BENEDICT XVI'S CHRISTMAS MESSAGE

BENEDICT XVI'S CHRISTMAS MESSAGE


"May the Birth of the Savior Open Horizons of Lasting Peace"

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 25, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of Benedict XVI's Christmas message, which he gave today at noon from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, and before he imparted his traditional blessing "urbi et orbi" (to the city of Rome and the world).

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Verbum caro factum est" – "The Word became flesh" (Jn 1:14).

Dear brothers and sisters listening to me here in Rome and throughout the world, I joyfully proclaim the message of Christmas: God became man; he came to dwell among us. God is not distant: he is "Emmanuel", God-with-us. He is no stranger: he has a face, the face of Jesus.

This message is ever new, ever surprising, for it surpasses even our most daring hope. First of all, because it is not merely a proclamation: it is an event, a happening, which credible witnesses saw, heard and touched in the person of Jesus of Nazareth! Being in his presence, observing his works and hearing his words, they recognized in Jesus the Messiah; and seeing him risen, after his crucifixion, they were certain that he was true man and true God, the only-begotten Son come from the Father, full of grace and truth (cf. Jn 1:14).

"The Word became flesh". Before this revelation we once more wonder: how can this be? The Word and the flesh are mutually opposed realities; how can the eternal and almighty Word become a frail and mortal man? There is only one answer: Love. Those who love desire to share with the beloved, they want to be one with the beloved, and Sacred Scripture shows us the great love story of God for his people which culminated in Jesus Christ.

God in fact does not change: he is faithful to himself. He who created the world is the same one who called Abraham and revealed his name to Moses: "I am who I am … the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob … a God merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (cf. Ex 3:14-15; 34:6). God does not change; he is Love, ever and always. In himself he is communion, unity in Trinity, and all his words and works are directed to communion. The Incarnation is the culmination of creation. When Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, was formed in the womb of Mary by the will of the Father and the working of the Holy Spirit, creation reached its high point. The ordering principle of the universe, the Logos, began to exist in the world, in a certain time and space.

"The Word became flesh". The light of this truth is revealed to those who receive it in faith, for it is a mystery of love. Only those who are open to love are enveloped in the light of Christmas. So it was on that night in Bethlehem, and so it is today. The Incarnation of the Son of God is an event which occurred within history, while at the same time transcending history. In the night of the world a new light was kindled, one which lets itself be seen by the simple eyes of faith, by the meek and humble hearts of those who await the Saviour. If the truth were a mere mathematical formula, in some sense it would impose itself by its own power. But if Truth is Love, it calls for faith, for the "yes" of our hearts.

And what do our hearts, in effect, seek, if not a Truth which is also Love? Children seek it with their questions, so disarming and stimulating; young people seek it in their eagerness to discover the deepest meaning of their life; adults seek it in order to guide and sustain their commitments in the family and the workplace; the elderly seek it in order to grant completion to their earthly existence.

"The Word became flesh". The proclamation of Christmas is also a light for all peoples, for the collective journey of humanity. "Emmanuel", God-with-us, has come as King of justice and peace. We know that his Kingdom is not of this world, and yet it is more important than all the kingdoms of this world. It is like the leaven of humanity: were it lacking, the energy to work for true development would flag: the impulse to work together for the common good, in the disinterested service of our neighbour, in the peaceful struggle for justice. Belief in the God who desired to share in our history constantly encourages us in our own commitment to that history, for all its contradictions. It is a source of hope for everyone whose dignity is offended and violated, since the one born in Bethlehem came to set every man and woman free from the source of all enslavement.

May the light of Christmas shine forth anew in the Land where Jesus was born, and inspire Israelis and Palestinians to strive for a just and peaceful coexistence. May the comforting message of the coming of Emmanuel ease the pain and bring consolation amid their trials to the beloved Christian communities in Iraq and throughout the Middle East; may it bring them comfort and hope for the future and bring the leaders of nations to show them effective solidarity. May it also be so for those in Haiti who still suffer in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and the recent cholera epidemic. May the same hold true not only for those in Colombia and Venezuela, but also in Guatemala and Costa Rica, who recently suffered natural disasters.

May the birth of the Savior open horizons of lasting peace and authentic progress for the peoples of Somalia, Darfur and Côte d’Ivoire; may it promote political and social stability in Madagascar; may it bring security and respect for human rights in Afghanistan and in Pakistan; may it encourage dialogue between Nicaragua and Costa Rica; and may it advance reconciliation on the Korean peninsula.

May the birth of the Savior strengthen the spirit of faith, patience and courage of the faithful of the Church in mainland China, that they may not lose heart through the limitations imposed on their freedom of religion and conscience but, persevering in fidelity to Christ and his Church, may keep alive the flame of hope. May the love of "God-with-us" grant perseverance to all those Christian communities enduring discrimination and persecution, and inspire political and religious leaders to be committed to full respect for the religious freedom of all.

Dear brothers and sisters, "the Word became flesh"; he came to dwell among us; he is Emmanuel, the God who became close to us. Together let us contemplate this great mystery of love; let our hearts be filled with the light which shines in the stable of Bethlehem! To everyone, a Merry Christmas!

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

BENEDICT XVI'S CHRISTMAS EVE HOMILY

BENEDICT XVI'S CHRISTMAS EVE HOMILY


"In the Weakness of Infancy, He Is the Mighty God"

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 24, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the homily Benedict XVI gave at tonight's Christmas Eve Mass, celebrated in St. Peter's Basilica.
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Dear Brothers and Sisters!
"You are my son, this day I have begotten you" – with this passage from Psalm 2 the Church begins the liturgy of this holy night. She knows that this passage originally formed part of the coronation rite of the kings of Israel. The king, who in himself is a man like others, becomes the "Son of God" through being called and installed in his office. It is a kind of adoption by God, a decisive act by which he grants a new existence to this man, drawing him into his own being. The reading from the prophet Isaiah that we have just heard presents the same process even more clearly in a situation of hardship and danger for Israel: "To us a child is born, to us a son is given. The government will be upon his shoulder" (Is 9:6). Installation in the office of king is like a second birth. As one newly born through God’s personal choice, as a child born of God, the king embodies hope. On his shoulders the future rests. He is the bearer of the promise of peace. On that night in Bethlehem this prophetic saying came true in a way that would still have been unimaginable at the time of Isaiah. Yes indeed, now it really is a child on whose shoulders government is laid. In him the new kingship appears that God establishes in the world. This child is truly born of God. It is God’s eternal Word that unites humanity with divinity. To this child belong those titles of honour which Isaiah’s coronation song attributes to him: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Is 9:6). Yes, this king does not need counsellors drawn from the wise of this world. He bears in himself God’s wisdom and God’s counsel. In the weakness of infancy, he is the mighty God and he shows us God’s own might in contrast to the self-asserting powers of this world.
Truly, the words of Israel’s coronation rite were only ever rites of hope which looked ahead to a distant future that God would bestow. None of the kings who were greeted in this way lived up to the sublime content of these words. In all of them, those words about divine sonship, about installation into the heritage of the peoples, about making the ends of the earth their possession (Ps 2:8) were only pointers towards what was to come – as it were signposts of hope indicating a future that at that moment was still beyond comprehension. Thus the fulfilment of the prophecy, which began that night in Bethlehem, is both infinitely greater and in worldly terms smaller than the prophecy itself might lead one to imagine. It is greater in the sense that this child is truly the Son of God, truly "God from God, light from light, begotten not made, of one being with the Father". The infinite distance between God and man is overcome. God has not only bent down, as we read in the Psalms; he has truly "come down", he has come into the world, he has become one of us, in order to draw all of us to himself. This child is truly Emmanuel – God-with-us. His kingdom truly stretches to the ends of the earth. He has truly built islands of peace in the world-encompassing breadth of the holy Eucharist. Wherever it is celebrated, an island of peace arises, of God’s own peace. This child has ignited the light of goodness in men and has given them strength to overcome the tyranny of might. This child builds his kingdom in every generation from within, from the heart. But at the same time it is true that the "rod of his oppressor" is not yet broken, the boots of warriors continue to tramp and the "garment rolled in blood" (Is 9:4f) still remains. So part of this night is simply joy at God’s closeness. We are grateful that God gives himself into our hands as a child, begging as it were for our love, implanting his peace in our hearts. But this joy is also a prayer: Lord, make your promise come fully true. Break the rods of the oppressors. Burn the tramping boots. Let the time of the garments rolled in blood come to an end. Fulfil the prophecy that "of peace there will be no end" (Is 9:7). We thank you for your goodness, but we also ask you to show forth your power. Establish the dominion of your truth and your love in the world – the "kingdom of righteousness, love and peace".
"Mary gave birth to her first-born son" (Lk 2:7). In this sentence Saint Luke recounts quite soberly the great event to which the prophecies from Israel’s history had pointed. Luke calls the child the "first-born". In the language which developed within the sacred Scripture of the Old Covenant, "first-born" does not mean the first of a series of children. The word "first-born" is a title of honour, quite independently of whether other brothers and sisters follow or not. So Israel is designated by God in the Book of Exodus (4:22) as "my first-born Son", and this expresses Israel’s election, its singular dignity, the particular love of God the Father. The early Church knew that in Jesus this saying had acquired a new depth, that the promises made to Israel were summed up in him. Thus the Letter to the Hebrews calls Jesus "the first-born", simply in order to designate him as the Son sent into the world by God (cf. 1:5-7) after the ground had been prepared by Old Testament prophecy. The first-born belongs to God in a special way – and therefore he had to be handed over to God in a special way – as in many religions – and he had to be ransomed through a vicarious sacrifice, as Saint Luke recounts in the episode of the Presentation in the Temple. The first-born belongs to God in a special way, and is as it were destined for sacrifice. In Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross this destiny of the first-born is fulfilled in a unique way. In his person he brings humanity before God and unites man with God in such a way that God becomes all in all. Saint Paul amplified and deepened the idea of Jesus as first-born in the Letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians: Jesus, we read in these letters, is the first-born of all creation – the true prototype of man, according to which God formed the human creature. Man can be the image of God because Jesus is both God and man, the true image of God and of man. Furthermore, as these letters tell us, he is the first-born from the dead. In the resurrection he has broken down the wall of death for all of us. He has opened up to man the dimension of eternal life in fellowship with God. Finally, it is said to us that he is the first-born of many brothers. Yes indeed, now he really is the first of a series of brothers and sisters: the first, that is, who opens up for us the possibility of communing with God. He creates true brotherhood – not the kind defiled by sin as in the case of Cain and Abel, or Romulus and Remus, but the new brotherhood in which we are God’s own family. This new family of God begins at the moment when Mary wraps her first-born in swaddling clothes and lays him in a manger. Let us pray to him: Lord Jesus, who wanted to be born as the first of many brothers and sisters, grant us the grace of true brotherhood. Help us to become like you. Help us to recognize your face in others who need our assistance, in those who are suffering or forsaken, in all people, and help us to live together with you as brothers and sisters, so as to become one family, your family.
At the end of the Christmas Gospel, we are told that a great heavenly host of angels praised God and said: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!" (Lk 2:14). The Church has extended this song of praise, which the angels sang in response to the event of the holy night, into a hymn of joy at God’s glory – "we praise you for your glory". We praise you for the beauty, for the greatness, for the goodness of God, which becomes visible to us this night. The appearing of beauty, of the beautiful, makes us happy without our having to ask what use it can serve. God’s glory, from which all beauty derives, causes us to break out in astonishment and joy. Anyone who catches a glimpse of God experiences joy, and on this night we see something of his light. But the angels’ message on that holy night also spoke of men: "Peace among men with whom he is pleased". The Latin translation of the angels’ song that we use in the liturgy, taken from Saint Jerome, is slightly different: "peace to men of good will". The expression "men of good will" has become an important part of the Church’s vocabulary in recent decades. But which is the correct translation? We must read both texts together; only in this way do we truly understand the angels’ song. It would be a false interpretation to see this exclusively as the action of God, as if he had not called man to a free response of love. But it would be equally mistaken to adopt a moralizing interpretation as if man were so to speak able to redeem himself by his good will. Both elements belong together: grace and freedom, God’s prior love for us, without which we could not love him, and the response that he awaits from us, the response that he asks for so palpably through the birth of his son. We cannot divide up into independent entities the interplay of grace and freedom, or the interplay of call and response. The two are inseparably woven together. So this part of the angels’ message is both promise and call at the same time. God has anticipated us with the gift of his Son. God anticipates us again and again in unexpected ways. He does not cease to search for us, to raise us up as often as we might need. He does not abandon the lost sheep in the wilderness into which it had strayed. God does not allow himself to be confounded by our sin. Again and again he begins afresh with us. But he is still waiting for us to join him in love. He loves us, so that we too may become people who love, so that there may be peace on earth.
Saint Luke does not say that the angels sang. He states quite soberly: the heavenly host praised God and said: "Glory to God in the highest" (Lk 2:13f.). But men have always known that the speech of angels is different from human speech, and that above all on this night of joyful proclamation it was in song that they extolled God’s heavenly glory. So this angelic song has been recognized from the earliest days as music proceeding from God, indeed, as an invitation to join in the singing with hearts filled with joy at the fact that we are loved by God. Cantare amantis est, says Saint Augustine: singing belongs to one who loves. Thus, down the centuries, the angels’ song has again and again become a song of love and joy, a song of those who love. At this hour, full of thankfulness, we join in the singing of all the centuries, singing that unites heaven and earth, angels and men. Yes, indeed, we praise you for your glory. We praise you for your love. Grant that we may join with you in love more and more and thus become people of peace. Amen.

ON CHRISTMAS: WHERE EVERYTHING BEGAN

ON CHRISTMAS: WHERE EVERYTHING BEGAN

"May the Christ Child Find All of Us Spiritually Prepared"


VATICAN CITY, DEC. 22, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience in Paul VI Hall.
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Dear Brothers and Sisters,
With this last audience before the Christmas celebrations, tremulous and full of astonishment, we approach the "place" where everything began for us and for our salvation, where everything found its fulfillment, where the hopes of the world and of the human heart met and interlaced with the presence of God.
We can already have a foretaste of the joy awakened by the little light that is perceived, which from the grotto of Bethlehem begins to radiate in the world. In the Advent journey, which the liturgy has invited us to live, we have been prepared to receive readily and gratefully the great event of the coming of the Savior, to contemplate in wonder his entrance in the world.
Joyful hope, characteristic of the days that precede Holy Christmas, is certainly the essential attitude of the Christian who desires to live fruitfully the renewed encounter with him who comes to dwell in our midst: Christ Jesus, the Son of God made man. We find this disposition of the heart again, and make it our own, in those who first welcomed the coming of the Messiah: Zachariah and Elizabeth, the shepherds, the simple folk, and especially Mary and Joseph, who themselves felt the tremor, but above all the joy over the mystery of this birth.
The whole of the Old Testament is one great promise, which would be realized with the coming of a powerful Savior. The book of the Prophet Isaiah is a particular witness of this, as it speaks to us of the sufferings of history and of the whole of creation for a redemption destined to give back new energies and a new orientation to the whole world. Thus, next to the expectation of the personalities of sacred Scripture, our hope also finds space and meaning through the centuries, a hope which we are experiencing these days and which keeps us going during the whole of our life's journey. In fact, the whole of human existence is animated by this profound sentiment, by the desire that what is most true, most beautiful and greatest, which we have perceived and intuited with our mind and heart, can come to meet us and become concrete before our eyes and raise us again.
"Behold, the omnipotent Lord is coming: He will be called Emmanuel, 'God-with-us'" (Entrance Antiphon, Holy Mass of Dec. 21). During these days, we repeat these words often. In the time of the liturgy, which again actualizes the Mystery, he who is coming to save us from sin and death is already at the door, he who, after Adam's and Eve's disobedience, embraces us again and opens to us access to true life.
St. Irenaeus explains it in his treatise "Against the Heresies," when he states: "The Son of God himself descended 'in the likeness of sinful flesh' (Romans 8:3) to condemn sin and, after having condemned it, exclude it completely from the human race. He called man to likeness with himself, he made him imitator of God, he set him on the path indicated by the Father so that he could see God, and give him as gift to the Father himself" (III, 20, 2-3).
We see some of St. Irenaeus' favorite ideas, that God with the Child Jesus calls us to likeness with himself. We see how God is, and are thus reminded that we should be like God. That we must imitate him. God has given himself, God has given himself into our hands. We must imitate God. And finally, the idea that in this way we can see God. A central idea of St. Irenaeus: Man does not see God, he cannot see him, and so he is in darkness about the truth of himself. However man, who cannot see God, can see Jesus, and so he sees God, and begins to see the truth and thus begins to live.
Hence the Savior comes to reduce to impotence the work of evil and all that which can still keep us away from God, to restore to us the ancient splendor and primitive paternity. With his coming among us, he indicates to us and also assigns to us a task: precisely that we be like him and that we tend toward true life, to come to the vision of God in the face of Christ. St. Irenaeus affirms again: "The Word of God made his dwelling among men and made himself Son of man, to accustom man to understand God and to accustom God to dwell in man according to the will of the Father. That is why God gave us as 'sign' of our salvation him who, born of the Virgin, is the Emmanuel" (ibid.). Here also there is a very beautiful central idea of St. Irenaeus: We must accustom ourselves to perceive God. God is generally distant from our lives, from our ideas, from our action. He has come to us and we must accustom ourselves to be with God. And, audaciously, Irenaeus dares to say that God must also accustom himself to be with us and in us. And that God perhaps should accompany us at Christmas, accustom ourselves to God, as God must accustom himself to us, to our poverty and frailty. Hence, the coming of the Lord can have no objective other than to teach us to see and love events, the world, and everything that surrounds us with the very eyes of God. The Word-become-a-child helps us to understand God's way of acting, so that we will be capable of allowing ourselves to be transformed increasingly by his goodness and his infinite mercy.
In the night of the world, we must let ourselves be amazed and illumined by this act of God, which is totally unexpected: God becomes a Child. We must let ourselves be amazed, illumined by the Star that inundated the universe with joy. May the Child Jesus, in coming to us, not find us unprepared, busy only in making the exterior reality more beautiful and attractive. May the care we give to making our streets and homes more resplendent impel us even more to predispose our soul to encounter him who will come to visit us. Let us purify our conscience and our life of what is contrary to this coming: thoughts, words, attitudes and deeds -- impelling us to do good and to contribute to bring about in our world peace and justice for every man and thus walk toward our encounter with the Lord.
A characteristic sign of Christmastide is the nativity scene. Also in St. Peter's Square, in keeping with custom, it is almost ready and appears ideally over Rome and over the whole world, representing the beauty of the Mystery of God who became man and dwelt among us (cf. John 1:14). The crib is an expression of our expectation that God will come close to us, that Jesus will come close to us, but also thanksgiving for him who decided to share our human condition, in poverty and simplicity. I am happy because the tradition of preparing the crib in homes, in workplaces, in meeting places, remains alive and is even being rediscovered. May this genuine witness of Christian faith be able to offer also today for all men of good will an eloquent icon of the infinite love of the Father for us all. May the hearts of children and adults still be able to be amazed before him.
Dear brothers and sisters, may the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph help us to live the Mystery of Christmas with renewed gratitude to the Lord. In the midst of the frenetic activity of our days, may this time give us some calm and joy and enable us to touch with our hand the goodness of our God, who became a Child to save us and to give new encouragement and light on our journey. This is my wish for a holy and happy Christmas: I address it affectionately to all of you here present, to your families, in particular to the sick and the suffering, as well as to your communities and your loved ones.
[Translation by ZENIT]
[The Holy Father then greeted pilgrims in several languages. In English, he said:]
In these last days before Christmas, the Church invites us to contemplate the mystery of Christ's Birth and to receive the gift of his presence, which is the fulfillment of humanity's deepest hopes and expectations. We share in the quiet joy which filled the hearts of Mary and Joseph, and all those who first welcomed the promised Savior, who is Emmanuel, God-with-us. By taking our flesh, the Lord saved us from the sin of our first parents; now he bids us to become like him, to see the world through his eyes and to let our hearts be transformed by his infinite goodness and mercy. This Christmas, may the Christ Child find all of us spiritually prepared for his coming. The traditional Christmas crib, which families prepare in these days, is an eloquent sign of our expectation of the Lord who comes. May the wonderment that the crib evokes in children and adults alike bring us closer to the mystery of God's love revealed in the incarnation of his beloved Son. Let us ask the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph to help us contemplate this great mystery with renewed joy and gratitude.
I offer a warm welcome to the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at today's Audience. To all of you, and especially the children, I offer my heartfelt wishes for a serene and joy-filled Christmas!
© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
[In Italian, he greeted the youth, sick and newlyweds present:]
I wish, then, to greet young people, the sick and newlyweds. Just a few days before the solemnity of Christmas, may the love that God manifests to humanity in the birth of Christ, make grow in you, dear young people, the desire to serve your brothers generously. May it be for you, dear sick, a source of comfort and serenity because the Lord is coming to visit you, bringing consolation and hope. May it inspire you, dear newlyweds, to consolidate your promise of love and mutual fidelity.
[Translation by ZENIT]

On St. Veronica Giuliani

ON ST. VERONICA GIULIANI


"She Interpreted Everything in a Key of Love"

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 15, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience in Paul VI Hall.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I would like to present a mystic who is not of the Medieval Age; it is St. Veronica Giuliani, a Capuchin Poor Clare. The reason is that Dec. 27 is the 350th anniversary of her birth. Citta di Castello, the place where she lived the longest and where she died, as well as Mercatello -- her native country -- and the Diocese of Urbino celebrate this event joyfully.

Veronica was born precisely on Dec. 27, 1660, in Mercatello, in the valley of Metauro, to Francesco Giuliani and Benedetta Mancini. She was the last of seven sisters, an additional three of whom embraced the monastic life. She was given the name Ursula. She lost her mother at 7, and her father moved to Piacenza as superintendent of customs of the duchy of Parma. In this city, Ursula felt a growing desire to dedicate her life to Christ. The call was ever more pressing, so much so that at 17 she entered the strict cloister of the monastery of the Capuchin Poor Clares of Citta di Castello, where she would remain the whole of her life.

There she received the name Veronica, which means "true image," and, in fact, she would become a true image of Christ Crucified. A year later she made her solemn religious profession. The journey began for her configuration to Christ through much penance, great suffering and certain mystical experiences linked with the Passion of Jesus: the crowning of thorns, the mystical espousal, the wound in her heart and the stigmata. In 1716, at 56, she became abbess of the monastery and was confirmed in this role until her death, which occurred in 1727, after a most painful agony of 33 days that culminated in a profound joy, so much so that her last words were: "I have found Love, Love has allowed Himself to be seen! This is the cause of my suffering. Tell it to everyone, tell it to everyone!" (Summarium Beatificationis, 115-120).

She left her earthly dwelling on July 9 for her encounter with God. She was 67 years old; 50 of those years she spent in the monastery of Citta di Castello. She was proclaimed a saint on May 26, 1893, by Pope Gregory XVI.

Veronica Giuliani wrote much: letters, autobiographical reports, poems. However, the main source to reconstruct her thought is her "Diary," begun in 1693: a good 22,000 handwritten pages, which cover an expanse of 34 years of cloistered life. The writing flows spontaneously and continuously. There are no cancellations or corrections, punctuation marks or distribution of the material in chapters or parts according to a pre-established plan. Veronica did not wish to compose a literary work; instead, she was obliged to put her experiences into writing by Father Girolamo Bastianelli, a religious of the Filippini, in agreement with the diocesan bishop Antonio Eustachi.

St. Veronica has a markedly Christ-centered and spousal spirituality: Hers is the experience of being loved by Christ, the faithful and sincere Spouse, and of wanting to correspond with an ever more involved and impassioned love. She interpreted everything in a key of love, and this infuses in her a profound serenity. Everything is lived in union with Christ, for love of him, and with the joy of being able to demonstrate to him all the love of which a creature is capable.

The Christ to whom Veronica is profoundly united is the suffering Christ of the passion, death and resurrection; it is Jesus in the act of offering himself to the Father to save us. From this experience derives also the intense and suffering love for the Church, and the twofold way of prayer and offering. The saint lived from this point of view: She prays, suffers, seeks "holy poverty," as "dispossessed," loss of self (cf. ibid., III, 523), precisely to be like Christ, who gave his whole self.

In every page of her writings Veronica entrusts someone to the Lord, strengthening her prayers of intercession with the offering of herself in every suffering. Her heart dilated to all "the needs of the Holy Church," living with longing the desire of the salvation of "the whole world" (ibid., III-IV, passim).

Veronica cried out: "O sinners ... come to Jesus' heart; come to the cleansing of his most precious blood ... he awaits you with open arms to embrace you" (Ibid., II, 16-17). Animated by an ardent charity, she gave care, understanding and forgiveness to the sisters of the monastery. She offered her prayers and sacrifices for the Pope, her bishop, priests and for all needy persons, including the souls in Purgatory. She summarized her contemplative mission in these words: "We cannot go preaching around the world to convert souls, but we are obliged to pray continually for all those souls who are offending God ... particularly with our sufferings, that is with a principle of crucified life" (Ibid., IV, 877). Our saint conceived this mission as a "being in the middle" between men and God, between sinners and Christ Crucified.

Veronica profoundly lived participation in the suffering love of Jesus, certain that "to suffer with joy" is the "key of love" (cf. ibid., I, 299.417; III, 330.303.871;IV, 192). She evidences that Jesus suffers for men's sins, but also for the sufferings that his faithful servants had to endure in the course of the centuries, in the time of the Church, precisely because of their solid and coherent faith. She wrote: "The Eternal Father made him see and feel at that point all the sufferings that his elect would have to endure, his dearest souls, that is, those who would know how to benefit from his Blood and from all his sufferings" (ibid., II, 170). As the Apostle Paul says of himself: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church" (Colossians 1:24).

Veronica even asks Jesus to be crucified with him. "In an instant," she wrote, "I saw issue from his most holy wounds five shining rays; and all came to my face. And I saw these rays become as little flames. In four of them were the nails; and in one of them was the lance, as of gold, all red hot: and it pierced my heart, from one side to the other ... and the nails went through the hands and feet. I felt great pain; but, in the very pain I saw myself, I felt myself all transformed in God" (Diary, I, 897).

The saint was convinced she was participating already in the Kingdom of God, but at the same time she invoked all the saints of the Blessed Homeland to come to her aid on the earthly journey of her self-giving, while awaiting eternal blessedness; this was the constant aspiration of her life (cf. ibid., II, 909; V, 246). In regard to preaching of the time, not rarely centered on "saving one's soul" in individual terms, Veronica shows a strong "sense of solidarity," a sense of communion with all brothers and sisters on the way to heaven, and she lives, prays and suffers for all. The earthly, penultimate things, instead, although appreciated in the Franciscan sense as gift of the Creator, were always relative, altogether subordinate to the "taste" of God and under the sign of a radical poverty. In the communio sanctorum, she clarifies her ecclesial donation, as well as the relationship between the pilgrim Church and the heavenly Church. "All the saints," she wrote, "are up there through the merits and the Passion of Jesus; but they cooperated with all that the Lord did, so that their life was all ordered ... regulated by (his) very works" (ibid., III, 203).

In Veronica's writings we find many biblical quotations, at times indirectly, but always precise: She shows familiarity with the sacred text, from which her spiritual experience is nourished. Revealed, moreover, is that the intense moments of Veronica's mystical experience are never separated from the salvific events celebrated in the liturgy, where the proclamation and hearing of the Word of God has a particular place. Hence, sacred Scripture illumines, purifies and confirms Veronica's experience, rendering it ecclesial. On the other hand, however, precisely her experience, anchored in sacred Scripture with an uncommon intensity, guides one to a more profound and "spiritual" reading of the text itself, to enter into the hidden profundity of the text. She not only expresses herself with the words of sacred Scripture, but she also really lives from these words, they become life in her.

For example, our saint often quotes the expression of the Apostle Paul: "If God is for us, who is against us?" (Romans 8:31; cf. Diary, I, 714; II, 116.1021; III, 48). In her, the assimilation of this Pauline text, her great trust and profound joy, becomes a fait accompli in her very person: "My soul," she wrote, "was connected to the divine will and I was truly established and fixed in the will of God. It seems to me that I could never again be separated from this will of God and turn to myself with these precise words: nothing will be able to separate me from the will of God, not anxieties, or sorrows, or toil, or contempt, or temptations, or creatures, or demons, or darkness, and not even death itself, because, in life and in death, I will everything and in everything, the will of God" (Diary, IV, 272). Thus we have the certainty that death is not the last word, we are fixed in the will of God and so, really, in everlasting life.

In particular, Veronica shows herself to be a courageous witness of the beauty and the power of Divine Love, which draws, pervades and inflames her. It is crucified Love that imprinted itself on her flesh, as in that of St. Francis of Assisi, with the stigmata of Jesus. "My Bride," the crucified Christ whispers to me, "the penances you do for those who are in my disgrace are dear to me ... Then, detaching an arm from the cross, he made a sign to me to draw near to his side ... and I found myself in the arms of the Crucified. What I experienced at that point I cannot recount: I would have liked to remain always in his most holy side" (ibid.., I, 37). This is also an image of her spiritual journey, of her interior life: to be in the embrace of the Crucified and thus to be in Christ's love for others.

Also with the Virgin Mary, Veronica lived a relationship of profound intimacy, attested by the words she heard Our Lady say one day and which she reports in her Diary: "I will make you rest on my breast, you are united with my soul, and from it you were taken as in flight to God" (IV, 901).

St. Veronica Giuliani invites us to make our Christian life grow, our union with the Lord in being for others, abandoning ourselves to his will with complete and total trust, and to union with the Church, Bride of Christ; she invites us to participate in the suffering love of Jesus Crucified for the salvation of all sinners; she invites us to fix our gaze on Paradise, the goal of our earthly journey, where we will live together with so many brothers and sisters the joy of full communion with God; she invites us to nourish ourselves daily from the Word of God to warm our hearts and give direction to our life. The last words of the saint can be considered the synthesis of her passionate mystical experience: "I have found Love, Love has let himself be seen!" Thank you.

[Translation by ZENIT]

[The Holy Father then greeted pilgrims in several languages. In English, he said:]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Our catechesis today deals with Saint Veronica Giuliani, a Capuchin Poor Clare and mystic who was born three hundred and fifty years ago this month. Saint Veronica, true to the name she took in religion, became a "true image" of Christ crucified; her configuration to the Lord was accompanied by profound mystical experiences such as her crowning with thorns and the stigmata. Veronica's spirituality, as revealed above all in her Diary, is Christ-centred and spousal: she saw all things in the light of Christ's love, manifested in his Passion, and she united herself to his self-oblation to the Father for the salvation of souls. Her love of the Scriptures was deeply linked to her love of the Church and her strong sense of the communion of the saints. Veronica's passionate mystical experience can be summed up in the words she spoke on her deathbed: "I have found Love." May the life and teaching of Saint Veronica Giuliani inspire us to grow in union with the Lord and his Church, and to share in Christ's loving concern for the salvation of sinners.

I extend a warm welcome and prayerful good wishes to the priest alumni of the Pontifical North American College celebrating their fortieth anniversary of priestly ordination. Upon all the English-speaking visitors present at today's Audience, especially those from Ireland and the United States of America, I cordially invoke God's abundant blessings.

Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

[In Italian, he greeted the youth, sick and newlyweds present:]

A particular greeting I address finally to young people, the sick and newlyweds. To you, dear young people, especially to you youth of Catholic Action, I wish that you dispose your hearts to receive Jesus, who comes to save us with the power of his love. To you, dear sick, who in your experience of illness share with Christ the weight of the cross, may the forthcoming Christmas celebrations bring serenity and comfort. I invite you, dear newlyweds, who have recently founded your family, to grow increasingly in that love which Jesus has given us in his Christmas.

[Translation by ZENIT]

On St. Joseph, the Legal Father of Jesus

ON ST. JOSEPH, THE LEGAL FATHER OF JESUS


He "Looks to the Future With Confidence and Courage"

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 19, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today before praying the midday Angelus together with those gathered in St. Peter's Square.

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Dear brothers and sisters!

On this fourth Sunday of Advent the Gospel of St. Matthew tells us how the birth of Jesus came about, taking the perspective of St. Joseph. He was the betrothed of Mary, who, "before they lived together, was found to be with child by the power of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 1:18). The Son of God, realizing an ancient prophecy (cf. Isaiah 7:14), became man in the womb of a virgin, and such a mystery simultaneously manifests the love, wisdom and power of God on behalf of humanity wounded by sin. St. Joseph is presented as a "just man" (Matthew 1:19), faithful to God’s law, ready to do his will. On account of this he enters into the mystery of the Incarnation after an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream and tells him: "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife with you. In fact the child that has been conceived in her comes from the Holy Spirit; she will give birth to a son and you will call him Jesus: he in fact will save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:20-21). Forgetting the thought of repudiating Mary in secret, he takes her in because his eyes now see the work of God in her.

St. Ambrose comments that "in Joseph there was amiability and the figure of a just man to make the quality of his witness more worthy" (Exp. Ev. sec. Lucam II, 5: CCL 14,32-33). "He," Ambrose continues, "could not have contaminated the temple of the Holy Spirit, the Mother of the Lord, the fruitful womb of the mystery" (ibid. II, 6: CCL 14, 33). Although he had been concerned, Joseph "did as the angel of the Lord ordered him," certain of doing the right thing. Also giving the name "Jesus" to that child who rules the entire universe, he enters into the ranks of the faithful and humble servants, like the angels and prophets, like the martyrs and the apostles -- in the words of ancient eastern hymns. St. Joseph proclaims the wonders of the Lord, witnessing Mary’s virginity, the gratuitous deed of God, and caring for the earthly life of the Messiah. So, we venerate the legal father of Jesus (Code of Canon Law, 532), because the new man takes form in him, who looks to the future with confidence and courage, does not follow his own project, but entrusts himself totally to the infinite mercy of him who fulfills the prophecies and inaugurates the season of salvation.

Dear friends, to St. Joseph, universal patron of the Church, I would like to entrust all pastors, exhorting them to offer "to faithful Christians and the whole world the humble and daily proposal of the words of Christ" (Letter Proclaiming the Year for Priests). May our life be evermore conformed to the person of Jesus, precisely because "the one who is himself the Word takes on a body, he comes from God as a man and draws the whole of man’s being to himself, bearing it into the Word of God" ("Jesus of Nazareth," San Francisco, 2008, 334). Let us invoke the Virgin Mary with confidence, the one who is full of grace, "adorned by God," so that at Christmas, which is already near, our eyes may open and see Jesus, and the heart rejoice in this wondrous encounter of love.
[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]
[After reciting the Angelus, the Holy Father greeted those present in various languages. In English he said:]

I greet all the English-speaking visitors and pilgrims here today. On this fourth Sunday of Advent, we are filled with joy because the Lord is at hand. We heard in today’s Gospel about the promise made to Joseph, that his wife Mary was to bear a child who would save his people from their sins. This child would be called Emmanuel, meaning that from now on, God is truly with us, he lives among us and shares our joys and sorrows, our hopes and our fears. As the great feast of Christmas draws near, I invoke God’s abundant blessings upon all of you, and upon your families and loved ones at home.

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

[In Italian, he said:]

I wish everyone a good Sunday and a serene Christmas in the light and peace of the Lord.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

BENEDICT XVI'S HOMILY AT DIOCESAN PARISH

BENEDICT XVI'S HOMILY AT DIOCESAN PARISH


"Try to Grow Evermore in Communion With Everyone"

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 12, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is the translation of a homily given today by Benedict XVI during a pastoral visit to the parish of St. Maximilian Kolbe of the Diocese of Rome.
* * *
Dear Brothers and Sisters of the Parish of San Massimiliano Kolbe! Live this personal and communal path of following the Lord in a committed way. Advent is a powerful invitation to everyone to allow God to enter more and more into our life, into our houses, into our neighborhoods, into our communities, to have a light in the midst of many shadows, the many daily toils.

Dear Friends, I am very happy to be among you today to celebrate the Lord's Day, the Third Sunday of Advent, Sunday of joy. I cordially greet the cardinal vicar, the auxiliary bishop of the sector, your parish priest, whom I thank for the words that he addressed to me in the name of all of you, and the parish vicar. I greet those who are active in the parish: the catechists, the members of various groups, along with the numerous members of the Neocatechumenal Way. I greatly appreciate the decision to give a place to Eucharistic adoration, and I thank you for your prayers that you offer for me before the Blessed Sacrament. My thoughts are with all the inhabitants of this quarter, especially the elderly, the sick, the people are alone and in difficulty. I remember all and each in this Mass.

Together with all of you I admire this new church and the parish buildings and with my presence I desire to encourage you to realize in an ever better way the Church of living stones that you yourselves are. I know the many and significant efforts at evangelization that you are engaged in. I exhort all of the faithful to make your own contribution to the building up of the community, in particular in the field of catechesis, the liturgy and charity -- pillars of the Christian life -- in communion with the whole Diocese of Rome. No community can live as a cell that is isolated from the diocesan context; it must rather be a living expression of the beauty of the Church that, under the bishop's leadership -- and in the parish, under the pastor's leadership -- walks in communion toward the Kingdom of Heaven.

I address a special thought to families; I accompany them with the wish that they may fully realize their vocation of love with generosity and perseverance. Even when difficulties in conjugal life and in the relationships with their children present themselves, the spouses must never cease to remain faithful to that fundamental "yes" that they pronounced before God and each other on their wedding day, recalling that faithfulness to their vocation demands courage, generosity and sacrifice.

Your community includes within it many families who have come from central and southern Italy in search of work and better conditions of life. With the passing of time the community has grown and it has changed in part with the arrival of many people from Eastern Europe and other countries. Precisely starting from this concrete situation of the parish you must try to grow evermore in communion with everyone: it is important to create occasions of dialogue and to promote mutual understanding between persons from different cultures, models of life and social conditions. But it is above all necessary to help them become involved in the Christian life through care that is attentive to the real needs of each person. Here, as in every parish, it is necessary to leave those who are "near" to reach out to those who are "far away," to bring an evangelical presence to the realms of life and work. All must be able to find in the parish adequate paths of formation and experience that communal dimension that is a fundamental characteristic of Christian life. In this way they are encouraged to rediscover the beauty of Christ and of being part of his Church.

Know, then, how to form a community with everyone, united in listening to the Word of God and in the celebration of the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist. In this respect the diocesan pastoral verification that is underway on the theme "Sunday Eucharist and the Witness of Charity" is a propitious occasion to reflect upon and better live these two fundamental components of the life and mission of the Church and of every individual believer, that is, the Sunday Eucharist and the practice of charity. Gathered around the Eucharist we more easily feel that the mission of every Christian community is that of bringing the message of God's love to all men. This is why it is important that the Eucharist always be at the heart of the life of the faithful.
I would like to offer a special word of affection and friendship to you, dear young people who are listening to me and to your peers who live in this parish. The Church expects much from you, from your enthusiasm, from your capacity to look ahead and from your desire for radicality in the choices of life. Feel that you are true protagonists in the parish, putting all of your fresh energies and your life at the service of God and the brothers.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, along with the invitation to joy, today's liturgy -- with the words of St. James that we have heard -- tells us also to be constant and patient in waiting for the Lord who comes, and to be this together, as a community, avoiding complaining and judging others (cf. James 5:7-10).

We have heard in the Gospel the question of the Baptist who finds himself in prison; the Baptist announced the coming of the Judge who changes the world, and now it feels as if the world has stayed the same. He makes his disciples ask Jesus: "Are you the one who must come? Or must we look for another? Are you he or must we look for another?" In the last two or three centuries many have asked: "But are you really the one? Or must the world be changed in a truly radical way? Are you not doing it?" And many prophets, ideologies and dictators have come and said: "It isn't him! He didn't change the world! We are the ones!" And they created their empires, their dictatorships, their totalitarianism that was supposed to change the world. And they changed it, but in a destructive way. Today we know that of these great promises there has only remained a great void and great destruction. They were not the ones.

And so we must again see Christ and ask Christ: "Are you the one?" The Lord, in the silent way that is characteristic of him, answers: "See what I have done. I did not start a bloody revolution, I did not change the world by force, but I lit many lights that form, in the meantime, a great path of light through the centuries."

Let us begin here, in our parish: St. Maximilian Kolbe, who offered to starve to death to save the father of a family. What a great light he became! What light has come from this figure and encouraged others to give themselves, to be near to the suffering, to the oppressed! Let us think of Damien de Veuster who was a father to the lepers. He lived and died with and for the lepers and thus brought light into this community. Let us think of Mother Teresa, who gave so much light to people, who, after a life without light, died with a smile, because they were touched by the light of God's love.

We could go on and we would see how the Lord said in his answer to John, that it is not the violent revolution in the world, it is not the great promises that change the world, but it is the silent light of the truth, of the goodness of God that is the sign of his presence and that gives us the certainty that we are loved completely and that we are not forgotten, we are not a product of chance, but of a will of love.

In this way we can live, we can feel God's nearness. "God is near," today's first reading tells us, he is near, but we are often far away. Let us draw near, let us go to the presence of his light, we pray to the Lord and in the contact of prayer we ourselves become light for others.
And this is precisely also the meaning of the parish Church: Enter here, enter into dialogue, into contact with Jesus, with the Son of God, so that we ourselves become one of those little lights that he has lit and carry light into the world that feels that it has been redeemed.

Our spirit must open up to this invitation and thus we walk with joy to meet Christmas, imitating the Virgin Mary, who waited in prayer, with intimate and joyous trepidation, the birth of the Redeemer. Amen!

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]
© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

ON THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

ON THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION


"Grace Is Greater Than Sin ... God's Mercy Is More Powerful Than Evil"

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 8, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today, solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, when reciting the midday Angelus with several thousand pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Today our meeting on the occasion of the prayer of the Angelus acquires a special light, in the context of the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. In the liturgy of this feast, the Gospel of the Annunciation is proclaimed (Luke 1:26-38), which presents, precisely, the dialogue between the angel Gabriel and the Virgin.

"Rejoice! Full of grace, the Lord is with thee," says God's messenger, and in this way reveals Mary's most profound identity, the "name" so to speak with which God himself knows her: "full of grace."

This expression, which is so familiar to us from our childhood, as we say it every time we pray the Hail Mary, explains to us the mystery that we celebrate today. In fact, from the moment she was conceived by her parents, Mary was the object of a singular predilection on the part of God, who in his eternal plan chose her to be the mother of his Son made man and, hence, preserved her from original sin. For this reason, the angel addresses her with this name, which implicitly signifies: "ever full of the love of God," of his grace.

The mystery of the Immaculate Conception is source of interior light, of hope and of consolation. In the midst of life's trials, and especially of the contradictions man experiences in his interior and around him, Mary, Mother of Christ, tells us that Grace is greater than sin, that God's mercy is more powerful than evil, and it is able to transform it into goodness.

Unfortunately, we experience evil every day, which manifests itself in many ways in relations and events, but which has its root in man's heart, a wounded, sick heart, incapable of curing itself. Sacred Scripture reveals to us that at the origin of all evil is disobedience to the will of God, and that death has prevailed because human liberty has yielded to the temptation of the Evil One. However, God does not fail in his plan of love and life: through a long and patient path of reconciliation, he has prepared the new and eternal Covenant, sealed with the blood of his Son, who to offer himself in expiation "was born of woman" (Galatians 4:4).

This woman, the Virgin Mary, benefited in advance from the redeeming death of her Son and from conception was preserved from the contagion of guilt. Because of this, with her immaculate heart, she says to us: Trust Jesus, he saves you.

Dear friends, this afternoon I will renew the traditional homage to the Immaculate Virgin, before the monument dedicated to her, in Piazza di Spagna. With this act of devotion I make myself interpreter of the love of the faithful of Rome and of the whole world for the Mother that Christ has given us. I entrust to her intercession the most urgent needs of the Church and of the world. May she help us above all to have faith in God, to believe in his Word, to always reject evil and choose the good.

[Then the Holy Father greeted pilgrims in several languages. In Italian, he said:]

In today's feast, I have the joy of greeting the Pontifical Academy of the Immaculate. Dear friends, I invoke on each one of you the maternal protection of the Virgin Mary and I commend your activity to her intercession. I thank you for your generous work.

I address a special greeting also to Italian Catholic Action, which today, in many parishes renews its commitment in the Church. Recalling the great celebration with boys and young people here in St. Peter's Square, at the end of October, I express to all the members my affection and closeness. I encourage you to walk on the way of sanctity, taking the light of the Gospel to the areas of daily life.

[Translation by ZENIT]

[In English, he said:]

I greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present for this Angelus. Today the Church joyfully celebrates the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. By her prayers, may our hearts and minds be kept free from sin, so that like Mary we may be spiritually prepared to welcome Christ. Let us turn to her, the Immaculate, who brought Christ to us, and ask her now to bring us to Him. Upon each of you and your loved ones at home, I invoke God’s abundant blessings!

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

On St. John the Baptist

ON ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST


"A Star That Shines Before the Rising of the Sun"

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 5, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered today before praying the midday Angelus with those gathered in St. Peter's Square.

* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The Gospel of this second Sunday of Advent (Matthew 3:1-12) presents to us the figure of St. John the Baptist, who, according to a celebrated prophecy of Isaiah (cf. 40:3), went out into the desert of Judea and, with his preaching, called the people to covert and prepare for the imminent coming of the Messiah. St. Gregory the Great comments that the Baptist "preaches the right faith and good works … so that the power of grace penetrate, the light of the truth shine, the roads to God be made straight and that the words that are born in the soul after hearing the Word guide to the good" (Hom. in Evangelia, XX, 3, CCL 141, 155). The precursor of Jesus, situated between the Old and the New Covenants, is like a star that shines before the rising of the Sun, of Christ, of him, that is, upon whom -- according to Isaiah's prophecy -- "the Spirit of the Lord will come to rest, the a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, A spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord" (Isaiah 11:2).

In the time of Advent, we too are called to listen to God's voice, which resounds in the desert of the world through the sacred Scriptures, especially when they are preached with the power of the Holy Spirit. Faith, in fact, is fortified the more that it is illuminated by the divine Word, by "all that which," as the Apostle Paul reminds us, "was written previously … for our instruction, that by endurance and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope" (Romans 15:4). The Virgin Mary is the model of listening: "As we contemplate in the Mother of God a life totally shaped by the word, we realize that we too are called to enter into the mystery of faith, whereby Christ comes to dwell in our lives. Every Christian believer, St. Ambrose reminds us, in some way interiorly conceives and gives birth to the word of God" (Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation "Verbum Domini," No. 28).

Dear friends, "our salvation rests on a coming," Romano Guardini wrote ("La santa note: Dall'Avvento all'Epifania," Brescia 1994, p. 13). "The Savior came from the freedom of God … Thus the decision of faith consists … in welcoming him who draws near to us" (p. 14). "The Redeemer," he adds, "comes to each man: in his joys and anxieties, in his clear knowing, in his perplexities and temptations, in everything that constitutes the nature of his life" (p. 15).

Let us ask the Virgin Mary, in whose womb the Son of the Most High dwelt, and for whom on Wednesday, Dec. 8 we celebrate the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, to sustain us in this spiritual journey, to welcome the coming of the Lord with faith and with love.

[After reciting the Angelus, the Holy Father made the following appeal:]

In this Advent season in which we are called to nourish our expectation of the Lord and to welcome him in our midst, I invite you to pray for all the situations of violence, of intolerance, of suffering that there are in the world, so that the coming of Jesus brings consolation, reconciliation and peace. I think of the many difficult situations such as the continuing attacks in Iraq against Christians and Muslims, of the conflicts in Egypt in which there have been deaths and injuries, of the victims of traffickers and criminals such as the drama of the Eritrean hostages and the hostages of other nationalities in the desert of Sinai. The respect for the rights of all is the presupposition of civil coexistence. Our prayer to the Lord and our solidarity can bring hope to those who are suffering.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

[He then greeted those present in various languages. In English he said:]

I am happy to greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present for this Angelus prayer. The liturgy of the Second Sunday in Advent invites us to prepare our hearts for the great mystery of the incarnation. May Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, grant us his grace so that during this time of Advent we may grow ever more faithful to his unfailing love. I wish you all a pleasant stay in Rome, and a blessed Sunday!

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

On Julian of Norwich

On Julian of Norwich


"God's Promises Are Always Greater Than Our Hopes"

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 1, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience in Paul VI Hall.

* * *

Dear brothers and sisters,

I am still remembering with great joy the journey I made to the United Kingdom last September. England is a land that has given birth to so many illustrious figures who with their testimony and their teaching have embellished the history of the Church. One of these, venerated both by the Catholic Church as well as the Anglican Communion, is the mystic Julian of Norwich, of whom I would like to speak this morning.

The information we have on her life -- not much -- is taken primarily from the book in which this kind and pious woman gathered the content of her visions, titled "Revelations of Divine Love." It is known that she lived from 1342 to about 1430, years of torment both for the Church, lacerated by the schism following the Pope's return from Avignon to Rome, as well as for the people suffering the consequences of a long war between the kingdom of England and that of France. God, however, even in times of tribulation, does not cease to raise figures such as Julian of Norwich, to call men back to peace, love and joy.

As she herself recounts, in May of 1373, probably on the 13th of that month, she was suddenly stricken by a very serious illness that in three days seemed to bring her to the point of death. When the priest who came to her bedside showed her the crucifix, Julian not only quickly recovered her health, but received 16 revelations that subsequently she reported in writing and commented in her book, "Revelations of Divine Love." And it was in fact the Lord who, 15 years after these extraordinary events, revealed to her the meaning of those visions. "Do you wish to know what your Lord intended and to know the meaning of this revelation? Know well: Love is what he intended. Who reveals this to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? Out of love ... So learn that love is our Lord's meaning" (Julian of Norwich, "Il Libro delle Rivelazioni," Chapter 86, Milan, 1997, p. 320).

Inspired by divine love, Julian made a radical choice. Like one of the ancient hermits, she chose to live in a cell, which was near a church dedicated to St. Julian, in the city of Norwich, at the time a very important urban center, near London. Perhaps she took the name Julian precisely from that saint to whom the church was dedicated and next to which she lived for so many years, until her death. We might be surprised and even perplexed by this decision to live as a "recluse," as this was called in her time. However, she was not alone in making this choice: During those centuries a considerable number of women opted for this kind of life, adopting rules elaborated purposefully for them, such as that composed by St. Aelred of Rievaulx. The anchorites or "recluses" dedicated themselves within their cells to prayer, meditation and study. In this way, they developed a very fine human and religious sensitivity, which made them venerated by the people. Men and women of every age and condition, in need of advice and comfort, sought them devotedly. Hence, it was not an individualistic choice; precisely with this closeness to the Lord, what matured in her also was the capacity to be a counselor to many, to help those who lived in difficulty in this life.

We know that Julian also received frequent visitors, as attested in the autobiography of another fervent Christian woman of her time, Margery Kempe, who went to Norwich in 1413 to receive suggestions on her spiritual life. This is why when Julian was alive she was called, as is written on the funeral monument that houses her remains, "Mother Julian." She became a mother for many.

The women and men who withdraw to live in the company of God, precisely because of this decision, acquire a great sense of compassion for the sorrows and weaknesses of others. As friends of God, they have a wisdom that the world, from which they distance themselves, does not have. And with kindness, they share it with those who knock on their door. I am thinking, hence, with admiration and gratitude, of women's and men's cloistered monasteries that, today more than ever, are oases of peace and hope, precious treasures for the whole Church, especially in recalling the primacy of God and the importance of constant and intense prayer for the journey of faith.

It was precisely in the solitude inhabited by God that Julian of Norwich composed the "Revelations of Divine Love," of which we have two editions, a shorter one this is probably older, and a longer one. This book contains a message of optimism based on the certainty of being loved by God and of being protected by his Providence. In this book we read the following wonderful words: "I saw with absolute certainty ... that God, even before creating us loved us, with a love that has never failed, and will never vanish. And in this love he did all his works, and in this love he disposed that all things should be useful for us, and in this love our life lasts for ever ... In this love we have our beginning, and we see all this in God without end" (Ill libro delle rivelazioni, chapter 86, p. 320).

The subject of divine love returns often in the visions of Julian of Norwich who, with a certain audacity, does not hesitate to compare it also to maternal love. This is one of the most characteristic messages of her mystical theology. Tenderness, solicitude and the gentleness of God's goodness to us are so great that, to us pilgrims on earth, they evoke the love of a mother for her children. Indeed, at times the biblical prophets also used this language that recalls the tenderness, intensity and totality of the love of God, which manifests itself in creation and in the whole history of salvation and has its culmination in the incarnation of the Son. God, however, always surpasses every human love, as the prophet Isaiah says: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even if these may forget, yet I will not forget you" (Isaiah 49:15).

Julian of Norwich understood the central message for the spiritual life: God is love and only when we open ourselves totally and with total trust to this love and allow it to become the sole guide of existence, is everything transfigured, true peace and true joy are found and one is able to spread this around.

I would like to stress another point. The Catechism of the Catholic Church takes up the words of Julian of Norwich when it gives the point of view of the Catholic faith on an issue that does not cease to constitute a provocation for all believers (cf. Nos. 304-314). If God is supremely good and wise, why does evil and the suffering of the innocent exist? Saints as well, precisely the saints, ask themselves this question. Enlightened by faith, they give us an answer that opens our heart to trust and hope: In the mysterious designs of Providence, even from evil, God draws a greater good, as Julian of Norwich writes: "I learned by the grace of God that I must remain firmly in the faith, and hence I must firmly and perfectly believe that all will end well" (Il libro delle rivelazioni, chapter 32, p. 173).

Yes, dear brothers and sisters, God's promises are always greater than our hopes. If we entrust to God, to his immense love, the most pure and most profound desires of our heart, we will never be disappointed. "And all will be well," "everything will be for the good": This is the final message that Julian of Norwich transmits to us and that I also propose to you today. Thank you.

[Translation by ZENIT]

[The Holy Father then greeted pilgrims in several languages. In English, he said:]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Our catechesis today deals with Julian of Norwich, an English mystic and anchoress of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Julian is best known for her book, Revelations of Divine Love, which recounts sixteen vision or "showings" which she received during a grave illness. The Revelations are centred on the love of Christ; in Julian's own words: "love is our Lord's meaning." They exude an optimism grounded in the certainty that we are loved by God and protected by his providence; as Julian says, in speaking of God's power to bring good out of evil: "all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well." Julian's mysticism echoes the prophet Isaiah in using the imagery of a mother's love to describe the affectionate care which God shows for his children, culminating in the incarnation of his Son and the fulfilment of his promises. Like so many holy women in every age, in spite of her withdrawal from the world, Julian became a much-sought spiritual guide. In our own lives, may we draw profit from her teaching that God is the love which transforms our lives, bringing joy and peace to our hearts and, through us, to those all around us.

I extend a warm welcome to the many student groups present at today's Audience. Upon all the English-speaking visitors, especially those from Malaysia, Australia and the United States of America, I cordially invoke an abundance of joy and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ.

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

[In Italian, he said:]

I greet, finally, young people, the sick and newlyweds. The time of Advent, just begun, presents to us in these days the shining example of the Immaculate Virgin. May she be the one to spur you, dear young people, on your path of constant adherence to Christ; for you, dear sick, may Mary be the sustenance for a renewed hope; and for you, dear newlyweds, may the Mother of Jesus be your guide in building your family on the solid rock of faith.

[After the greetings, the Holy Father made the following appeal:]

I entrust to your prayer and to that of Catholics worldwide the Church in China that, as you know, is going through particularly difficult moments. We ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, Help of Christians, to support all the Chinese bishops, so dear to me, so that they will give witness to their faith with courage, placing every hope in the Savior we await. Moreover, we entrust to the Virgin all the Catholics of that beloved country so that, with her intercession, they will be able to live an authentic Christian existence in communion with the universal Church, thus contributing also to the harmony and common good of their noble people.

[Translation by ZENIT]

Papal Address to Union of Superiors General

Papal Address to Union of Superiors General

"Consecrated Life Has its Origin in the Lord"


VATICAN CITY, NOV. 28, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is an address given Friday by Benedict XVI in an audience with participants in a biannual general assembly of the Union of Superiors General of religious congregations.

* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

I am delighted to meet with you on the occasion of the half-yearly assembly of the Union of Superiors General, which you are celebrating -- in continuity with that of last May -- on the theme of consecrated life in Europe. I greet the president Don Pascual Chávez, whom I thank for the words that he addressed to me, and the executive council; a special greeting to the directive committee of the International Union of Superiors General and to the numerous superiors general. I extend my thoughts to all of the members of your orders and institutes throughout the world, especially those who suffer persecution for witness to the Gospel. I would like to express my sincere thanks for what you do in the Church and with the Church on behalf of evangelization and of man. I think of the multiple pastoral activities in the parishes, in the shrines and the centers of worship, for the catechesis and Christian formation of children, of young people and of adults, manifesting your passion for Christ and for humanity. I think of the great work in the field of education, in the universities and in the schools; of the multiple social works, through which you encounter the brothers who are most in need with God's love itself. I think also of the witness, at times dangerous, of the evangelical life in the missions "ad gentes," in often difficult circumstances.

Your last two assemblies have been dedicated to considering the future of consecrated life in Europe. This has meant rethinking the meaning of your vocation itself, which entails, first of all, seeking God, quaerere Deum: you are seekers of God by vocation. To this pursuit you consecrate the most precious energies of your life. You pass from secondary things to those that are essential, to what is truly important; you seek the definitive, you seek God, keeping your gaze fixed upon him. Like the first monks, you cultivate an eschatological orientation: Behind the provisory you seek what remains, what does not pass (Cf. Address at the Collège des Bernardins, Paris, September 12, 2008). You seek God in the confreres whom have been given to you, with whom you share the same life and mission. You seek him in the men and women of our time, to whom you have been sent to offer, with your life and with your words, the gift of the Gospel. You seek him especially in the poor, the first to hear the Good News (cf. Luke 4:18). You seek him in the Church, where the Lord is present, above all in the Eucharist and the other sacraments, and in his Word, which is the master way of the pursuit of God; it leads us into conversation with him and it reveals to us his true face. Always be passionate pursuers and witnesses of God!

The profound renewal of the consecrated life begins with the centrality of the Word of God, and more concretely in the Gospel, supreme rule for all of you, as the Second Vatican Council affirms in the decree "Perfectae Caritatis" (cf. n. 2) and as your founders well understood: The consecrated life is a plant with a wealth of branches that has its roots in the Gospel. This is demonstrated by the history of your institutes, in which the firm will to live the message of Christ and configure your life to him, is and remains the fundamental criterion of vocational discernment and of your personal and communal discernment. The Gospel lived daily is the element that gives beauty to the consecrated life and presents you before the world as a trustworthy alternative. Contemporary society needs and the Church expects you to be a living Gospel.

Another fundamental aspect of the consecrated life that I would like to stress is fraternity: "confession Trinitatis" (cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation "Vita Consecrata," 41) and parable of the Church as communion. The witness of your consecration passes through it. Fraternal life is one of the aspects greatly sought by young people when they draw near to your life; it is an important prophetic element that you offer to a fundamentally individualistic society. I know the efforts that you are making in this field, as I also know the difficulties that communal life has. There is need of serious and constant discernment to listen to what the Spirit says to the communities (cf. Revelation 2:7), to recognize what comes from the Lord and what is contrary to him (cf. "Vita Consecrata," 73). Without discernment accompanied by prayer and by reflection, the consecrated life runs the risk of accommodating itself to the criteria of this world: individualism, consumerism, materialism; criteria that eliminate fraternity and deprive consecrated life of what is striking and attractive about it. Be masters of discernment so that your brothers and sisters assume this "habitus" and your communities become an eloquent sign for the world of today. You who exercise the service of authority, and who have the task of leadership and planning for the future of your religious institutes, remember that an important part of the spiritual animation and government is the common pursuit of means to promote communion, mutual communication, warmth and truth in reciprocal relations.

A last element that I would like to highlight is mission. Mission is the Church's mode of being and, in it, of the consecrated life itself; it is part of your identity; it moves you to bring the Gospel to everyone, without limits. Mission, supported by a powerful experience of God, by a robust formation and by a fraternal life in community, is a key for understanding and revitalizing consecrated life. Go, then, and in creative fidelity make the challenge of the new evangelization your own. Renew your presence in the Areopaguses of today to proclaim, as St. Paul did in Athens, the "unknown" God (cf. Address at the Collège des Bernardins).

Dear Superiors General, for many institutes the present moment presents the datum of numeric diminishment, especially in Europe. The difficulties, however, must not make us forget that the consecrated life has its origin in the Lord: It is willed by him for the building up and the holiness of his Church, and thus the Church itself will never be deprived of it. As I encourage you to walk in faith and in hope, I ask you for a renewed effort in vocations work and in initial and permanent formation. I entrust you to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to your holy founders and patrons, while from my heart I impart to you my apostolic blessing, which I extend to your religious families.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

On the First Sunday of Advent

On the First Sunday of Advent


"Man Is Alive So Long As He Waits"

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 28, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today before praying the midday Angelus together with those gathered in St. Peter's Square.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters!

Today, the first Sunday of Advent, the Church begins a new liturgical year, a new journey of faith that, on one hand, remembers the event of Jesus Christ and, on the other, opens onto its ultimate fulfillment. It is precisely in this double perspective that the season of Advent is situated, both looking to the first coming of the Son of God, when he was born of the Virgin Mary, and to his glorious return, when he will come "to judge the living and the dead," as we say in the "Credo." I would now like to reflect briefly on this suggestive theme of "waiting" (attesa), because it involves a profoundly human reality in which the faith becomes, so to say, completely one with our flesh and our heart.

Our whole personal, familial and social existence passes through this dimension of waiting. Waiting is something that is present in a 1,000 situations, from the smallest and most banal to the most important, which draw us in completely and in the deepest way. Among these, we think of a husband and wife waiting for a child; of waiting for a relative or friend who is coming from far away to visit us; we think of a young person waiting to know his grade on a major exam or the outcome of a job interview; in romantic relationships, of waiting to meet the beloved person, of waiting for a letter, or of receiving forgiveness... One could say that man is alive so long as he waits, so long as hope is alive in his heart. And man is able to recognize that what he waits for and what he hopes for discloses something about his moral and spiritual "stature."

Everyone of us, therefore, especially in this season in which we prepare for Christmas, can ask himself: What am I waiting for? For what, in this moment of my life, does my heart long? And this same question can be posed at the level of the family, of the community, of the nation. What are we waiting for, together? What unifies our aspirations, what do they have in common? In the time before Jesus' birth the expectation of the Messiah -- that is, of an Anointed one, a descendent of King David, who would have finally liberated the people from every moral and political slavery and have founded the Kingdom of God -- was very strong in Israel. But no one could have imagined that the Messiah would be born from a humble girl like Mary, the betrothed of the just man Joseph. Not even she could have thought of it, and yet in her heart the longing for the Savior was so great, her faith and hope were so ardent, that he was able to find in her a worthy mother. After all, God himself had prepared her before all time. There is a mysterious correspondence between the waiting for God and the waiting for Mary, the creature "full of grace," totally transparent to the plan of love of the Most High. Let us learn from her, the woman of Advent, to live with a new spirit in our daily gestures, with the sentiment of a profound expectation that only the coming of God can fulfill.

[Following the recitation of the Angelus, the Holy Father greeted those present in St. Peter's Square in various languages. In English he said:]

I offer a warm welcome to the English-speaking visitors gathered here today for this "Angelus" prayer. Today, Christians begin a new liturgical Year with the season of "Advent," a time of preparation to celebrate the Mystery of the Incarnation. By the grace of God, may our prayer, penance and good works in this season make us truly ready to see the Lord face to face. Upon you and your families I invoke God's gifts of wisdom, strength and peace!

[In Italian he said:]

I wish everyone a peaceful Sunday and a good journey through Advent. Thank you, happy Advent to everyone!

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

On St. Catherine of Siena

On St. Catherine of Siena




"We Can All ... Learn to Love Like Christ"




VATICAN CITY, NOV. 24, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience in Paul VI Hall.

* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today I would like to speak to you about a woman who has had an eminent role in the history of the Church. She is St. Catherine of Siena. The century in which she lived -- the 14th -- was a troubled time for the life of the Church and for the whole social fabric in Italy and Europe.

However, even in the moments of greatest difficulty, the Lord does not cease to bless his People, raising men and women saints who stir minds and hearts, bringing about conversion and renewal. Catherine is one of these and still today she speaks to us and pushes us to walk courageously toward sanctity to be disciples of the Lord in an ever fuller sense.

Born in Siena in 1347 to a very numerous family, she died in her native city in 1380. At 16, moved by a vision of St. Dominic, she entered the Dominican Third Order, in the feminine branch called the Mantellate. She stayed with her family and confirmed the vow of virginity she made privately when she was still an adolescent; she dedicated herself to prayer, penance, and works of charity, above all for the benefit of the sick.

When her fame for sanctity spread, she became the protagonist in an intense activity of spiritual counsel, dealing with all categories of persons: nobles and politicians, artists and ordinary people, consecrated persons, ecclesiastics, and including Pope Gregory XI, who at that time resided in Avignon and whom Catherine exhorted energetically and effectively to return to Rome. She traveled a lot to solicit the interior reform of the Church and to foster peace between states. For this reason also the Venerable John Paul II declared her co-patroness of Europe: so that the Old World would never forget its Christian roots that are at the base of its journey and continue to draw from the Gospel the fundamental values that ensure justice and concord.

Catherine suffered much, as have many saints. Some thought in fact that she should not be trusted, to the point that, in 1374, six years before her death, the general chapter of the Dominicans called her to Florence to question her. They assigned her a learned and humble friar, Raymond of Capua, future master-general of the order. Having become her confessor and also her "spiritual son," he wrote the first complete biography of the saint. She was canonized in 1461.

Catherine learned to read with effort and learned to write when she was already an adult. Her doctrine is contained in "The Dialogue of Divine Providence" or "Book of Divine Doctrine," a masterpiece of spiritual literature in a collection of letters and prayers. Her teaching is gifted with such richness that, in 1970, the Servant of God Paul VI declared her a doctor of the Church, a title that was added to that of co-patroness of the city of Rome, by the decision of Blessed Pius IX, and of patroness of Italy, by the decision of the Venerable Pius XII.

In a vision that never left Catherine's heart and mind, Our Lady presented her to Jesus who gave her a splendid ring, saying to her: "I, your Creator and Savior, espouse you in the faith, which you will always keep pure until you celebrate with me in heaven your eternal nuptials" (Raimondo da Capua, S. Caterina da Siena, Legenda maior, n. 115, Siena 1998). That ring was visible only to her. In this extraordinary episode, we see the vital center of Catherine's religiosity and of every authentic spirituality: Christocentrism. Christ was for her a spouse, with whom she had a relationship of intimacy, communion and faithfulness; he is the cherished good above any other good.

This profound union with the Lord is illustrated by another episode in the life of this famous mystic: the exchange of hearts. According to Raymond of Capua, who transmitted the confidences received by Catherine, the Lord Jesus appeared to her with a bright red human heart in his hand, opened her chest and placed it in her, and said: "Dearest daughter, as the other day I took your heart that you offered to me, behold now I give you mine, and henceforth it will be in the place that yours occupied" (ibid.). Catherine truly lived St. Paul's words, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20).

Like the Sienese saint, every believer feels the need to be conformed to the sentiments of the heart of Christ to love God and neighbor as Christ himself loves. And we can all let our hearts be transformed and learn to love like Christ, in a familiarity with him nourished by prayer, meditation on the Word of God and the sacraments, above all by receiving Holy Communion frequently and with devotion.

Catherine also belongs to that rank of Eucharistic saints with which I concluded my apostolic exhortation "Sacramentum Caritatis" (cf. No. 94). Dear brothers and sisters, the Eucharist is an extraordinary gift of love that God continually renews to nourish our journey of faith, reinvigorate our hope, inflame our charity, to make us ever more like him.

A true and authentic spiritual family was built up around such a strong and genuine personality: people fascinated by the authoritative morality of this young woman of an elevated style of life, and at times impressed also by the mystical phenomena they witnessed, such as the frequent ecstasies. Many placed themselves at her service and above all considered it a privilege to be guided spiritually by Catherine. They called her "mamma," because as spiritual children they received the nourishment of the spirit.

Today also the Church receives great benefit from the spiritual maternity of so many women, consecrated and lay, who nourish in souls the thought of God, reinforce people's faith and orient Christian life toward ever higher summits. "Son I say to you and call you," wrote Catherine addressing one of her spiritual sons, the monk Giovanni Sabbatini, "inasmuch as I give you birth by continuous prayers and desire in the presence of God, just as a mother gives birth to a son" (Epistolario, Lettera n. 141: To don Giovanni de' Sabbatini). She would usually address the Dominican friar Bartolomeo de Dominici with these words: "Most beloved and very dear brother and son in Christ sweet Jesus."

Another trait of Catherine's spirituality is connected with the gift of tears. They express an exquisite and profound sensitivity, a capacity for being moved and tenderness. Not a few saints have had the gift of tears, renewing the emotion of Jesus himself, who did not hold back and hide his tears before the sepulcher of his friend Lazarus and the sorrow of Mary and Martha, and on looking at Jerusalem in his last days on earth. According to Catherine, the tears of saints are mixed with the blood of Christ, of which she spoke with very effective vibrant tones and symbolic images: "Remember Christ crucified, God and man (...). Put before you as object Christ crucified, hide in the wounds of Christ crucified, drown in the blood of Christ crucified" (Epistolario, Lettera n. 16: To one whose name is withheld).

Here we are able to understand why Catherine, though aware of the human defects of priests, always had great reverence for them: Through the sacraments and the Word they dispense the salvific strength of the blood of Christ. The Sienese saint always invited the sacred ministers, including the Pope, whom she called "sweet Christ on earth," to be faithful to their responsibility, moved always and only by their profound and constant love of the Church. Before dying she said: "Leaving the body I, in truth, have consumed and given my life in the Church and for the Holy Church, which is for me a most singular grace" (Raimondo da Capua, S. Caterina da Siena, Legenda maior, n. 363).

Hence, from St. Catherine we learn the most sublime science: to know and love Jesus Christ and his Church. In the "Dialogue of Divine Providence," she, with a singular image, describes Christ as a bridge flung between heaven and earth. It is made up of three steps constituted by the feet, the side and the mouth of Jesus. Raising itself by these steps, the soul passes through the three stages of every path of sanctification: detachment from sin, practice of the virtues and of love, sweet and affectionate union with God.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us learn from St. Catherine to love Christ and the Church with courage in an intense and sincere way. Hence, let us make our own the words of St. Catherine that we read in the "Dialogue of Divine Providence," at the end of the chapter that speaks of Christ-bridge: "Through mercy you have washed us in the blood, through mercy you wished to converse with creatures. O Madman of love! It was not enough for you to incarnate yourself, but you also wished to die! (...) O mercy! My heart drowns in thinking of you: for no matter where I turn to think I find only mercy" (chapter 30, pp. 79-80). Thank you

[Translation by ZENIT]

[The Holy Father then greeted pilgrims in several languages. In English, he said:]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Our catechesis today deals with Saint Catherine of Siena, a Dominican tertiary, a woman of great holiness and a Doctor of the Church. Catherine's spiritual teachings are centred on our union with Christ, the bridge between earth and heaven. Her own virginal entrustment to Christ the Bridegroom was reflected in her celebrated visions. Catherine's life also shows us the importance of the spiritual maternity exercised by so many women in every age. From this great saint let us learn to grow in holiness, love for the Lord and fidelity to his body, the Church.

I extend a warm welcome to the Catholic and Greek Orthodox pilgrims from San Francisco, California. I also greet the Superiors of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood meeting in Rome. Upon all the English-speaking visitors present at today's Audience, especially the pilgrim groups from Japan and the United States of America, I invoke God's abundant blessings.

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

[The Holy Father continued in Italian:]

Finally, I address my cordial greeting to young people, the sick and newlyweds. Today, remembering St. Andrew Dung-Lac and his companions, Vietnamese martyrs, I invite you, dear young people, to be intrepid in witnessing Christian values, always being faithful to the Lord; I exhort you, dear sick, to accept with serene abandonment all that the Lord gives in every situation of life; I hope that you, dear newlyweds, will form a truly Christian family, drawing the necessary strength to realize such a project from the Word of God and from the Eucharist.

[Translation by ZENIT]

Pope's Homily on Christ the King

Pope's Homily on Christ the King




"The Authentic Place of the Vicar of Christ Is on the Cross"



VATICAN CITY, NOV. 23, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI delivered Sunday, Solemnity of Christ the King, during Mass at St. Peter's Basilica. During the Mass, the Pope gave to 24 new cardinals the cardinal's ring.

* * *

Esteemed Cardinals,
Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Dear Brothers and Sisters!

In the solemnity of the Christ king of the universe, we have the joy of gathering around the altar of the Lord with the 24 new cardinals, whom I added yesterday to the College of Cardinals. To them, first of all, I address my cordial greeting, which I extend to the other cardinals and to all the prelates present, as also to the different authorities, to the ambassadors, to the priests, religious and all the faithful, who have come from different parts of the world for this happy circumstance, which has a marked universal character.

Many of you will also have noticed that the previous Public Consistory for the creation of cardinals, in November 2007, was held on the eve of the solemnity of Christ the King. Three years have passed and, hence, in keeping with the Sunday liturgical cycle, the Word of God comes to meet us through the same biblical readings, proper to this important festivity. It is situated in the last Sunday of the liturgical year and presents to us, at the end of the itinerary of faith, the royal face of Christ, as the Pantocrator in the apse of an ancient basilica. This coincidence invites us to meditate profoundly on the ministry of the Bishop of Rome and on that of the cardinals, linked to it, in the light of the singular Royalty of Jesus, Our Lord.

The first service of the Successor of Peter is that of faith. In the New Testament, Peter becomes the "rock" of the Church in as much as bearer of the Creed: the "we" of the Church begins with the name of the one who first professed faith in Christ, it begins with his faith; a faith at first immature and even "too human," but then, after Easter, mature and capable of following Christ to the giving of himself; mature in believing that Jesus is truly the King; that he is so precisely because he stayed on the Cross, and in that way gave his life for sinners. Seen in the Gospel is that all ask Jesus to come down from the cross. They mock him, but it is also a way to excuse themselves, as if to say: It isn't our fault that you are on the cross; it's only your fault, because if you truly were the Son of God, the King of the Jews, you wouldn't be there, but you would save yourself by coming down from the infamous scaffold. Hence, if you stay there, it means that you are mistaken and that we are right.

The drama that unfolds under the cross of Jesus is a universal drama; it regards all men before God who reveals Himself for what He is, namely, Love. In Jesus crucified divinity is disfigured, stripped of all visible glory, but it is present and real. Only faith is able to recognize it: Mary's faith, who also united in her heart this last tile of the mosaic of the life of her Son; she still does not see the whole, but continues to trust in God, repeating yet again with the same abandonment, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord" (Luke 1:38). And then there is the faith of the good thief: a barely sketched faith, but enough to assure him of salvation: "Today you will be with me in Paradise." Decisive is that "with me." Yes, it is this that saves him. Of course, the good thief is on the cross like Jesus, but above all he is on the cross with Jesus. And, as opposed to the other evildoer, and of all the others who mock him, he does not ask Jesus to come down from the cross or to make him come down. Instead, he says: "Remember me when you come into your kingdom." He sees him on the cross, disfigured, unrecognizable, and yet he entrusts himself to Him as to a king, more than that, as the King. The good thief believes what is written on that plaque above Jesus' head: "The King of the Jews": he believes and entrusts himself. That is why he is already subject to the "today" of God, in paradise, because this is paradise: to be with Jesus, to be with God.

See emerge now clearly, dear Brothers, the first and fundamental message that the Word of God says to us today: to me, Successor of Peter, and to you, cardinals. It calls us to be with Jesus, like Mary, and not to ask him to come down from the cross, but to stay there with Him. And this, in regard to our ministry, we must do not only for ourselves, but for the whole Church, for all the People of God. We know from the Gospels that the cross was the critical point of the faith of Simon Peter and of the other Apostles. It is clear and it could not be otherwise: they were men and they thought "as men": they could not tolerate the idea of a crucified Messiah. Peter's conversion was realized fully when he gave up trying to "save" Jesus and accepted being saved by Him. He gave up wanting to save Jesus from the cross and accepted being saved by his cross. "I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren" (Luke 22:32), says the Lord. Peter's ministry consists altogether in his faith, a faith that Jesus recognizes immediately, from the beginning, as genuine, as a gift from the heavenly Father; but a faith that must go through the scandal of the cross, to become authentic, truly "Christian," to become "rock" on which Jesus can build his Church. Participation in Jesus' lordship is verified concretely only in sharing in his abasement, with the Cross. My ministry also, dear Brothers, and, consequently, also yours, consists altogether in faith. Jesus can build his Church on us the more he finds in us that true, paschal faith, that faith that does not want to make Jesus come down from the Cross, but entrusts itself to Him on the Cross. In this connection the authentic place of the Vicar of Christ is on the Cross, to persist in the obedience of the Cross.

This ministry is difficult, because it is not aligned with the way of men's thinking -- with that natural logic which, moreover, remains always active also in ourselves. But this is and remains always our first service, the service of faith, which transforms the whole of life: to believe that Jesus is God, that he is the King precisely because he went to that point, because he loved us to the end. And this paradoxical royalty, we must witness and proclaim as He did, the King, namely, following his same path and forcing ourselves to adopt his same logic, the logic of humility and service, of the grain of corn that dies to bear fruit. The Pope and the cardinals are called to be profoundly united first of all in this: all together, under the guidance of the Successor of Peter, they must remain in the lordship of Christ, thinking and operating according to the logic of the Cross -- and this is never easy or to be taken for granted. In this we must be close, and we are so because we are not united by an idea, a strategy, but we are united by the love of Christ, and his Holy Spirit. The efficacy of our service to the Church, Bride of Christ, depends essentially on this, on our fidelity to the divine royalty of crucified Love. Because of this, on the ring that I hand to you today, seal of your nuptial pact with the Church, is represented the image of the Crucifixion. And for the same reason the color of your habit alludes to blood, symbol of life and love. The Blood of Christ that, according to an ancient iconography, Mary receives from the pierced side of her Son dead on the cross; and that the Apostle John contemplates while it gushes together with water, according to the prophetic Scriptures.

Dear Brothers, our wisdom stems from here: sapientia Crucis. Saint Paul reflected in depth on this, the first to trace an organic Christian thought, centered precisely on the paradox of the Cross (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; 2:1-8). In the Letter to the Colossians -- of which today's liturgy proposes the Christological hymn -- the Pauline reflection, fertilized by the grace of the Spirit, now reaches an impressive level of synthesis in expressing an authentic Christian conception of God and of the world, of personal and universal salvation; and all is centered on Christ, Lord of hearts, of history and of the cosmos: "For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:19-20). This, dear Brothers, we are always called to proclaim to the world: Christ "image of the invisible God," Christ "first-born of all creation" and "of those who rise from the dead," so -- as the Apostle writes -- "that in everything he might be pre-eminent" (Colossians 1:15.18). The primacy of Peter and of his Successors is totally at the service of this primacy of Jesus Christ, only Lord; at the service of his Kingdom, namely, of the lordship of love, so that it will come and spread, renew men and things, transform the earth and make peace and justice sprout in it.

Within this design, which transcends history and at the same time, is revealed and realized in it, the Church finds a place, "body" of which Christ is "the head" (cf. Colossians 1:18). In the Letter to the Ephesians, Saint Paul speaks explicitly of the lordship of Christ and puts it in relation with the Church. He formulates a prayer of praise to the "greatness of the power of God," which resurrected Christ and constituted him universal Lord, and concludes: "and he [God] has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all" (Ephesians 1:22-23). The same word "fullness," which concerns Christ, Paul attributes here to the Church, by participation: the body, in fact, participates in the fullness of the Head. There, venerable brother cardinals -- and I also address all of you, who with us share the grace of being Christians -- see what is our joy: that of participating, in the Church, in the fullness of Christ through the obedience of the Cross, of "sharing in the inheritance of the saints in light," of being "transferred" to the kingdom of the Son of God (cf. Colossians 1:12-13). Because of this we live in everlasting thanksgiving, and also through trials the joy and peace that Christ has left us do not fail, as pledge of his Kingdom, which is already in our midst, which we await with faith and hope, and look forward to in charity. Amen.

[Translation by ZENIT]