Pope Benedict XVI – Page 28

Leaning on the Master

I frequently
stand in awe of people who, like Pope Benedict, can draw my attention to the
essentials of faith, reason and culture. His audience on Wednesday where he
speaks about St. Bernard is one of these instances because he shows me the
beauty of St. Bernard, the purpose of theology study, life with the saints, and why we have to suffer some things for the Kingdom. For example, the Pope
offers a corrective in my work as a seminarian.

Here are a few germane sentences with emphasis added: In one place in the talk Pope says: “Faith is above all an
individual and intimate encounter with Jesus; it means experiencing His
closeness, His friendship and His love.” He continues “St. Bernard, solidly
based on the Bible and on the Fathers of the Church, reminds us that without a profound
faith in God, nourished by prayer and contemplation, by a profound relationship
with the Lord, our reflections on the divine mysteries risk becoming a futile
intellectual exercise, and lose their credibility. Theology takes us back to
the “science of the saints,” to their intuitions of the mysteries of
the living God, to their wisdom, gift of the Holy Spirit, which become the
point of reference for theological thought.”

And given that I think there’s much discussion
in a seminary work, sometimes too much discussion, I am leaning St. Bernard as
he says, “but perhaps He can be sought better and found more easily with
prayer than with discussion. We put an end here to the book, but not to the
search.”

(Pope Benedict XVI,
Wednesday General Audience, October 21, 2009)

Wayne Hellman & the Pope

In the mid-1990s when I was in formation at Bellarmine House and a student in St Louis, Missouri, I made the acquaintance of Conventual Franciscan Father Wayne Hellman. Father Wayne was a professor of Theology at Saint Louis University, St Louis, MO. I think he was also the Friar Guardian of the local Conventual Franciscan House (St Bonaventure’s Friary) and one of the nation’s experts in Saint Bonaventure’s theology.

Wayne was frequently perceived as a zaney Franciscan professor but an incredibly bright and sensitive man, one that you can easily approach. I enjoyed his company. Until reading about his encounter with the young Joseph Ratzinger, didn’t I realize the interest and scope of theological formation and how he started off. The pedigree of theologians is always of interest to me because I am interested in history and trajectory.

My friend David Miros sent me and a few others a striking story published in the Saint Louis University News of Father Wayne’s recent encounter with the Holy Father. Why is this striking to me and why should you read the story? Because it is a realization how the Holy Spirit works at the lowest and yet the most human of levels: the heart.

Pope Benedict XVI’s monthly prayer intentions for October 2009

The general intention

That Sundays may be lived as the day
on which Christians gather to celebrate the Risen Lord in the table of the
Eucharist

The missionary intention

That all the people of God, whom Christ has
commanded to go and preach the Gospel to every creature, may diligently fulfill
their missionary responsibility.

Love for Christ reawakened thru Luigi Giussani, Benedict XVI recalls

My first thought goes — it’s obvious — to your
founder Monsignor Luigi Giussani, to whom many memories tie me, since he had
become a true friend to me. Our last meeting, as Father Carrón mentioned, took
place in Milan Cathedral two years ago, when our beloved Pope John Paul II sent
me to preside at his solemn funeral.

Through him the Holy Spirit aroused in the
Church a movement — yours — that would witness the beauty of being Christians
in an epoch in which the opinion was spreading that Christianity was something
tiresome and oppressive to live. Father Giussani, then, set himself to reawaken
in the youth the love for Christ, the way, the truth and the life, repeating
that only he is the road toward the realization of the deepest desires of man’s
heart; and that Christ saves us not despite our humanity, but through it.

Pope
Benedict XVI, address to Communion and Liberation, March 25, 2007

Benedict reminds us to honor grandparents, & the elderly

I don’t think “grandparents day” in the Hallmark manner has hit the pope yet, but he did tell his listeners that grandparents are a central part of the family. The feast of Saints Joachim and Anne is the Church’s way of honoring grandparents seeing in Saints Joachim and Anne great models of what grandparents are to be for children and family systems. Pope Benedict’s remarks came within a reflection of the Sunday gospel where we heard Saint John’s narrative of the Multiplication of the loaves and fish. He asks THAT rather important question which we ask ourselves in front of Christ: who am I?

The Pontiff spoke about yesterday’s Gospel in which
Saint John narrates the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and in doing so
introduces the notion of priestly mediation and the sacrament of the Eucharist.
He said “It is as if the Eucharist were anticipated in the great sign of
the bread of life. In this Year for Priests, … we members of the clergy may
see ourselves reflected in this text of John’s, identifying ourselves with the
Apostles when they say: where are we going to find bread for these people to
eat? And when we read of that anonymous boy with his five barley loaves and two
fish, we too are moved to exclaim: But what are they among so many people? In
other words, who am I? How can I with my limitations help Jesus in His mission?
And it is the Lord Who provides the answer: By putting in his ‘saintly and
venerable’ hands the little they are, priests become instruments of salvation
for many people, for everyone!”

Considering the place of the family in
our society, the Pope mentioned Saints Joachim and Anne, parents of the Blessed
Virgin Mary and, hence, grandparents of Jesus, whose feast day was yesterday (see the blog entry below).
Since yesterday was Sunday, the Church didn’t observe the liturgical memorial
of these two rather important saints because Sunday ordinarily trumps the feast of saints. Careful observers of Benedict’s work will notice that he comes back to a constant theme with the vital importance his places on education in Church’s pastoral care program. Benedict XVI invited us “to pray for grandparents who, in families, are the depositories
and often witnesses of the fundamental values of life.” The educational
role of grandparents is always important, and it becomes even more important
when, for various reasons, parents are unable to ensure an adequate presence
alongside their children as they are growing”, the Pope added, entrusting
all the grandparents of the world to the protection of Saints Joachim and Anna. He also mentioned “all elderly
people, especially those who are alone or experiencing moments of difficulty.”

Caritas in Veritate

Pope Benedict’s 3rd encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, was published today. You may read it here. See the video clip about the pope’s new work.

“In Christ, charity in truth becomes the Face of his Person, a vocation for us to love our brothers and sisters in the truth of his plan. Indeed, he himself is the Truth.”

Today is also the 2nd anniversary of the publication of the Pope’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.

Pope signed off on the Charity in Truth

As expected, today the Pope signed off on his latest
encyclical, Charity in Truth. This latest work of the Pope’s is a social
catechesis that will address issues of concern for the poor, globalization,
solidarity with brothers and sisters. The work will be published soon (when the
translation can be settled on). It’s expected before the G8 meeting (hopefully
around July 6 or thereabouts).

The said in part introducing his work: “The publication of my third encyclical is
now near, which has the title Caritas in Veritate. Taking up the social themes
contained in Populorum Progressio, written by the Servant of God Paul VI in
1967, this document — which is dated precisely today, June 29th, the Solemnity
of the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul — aims to deepen a few aspects of
integral development in our age in the light of charity in truth. I entrust to
your prayers this new contribution that the Church offers to humanity in her
commitment for sustainable progress, in full respect for human dignity and
everyone’s real requirements.”

John
Allen’s article
on the forthcoming encyclical.

Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth): the Pope’s next encyclical

It’s expected that on June 29th the Pope will
publish his latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth).

Last week he said: “As you know, my encyclical on the
vast theme of economics and labor will soon be published. It will highlight
what, for us Christians, are the objectives to be pursued and the values to be
promoted and tirelessly defended, with the purpose of realising a truly free
and human coexistence in solidarity.”

Pope Benedict’s two previous encyclicals are Deus Caritas
Est (God is Love, 2005) and Spe Salvi (Saved by Hope, 2007).

It’s time to get excited because the Pope’s words are always germane.

Keep your relationship with God alive, even on vacation, pope said

Pope Benedict’s vacation advice from a recent general
audience: “We must set aside time in life for God, to open our life to God with
a thought, a meditation, a small prayer and not to forget Sunday is the day of
the Lord.” And in another place he said: “He who neglects contemplation is
deprived of the vision of the light of God; he who is carried away with worry
and allows his thoughts to be crushed by the tumult of the things of the world
is condemned to the absolute impossibility of penetrating the secrets of the
invisible God …While at work, with its frenetic rhythms, and during vacation,
we have to reserve moments for God. [We have to] open our lives up to him,
directing a thought to him, a reflection, a brief prayer. And above all, we
mustn’t forget that Sunday is the day of Our Lord, the day of the liturgy, [the
day] to perceive in the beauty of our churches, in the sacred music and in the
Word of God, the same beauty of our God, allowing him to enter into our being.
Only in this way is our life made great; it is truly made a life.”

Seized by Christ, Saint Padre Pio leads the way for renewal, Pope said

As part of the inaugural observances for the Year of the
Priest, Pope Benedict made a pilgrimage to and celebrated the Sacrifice of the Mass Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Graces at San Giovanni Rotondo, resting place of Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. In the days following the feast of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus and with devotion to Our Lady in mind, the Pope recalled that the fruit of Padre Pio’s close bond with the Sacred Heart of Christ and His mother, Mary, inspired him to found the House for the Relief of Suffering: “All his life and his apostolate took place under the maternal gaze of the Blessed Virgin and by the power of her intercession. Even the House for the Relief of Suffering he considered to be the work of Mary, ‘Health of the sick.'”

Born Francisco Forgione, at the age 23 the obscure Capuchin Franciscan friar was said to have received the gift of the sacred stigmata. On Saint Pio‘s hands and side the wounds were similar to the stigmata, or the wounds of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, according to Christian belief. The Pope proposed to us another model for priests by giving the example of this friar from Pietrelcina: “A simple man of humble origins, ‘seized by Christ‘ (Phil 3:12) … to make of him an elected instrument of the perennial power of his Cross: the power of love for souls, forgiveness and reconciliation, spiritual fatherhood, effective solidarity with the suffering. The stigmata, that marked his body, closely united him to the Crucified and Risen Christ.”

Relating today’s gospel with the life of Saint Pio, His
Holiness also said to the gathered faithful:

The solemn gesture of calming the stormy sea is clearly a
sign of the lordship of Christ over the negative powers and it induces us to think of His divinity: “Who is He – ask the disciples in wonder -that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mk 4:41). Their faith is not yet steadfast, it is taking shape, is a mixture of fear and trust; rather Jesus trusting abandonment to the Father is full and pure. This is why He sleeps during the storm, completely safe in the arms of God – but there will come a time when Jesus will feel anxiety and fear: When His time comes, He shall feel upon himself the whole weight of the sins of humanity, as a massive swell that is about to fall upon Him. Oh yes, that shall be a terrible storm, not a cosmic one, but a spiritual one. It will be Evil’s last, extreme assault against the Son of God…. In that hour, Jesus was on the one hand entirely One with the Father, fully given over to him – on the other, as in solidarity with sinners, He was
separated and He felt abandoned.

Remaining united to Jesus, [Padre Pio] always had his sights on the depths of the human drama, and this was why he offered his many sufferings, why he was able to spend himself in the care for and relief of the
sick – a privileged sign of God’s mercy, of his kingdom which is coming, indeed, which is already in the world, a sign of the victory of love and life over sin and death. Guide souls and relieving suffering: thus we can sum up the mission of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina: as the servant of God, Pope Paul VI said of him.”

At one point in his address the Benedict spoke to the
Franciscan friars and those connected with the spiritual groups linked to Saint Pio and anyone else, the Pope affirmed: “The risks of activism and secularization are always present, so my visit was also meant to confirm fidelity to the mission inherited from your beloved Father. Many of you, religious and laity, are so taken by the full duties required by the service to pilgrims, or the sick in the hospital, you run the risk of neglecting the real need: to listen to Christ to do the will of God. When you see that you are close to running this risk, look to Padre Pio: In his example, his sufferings, and invoke his intercession, because it obtains from the Lord the light and strength that you need to continue his mission soaked by love for God and fraternal charity.”

Following Mass, the Holy Father led the faithful in the Angelus prayer (the great prayer recalling the Incarnation) calling to mind Padre Pio’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Benedict remarked, “To the intercession of Our Lady and St Pio of Pietrelcina I would like to entrust the Special Year for Priests, which I opened last Friday on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. May it be a privileged opportunity to highlight the value of the mission and holiness of priests to serve the Church and humanity in the third millennium!”

Watch the video clip

Another video explaining more of Padre Pio’s life

Read the papal homily

Read the papal address to priests and youth