Love of neighbor, grounded in the love of God, is first and foremost, a responsibility for each individual member of the faithful... As a community, the Chuch must practice love.
The Church is God's family in the world. In this family no one ought to go without the necessities of life.
We contribute to a better world only by personally doing good now, with full commitment and wherever we have the oppertunity.
Pope Benedict XVI
"God is Love"
Showing posts with label benedict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label benedict. Show all posts
12 April 2009
21 December 2008
Peek-a-boo
God has become man. He has become a child. Thus he fulfills the great and mysterious promise to be Emmanuel: God-with us. Now he is no longer unreachable for anybody. God is Emmanuel. By becoming a child, he offers us the possibility of being on familiar terms with him.
I am reminded here of a rabbinical tale recorded by Elie Wiesel. He tells of Jehel, a little boy, who comes running into the room of his grandfather, the famous Rabbi Baruch. Big tears are rolling down his cheeks. And he cries, My friend has totally given up on me. He is very unfair and very mean to me. Well, could you explain this a little more? asks the master.
Okay, responds the little boy. We were playing hide and seek. I was hiding so well that he could not find me. But then he simply gave up and went home. Isn't that mean? The most exciting hiding place has lost its excitement because the other stops playing.
The master caresses the boy's face. He himself now has tears in his eyes. And he says, Yes, this is not nice. But look, it is the same way with God. He is in hiding, and we do not seek him. Just imagine! God is hiding, and we people do not even look for him.
In this little story a Christian is able to find the key to the ancient mystery of Christmas. God is in hiding. He waits for his creation to set out toward him, he waits for a new and willing Yes to come about, for love to arise as a new reality out of his creation. He waits for man.
Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI
I am reminded here of a rabbinical tale recorded by Elie Wiesel. He tells of Jehel, a little boy, who comes running into the room of his grandfather, the famous Rabbi Baruch. Big tears are rolling down his cheeks. And he cries, My friend has totally given up on me. He is very unfair and very mean to me. Well, could you explain this a little more? asks the master.
Okay, responds the little boy. We were playing hide and seek. I was hiding so well that he could not find me. But then he simply gave up and went home. Isn't that mean? The most exciting hiding place has lost its excitement because the other stops playing.
The master caresses the boy's face. He himself now has tears in his eyes. And he says, Yes, this is not nice. But look, it is the same way with God. He is in hiding, and we do not seek him. Just imagine! God is hiding, and we people do not even look for him.
In this little story a Christian is able to find the key to the ancient mystery of Christmas. God is in hiding. He waits for his creation to set out toward him, he waits for a new and willing Yes to come about, for love to arise as a new reality out of his creation. He waits for man.
Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI
19 December 2008
13 December 2008
Arrival...
"Advent" does not mean "expectation," as some may think. It is a translation of the Greek word parousia which means "presence" or, more accurately, "arrival,", i. e., the beginning of a presence. In antiquity the word was a technical term for the presence of a king or ruler and also for the god being worshiped, who bestows his parousia on his devotees for a time.
"Advent," then, means a presence begun, the presence being that of God. Advent reminds us, therefore, of two things: first, that God's presence in the world has already begun, that he is present though in a hidden manner; second, that his presence has only begun and is not yet full and complete, that it is in a state of development, of becoming and progressing toward its full form.
His presence has already begun, and we, the faithful, are the ones through whom he wishes to be present in the world. Through our faith, hope, and love he wants his light to shine over and over again in the night of the world.
That night is "today" whenever the "Word" becomes "flesh" or genuine human reality. The Christ child comes in a real sense whenever human beings act out of authentic love for the Lord.
Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI
"Advent," then, means a presence begun, the presence being that of God. Advent reminds us, therefore, of two things: first, that God's presence in the world has already begun, that he is present though in a hidden manner; second, that his presence has only begun and is not yet full and complete, that it is in a state of development, of becoming and progressing toward its full form.
His presence has already begun, and we, the faithful, are the ones through whom he wishes to be present in the world. Through our faith, hope, and love he wants his light to shine over and over again in the night of the world.
That night is "today" whenever the "Word" becomes "flesh" or genuine human reality. The Christ child comes in a real sense whenever human beings act out of authentic love for the Lord.
Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI
16 November 2008
Bend it...
“The Holy Spirit, wherever he breaks into our lives, always hinders the plans man makes.”~ Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, May 1998 (aka Pope Benedict XVI)
When everything seems like an interruption and you feel your life is suddenly, terribly off course, just remember God likes his people flexible. He is shouting, “Go with it.” (via the Windshield)
28 September 2008
In meetings, I meet me
Faith is not a magic formula. But it does give us the key to learning for ourselves. So that we can get answers and find out for ourselves who we are. It is always the case that a person first recognizes himself in others and through others. No one can arrive at knowledge of himself just by looking within himself and trying to build up his personality from what he finds there.
Man as a being is so constructed for relationships that he grows in relation to others. So that his own meaning, his tasks in life, his advancement in life, and his poetntial are unlocked in his meetings with others.
From the starting point of this basic structure of human existence we can understand faith and our meeting with Jesus. Faith is not just a system of knowledge, things we are told; at the heart of it is a meeting with Jesus
This meeting with Jesus, among all those other meetings we have need of, is the truly decisive one. All our other meetings leave the ultimate goal unclear, where we are coming from, where we are going. At our meeting with him the fundamental light dawns, by which I can understand God, man, the world, mission, and meaning - and by which all other meetings fall into place.
Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI
Man as a being is so constructed for relationships that he grows in relation to others. So that his own meaning, his tasks in life, his advancement in life, and his poetntial are unlocked in his meetings with others.
From the starting point of this basic structure of human existence we can understand faith and our meeting with Jesus. Faith is not just a system of knowledge, things we are told; at the heart of it is a meeting with Jesus
This meeting with Jesus, among all those other meetings we have need of, is the truly decisive one. All our other meetings leave the ultimate goal unclear, where we are coming from, where we are going. At our meeting with him the fundamental light dawns, by which I can understand God, man, the world, mission, and meaning - and by which all other meetings fall into place.
Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI
23 July 2008
Hello?
Why is God silent? Why does he withdraw? Why is it that just the opposite of what I wanted is happening? This distance between what Jesus promised and what we experience in our own lives makes you think, every time - it has that effect in each generation, for each single person, and even for me.
Each one of us has to struggle to work out an answer for himself, so that in the end he comes to understand why God has spoken to him precisely like that. Augustine and other great Christians say that God gives us what is best for us - even when we do not recognize this at first.
Often, we think that exactly the opposite of what he does would really be best for us. We have to learn to accept this path, which, on the basis of our experience and our suffering, is difficult for us, and to see it as the way in which God is guiding us. God's way is often a path that enormously reshapes and remolds our life, a path in which we are truly changed and straightened out.
To that extent, we have to say that this "Ask, and you will receive" certainly cannot mean that I can call God in as a handyman who will make my life easy ever time I want something. Or who will take away suffering and questioning. On the contrary, it means that God definitely hears me and what he grants me is, in the way known only to him, what is right for me.
God And The World
Pope Benedict XVI
Each one of us has to struggle to work out an answer for himself, so that in the end he comes to understand why God has spoken to him precisely like that. Augustine and other great Christians say that God gives us what is best for us - even when we do not recognize this at first.
Often, we think that exactly the opposite of what he does would really be best for us. We have to learn to accept this path, which, on the basis of our experience and our suffering, is difficult for us, and to see it as the way in which God is guiding us. God's way is often a path that enormously reshapes and remolds our life, a path in which we are truly changed and straightened out.
To that extent, we have to say that this "Ask, and you will receive" certainly cannot mean that I can call God in as a handyman who will make my life easy ever time I want something. Or who will take away suffering and questioning. On the contrary, it means that God definitely hears me and what he grants me is, in the way known only to him, what is right for me.
God And The World
Pope Benedict XVI
26 May 2008
God's Posse'
The institution of the most holy Eucharist on the evening before the Passion cannot be regarded as some more or less isolated cultic transaction. It is the making of a covenant and as such, is the concrete foundation of the new people: the people comes into being through its covenant relation to God.
We could also say that by his eucharistic action, Jesus draws the disciples into his relationship with God and, therefore, into his mission, which aims to reach "the many," the humanity of all places and of all times. These disciples become a "people" through communion with the Body and Blood of Jesus which is simultaneously communion with God.
The Old Testament theme of covenant, which Jesus incorporates into his preaching, receives a new center: communion with Christ's Body. It could be said that the people of the New Covenant takes its origin as people from the Body and Blood of Christ; solely in terms of this center does it have the status of a people.
We can call it "people of God" only because it is through communion with Christ that man gains access to a relationship with God that he cannot establish by his own power.
Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI
We could also say that by his eucharistic action, Jesus draws the disciples into his relationship with God and, therefore, into his mission, which aims to reach "the many," the humanity of all places and of all times. These disciples become a "people" through communion with the Body and Blood of Jesus which is simultaneously communion with God.
The Old Testament theme of covenant, which Jesus incorporates into his preaching, receives a new center: communion with Christ's Body. It could be said that the people of the New Covenant takes its origin as people from the Body and Blood of Christ; solely in terms of this center does it have the status of a people.
We can call it "people of God" only because it is through communion with Christ that man gains access to a relationship with God that he cannot establish by his own power.
Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI
18 May 2008
On the road again...
God brings Abraham out from among his family and sets him on certain path. When it comes down to it, everyone has to undergo his own exodus. He not only has to leave the place that nurtured him and become independent, but has to come out of his own reserved self.
He must leave himself behind, transcend his own limits; only then will he reach the Promised Land, so to speak - the sphere of freedom, in which he plays his part in creation. We have come to recognize this fundamental law of transcendence as being the essence of love.
And of course the act of one who loves me is an act of this type. He has to bring me out of the comfortable inclination to stay within myself. Isolation is contrary to man's inmost inclination. If isolation means not being loved, being abandoned, being alone on one's own, this situation is indeed the fear underlying all our fears.
Thus we can see again that man is constructed from within, in the image of God, to be loved and to love. At this point I believe we have to refer to man's being in the image of God.
God is love. The essence of love portrays its own nature in the Trinity. Man is in God's image, and thereby he is a being whose innermost dynamic is likewise directed toward the receiving and the giving of love.
Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI
He must leave himself behind, transcend his own limits; only then will he reach the Promised Land, so to speak - the sphere of freedom, in which he plays his part in creation. We have come to recognize this fundamental law of transcendence as being the essence of love.
And of course the act of one who loves me is an act of this type. He has to bring me out of the comfortable inclination to stay within myself. Isolation is contrary to man's inmost inclination. If isolation means not being loved, being abandoned, being alone on one's own, this situation is indeed the fear underlying all our fears.
Thus we can see again that man is constructed from within, in the image of God, to be loved and to love. At this point I believe we have to refer to man's being in the image of God.
God is love. The essence of love portrays its own nature in the Trinity. Man is in God's image, and thereby he is a being whose innermost dynamic is likewise directed toward the receiving and the giving of love.
Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI
29 April 2008
18 April 2008
It burns...
When Jesus talks about fire, he means in the first place his own Passion, which was a Passion of love and was therefore a fire; the new burning bush, which burns and is not consumed; a fire that is to be handed on.
Jesus does not come to make us comfortable; rather he sets fire to the earth; he brings the great living fire of divine love, which is what the Holy Spirit is, a fire that burns. In an apocryphal saying of Jesus that has been transmitted by Origen, he says: Whoever comes close to me comes close to the fire. Whoever comes close to him, accordingly, must be prepared to be burned.
It burns, yet this is not a destructive fire but one that makes things bright and pure and free and grand. Being a Christian, then, is daring to entrust oneself to this burning fire. Christ is the one who brings peace. And I would say that this is the saying that is preeminent and determinative.
But we only properly comprehend this peace that Christ brings if we do not understand it in banal fashion as a way of cheating one's way out of pain, or out of the truth and the conflicts that truth brings with it.
If the Church simply aims to avoid conflict, merely to ensure that no disturbances arise anywhere, then her real message can no longer make any impact. For this message is in fact there precisely in order to conflict with our behavior, to tear man out of his life of lies and to bring clarity and truth. Truth does not come cheap. It makes demands, and it also burns.
Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI
Jesus does not come to make us comfortable; rather he sets fire to the earth; he brings the great living fire of divine love, which is what the Holy Spirit is, a fire that burns. In an apocryphal saying of Jesus that has been transmitted by Origen, he says: Whoever comes close to me comes close to the fire. Whoever comes close to him, accordingly, must be prepared to be burned.
It burns, yet this is not a destructive fire but one that makes things bright and pure and free and grand. Being a Christian, then, is daring to entrust oneself to this burning fire. Christ is the one who brings peace. And I would say that this is the saying that is preeminent and determinative.
But we only properly comprehend this peace that Christ brings if we do not understand it in banal fashion as a way of cheating one's way out of pain, or out of the truth and the conflicts that truth brings with it.
If the Church simply aims to avoid conflict, merely to ensure that no disturbances arise anywhere, then her real message can no longer make any impact. For this message is in fact there precisely in order to conflict with our behavior, to tear man out of his life of lies and to bring clarity and truth. Truth does not come cheap. It makes demands, and it also burns.
Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI
16 April 2008
03 April 2008
Do you hear what I'm saying?
"You applaud, even though you don't understand me," quipped Pope John Paul II during a mass in Central Park, New York City after he recited a prayer in Polish to the applauding English-speaking crowd (October, 1995).
Will it happen again in two weeks?
Even if Benedict speaks in crystal clear English - will they hear? Will they understand? And will they clap for it?
Or will they just clap?
Will it happen again in two weeks?
Even if Benedict speaks in crystal clear English - will they hear? Will they understand? And will they clap for it?
Or will they just clap?
17 March 2008
16 March 2008
My God's bigger than your.... death?
Passover was celebrated at home. Jesus did this too. But after the meal he got up and went out, and he overstepped the bounds of the law by going beyond the Brook Kidron which marked the boundary of Jerusalem.
He went out into the night. He did not fear the chaos, did not hide from it, but plunged into its deepest point, into the jaws of death: as we pray, he "descended into hell". Faith always means going out together with Jesus, not being afraid of the chaos, because he is the stronger one. He "went out" and we go out with him if we do the same.
Faith means emerging from the walls to build places of faith and of love in the midst of the chaotic world by the power of Jesus Christ. The Lord "went out" - it is a sign of his power. He went out into the night of Gethsemane, the night of the cross and the grave. He is the "stronger man" who stands up against the "strong man" - death.
The love of God - God's power - is stronger than the powers of destruction. So this very "going out," this setting out on the path of the Passion, when Jesus steps outside the boundary of the protective walls of the city, is a gesture of victory. The mystery of Gethsemane already holds within it the mystery of Easter joy. Jesus is the "stronger man."
There is no power that can withstand him now; no place where he is not to be found. He summons us to dare to accompany him on his path; for where faith and love are, he is there, and the power of peace is there which overcomes nothingness and death.
Benedictus
Benedict XVI
He went out into the night. He did not fear the chaos, did not hide from it, but plunged into its deepest point, into the jaws of death: as we pray, he "descended into hell". Faith always means going out together with Jesus, not being afraid of the chaos, because he is the stronger one. He "went out" and we go out with him if we do the same.
Faith means emerging from the walls to build places of faith and of love in the midst of the chaotic world by the power of Jesus Christ. The Lord "went out" - it is a sign of his power. He went out into the night of Gethsemane, the night of the cross and the grave. He is the "stronger man" who stands up against the "strong man" - death.
The love of God - God's power - is stronger than the powers of destruction. So this very "going out," this setting out on the path of the Passion, when Jesus steps outside the boundary of the protective walls of the city, is a gesture of victory. The mystery of Gethsemane already holds within it the mystery of Easter joy. Jesus is the "stronger man."
There is no power that can withstand him now; no place where he is not to be found. He summons us to dare to accompany him on his path; for where faith and love are, he is there, and the power of peace is there which overcomes nothingness and death.
Benedictus
Benedict XVI
11 March 2008
pope
is he at leisure, maybe reading?at work, maybe writing or signing some document?
at prayer?
is there a difference?
does it matter?
09 March 2008
Not your Grandma's Jesus....
A Jesus who agrees with everyone and everything, a Jesus without his holy anger, without the hardness of truth and genuine love is no the real Jesus as he is depicted in the Scriptures, but a pitiable caricature. A concept of "Gospel" that fails to convey the reality of God's anger has nothing to do with the Gospel of the Bible.
True forgiveness is something quite different from weak indulgence. Forgiveness is demanding and requires both parities, the one who forgives and the one who is forgiven, to do so with all their minds and hearts. A Jesus who sanctions everything is a Jesus without the cross, for such a Jesus would not need the torment of the cross to save mankind.
As a matter of fact, the cross in being increasingly banished from theology and reinterpreted as just a vexatious mischance of a purely political event. The cross as reconciliation, as a means of forgiving and saving, is incompatible with a certain modern mode of thought. Only when the relationship between truth and love is rightly comprehended can the cross be comprehensible in its true theological depth.
Forgiveness has to do with truth. That is why it requires the Son's cross and our conversion.
Forgiveness is, in act, the restoration of truth, the renewal of being, and the amusement of the lies that lurk in every sin; sin is by nature a departure from the truth of one's own nature and, by consequence, from the truth of the Creator God.
Benedictus
Benedict XVI
True forgiveness is something quite different from weak indulgence. Forgiveness is demanding and requires both parities, the one who forgives and the one who is forgiven, to do so with all their minds and hearts. A Jesus who sanctions everything is a Jesus without the cross, for such a Jesus would not need the torment of the cross to save mankind.
As a matter of fact, the cross in being increasingly banished from theology and reinterpreted as just a vexatious mischance of a purely political event. The cross as reconciliation, as a means of forgiving and saving, is incompatible with a certain modern mode of thought. Only when the relationship between truth and love is rightly comprehended can the cross be comprehensible in its true theological depth.
Forgiveness has to do with truth. That is why it requires the Son's cross and our conversion.
Forgiveness is, in act, the restoration of truth, the renewal of being, and the amusement of the lies that lurk in every sin; sin is by nature a departure from the truth of one's own nature and, by consequence, from the truth of the Creator God.
Benedictus
Benedict XVI
11 February 2008
He's h-e-r-e!
"God does not abandon us...his love comes to us where we are, with our misery and our weakness, to offer us a new possibility of goodness."
Papa Bene - Letter to Romans on Education
Papa Bene - Letter to Romans on Education
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