Pope Benedict’s 5th anniversary as Supreme Pontiff

Today is a wonderful day to celebrate: the 5th anniversary of the election of Pope Benedict XVI as the Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman Church.

The papacy of Benedict will be marked in history as one that attended to the recovery of the sacred and the beautiful. Recall some of the words he spoke at his inaugural Mass as Pontiff:

“It is really true: as we follow Christ in this mission to be fishers of men, we must bring men and women out of the sea that is salted with so many forms of alienation and onto the land of life, into the light of God. It is really so: 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.”

Pope Benedict XVI

Homily at the Mass for the Inauguration of the Pontificate, 2005