinger failed to bring Lefebvre back into full communion with Rome in 1988, and in 2005, he was elected Pope — seven years ago today.

During his pontificate, one golden thread has been his effort to reverse that 1988 defeat, and to bring the Lefebvrists back into union with Rome.

On July 7, 2007, he promulgated Summorum Pontificum, against vociferous protests by many cardinals and bishops, encouraging free use throughout the Church of the traditional Tridentine liturgy.

And now, the final acts of the negotiation with the successors of Lefebvre are about to be played out.

(to be continued)

 

Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012

“Christ Is Risen, As He Said”

Rome was grey and cool this morning, but the sun broke out just before the consecration at Pope Benedict’s Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, bathing the square in light, and heat.

In fact, one of the two con-celebrants with the Pope, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, seemed to feel faint, and was helped to a seat near the altar to sit down, and he remained there, unable to complete the celebration of the Mass at the Pope’s side. (I was able to observe the incident from a few yards away.)

The other concelebrant was Cardinal Raymond Burke, an American, who is the head of the Apostolic Signature, the supreme court of appeals in the Catholic Church.

Who is Cardinal Tauran? He is one of the Vatican’s most learned, thoughtful and courageous diplomats. Born on April 3, 1943, he is a relatively young 69 years old. His career in the Church has been almost meteoric. Born and educated in France, he was made the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State on December 1, 1990, by Pope John Paul II, at the young age of 47. He received his episcopal consecration on January 6, 1991, from John Paul II himself, with Archbishops Giovanni Battista Re and Justin Francis Rigali serving as co-consecrators, in St. Peter’s Basilica. As Secretary, Tauran  served, in effect, as the “foreign minister” of the Holy See. This put Tauran in the center of a number of tense conflicts, including the conflict bewteen the US-led coalition and Iraq. In regard to that conflict, he repeatedly emphasized the importance of dialogue and the role of the United Nations, and said that “a unilateral war of aggression would constitute a crime against peace and against the Geneva Conventions.”

He was elevated to the cardinalate in 2003, and is the current Cardinal Protodeacon.

Several years ago, he began to suffer from what is diagnosed as Parkinson’s Disease. However, because his condition seemed to be stable or improving, and because of his immense talent, in 2007 Pope Benedict chose him to be President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue in the Roman Curia. In this office he also heads the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims.

In recent years, Tauran been one of the clearest voices in the Church on behalf of dialogue, especially between the Church and Islam, as a way to increase mutual understanding and avoid tensions and possible bloodshed. Tauran made an historic trip to India last fall, and just a few days ago was in Nigeria for a week, participating in meetings with Muslims and in religious ceremonies in Lagos, Jos, and Kafanchan, where there have been violent clases between Muslims and Christians.

It is perhaps not by chance, then, that among the points touched upon by Pope Benedict was the need for dialogue and peace between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria.

Pope Benedict, though slightly hoarse in comparison to recent days, seemed strong despite a grueling schedule which included his 6-day trip to Mexico and Cuba two weeks ago, then a demanding series of Holy Week liturgies.

There was no homily during the Easter Sunday liturgy, just a moment of silence to reflect on the meaning of the Gospel account of the resurrection.

Then Benedict delivered his “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the city (of Rome) and to the world”) message, precisely at noon, from the main loggia in the middle of the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica, about 20 minutes after the end of the Mass. Here is the complete text of that message.

URBI ET ORBI GREETING OF POPE BENEDICT XVI
ST PETER’S SQUARE
EASTER SUNDAY
8 APRIL 2012

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Rome and throughout the world!

“Surrexit Christus, spes mea” – “Christ, my hope, has risen” (Easter Sequence).

May the jubilant voice of the Church reach all of you with the words which the ancient hymn puts on the lips of Mary Magdalene, the first to encounter the risen Jesus on Easter morning. She ran to the other disciples and breathlessly announced: “I have seen the Lord!” (Jn 20:18). We too, who have journeyed through the desert of Lent and the sorrowful days of the Passion, today raise the cry of victory: “He has risen! He has truly risen!”

Every Christian relives the experience of Mary Magdalene. It involves an encounter which changes our lives: the encounter with a unique Man who lets us experience all God’s goodness and truth, who frees us from evil not in a superficial and fleeting way, but sets us free radically, heals us completely and restores our dignity. This is why Mary Magdalene calls Jesus “my hope”: he was the one who allowed her to be reborn, who gave her a new future, a life of goodness and freedom from evil. “Christ my hope” means that all my yearnings for goodness find in him a real possibility of fulfilment: with him I can hope for a life that is good, full and eternal, for God himself has drawn near to us, even sharing our humanity.

But Mary Magdalene, like the other disciples, was to see Jesus rejected by the leaders of the people, arrested, scourged, condemned to death and crucified. It must have been unbearable to see Goodness in person subjected to human malice, truth derided by falsehood, mercy abused by vengeance. With Jesus’ death, the hope of all those who had put their trust in him seemed doomed. But that faith never completely failed: especially in the heart of the Virgin Mary, Jesus’ Mother, its flame burned even in the dark of night. In this world, hope can not avoid confronting the harshness of evil. It is not thwarted by the wall of death alone, but even more by the barbs of envy and pride, falsehood and violence. Jesus passed through this mortal mesh in order to open a path to the kingdom of life. For a moment Jesus seemed vanquished: darkness had invaded the land, the silence of God was complete, hope a seemingly empty word.

And lo, on the dawn of the day after the Sabbath, the tomb is found empty. Jesus then shows himself to Mary Magdalene, to the other women, to his disciples. Faith is born anew, more alive and strong than ever, now invincible since it is based on a decisive experience: “Death with life contended: combat strangely ended! Life’s own champion, slain, now lives to reign”. The signs of the resurrection testify to the victory of life over death, love over hatred, mercy over vengeance: “The tomb the living did enclose, I saw Christ’s glory as he rose! The angels there attesting, shroud with grave-clothes resting”.

Dear brothers and sisters! If Jesus is risen, then – and only then – has something truly new happened, something that changes the state of humanity and the world. Then he, Jesus, is someone in whom we can put absolute trust; we can put our trust not only in his message but in Jesus himself, for the Risen One does not belong to the past, but is present today, alive. Christ is hope and comfort in a particular way for those Christian communities suffering most for their faith on account of discrimination and persecution. And he is present as a force of hope through his Church, which is close to all human situations of suffering and injustice.

May the risen Christ grant hope to the Middle East and enable all the ethnic, cultural and religious groups in that region to work together to advance the common good and respect for human rights. Particularly in Syria, may there be an end to bloodshed and an immediate commitment to the path of respect, dialogue and reconciliation, as called for by the international community. May the many refugees from that country who are in need of humanitarian assistance find the acceptance and solidarity capable of relieving their dreadful sufferings. May the paschal victory encourage the Iraqi people to spare no effort in pursuing the path of stability and development. In the Holy Land, may Israelis and Palestinians courageously take up anew the peace process.

May the Lord, the victor over evil and death, sustain the Christian communities of the African continent; may he grant them hope in facing their difficulties, and make them peacemakers and agents of development in the societies to which they belong.

May the risen Jesus comfort the suffering populations of the Horn of Africa and favour their reconciliation; may he help the Great Lakes Region, Sudan and South Sudan, and grant their inhabitants the power of forgiveness. In Mali, now experiencing delicate political developments, may the glorious Christ grant peace and stability. To Nigeria, which in recent times has experienced savage terrorist attacks, may the joy of Easter grant the strength needed to take up anew the building of a society which is peaceful and respectful of the religious freedom of its citizens.

Happy Easter to all!

(Following the noontime message to a crowd which spilled over St. Peter’s Square and so must have been more than 200,000, the Pope delivered Easter greetings in 65 languages.)

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“Let There Be Light”

The night before, on Holy Saturday, the Holy Father presided over a majestic 3-hour liturgy inside St. Peter’s Basilica for the vigil of Easter.

(Below is the complete text of the Pope’s Easter Vigil homily.)

One thing I noted in the homily which struck me was the Pope’s use of a quotation of Christ’s words from a non-biblical source. Here is the passage:

“‘Whoever is close to me is close to the fire,’ as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said.” (I have bold-faced the passage in the text below; it is toward the end.)

The use of a citation of Christ’s words from a source outside of the Bible struck me as quite unusual. I am not able now to determine how unusual it is, but I do not recall another instance of it occurring in a papal address.

Usually, all citations of Christ’s words in papal discourses are taken from the scriptures, that is, from the Gospels, or the Epistles.

In this case, the words of Christ cited are not found in any of the Gospels, or Epistles, but only in one of the writings of Origen, a third century Christian theologian who was arguably one of the greatest theologians, and perhaps the greatest theogian, of the early centuries of the Church.

However, as a creative, brilliant theologian, Origen was also quite speculative, and in his speculations, he risked taking certain positions, especially in regard to the universal salvation of all souls, which were later judged to be heterodox or even heretical. And this, tragically, cast a certain shadow on all the great, marvellous corpus of Origen’s writings.

Therefore, Origen has, to my knowledge, not been cited often by previous pontiffs. (If I am wrong on this point, i will be happy to receive correction.)

Benedict XVI, however, has cited Origen on more than one occasion. This alone would be enough to raise some eyebrows, at least a tad. But last night, by citing Origen’s citation of a non-biblical expression of Jesus, Pope Benedict raised  some eyebrows — my own, anyway — a little bit further.

At the very least, what this suggests is that Benedict feels that it is possible that some citations of Christ’s words by early Church Fathers which do not appear anywhere in the Gospels or Epistles are actually worthy of being considered as authentic, or at least valuable and useful. If this is so, we logically must admit the possibility of expanding our search for Christ, for his authentic words, into writings outside of the Gospels and Epistles, which are of course canonical, and authoritative. Others will be more able than I am to comment further on this decision of the Pope, and what it may mean for biblical scholarship and for Christology; for the moment, I simply note that the Pope made this unusual citation.

After the Mass, as the basilica emptied, I was able to greet briefly near the altar a friend from Moscow, Russia, Archpriest Igor Vyzhanov, pastor of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Catherine of Alexandria, which is on the grounds of the Russian Embassy to Italy. I first met him in 1999, in the Catholic cathedral in Moscow, and was with him when he met Pope John Paul II after a papal general audience in October, 2001.

I also had the privilege of meeting the US Ambassador to the Holy See, Miguel Diaz, and his wife, who also attended the Easter Vigil liturgy.

HOMILY OF POPE BENEDICT XVI
EASTER VIGIL OF THE LORD’S RESURRECTION
SAINT PETER’S BASILICA
7 APRIL 2012

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Easter is the feast of the new creation. Jesus is risen and dies no more. He has opened the door to a new life, one that no longer knows illness and death. He has taken mankind up into God himself. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”, as Saint Paul says in the First Letter to the Corinthians (15:50).

On the subject of Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection, the Church writer Tertullian in the third century was bold enough to write: “Rest assured, flesh and blood, through Christ you have gained your place in heaven and in the Kingdom of God” (CCL II, 994).

A new dimension has opened up for mankind. Creation has become greater and broader. Easter Day ushers in a new creation, but that is precisely why the Church starts the liturgy on this day with the old creation, so that we can learn to understand the new one aright.

At the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word on Easter night, then, comes the account of the creation of the world. Two things are particularly important here in connection with this liturgy.

On the one hand, creation is presented as a whole that includes the phenomenon of time. The seven days are an image of completeness, unfolding in time. They are ordered towards the seventh day, the day of the freedom of all creatures for God and for one another. Creation is therefore directed towards the coming together of God and his creatures; it exists so as to open up a space for the response to God’s great glory, an encounter between love and freedom.

On the other hand, what the Church hears on Easter night is above all the first element of the creation account: “God said, ‘let there be light!’” (Gen 1:3). The creation account begins symbolically with the creation of light. The sun and the moon are created only on the fourth day. The creation account calls them lights, set by God in the firmament of heaven. In this way he deliberately takes away the divine character that the great religions had assigned to them.

No, they are not gods. They are shining bodies created by the one God. But they are preceded by the light through which God’s glory is reflected in the essence of the created being.

What is the creation account saying here? Light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It makes communication possible. It makes knowledge, access to reality and to truth, possible. And insofar as it makes knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress possible. Evil hides. Light, then, is also an expression of the good that both is and creates brightness.

It is daylight, which makes it possible for us to act.

To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love. Matter is fundamentally good, being itself is good. And evil does not come from God-made being, rather, it comes into existence through denial. It is a “no”.

At Easter, on the morning of the first day of the week, God said once again: “Let there be light”.

The night on the Mount of Olives, the solar eclipse of Jesus’ passion and death, the night of the grave had all passed.

Now it is the first day once again – creation is beginning anew. “Let there be light”, says God, “and there was light”: Jesus rises from the grave.

Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies.

The darkness of the previous days is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God’s pure light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days.

With the resurrection of Jesus, light itself is created anew. He draws all of us after him into the new light of the resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He is God’s new day, new for all of us.

But how is this to come about? How does all this affect us so that instead of remaining word it becomes a reality that draws us in? Through the sacrament of baptism and the profession of faith, the Lord has built a bridge across to us, through which the new day reaches us.

The Lord says to the newly-baptized: Fiat lux – let there be light. God’s new day – the day of indestructible life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand. From now on you are held by him and walk with him into the light, into real life. For this reason the early Church called baptism photismos – illumination.

Why was this? The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil.

The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general. If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other “lights”, that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk.

Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment?

With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer identify.

Faith, then, which reveals God’s light to us, is the true enlightenment, enabling God’s light to break into our world, opening our eyes to the true light.

Dear friends, as I conclude, I would like to add one more thought about light and illumination. On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the mystery of light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This is a light that lives from sacrifice. The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up. It gives light, inasmuch as it gives itself.

Thus the Church presents most beautifully the paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light.

Secondly, we should remember that the light of the candle is a fire. Fire is the power that shapes the world, the force of transformation. And fire gives warmth.

Here too the mystery of Christ is made newly visible. Christ, the light, is fire, flame, burning up evil and so reshaping both the world and ourselves. “Whoever is close to me is close to the fire,” as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said. And this fire is both heat and light: not a cold light, but one through which God’s warmth and goodness reach down to us.

The great hymn of the Exsultet, which the deacon sings at the beginning of the Easter liturgy, points us quite gently towards a further aspect. It reminds us that this object, the candle, has its origin in the work of bees. So the whole of creation plays its part.

In the candle, creation becomes a bearer of light. But in the mind of the Fathers, the candle also in some sense contains a silent reference to the Church. The cooperation of the living community of believers in the Church in some way resembles the activity of bees. It builds up the community of light. So the candle serves as a summons to us to become involved in the community of the Church, whose raison d’être is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world.

Let us pray to the Lord at this time that he may grant us to experience the joy of his light; let us pray that we ourselves may become bearers of his light, and that through the Church, Christ’s radiant face may enter our world (cf. LG 1). Amen.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

“It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in God. He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God. This refusal does not presuppose belief. It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good… It is not a matter of self-questioning or searching. A man has only to persist in his refusal, and one day or another God will come to him.” —Simone Weil, the great French Jewish mystic who died in 1943 at the age of 34, On Science, Necessity and the Love of God, edited by Richard Rees, London, Oxford University Press, 1968.

“The concept of ‘hidden God’ (Deus absconditus) and the image of a weak or absent deity in history have been the subject of philosophical and theological debate after the tragedy of the Shoah. One question in particular has emerged: ‘Why did God allow Auschwitz?’… Rabbi Richard L. Rubenstein (1924- ) has written that the Holocaust has challenged the content of the Biblical covenant, together with the concept of divine omnipotence. The philosopher Emil Fackenheim (1916-2003) in his work has emphasized that the traditional philosophical and theological categories are insufficient to understand the Holocaust.” —Alberto Castaldini, The Hidden God and History: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives on the Holocaust, “Babeş-Bolyai” University – Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Faculty of European Studies, Ph.D. Dissertation, 2012

“When in Matthew’s account the ‘whole people’ say: ‘His blood be on us and on our children’ (27:25), the Christian will remember that Jesus’ blood speaks a different language from the blood of Abel (Heb 12:24): it does not cry out for vengeance and punishment; it brings reconciliation. It is not poured out against anyone; it is poured out for many, for all. ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… God put [Jesus] forward as an expiation by his blood’ (Rom 3:23, 25). Just as Caiaphas’ words about the need for Jesus’ death have to be read in an entirely new light from the perspective of faith, the same applies to Matthew’s reference to blood: read in the light of faith, it means that we all stand in need of the purifying power of love which is his blood. These words are not a curse, but rather redemption, salvation. Only when understood in terms of the theology of the Last Supper and the Cross, drawn from the whole of the New Testament, does this verse from Matthew’s Gospel take on its correct meaning.”
― Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection

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On Pilgrimage: From Assisi to Norcia…

Among the other great questions raised by Holy Week, are those, and cannot see or know him? How can the Jewish people belive in god, or the Covenant with Abraham, after the Holocaust? And why did so many of the Jewish people reject Christ, and ask Pilate to proceed to his crucifixion, during his trial 2,000 years ago?

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Today in Rome, Pope Benedict celebrated two liturgies, one a Chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, the other the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in St. John Lateran.

At the Chrism Mass, priests renew their ordination vows, and the oils used in liturgies throughout the year are blessed.

Today Benedict took the occasion to criticize a recent call by a group of priests in Austria to disobey a number of traditional Church teachings. Here is a link to a video of his homily, followed by key excerpts:

Benedict XVI:
“Recently a group of priests from a European country issued a summons to disobedience, and at the same time gave concrete examples of the forms this disobedience might take.”

(Among other points, the Austrian group has called for the ordination of women.)

Benedict XVI:
“But is disobedience really a way to do this? Do we sense here anything of that configuration to Christ which is the precondition for true renewal, or do we merely sense a desperate push to do something to change the Church in accordance with one’s own preferences and ideas?”

He called on priests to be holy, encouraging them to find inspiration through holy priests that have gone before them, mentioning Ignatius of Loyola and John Paul II.

Benedict XVI:
“The saints show us how renewal works and how we can place ourselves at its service. And they help us realize that God is not concerned so much with great numbers and with outward successes, but achieves his victories under the humble sign of the mustard seed.”

Benedict XVI:
“We preach not private theories and opinions, but the faith of the Church, of which we are servants.”

Roughly 1,600 priests attended the Mass.

Also today, Benedict XVI celebrated Mass at the Basilica of St. John Lateran. The Mass commemorates Jesus’ Last Supper.  During the celebration, the Pope washed the feet of 12 priests, as a reflection Jesus’ teaching.

During his homily, the Pope explained Jesus’ prayer at the Mount of Olives.

FULL TEXT OF BENEDICT XVI’s HOMILY – BELOW

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From Assisi to Norcia

We journeyed today, a group of pilgrims, from Assisi to Norcia, to begin the celebration of the Easter Triddum with the Benedictine monks of a recently re-established monastery in Norcia, birthplace of St. Benedict, the founder of the order, and the father of Western monsaticism.

Before we left Assisi, we met briefly near the Portiuncola, the little chapel built by St. Francis 800 years ago, with an Italian friar named Brother Alessandro, 34, who was filled with the joy of St. Francis, the joy of loving God above all else, and communicated that joy to us.

We then took the winding road through craggy mountain passes to Norcia, arriving in a grey afternoon with light rain.

We were met by Father Cassian Folsom, an American, who is living his life according to a different charism than that of the Franciscans, and is attracting ever greater attention around the world as one of the leading spirits in the 21st century renewal of Benedictine monasticism. Some in Norcia tell me they believe he is a saint.

Father Cassian spoke to our group briefly about the meaning of the washing of the feet.

The monks invited the men in our group to have our feet ceremonially washed during the liturgy, and we agreed.

The marble floor of the church was cold to my unshod foot, and the humility of the priest, Father Benedict, who washed my foot, then kissed it, moved me deeply…

(to be continued…)

FULL TEXT OF BENEDICT XVI’s HOMILY 

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

Holy Thursday is not only the day of the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist, whose splendour bathes all else and in some ways draws it to itself.

To Holy Thursday also belongs the dark night of the Mount of Olives, to which Jesus goes with his disciples; the solitude and abandonment of Jesus, who in prayer goes forth to encounter the darkness of death; the betrayal of Judas, Jesus’ arrest and his denial by Peter; his indictment before the Sanhedrin and his being handed over to the Gentiles, to Pilate.

Let us try at this hour to understand more deeply something of these events, for in them the mystery of our redemption takes place.

Jesus goes forth into the night.

Night signifies lack of communication, a situation where people do not see one another. It is a symbol of incomprehension, of the obscuring of truth.

It is the place where evil, which has to hide before the light, can grow.

Jesus himself is light and truth, communication, purity and goodness. He enters into the night.

Night is ultimately a symbol of death, the definitive loss of fellowship and life. Jesus enters into the night in order to overcome it and to inaugurate the new Day of God in the history of humanity.

On the way, he sang with his disciples Israel’s psalms of liberation and redemption, which evoked the first Passover in Egypt, the night of liberation.

Now he goes, as was his custom, to pray in solitude and, as Son, to speak with the Father. But, unusually, he wants to have close to him three disciples: Peter, James and John. These are the three who had experienced his Transfiguration – when the light of God’s glory shone through his human figure – and had seen him standing between the Law and the Prophets, between Moses and Elijah.

They had heard him speaking to both of them about his “exodus” to Jerusalem.

Jesus’ exodus to Jerusalem – how mysterious are these words! Israel’s exodus from Egypt had been the event of escape and liberation for God’s People.

What would be the form taken by the exodus of Jesus, in whom the meaning of that historic drama was to be definitively fulfilled?

The disciples were now witnessing the first stage of that exodus — the utter abasement which was nonetheless the essential step of the going forth to the freedom and new life which was the goal of the exodus.

The disciples, whom Jesus wanted to have close to him as an element of human support in that hour of extreme distress, quickly fell asleep. Yet they heard some fragments of the words of Jesus’ prayer and they witnessed his way of acting. Both were deeply impressed on their hearts and they transmitted them to Christians for all time.

Jesus called God “Abba.” The word means — as they add — “Father.” Yet it is not the usual form of the word “father,” but rather a children’s word — an affectionate name which one would not have dared to use in speaking to God. It is the language of the one who is truly a “child,” the Son of the Father, the one who is conscious of being in communion with God, in deepest union with him.

If we ask ourselves what is most characteristic of the figure of Jesus in the Gospels, we have to say that it is his relationship with God. He is constantly in communion with God. Being with the Father is the core of his personality. Through Christ we know God truly.

“No one has ever seen God,” says Saint John. The one “who is close to the Father’s heart … has made him known” (1:18).

Now we know God as he truly is. He is Father, and this in an absolute goodness to which we can entrust ourselves.

The evangelist Mark, who has preserved the memories of Saint Peter, relates that Jesus, after calling God “Abba,” went on to say: “Everything is possible for you. You can do all things” (cf. 14:36). The one who is Goodness is at the same time Power; he is all-powerful. Power is goodness and goodness is power. We can learn this trust from Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives.

Before reflecting on the content of Jesus’ petition, we must still consider what the evangelists tell us about Jesus’ posture during his prayer.

Matthew and Mark tell us that he “threw himself on the ground” (Mt 26:39; cf. Mk 14:35), thus assuming a posture of complete submission, as is preserved in the Roman liturgy of Good Friday. Luke, on the other hand, tells us that Jesus prayed on his knees. In the Acts of the Apostles, he speaks of the saints praying on their knees: Stephen during his stoning, Peter at the raising of someone who had died, Paul on his way to martyrdom. In this way Luke has sketched a brief history of prayer on one’s knees in the early Church.

Christians, in kneeling, enter into Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives. When menaced by the power of evil, as they kneel, they are upright before the world, while as sons and daughters, they kneel before the Father. Before God’s glory we Christians kneel and acknowledge his divinity; by that posture we also express our confidence that he will prevail.

Jesus struggles with the Father. He struggles with himself. And he struggles for us.

He experiences anguish before the power of death.

First and foremost this is simply the dread natural to every living creature in the face of death. In Jesus, however, something more is at work. His gaze peers deeper, into the nights of evil. He sees the filthy flood of all the lies and all the disgrace which he will encounter in that chalice from which he must drink.

His is the dread of one who is completely pure and holy as he sees the entire flood of this world’s evil bursting upon him.

He also sees me, and he prays for me.

This moment of Jesus’ mortal anguish is thus an essential part of the process of redemption. Consequently, the Letter to the Hebrews describes the struggle of Jesus on the Mount of Olives as a priestly event. In this prayer of Jesus, pervaded by mortal anguish, the Lord performs the office of a priest: he takes upon himself the sins of humanity, of us all, and he brings us before the Father.

Lastly, we must also pay attention to the content of Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives. Jesus says: “Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet not what I want, but what you want” (Mk 14:36).

The natural will of the man Jesus recoils in fear before the enormity of the matter. He asks to be spared.

Yet as the Son, he places this human will into the Father’s will: not I, but you. In this way he transformed the stance of Adam, the primordial human sin, and thus heals humanity.

The stance of Adam was: not what you, O God, have desired; rather, I myself want to be a god.

This pride is the real essence of sin. We think we are free and truly ourselves only if we follow our own will. God appears as the opposite of our freedom. We need to be free of him — so we think — and only then will we be free.

This is the fundamental rebellion present throughout history and the fundamental lie which perverts life. When human beings set themselves against God, they set themselves against the truth of their own being and consequently do not become free, but alienated from themselves. We are free only if we stand in the truth of our being, if we are united to God.

Then we become truly “like God” — not by resisting God, eliminating him, or denying him. In his anguished prayer on the Mount of Olives, Jesus resolved the false opposition between obedience and freedom, and opened the path to freedom. Let us ask the Lord to draw us into this “yes” to God’s will, and in this way to make us truly free. Amen.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

“A science which does not bring us nearer to God is worthless.”
—Simone Weil, the great French Jewish mystic who died in 1943 at the age of 34

“The (Roman) emperor (Hadrian) said to Rabbi Joshua b. Hananiah, “I desire greatly to see thy God.” Joshua requested him to stand facing the brilliant summer sun, and said, “Gaze upon it.” The emperor said, “I can not.” “Then,” said Joshua, “if thou art not able to look upon a servant of God, how much less mayest thou gaze upon the Shekinah (the very Glory of God)?” —Ḥullin (Talmud), 60a.

“’The glory of God is the living man, but the life of man is the vision of God,’ says St. Irenaeus, getting to the heart of what happens when man meets God on the mountain in the wilderness. Ultimately, it is the very life of man, man himself as living righteously, that is the true worship of God, but life only becomes real life when it receives its form from looking toward God.”
― Pope Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy

On Pilgrimage…

One of the great questions during Holy Week, of course, is why the Church calls this coming Friday, the day Jesus was crucified — and the day that Cuba, led by the Castro brothers, will now, following the recent visit to the island of Pope Benedict XVI, celebrate as a national “holy day,” which is the true meaning of “holiday” — why the Church calls this sorrowful day “Good.”

Why is it “Good” Friday?

Because it reveals God’s glory to us, that is, his nature and his love.

We need a science — a system of knowing — which can enable us to understand this.

The modern world needs such a science, in keeping with what Simone Weil (1909-1943), the French Jewish scholar, philosopher, mystic and activist in the French Resistance during World War II who was profoundly attracted to the Christian faith, once said: “A science which does not bring us nearer to God is worthless.”

The problem we face, however, is that God is, often, frustratingly, hidden.

He cannot be easily seen.

He seems absent.

His dwelling place, the Temple (but human beings, of course, are the true temples of God) seems to have no divinity in residence… no radiant glory… nothing great or meaningful at all… a briefly-animated collection of chemicals that inhale and exhale, then turn to dust…

And if something is not present, and cannot be seen, then there can be no science of it, no knowledge of it.

In fact, as the Talmud relates in the story cited above concerning the conversation of the Emperor Hadrian with the Rabbi Joshua b. Hananiah, human beings, it seems, cannot look upon God. Looking at God is no more possible than gazing directly at the sun, the Rabbi tells the emperor.

And “to look upon” here, of course, is a metaphor for “to know.”

The human mind, therefore, one must conclude, cannot “look upon,” cannot “know” God, his reality, his nature, his glory.

And yet, it seems, this too is not entirely true. For, as Pope Benedict (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) wrote some years ago in his book On the Spirit of the Liturgy, citing St. Irenaeus of Lyons, writing in about 180 A.D., “The glory of God is the living man, but the life of man is the vision of God.”

We are led to this conclusion: if a man, or a woman, has a vision of God, he, or she, becomes alive, and being alive, shines forth… the glory of God… the “Shekinah” of God…

What is this “glory” of God? What is this “Shekinah” of God, which we can catch a glimpse of when we see a “man alive”?

It is holiness.

And it is this holiness that is ultimate reality, because it is God’s nature, his glory, to be holy. It is His reality to be holy.

And, because holiness can be glimpsed in the lives of the saints, in the lives of those who have themselves “glimpsed” God, and so have been made alive, becoming visible, living icons of His glory, the Church presents the saints to us, in order that we may catch a glimpse of God’s glory, and so of God Himself…

And among the saints of our tradition, none is greater than St. Francis of Assisi, who received the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, on Mt. Alverna, after 40 days of prayer and fasting — 40 days of seeking to “see” God — in the year 1224 A.D., two years before his death.

And this is the reason a small group of pilgrims, including myself, left Rome this morning for Assisi, city of Francis.

The purpose of the pilgrimage is to seek a “new science” which opens the way to a glimpse of God, a vision of God, and so, opens a way to life.

We will return to Rome on Holy Saturday, for the Vigil Mass, when the basilica will begin in total darkness, and then be lit, beginning with Benedict XVI’s lighting of the pascal candle, by thousands of candles throughout the basilica, symbolizing the light of God’s glory in this fallen world, that is, the light of the Resurrection.

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the dwelling place of God’s glory. St. Paul writes in Colossians (2:9) that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.”

Christ’s glory was also veiled: “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2).

And so there are many, today, who do not glimpse His glory — perhaps often because the faults, and sins — the unholiness — of Christians have in some way helped to obscure it.

One of the greatest of the Church Fathers, St. Gregory of Nyssa (335 A.D-after 384 A.D.) meditates in a profound way on this matter of God’s glory, and what it means to men to glimpse that glory, and it seemed fitting to offer his meditation here, though it is in fact used in the Roman Catholic Office of Readings for the 7th Sunday after Easter, in preparation for Pentecost, because Gregory’s words may help prepare us now for the imminent glory of the Easter Triduum…

The Glory of the Holy Spirit

By St. Gregory of Nyssa, Doctor of the Church

(Excerpt from St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Commentary on the Song of Songs, Hom. 15: Jaeger VI, 466-468)

“When love has entirely cast out fear, and fear has been transformed into love, then the unity brought us by Our Savior will be fully realized, for all men will be united with one another through their union with the one supreme Good.

“They will possess the perfection ascribed to the dove, according to our interpretation of the text: One alone is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only child of her mother, her chosen one…

“Now the bond that creates this unity is glory. That the Holy Spirit is called glory no one can deny if he thinks carefully about the Lord’s words: The glory you gave to me, I have given to them. In fact, he gave this glory to his disciples when he said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit. Although he had always possessed it, even before the world existed, he himself received this glory when he put on human nature. Then, when his human nature had been glorified by the Spirit, the glory of the Spirit was passed on to all his kin, beginning with his disciples.

“This is why he said: The glory you gave to me, I have given to them, so that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, I want them to be perfectly one.

“Whoever has grown from infancy to manhood and attained to spiritual maturity possesses the mastery over his passions and the purity that makes it possible for him to receive the glory of the Spirit. He is that perfect dove upon whom the eyes of the bridegroom rest when he says: One alone is my dove, my perfect one.”

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“Glory to the Hidden One”

And here is an except from an ancient Orthodox hymn which also reflects on the hiddenness of God, and on His glory:

“Glory to that Hidden One, Whose Son was made manifest! Glory to that Living One, Whose Son was made to die! Glory to that Great One, Whose Son descended and was small! Glory to the Power Who did straiten His greatness by a form, His unseen nature by a shape! With eye and mind we have beheld Him, yea, with both of them.

“Glory to that Hidden One, Who even with the mind cannot be felt at all by them that pry into Him; but by His graciousness was felt by the hand of man! The Nature that could not be touched, by His hands was bound and tied, by His feet was pierced and lifted up. Himself of His own will He embodied for them that took Him.

“Blessed be He Whom free will crucified, because He let it: blessed be He Whom the wood also did bear, because He allowed it. Blessed be He Whom the grave bound, that had [thereby] a limit set it. Blessed be He Whose own will brought Him to the Womb and Birth, to arms and to increase [in stature]. Blessed He whose changes purchased life for human nature.”

—Nineteen Hymns on the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh, Translated, I.-XIII. By Rev. J. B. Morris, M.A., [Oxford Library of the Fathers]; XIV.-XIX. By Rev. A. Edward Johnston, B.D.)

(to be continued…)

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

The Mystery of Mary

“Between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the Beloved disciple was entrusted to her [Mary], and with him the whole community of disciples (cf. John 19:26). Between Ascension and Pentecost, she is with and in the Church in prayer (cf. Acts 1:14).

“Mother of God and Mother of the Church, Mary exercises this motherhood until the end of history.

“We entrust to her every passing phase of our personal and ecclesial life, not least that of our final transit.”
—Pope Benedict XVI, March 14, 2012 (three weeks ago), Catechesis, Wednesday General Audience

“What is the proper love of God? One should love God with an exceedingly great and powerful love until one’s soul is bound up in the love of God, continuously pre-occupied with it like one who is lovesick… Even more than this should the love of God constantly pre-occupy the hearts of those who love Him. Thus He has commanded us: ‘With all your heart and with all your soul’ (Deuteronomy 6:5). Solomon spoke of this allegorically when he said: ‘For I am sick with love’ (Canticle of Canticles 2:5). The entire Canticle is an allegory concerning this matter.”
—Maimonedes, Mishneh Torah, hilkhotteshuvah 10:3 (cited in “Shekhinah, the Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs: Reflections on a Kabbalistic Symbol in Its Historical Context,” by Arthur Green, Association for Jewish Studies Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (April, 2002), pp. 1-52)

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A Special Mass at the Altar of Our Lady of the Column in St. Peter’s Basilica

This morning, I asked Father Jan Ligeza, the Polish priest I mentioned in yesterday’s post, if he would be willing to celebrate Mass in the basilica at the altar beneath a very special image of Mary, which is known as the Altar of Our Lady of the Column.

We went to the St. Peter’s Basilica sacristy just after 7 a.m. We found many priests there preparing to go into the basilica and celebrate Mass at different altars. By chance we ran into Bishop Josef Clemens, 64, the Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity (for many years the personal secretary of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict VXI), and also Father Mark Withoos, an official for the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, who each morning celebrates Mass according to the traditional form at the Altar of the Transfiguration. (For a moment I weighed asking Father Mark whether he thought Rome would receive a response from Bishop Bernard Fellay of the Society of St. Pius X by April 15, but then kept my silence.)

Father Ligeza, after vesting, walked out of the sacristy toward the main area of the basilica, accompanied by an altar server.

A Unique Painting

There is only one painting in the main body of St. Peter’s Basilica, and only one fresco in the entire vast church.

All the other, splendid images in St. Peter’s are mosaics, not paintings.

(Mosaics in churches are often preferable to paintings, because, being made of stone, they can last for centuries, or millennia, without fading, or flaking. Note: there are two oil-on-canvas paintings of angels in the chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament, off to the right of the main nave as one walks into the church).

The one, unique fresco is of… Mary.

Dating from 1581, it depicts Mary with her son, Jesus, as a child. This is what it looks like:

But this fresco is a very special Madonna and Child.

It is an image so highly regarded by Pope John Paul II, so significant to him, that, after the attempt on his life on May 13, 1981, he asked for a copy of this very painting, along with a portion of his own coat-of-arms — the part which reads “Totus Tuus” (“Entirely thine”) — to be prepared (as a mosaic) for installation high above St. Peter’s Square, making it the only image of Mary, and indeed, the only image at all, in the entire piazza. It was installed at the end of 1981, on December 7, in time for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8 of that year.

Here is what it looks like today:

 

Mary, Mother of the Church

The original image is painted, not on canvas, but on marble — in fact, on the curved marble of a column which once stood in the Constantinian basilica.

A portion of the column, with the image on it, was moved to its present location in the back of the church more than 400 years ago, in 1607, when the new basilica was constructed.

It now stands above an altar in the very far left hand corner at the back of the basilica, where it is also entitled “Mater Ecclesiae” — “Mother of the Church.” It received this name after the Second Vatican Council, when Paul VI honored Mary with the title “Mater Ecclesiae.”

This chapel at the back left-hand corner of the basilica is a peaceful spot. It is usually blocked off from general tourist traffic, but over the years it has become my favorite place in the entire basilica. I will try to touch on just one of the reasons below.

On November 21, 1964, at the end of the third session of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI proclaimed solemnly that Mary was Mater Ecclesiae, Mother of Christ and also of his mystical Body (the Church).

Below the altar, in a 4th century Christian sarcophagus with the images of Christ and the Apostles, lie the remains of Popes Leo II, III, IV, gathered by Pope Paschal II (1099-1118).

I asked Father Ligeza if he would be willing to celebrate Mass at this altar, and he agreed.

Here is a photograph of the moment of consecration this morning:

Pope Benedict XVI also knows of this image; he gave a copy of it to Oscott College as a gift on September 19, 2010, during his papal visit to Scotland and England. (The Holy Father also presented other mosaics of Our Lady during his visit to the UK, one of them being to St Mary’s Twickenham.)

It is believed to be the first time that an image of the Madonna so connected with St Peter’s Basilica has been given as a gift by the Pope

A St. Peter’s Square Without Mary

After the completion of St. Peter’s Basilica in the early 1600s, the project of designing St. Peter’s Square was entrusted to Bernini, who worked hard on it from 1656 to 1657. The result is the marvel we see today.

Bernini himself explained that the two semi-ovals formed by the 284 pillars were intended to symbolize the arms of Mother Church embracing all mankind.

But the piazza had no image of Mary, no direct reference to Mary.

That missing element was supplied by John Paul II with his decision to install the mosaic of the Madonna and Child high above the Square.

Today, any visitor to Rome who wishes to see the Pope goes to St. Peter’s Square. The Sunday Angelus — a custom instituted by Pope John Paul II — and the Wednesday audiences, as well as the many liturgical celebrations throughout the year, draw millions each year. And all of them, today, can see the image of Mary high above them in the wall of the papal palace.

Just before blessing the mosaic in the Sqaure on December 8, 1981, Pope John Paul II spoke the following words: “Now I will bless the picture of Our Lady ‘Mother of the Church,’ with the desire that all those who come to St. Peter’s Square may raise their eyes to her, and address their own greetings and their own prayer to her in a spirit of filial trust.”

Pope Benedict, like his predecessor, has a profound Marian spirituality, which has deepened in recent years.

On December 8, 2005, following Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica in honor of the Feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, Benedict appeared at his study window to pray the Angelus.

Prior to the prayer, he referred to the Solemnity as “a day of intense spiritual joy,” calling to mind Dante’s depiction of Mary in the Paridiso of his Divine Comedy.

She appears in the 33rd Canto, the Pope recalled, “humbler and higher than all other creatures, fixed aim and goal of the eternal plan.” He added: “In contemplating the Virgin, how can we not reawaken in ourselves, her children, the aspiration to beauty, goodness and purity of heart?”

“Her celestial candor,” Benedict said, “attracts us towards God, helping us to overcome the temptation to a mediocre life — one made up of compromises with evil — and orienting us decisively towards authentic goodness, which is a source of joy.”

Benedict’s Marian Devotion

The Marian devotion of our present Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, was made clear in a 1984 interview with Vittorio Messori, published in English in 1985 as The Ratzinger Report by Ignatius Press.

Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, identified Our Lady as the “remedy” for the challenges and crises facing the Church and the world today.

Here is a brief excerpt from Messori’s book-interview:

To the crisis in the understanding of the Church, to the crisis of morality, to the crisis of woman, the Prefect has a remedy, among others, to propose “that has concretely shown its effectiveness throughout the centuries.” “A remedy whose reputation seems to be clouded today with some Catholics but one that is more than ever relevant.” It is the remedy that he designates with a short name: Mary.

Ratzinger is very aware that it is precisely Mariology which presents a facet of Christianity to which certain groups regain access only with difficulty, even though it was confirmed by the Second Vatican Council as the culmination of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. “By inserting the mystery of Mary into the mystery of the Church,” he says, “Vatican II made an important decision which should have given a new impetus to theological research. Instead, in the early post-conciliar period, there has been a sudden decline in this respect—almost a collapse, even though there are now signs of a new vitality.”

In 1968, eighteen years after the proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in body and soul to heavenly glory, the then-professor Ratzinger observed as he recalled the event: “The fundamental orientation which guides our lives in only a few years has so changed that today we find it difficult to understand the enthusiasm and the joy that then reigned in so many parts of the Catholic Church…. Since then much has changed, and today that dogma which at that time so uplifted us instead escapes us. We ask ourselves whether with it we may not be placing unnecessary obstacles in the way of a reunion with our evangelical fellow Christians, whether it would not be much easier if this stone did not lie on the road, this stone which we ourselves had placed there in the so recent past. We also ask ourselves whether with such a dogma we may not threaten the orientation of Christian piety. Will it not be misdirected, instead of looking toward God the Father and toward the sole mediator, Jesus Christ, who as man is our brother and at the same time is so one with God that he is himself God?”

Yet, during the interview he told me, “If the place occupied by Mary has been essential to the equilibrium of the Faith, today it is urgent, as in few other epochs of the Church, to rediscover that place.”

Ratzinger’s testimony is also humanly important, having been arrived at along a personal path of rediscovery, of gradual deepening, almost in the sense of a full “conversion,” of the Marian mystery. In fact, he confides to me: “As a young theologian in the time before (and also during) the Council, I had, as many did then and still do today, some reservations in regard to certain ancient formulas, as, for example, that famous De Maria nunquam satis, ‘concerning Mary one can never say enough.’ It seemed exaggerated to me. So it was difficult for me later to understand the true meaning of another famous expression (current in the Church since the first centuries when—after a memorable dispute—the Council of Ephesus, in 431, had proclaimed Mary Theotokos, Mother of God). The declaration, namely, that designated the Virgin as ‘the conqueror of all heresies.’ Now—in this confused period where truly every type of heretical aberration seems to be pressing upon the doors of the authentic faith—now I understand that it was not a matter of pious exaggerations, but of truths that today are more valid than ever.”

“Yes,” he continues, “it is necessary to go back to Mary if we want to return to that ‘truth about Jesus Christ,’ truth about the Church’ and the ‘truth about man’ that John Paul II proposed as a program to the whole of Christianity when, in 1979, he opened the Latin American episcopal conference in Puebla. The bishops responded to the Pope’s proposal by including in the first documents (the very ones that have been read only incompletely by some) their unanimous wish and concern: ‘Mary must be more than ever the pedagogy, in order to proclaim the Gospel to the men of today.’ Precisely in that continent where the traditional Marian piety of the people is in decline, the resultant void is being filled by political ideologies. It is a phenomenon that can be noted almost everywhere to a certain degree, confirming the importance of that piety which is no mere piety.”

Six Reasons For Not Forgetting

The Cardinal lists six points in which—albeit in a very concise and therefore necessarily incomplete way—he sees the importance of Mary with regard to the equilibrium and completeness of the Catholic Faith.

First point: “When one recognizes the place assigned to Mary by dogma and tradition, one is solidly rooted in authentic christology. (According to Vatican II: ‘Devoutly meditating on her and contemplating her in the light of the Word made man, the Church reverently penetrates more deeply into the great mystery of the Incarnation and becomes more and more like her spouse,’ Lumen Gentium, no. 65). It is, moreover in direct service to faith in Christ—not, therefore, primarily out of devotion to the Mother—that the Church has proclaimed her Marian dogmas: first that of her perpetual virginity and divine motherhood and then, after a long period of maturation and reflection, those of her Immaculate Conception and bodily Assumption into heavenly glory. These dogmas protect the original faith in Christ as true God and true man: two natures in a single Person. They also secure the indispensable eschatological tension by pointing to Mary’s Assumption as the immortal destiny that awaits us all. And they also protect the faith—threatened today—in God the Creator, who (and this, among other things, is the meaning of the truth of the perpetual virginity of Mary, more than ever not understood today) can freely intervene also in matter. Finally, Mary, as the Council recalls: ‘having entered deeply into the history of salvation, … in a way unites in her person and reechoes the most important mysteries of the Faith’” (Lumen Gentium, no. 65).

This first point is followed by a second: “The Mariology of the Church comprises the right relationship, the necessary integration between Scripture and tradition. The four Marian dogmas have their clear foundation in sacred Scripture. But it is there like a seed that grows and bears fruit in the life of tradition just as it finds expression in the liturgy, in the perception of the believing people and in the reflection of theology guided by the Magisterium.”

Third point: “In her very person as a Jewish girl become the mother of the Messiah, Mary binds together, in a living and indissoluble way, the old and the new People of God, Israel and Christianity, synagogue and church. She is, as it were, the connecting link without which the Faith (as is happening today) runs the risk of losing its balance by either forsaking the New Testament for the Old or dispensing with the Old. In her, instead, we can live the unity of sacred Scripture in its entirety.”

Fourth point: “The correct Marian devotion guarantees to faith the coexistence of indispensable ‘reason’ with the equally indispensable ‘reasons of the heart,’ as Pascal would say. For the Church, man is neither mere reason nor mere feeling, he is the unity of these two dimensions. The head must reflect with lucidity, but the heart must be able to feel warmth: devotion to Mary (which ‘avoids every false exaggeration on the one hand, and excessive narrow-mindedness in the contemplation of the surpassing dignity of the Mother of God on the other,’ as the Council urges) thus assures the faith its full human dimension.”

Continuing his synthesis, Ratzinger lists a fifth point: “To use the very formulations of Vatican II, Mary is ‘figure,’ ‘image’ and ‘model’ of the Church. Beholding her the Church is shielded against the aforementioned masculinized model that views her as an instrument for a program of social-political action. In Mary, as figure and archetype, the Church again finds her own visage as Mother and cannot degenerate into the complexity of a party, an organization or a pressure group in the service of human interests, even the noblest. If Mary no longer finds a place in many theologies and ecclesiologies, the reason is obvious: they have reduced faith to an abstraction. And an abstraction does not need a Mother.”

Here is the sixth and last point of this synthesis: “With her destiny, which is at one and the same time that of Virgin and of Mother, Mary continues to project a light upon that which the Creator intended for women in every age, ours included, or, better said, perhaps precisely in our time, in which—as we know—the very essence of femininity is threatened. Through her virginity and her motherhood, the mystery of woman receives a very lofty destiny from which she cannot be torn away. Mary undauntedly proclaims the Magnificat, but she is also the one who renders silence and seclusion fruitful. She is the one who does not fear to stand under the Cross, who is present at the birth of the Church. But she is also the one who, as the evangelist emphasizes more than once, ‘keeps and ponders in her heart’ that which transpires around her. As a creature of courage and of obedience she was and is still an example to which every Christian—man and woman—can and should look.”

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“De Maria nunquam satis…”

“About Mary, one can never say enough.”

That is the reason that it seemed fitting to go to Mary’s chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica this morning, and then, this evening, to write, in this brief email, about how Pope John Paul II believed, and Pope Benedict XVI believes, that Mary can be a “remedy” for the crises of the Church and world today…

(to be continued…)

Monday, April 2, 2012

Seven years ago today, on April 2, 2005, Blessed Pope John Paul II died after almost 27 years as successor of St. Peter. He was 84.

I went into St. Peter’s Basilica today, to visit the late Pope’s tomb.

A Mass was being celebrated, in Italian. It ended with a hymn to Mary, the Salve Regina.

A Polish priest who stood next to me at the back of the congregation sang the words with feeling, and in a Polish accent, so that I felt I could, in a way, hear the voice of John Paul himself, whose devotion to Mary strengthened and guided him throughout his life.

The Polish priest, Father Jan Ligeza, a composer and a scholar of sacred music who has a parish in Jacksonville, Florida, in the United States, after the hymn ended, went to the altar and knelt for some minutes before the tomb of his fellow countryman.

I then walked with Father Ligeza through the basilica. By chance we met Cardinal Angelo Comastri, the archpriest of the basilica, as he was giving final instructions to workers preparing to clean the altar, and to dust and shine the baldacchino over the altar, in preparation for the Easter Triduum celebrations here later this week.

I was astonished to see the workers on the top of the baldacchino, perched precariously.

I had never before seen anyone on top of the baldacchino, and asked the cardinal how often this cleaning was done.

“We do it twice a year,” Cardinal Comastri told me. “Before Christmas and before Easter.”

If one looks closely at the pictures below, one can see workers on the very top of the baldacchino, the canopy that rises above the main altar in St. Peter’s.

The workers reached the baldacchino by being lifted up on a tall, motorized ladder, which was stabilized at its base by wide-spread red-painted steel legs that resembled the legs of a gigantic spider.

Next to the altar, workers were preparing special seating for the Holy Week liturgies…

…and shining the marble floor of the basilica with an enormous mechanized floor polisher.

So Rome is already preparing to celebrate a splendid Easter Vigil liturgy, though first must come Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the silence of Holy Saturday — a silence which seems in some way analogous to what often seems the silence of God in the face of the sorrows and injustices of this fallen world.

When the Easter Vigil liturgy, therefore, is celebrated on Saturday evening, and the darkened basilica suddenly is lit up with 5,000 or more candles, and the bronze baldacchino which rises over the altar then shines in the reflected light, we may thank the anonymous workmen who worked long hours to prepare for that moment.

I thought there was no better way to end this brief email than to give the text of the Marian hymn which was sung before John Paul’s tomb this morning.

Latin Text

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevae,
ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.
Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos
misericordes oculos ad nos converte;
et Iesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,
nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.

V. Ora pro nobis sancta Dei Genetrix.
R. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

Traditional English Translation (North America):
(in the version used by Catholics in the United Kingdom and in the Anglo-Catholic version, the wording “mourning and weeping in this vale of tears” is used in the 5th line)

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
to thee do we send up our sighs,
mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate,
thine eyes of mercy toward us;
and after this our exile,
show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

V. Pray for us O holy Mother of God,
R. that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Here are links to three different sung versions of the hymn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AJ0Lxl0v2c.;

http://en.gloria.tv/?media=66358

Sunday, April 1, 2012

“So it is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours.

“But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, or with the whole Christ … so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet…

“Let us offer not palm branches but the prizes of victory to the conqueror of death.”

—Pope Benedict XVI, Palm Sunday Homily, Sunday, April 1, St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, citing the Church Father, St. Andrew, Bishop of Crete (c. 650-July 4, 712, 726 or 740)

A Day of Joy

Today, April 1, was joyful in Rome, with the sun breaking through a grey sky at mid-morning, just after the 84-year-old Pope finished his homily.

Though St. Peter’s Square was filled with some 200,000 faithful from around the world to commemorate the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, and the beginning of the week which recalls his suffering, death and resurrection, there was profound silence and reverence during a liturgy celebrated largely in Latin.

The Pope, who will turn 85 on April 16, and on April 19 will celebrate the end of his 7th year as Pope, seemed serene, and strong, despite just having returned from a grueling, 6-day trip to Mexico and Cuba (March 23-28).

He chanted long parts of the liturgy himself, in Latin, in a clear voice, without any hesitation, enunciating each syllable perfectly. I was privileged to be only a few yards away from him, and could see and hear him clearly.

His homily, which he read in Italian, touched on the fundamental question of Jesus’s mission: What kind of Messiah was Jesus?

Here is the key passage in the Pope’s homily. It expresses a universalistic vision, a “catholic” vision, of the identity of Christ and the purpose of his mission, and, by implication, of true identity and mission of the Jewish people, from whom Christ sprang (according to the flesh), and to whom he directed all the energy and passion of his three years of public ministry:

“He whom the crowd acclaims as the blessed one is also he in whom the whole of humanity will be blessed,” Benedict said.

“Thus, in the light of Christ, humanity sees itself profoundly united and, as it were, enfolded within the cloak of divine blessing, a blessing that permeates, sustains, redeems and sanctifies all things.”

It is worth reading this homily, then, with some care, because in this homily we can catch a glimpse of Benedict’s understanding, not only of Christ and his mission, but also of the nature of the Promise made to the People of Israel, and of the way that Promise began to be fulfilled in Christ, and will be completely fulfilled at the end of “this age,” when all shall be changed, and the definitive reign of God will be present, and no longer hidden.

It is worth noting that part of the joy of this day was the news from Cuba that the government there yesterday decided to grant the Pope’s request to make Good Friday a national Cuban holiday. The Pope asked for this specifically when he met with Raul Castro. And now we know that, yes, this year in Cuba, Good Friday will be a national holiday. (It is not yet known, however, if the holiday will be made permament, to be celebrated every year.)

In this sense, clearly, Benedict’s call for greater freedom for the Cuban people, freedom of religion but also freedom in general, was heard by the Cuban regime, and so the trip has already brought forth significant fruit. This allows hopes that more fruits may yet come from the Pope’s historic visit.

After Pope John Paul II’s historic 1998 visit to Cuba, the authorities agreed to make Christmas a holiday. Cuba said Saturday a decision on whether to make Good Friday a similarly permanent holiday would be made later.

 

CELEBRATION OF PALM SUNDAY AND OF THE PASSION OF THE LORD

Beginning at 9:30 a.m., Pope Benedict XVI presided, in St. Peter’s Square, over the solemn liturgy of Palm Sunday. He blessed the palms and olive branches, then celebrated Holy Mass in the open air.

Here is the complete text of Pope Benedict’s homily

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI
FOR PALM SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 2012

“The Great Doorway Leading into Holy Week”

By Pope Benedict XVI

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Palm Sunday is the great doorway leading into Holy Week, the week when the Lord Jesus makes his way towards the culmination of his earthly existence.

He goes up to Jerusalem in order to fulfil the Scriptures and to be nailed to the wood of the Cross, the throne from which he will reign for ever, drawing to himself humanity of every age and offering to all the gift of redemption.

We know from the Gospels that Jesus had set out towards Jerusalem in company with the Twelve, and that little by little a growing crowd of pilgrims had joined them. Saint Mark tells us that as they were leaving Jericho, there was a “great multitude” following Jesus (cf. 10:46).

On the final stage of the journey, a particular event stands out, one which heightens the sense of expectation of what is about to unfold and focuses attention even more sharply upon Jesus. Along the way, as they were leaving Jericho, a blind man was sitting begging, Bartimaeus by name. As soon as he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing, he began to cry out: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mk 10:47). People tried to silence him, but to no avail; until Jesus had them call him over and invited him to approach.

“What do you want me to do for you?”, he asked.

And the reply: “Master, let me receive my sight” (v. 51).

Jesus said: “Go your way, your faith has made you well.”

Bartimaeus regained his sight and began to follow Jesus along the way (cf. v. 52).

And so it was that, after this miraculous sign, accompanied by the cry “Son of David,” a tremor of Messianic hope spread through the crowd, causing many of them to ask: this Jesus, going ahead of us towards Jerusalem, could he be the Messiah, the new David? And as he was about to enter the Holy City, had the moment come when God would finally restore the Davidic kingdom?

The preparations made by Jesus, with the help of his disciples, serve to increase this hope.

As we heard in today’s Gospel (cf. Mk 11:1-10), Jesus arrives in Jerusalem from Bethphage and the Mount of Olives, that is, the route by which the Messiah was supposed to come. From there, he sent two disciples ahead of him, telling them to bring him a young donkey that they would find along the way. They did indeed find the donkey, they untied it and brought it to Jesus.

At this point, the spirits of the disciples and of the other pilgrims were swept up with excitement: they took their coats and placed them on the colt; others spread them out on the street in Jesus’ path as he approached, riding on the donkey.

Then they cut branches from the trees and began to shout phrases from Psalm 118, ancient pilgrim blessings, which in that setting took on the character of messianic proclamation: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest!” (v. 9-10).

This festive acclamation, reported by all four evangelists, is a cry of blessing, a hymn of exultation: it expresses the unanimous conviction that, in Jesus, God has visited his people and the longed-for Messiah has finally come. And everyone is there, growing in expectation of the work that Christ will accomplish once he has entered the city.

But what is the content, the inner resonance of this cry of jubilation?

The answer is found throughout the Scripture, which reminds us that the Messiah fulfils the promise of God’s blessing, God’s original promise to Abraham, father of all believers: “I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you … and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves” (Gen 12:2-3).

It is the promise that Israel had always kept alive in prayer, especially the prayer of the Psalms.

Hence he whom the crowd acclaims as the blessed one is also he in whom the whole of humanity will be blessed.

Thus, in the light of Christ, humanity sees itself profoundly united and, as it were, enfolded within the cloak of divine blessing, a blessing that permeates, sustains, redeems and sanctifies all things.

Here we find the first great message that today’s feast brings us: the invitation to adopt a proper outlook upon all humanity, on the peoples who make up the world, on its different cultures and civilizations.

The look that the believer receives from Christ is a look of blessing: a wise and loving look, capable of grasping the world’s beauty and having compassion on its fragility. Shining through this look is God’s own look upon those he loves and upon Creation, the work of his hands. We read in the Book of Wisdom: “But thou art merciful to all, for thou canst do all things, and thou dost overlook men’s sins, that they may repent. For thou lovest all things that exist and hast loathing for none of the things which thou hast made … thou sparest all things, for they are thine, O Lord who lovest the living” (11:23-24, 26).

Let us return to today’s Gospel passage and ask ourselves: what is really happening in the hearts of those who acclaim Christ as King of Israel?

Clearly, they had their own idea of the Messiah, an idea of how the long-awaited King promised by the prophets should act.

Not by chance, a few days later, instead of acclaiming Jesus, the Jerusalem crowd will cry out to Pilate: “Crucify him!”, while the disciples, together with others who had seen him and listened to him, will be struck dumb and will disperse. The majority, in fact, was disappointed by the way Jesus chose to present himself as Messiah and King of Israel.

This is the heart of today’s feast, for us too. Who is Jesus of Nazareth for us? What idea do we have of the Messiah, what idea do we have of God?

It is a crucial question, one we cannot avoid, not least because during this very week we are called to follow our King who chooses the Cross as his throne.

We are called to follow a Messiah who promises us, not a facile earthly happiness, but the happiness of heaven, divine beatitude. So we must ask ourselves: what are our true expectations? What are our deepest desires, with which we have come here today to celebrate Palm Sunday and to begin our celebration of Holy Week?

Dear young people, present here today, this, in a particular way, is your Day, wherever the Church is present throughout the world. So I greet you with great affection! May Palm Sunday be a day of decision for you, the decision to say yes to the Lord and to follow him all the way, the decision to make his Passover, his death and resurrection, the very focus of your Christian lives.

It is the decision that leads to true joy, as I reminded you in this year’s World Youth Day Message – “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 4:4). So it was for Saint Clare of Assisi when, on Palm Sunday 800 years ago, inspired by the example of Saint Francis and his first companions, she left her father’s house to consecrate herself totally to the Lord. She was eighteen years old and she had the courage of faith and love to decide for Christ, finding in him true joy and peace.

Dear brothers and sisters, may these days call forth two sentiments in particular: praise, after the example of those who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem with their “Hosanna!”, and thanksgiving, because in this Holy Week the Lord Jesus will renew the greatest gift we could possibly imagine: he will give us his life, his body and his blood, his love.

But we must respond worthily to so great a gift, that is to say, with the gift of ourselves, our time, our prayer, our entering into a profound communion of love with Christ who suffered, died and rose for us.

The early Church Fathers saw a symbol of all this in the gesture of the people who followed Jesus on his entry into Jerusalem, the gesture of spreading out their coats before the Lord. Before Christ – the Fathers said – we must spread out our lives, ourselves, in an attitude of gratitude and adoration.

As we conclude, let us listen once again to the words of one of these early Fathers, Saint Andrew, Bishop of Crete: “So it is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours. But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, or with the whole Christ … so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet … let us offer not palm branches but the prizes of victory to the conqueror of death. Today let us too give voice with the children to that sacred chant, as we wave the spiritual branches of our soul: ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel’” (PG 97, 994). Amen!