Pope's Homily at Vespers for Sts. Peter and Paul

Pope's Homily at Vespers for Sts. Peter and Paul

"The Church Is an Immense Force of Renewal in the World"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 28, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI delivered today during the vigil for the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, held at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters!

With the celebration of the first vespers we enter into the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul. We have the grace of doing so in the Papal Basilica named after the Apostle to the Gentiles, recollected in prayer near his tomb. Because of this, I would like to focus my brief reflection on the perspective of the missionary vocation of the Church. In this line are the third antiphon of the psalm that we prayed and the biblical reading. The first two antiphons are dedicated to St. Peter, the third to St. Paul and it says: "You are the messenger of God, Holy Apostle Paul: you proclaimed the truth in the whole world."

And in the brief reading, which treats of the initial direction of the Letter to the Romans, Paul introduces himself as "called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God" (Romans 1:1). Paul's figure, his person and his ministry, his whole existence and his hard work for the Kingdom of God, are completely dedicated to the service of the Gospel. Perceived in these texts is a sense of movement, where the protagonist is not man, but God, the breath of the Holy Spirit, which drives the Apostle onto the roads of the world to take the Good News to all: the promises of the prophets are fulfilled in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, who died for our sins and rose for our justification. Saul is no longer, Paul is, and what is more, it is Christ who lives in him (cf. Galatians 2:20) and wishes to gather all men. If then the feast of the Holy Patrons of Rome evokes the twofold tension between unity and universality that typifies this Church, the context in which we find ourselves this evening calls us to favor the second, allowing ourselves, so to speak, to be won over by St. Paul and by his extraordinary vocation.

When he was elected Successor of Peter, at the height of the unfolding of the Second Vatican Council, the Servant of God Giovanni Battista Montini chose to bear the name of the Apostle to the Gentiles. Within his program of action of the Council, in 1974 Paul VI convoked and assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the topic of evangelization in the contemporary world, and about a year later he published the apostolic exhortation "Evangelii Nuntiandi," which opens with these words: "There is no doubt that the effort to proclaim the Gospel to the people of today, who are buoyed up by hope but at the same time often oppressed by fear and distress, is a service rendered to the Christian community and also to the whole of humanity" (No. 1). The timeliness of this expression is striking. Perceived in it is all the particular missionary sensibility of Paul VI and, through his voice, the great conciliar yearning to evangelize the contemporary world, a yearning that culminated in the decree "Ad Gentes," but which permeates all the documents of Vatican II and that, even earlier, animated the thought and work of the council fathers, gathered to represent, in a way never before so tangible, the worldwide diffusion reached by the Church.

Words are not adequate to explain how the Venerable John Paul II, in his long pontificate, developed this missionary projection, which -- it is always recalled -- responds to the nature itself of the Church, which with St. Paul can and must always repeat: "For if I preach the Gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel! (1 Corinthians 9:16). Pope John Paul II presented "live" the missionary nature of the Church, with the apostolic journeys and with the insistence of his magisterium on the urgency of a "new evangelization": "new" not in the contents, but in the interior impulse, open to the grace of the Holy Spirit who constitutes the force of the new law of the Gospel and who always renews the Church; "new" in the search of ways that correspond to the force of the Holy Spirit and are adapted to the times and the situations; "new" because necessary also in countries which have already received the proclamation of the Gospel. Evident to all is that my predecessor gave an extraordinary impulse to the mission of the Church, not only -- I repeat -- by the distances covered by him, but above all by the genuine missionary spirit that animated him and that he left in legacy at the dawn of the third millennium.

Taking up this legacy, I have been able to affirm, at the beginning of my Petrine ministry, that the Church is young, and open to the future. And I repeat it today, near the sepulcher of St. Paul: The Church is an immense force of renewal in the world, not because of her strength, but because of the force of the Gospel, in which the Holy Spirit of God breathes, the God Creator and Redeemer of the world. The challenges of the present age are certainly beyond human capacities; they are the historical and social challenges, and with greater reason, the spiritual challenges. At times it seems to us pastors of the Church that we are reliving the experience of the Apostles, when thousands of needy persons followed Jesus, and he asked: What can we do for all these people? They then experienced their impotence. But Jesus had in fact demonstrated to them that with faith in God nothing is impossible, and that a few loaves and a few fish, blessed and shared, could satiate all. But it was not -- and is not -- only hunger for material food: There is a more profound hunger, which only God can satiate.

Man of the third millennium also desires an authentic and full life, he has need of truth, of profound liberty, of gratuitous love. Also in the deserts of the secularized world, man's soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Because of this John Paul II wrote: "The mission of Christ the Redeemer, entrusted to the Church, is still very far from its fulfillment," and he added: "a look on the whole of humanity demonstrates that such a mission is still at the beginning and that we must commit ourselves with all our strength to its service" ("Redemptoris Missio," No. 1). There are regions in the world that still wait for a first evangelization; others that received it but need more profound work; others still in which the Gospel put down roots a long time ago, giving place to a true Christian tradition, but where in the last centuries -- with complex dynamics -- the process of secularization has produced a grave crisis of the sense of the Christian faith and of belonging to the Church.

In this perspective, I have decided to create a new organism, in the form of pontifical council, with the specific task of promoting a renewed evangelization in countries where the first proclamation of the faith already resounded, and where Churches are present of ancient foundation, but which are going through a progressive secularization of society and a sort of "eclipse of the sense of God," which constitutes a challenge to find the appropriate means to propose again the perennial truth of the Gospel of Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters, the universal Church faces the challenge of the new evangelization, which asks us also to continue with commitment the search for the full unity among Christians. An eloquent sign of hope in this connection is the custom of the reciprocal visits between the Church of Rome and that of Constantinople on the occasion of the feasts of their respective patron saints.

Because of this, today we welcome with renewed joy and gratitude the delegation sent by Patriarch Bartholomew I, to whom we address the most cordial greeting. May the intercession of Sts. Peter and Paul obtain for the whole Church ardent faith and apostolic courage, to proclaim to the world the truth of which we all have need, the truth that is God, origin and end of the universe and of history, merciful and faithful Father, hope of eternal life. Amen.

[Translation by ZENIT]

On Following Christ

On Following Christ

"One of the Most Beautiful Experiences"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 27, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today before and after praying the midday Angelus with crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square.

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Dear brothers and sisters!

The biblical readings of this Sunday’s Holy Mass give me the opportunity to take up again the theme of Christ’s call and its demands, a theme which I also reflected on a week ago on the occasion of the ordination of new presbyters of the Diocese of Rome. In fact, whoever has the fortune to know a young man or young woman who leaves their family, their studies or work to consecrate himself or herself to God, knows this well, because he has before him a living example of radical response to the divine calling. This is one of the most beautiful experiences that one has in the Church: seeing the Lord’s action in people’s lives, touching it with one’s hand; experiencing that God is not an abstract entity, but a Reality so great and powerful that he can fill man’s heart in a super-abundant way. He is a Person who is alive and near, who loves us and asks us to love him.

The evangelist Luke presents us with Jesus as he is on the road to Jerusalem and meets some men, probably young men, who promise to follow him wherever he goes. He shows himself to be very exigent with them, informing them that “the Son of man” -- Jesus himself, the Messiah -- “has no place to lay his head,” that is, he does not have his own stable place to live, and that whoever chooses to work with him in God’s field cannot change his mind (cf. Luke 9:57-58, 61-62). To another Christ himself says: “Follow me,” asking him to completely sever his familial bonds (Luke 9:59-60). These demands might appear too harsh, but in reality they express the newness and absolute priority of the Kingdom of God that is made present in the Person himself of Jesus Christ. In the final analysis it is the radicality that is owed to the Love of God, whom Jesus is the first to obey. Whoever renounces everything, even himself, to follow Jesus, enters into a new dimension of freedom that St. Paul defines as “walking according to the Spirit” (cf. Galatians 5:16). “Christ has freed us for freedom!” the Apostle writes, and explains that this new form of freedom acquired for us by Christ consists in being “in the service of each other” (Galatians 5:1, 13). Freedom and love coincide! Obeying one’s own egoism, on the contrary, leads to rivalry and conflict.

Dear friends, the month of June, characterized by devotion to the Sacred Heart of Christ, is already coming to an end. Indeed on the feast of the Sacred Heart we renewed our commitment to sanctification together with the priests of the whole world. Today I would like to invite everyone to contemplate the divine-human heart of the Lord Jesus, to draw from the source itself of God’s Love. Whoever fixes his gaze upon that pierced Heart that is always open out of love for us, senses the truth of this invocation: “Lord, you are my only good” (Responsorial Psalm), and is ready to leave everything to follow the Lord. O Mary, who answered the divine call without holding anything back, pray for us!

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

[After the Angelus the Holy Father greeted the pilgrims in various languages. In Italian, he said:]

In Lebanon this morning, Estéphan Nehmé, born Joseph Nehmé, was proclaimed blessed. He was a religious of the Lebanese Maronite Order, who lived in Lebanon between the end of the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. I heartily rejoice with the Lebanese brothers and sisters, and I entrust them with great affection to the protection of the new Blessed.

On this Sunday that precedes the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, there is observed in Italy and elsewhere the Day of Charity of the Pope. I express my lively gratitude to those who, with prayers and offerings, support the apostolic and charitable activity of the Successor of Peter on behalf of the universal Church and of many brothers both near and far.

[In English he said:]

I extend cordial greetings to the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present for today’s Angelus. On Tuesday of this week we will be celebrating Rome’s feast-day, that is to say, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul -- two great Apostles who proclaimed the Gospel in this city and bore witness to Christ even to the shedding of their blood. Through their prayers, may all who come on pilgrimage to Rome be renewed and strengthened in faith, hope and love. May God’s abundant blessings come down upon all of you and upon your loved ones at home!

© Copyright 2010 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Papal Homily During Visit to Dominican Cloister

Papal Homily During Visit to Dominican Cloister

"You Were Consecrated to Jesus, to Belong to Him Exclusively"

ROME, JUNE 24, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI gave today during his visit to cloistered nuns of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria del Rosario in Rome's Monte Mario district.

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Dear Sisters,

I address to each one of you the words of Psalm 124 (125), which we just prayed: "Do good, O Lord, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their hearts!" (v. 4). I greet you above all with this wish: the goodness of the Lord be upon you. In particular, I greet your Mother Prioress and thank her from my heart for the kind expressions she addressed to me in the name of the community. With great joy I accepted the invitation to visit this convent, to be able to pause with you at the feet of the image of St. Sixtus' acheropita Virgin, now protector of the Roman convents of St. Mary in Tempulo and of St. Sixtus.

Together we have prayed the midday prayer, a small part of this Liturgical Prayer that, as cloistered, marks the rhythm of your days and makes you interpreters of the Church-Bride which unites her, in a special way, with her Lord. With this choral prayer, which finds its culmination in the daily participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, your consecration to the Lord in silence and seclusion becomes fecund and full of fruits, not only for the path of sanctification and purification, but also for the apostolate of intercession that you carry out for the whole Church, so that it can appear pure and holy in the presence of the Lord. You, who know well the efficacy of prayer, experience every day the many graces of holiness it can obtain in the Church.

Dear Sisters, the community you make up is a place where you can dwell in the Lord; it is for you the New Jerusalem, to which the tribes of the Lord go up to praise the name of the Lord (cf. Psalm121:4). Be grateful to Divine Providence for the sublime and gratuitous gift of the monastic vocation, to which the Lord has called you without any merit of yours. With Isaiah, you can affirm "the Lord formed me from the womb" (Isaiah 49:5). Even before you were born, the Lord had kept your heart for himself to be able to fill it with his love. Through the sacrament of baptism you received Divine grace in yourselves, immersed in his Death and Resurrection, you were consecrated to Jesus, to belong to him exclusively. The way of contemplative life, which you received from St. Dominic in the form of cloister, places you, as living and vital members, in the heart of the Lord's Mystical Body, which is the Church; and as the heart makes the blood circulate and maintains the whole body alive, so your hidden existence with Christ, interlaced with work and prayer, contributes to sustain the Church, instrument of salvation for every man whom the Lord redeemed with his blood.

It is this inexhaustible source that you approach with prayer, presenting in the presence of the Most High the spiritual and material needs of so many brothers in difficulty, the strayed life of all those who separate themselves from the Lord. How can one not be moved by compassion for those who seem to wander aimlessly? How can one not wish that in their life they will encounter Jesus, the only one who gives meaning to existence? The holy desire that the Kingdom of God be established in the heart of every man, is identified with prayer itself, as St. Augustine teaches us: Ipsum desiderium tuum, oratio tua est; et si continuum desiderium, continue oratio (cf. Ep. 130, 18-20); because of this, as fire that burns and is never extinguished, the heart remains alert, it never ceases to desire and it always raises a hymn of praise to God.

Recognize because of this, Dear Sisters, that in everything you do, beyond the personal moments of prayer, your heart continues to be led by the desire to love God. With the Bishop of Hippo, acknowledge that the Lord has put his love in your hearts, desire that dilates the heart, until it makes it capable of receiving God himself (cf. In. O. Ev. tr. 40, 10). This is the horizon of the earthly pilgrimage! This is your goal! This is why you have chosen to live in obscurity and in the renunciation of earthly goods: to desire above all that good which has no equal, that precious pearl that merits the renunciation of any other good to enter into its possession.

May you be able to pronounce every day your "yes" to God's designs, with the same humility with which the Holy Virgin said her "yes." May she, who in silence received the Word of God, guide you in your daily virginal consecration, so that you will be able to experience in obscurity the profound intimacy she lived with Jesus. Invoking her maternal protection, together with that of St. Dominic, St. Catherine of Siena and of the many men and women saints of the Dominican Order, I impart to you all a special Apostolic blessing, which I willingly extend to the persons who entrust themselves to your prayers.

[Translation by ZENIT]

Benedict XVI's Address at Don Orione Center

Benedict XVI's Address at Don Orione Center

"Works of Charity … Can Never Be Reduced to a Philanthropic Gesture"

ROME, JUNE 24, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today during his visit to the Don Orione Center in Rome's Monte Mario district, where he blessed a 29-foot tall restored statue of the Virgin Mary.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In the first place, I would like to cordially greet you all, gathered here for today's significant event. On this hill, the majestic statute of the Virgin, knocked down a few months ago by the fury of the wind, again watches over our city. First of all I greet the vicar, Cardinal Agostino Vallini, and the bishops present. A special thought goes to Father Flavio Peloso, re-elected to lead the Opera Don Orione, and I thank him for the kind words he addressed to me. I extend this greeting to the religious participating in the 13th General Chapter, to those who work in this institution at the service of young people and those who suffer, and of the whole spiritual Orionine family. My deferent thought goes to the mayor of Rome, the Honorable Gianni Alemanno: I wish to express to him in anticipation my appreciation for the concert that the Campidoglio will offer me on the afternoon of June 29; it is a gesture that attests to the affection for the Pope of the whole city of Rome. I greet, moreover, all the other civil and military authorities. Finally, I cannot but thank from my heart all those who in different ways have contributed to restore the statue of Our Lady to its original splendor.

I was happy to accept the invitation to join you in rendering homage to Mary, "Salus Populi Romani," represented in this wonderful statue, so loved by the Roman people. A statue that brings back memories of tragic and providential events, written in the history and conscience of the city. In fact, it was placed on the top of Monte Mario in 1953, in fulfillment of a popular vow pronounced during World War II, when hostilities and arms made one fear for Rome's fate. From Don Orione's Roman works stemmed, then, the initiative to collect signatures for a vow, to which more than one million citizens adhered. The Venerable Pius XII took up the people's devout initiative that entrusted itself to Mary and the vow was pronounced on June 4, 1944, before the image of Our Lady of Divine Love. Precisely that day, the peaceful liberation of Rome took place. How can we not renew also today, dear friends of Rome, that gesture of devotion to Mary "Salus Populi Romani" by blessing this beautiful statue?

The Orionines wanted it to be large and to be placed high above the city, to render homage to the exalted holiness of the Mother of God, who, humble on earth, "was exalted above the angelic choirs in the celestial kingdom" (Gregory VII, Ad Adelaide di Ungheria), and to have, at the same time, a sign of her familiar presence in daily life. May Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, be always at the summit of your thoughts and affection, kind consolation of your souls, sure guide of your desires and support of your steps, persuasive inspirer of the imitation of Jesus Christ. May the Madonnina -- as the Romans like to call her -- in the gesture of looking from on high at the places of family, civil and religious life in Rome, protect families, inspire good resolutions, suggest to all the desire for heaven. "To look at heaven, to pray and then to go forward with courage and work! Ave Maria, and forward!" -- exhorted Saint Louis Orione.

In their vow to the Virgin, in addition to promising prayer and devotion, Romans also committed themselves to works of charity. For their part, the Orionines were involved in this Center of Monte Mario, even before the statue, in the reception of little ones who were mutilated and orphans. St. Louis Orione's program -- charity alone will save the world -- had a significant realization here and became a sign of hope for Rome, in union with the Madonnina placed on the top of the hill. Dear Brothers and Sisters, spiritual heirs of the saint of charity, Louis Orione! The General Chapter that has just ended had as its theme this expression loved by your founder: Charity alone will save the world. I bless the objective and the decisions that have been adopted to re-launch the spiritual and apostolic dynamism that must always distinguish you.

Don Orione lived in a lucid and passionate way the Church's task to live love in order to make the light of God enter the world (cf. Deus Caritas Est, n. 39). He left this mission to his disciples as the spiritual and apostolic way, convinced that "charity opens the eyes to faith and makes hearts burn with love of God." Continue, dear Sons of Divine Providence, on this charismatic trail initiated by him because, as he said, "charity is the best defense of the Catholic faith," "charity draws, charity moves, it leads to faith and to hope" (Verbali, 26.11.1930, p. 95). Works of charity, both as personal acts or as services to frail persons offered in great institutions, can never be reduced to a philanthropic gesture, but must always be a tangible expression of the provident love of God. To do this -- Don Orione reminds -- it is necessary to be "mixed with the most gentle charity of Our Lord" (Scritti 70, 231) through an authentic and holy spiritual life. Only in this way is it possible to move from works of charity to the charity of works, because -- your founder adds -- "actually, works without the charity of God, that gives them value before Him, are worthless" (Alle PSMC, 19.6.1920, p. 141).

Dear Brothers and Sisters, thank you once again for your invitation and your hospitality. May the maternal protection of Mary accompany you every day, whom we invoke together for all those who work in this center and for the whole Roman population and, while I assure each one of my remembrance in prayer, I bless you all with affection.

[Translation by ZENIT]

On the Summa Theologiae

On the Summa Theologiae

"In the School of the Saints, Let Us Be Enamored" of the Eucharist

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 23, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience in St. Peter's Square.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I would like to complete, with a third part, my catechesis on St. Thomas Aquinas. Even after more than 700 years since his death, we can learn much from him. We were reminded of this also by my predecessor, Pope Paul VI, who, in an address given at Fossanova on Sept. 14, 1974, on the occasion of the seventh centenary of St. Thomas' death, asked: "Master Thomas, what lessons can you give us?" And he answered thus: "Trust in the truth of Catholic religious thought, as he defended it, explained it, [and] opened it to the cognitive capacity of the human mind" (Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, XII [1974], pp. 833-834). And, on the same day, in Aquino, still referring to St. Thomas, he affirmed: "All of us, who are faithful children of the Church can and must, at least in some measure, be his disciples!" (Ibid., p. 836).

Hence, let us also put ourselves in the school of St. Thomas and of his masterpiece, the Summa Theologiae. It was never finished and yet it is a monumental work: It contains 512 questions and 2,669 articles. It is coherent reasoning, in which the application of human intelligence to the mysteries of the faith proceeds with clarity and depth, interlacing questions and answers, in which St. Thomas deepens the teaching that comes from sacred Scripture and from the Fathers of the Church, above all St. Augustine. In this reflection, in the encounter with true questions of his time, which are often also our questions, St. Thomas, also using the methods and thought of ancient philosophers, in particular of Aristotle, thus arrives at precise, lucid and pertinent formulations of the truth of the faith, where truth is a gift of faith, [where it] shines and becomes accessible to us, through our reflection. However, such effort of the human mind, Aquinas reminds us with his very life, is always illumined by prayer, by the light that comes from on high. Only one who lives with God and with the mysteries can also understand what they say.

In the Summa of theology, St. Thomas begins from the fact that there are three different modes of the being and essence of God: God exists in himself; he is the beginning and end of all things, and thus all creatures proceed from and depend on him, and God is present through his grace in the life and activity of the Christian, of the saints; finally, God is present in an altogether special way in the Person of Christ really united here with the man Jesus, and operating in the sacraments, which flow from his redemptive work.

Because of this, the structure of this monumental work (cf. Jean Pierre Torrell, La "Summa" di San Tommaso, Milan, 2003, pp. 29-75), research with a "theological look" at the fullness of God (cf. Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 1, a. 7), is articulated in three parts, and is illustrated by the Doctor Communis himself -- St. Thomas -- with these words: The main purpose of sacred doctrine is that of making God known, not only in himself, but also inasmuch as he is beginning and end of things, and especially of the reasoning creature. In the attempt to explain this doctrine, we will first treat of God; then of the movement of the creature toward God; and finally of Christ who, inasmuch as man, is for us the way to ascend to God" (Ibid., I. q. 2). It is a circle: God in himself, who comes out of himself and takes us by the hand, so that with Christ we return to God, we are united to God, and God will be all in all.

Hence, the first part of the Summa Theologiae studies God in himself, the mystery of the Trinity, and God's creative activity. In this part we also find a profound reflection on the authentic reality of the human being inasmuch as he issued from the creative hands of God, fruit of his love. On one hand we are a created, dependent being -- we do not come from ourselves; but, on the other, we have a true autonomy, so that we are not only something apparent -- as some Platonic philosophers say -- but a reality willed by God as such, and with value in itself.

In the second part St. Thomas considers man, driven by grace, in his aspiration to know and love God to be happy in time and in eternity. Firstly, the author presents the theological principles of moral action, studying how, in man's free choice of carrying out good acts, reason, will and passions are integrated, to which is added the strength that the grace of God gives through the virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as the help that is given also by the moral law. Hence the human being is a dynamic being that seeks himself, he seeks to become himself and, in this connection, seeks to do acts that build him up, make him truly man; and here the moral law, grace and one's reason, the will and the passions come in. On this foundation St. Thomas delineates the physiognomy of the man who lives according to the Spirit and thus becomes an icon of God. Here Aquinas pauses to study the three theological virtues -- faith, hope and charity -- followed by the acute examination of more than 50 moral virtues, organized around the four cardinal virtues -- prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. He then ends with a reflection on the different vocations in the Church.

In the third part of the Summa, St. Thomas studies the mystery of Christ -- the way and the truth -- by which we can return to union with God the Father. In this section he writes pages as yet unparalleled on the mystery of the incarnation and passion of Jesus, adding afterward a thorough treatise on the seven sacraments, since in them, the incarnate divine Word extends the benefits of the incarnation for our salvation, for our path of faith toward God and eternal life. He remains almost materially present with the realities of creation; he thus touches us in what is most intimate.

Speaking of the sacraments, St. Thomas pauses particularly on the mystery of the Eucharist, for which he had a very great devotion, to the point that, according to ancient biographers, he used to lean his head on the tabernacle, almost as if to hear the beating of the divine and human Heart of Jesus. In one of his works commenting on Scripture, St. Thomas helps us to understand the excellence of the sacrament of the Eucharist, when he writes: "The Eucharist being the sacrament of the passion of our Lord, is also an effect of this sacrament, it not being other than the application in us of the passion of the Lord" (In Ioannem, c.6, n. 963). Let us understand well why St. Thomas and other saints celebrated the Holy Mass shedding tears of compassion for the Lord, who offers himself in sacrifice for us, tears of joy and of gratitude.

Dear brothers and sisters, in the school of the saints, let us be enamored of this sacrament! Let us participate in the Holy Mass with recollection to obtain its spiritual fruits, let us nourish ourselves on the Body and Blood of the Lord, to be incessantly nourished by divine grace! Let us willingly and frequently converse, face to face, in the company of the Most Blessed Sacrament!

All that St. Thomas illustrated with scientific rigor in his major theological works, such as the Summa Theologiae and the Summa contra Gentiles, was also explained in his preaching, addressed to students and the faithful. In 1273, a year before his death, during the whole of Lent, he preached in the San Domenico Maggiore Church in Naples. The content of those sermons was collected and conserved: They are the booklets in which he explains the Symbol of the Apostles, interprets the prayer of the Our Father, illustrates the Decalogue and comments on the Hail Mary. The content of the preaching of the Angelic Doctor corresponds almost entirely to the structure of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In fact, in catechesis and in preaching, at a time like ours of renewed commitment to evangelization, these fundamental arguments must never be lacking: that is, what we believe, and here is the Symbol of the faith; what we pray, and here is the Our Father and the Hail Mary; and what we live as biblical revelation teaches us, and here is the law of love of God and of our neighbor and the Ten Commandments, as explanation of this mandate of love.

I would like to propose some simple, essential and convincing examples of the content of the teaching of St. Thomas. In his booklet on the Symbol of the Apostles he explains the value of faith. Through it, he says, the soul is united to God, and something like a shoot of eternal life is produced; life receives a sure orientation, and we overcome temptations easily. To those who object that faith is nonsense, because it makes one believe something that does not fall under the experience of the senses, St. Thomas gives a very articulated answer, and recalls that this is an inconsistent doubt, because human intelligence is limited and cannot know everything. Only in the case that we could know perfectly all visible and invisible things, would it then be genuine nonsense to accept truths purely on faith. However, it is impossible to live, St. Thomas observes, without trusting the experience of others, where personal knowledge does not reach. Hence it is reasonable to have faith in God who reveals himself and in the testimony of the Apostles: they were few, simple and poor, dismayed by the Crucifixion of their Teacher; and yet many wise, noble and rich persons were converted in a short time upon listening to their preaching. It is, in fact, a historically striking phenomenon, to which with difficulty one can give any other reasonable answer, other than that of the Apostles' encounter with the Risen Lord.

Commenting on the article of the Symbol regarding the incarnation of the Divine Word, St. Thomas makes some considerations. He affirms that Christian faith, when it considers the mystery of the incarnation, is reinforced; hope rises more trustingly, with the thought that the Son of God came among us, as one of us, to communicate to men his own divinity; charity is revived, because there is no more evident sign of the love of God for us than seeing the Creator of the universe make himself a creature, one of us. Finally, considering the mystery of the incarnation of God, we feel our desire inflamed to reach Christ in glory. Using a simple and effective analogy, St. Thomas observes: "If the brother of a king was far away, he certainly would long to live next to him. Well, Christ is our brother: hence, we must desire his company, become one heart with him" (Opuscoli teologico-spirituali, Rome, 1976, p. 64).

Presenting the prayer of the Our Father, St. Thomas shows that it is perfect in itself, having all the five characteristics that a well made prayer should have: trusting and tranquil abandonment; appropriateness of content, because -- St. Thomas observes -- "it is quite difficult to know exactly what it is appropriate to ask and what not, from the moment that we are in difficulty in face of the choice of desires" (Ibid., p. 120); and then the appropriate order of requests; fervor of charity; and sincerity of humility.

St. Thomas was, as all the saints, a great devotee of Our Lady. He described her with a beautiful appellative: Triclinium totius Trinitatis, triclinium, that is, place where the Trinity finds its rest, because, due to the Incarnation, the three divine Persons dwell [in her] and experience delight and joy to live in her soul full of grace as in no other creature. Through her intercession we can obtain all help.

With a prayer, which traditionally is attributed to St. Thomas and that, in any case, reflects the elements of his profound Marian devotion, we also say: "O blessed and sweet Virgin Mary, Mother of God ... I entrust my whole life to your merciful heart. ... Obtain for me, oh my most sweet Lady, true charity, with which I will be able to love with all my heart your Most Holy Son and you, after him, above all things, and my neighbor in God and for God."

[Translation by ZENIT]

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

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In our catechesis on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages, we turn once more to the teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas. The Summa Theologiae, his masterpiece, reflects Thomas' serene confidence in the harmony of faith and reason, and in the ability of reason, enlightened by faith, to come to an understanding of God and his saving plan. The Summa treats of the Triune God in himself, in his work of creation, and in the person of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son, whose humanity is the means by which we return to the Father. Thomas illustrates the working of divine grace, which perfects our natural gifts and enables us, through the practice of the virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to attain the eternal happiness for which we were created. His description of Christ's saving work stresses the importance of the seven sacraments, and especially the Eucharist. These great theological truths are also reflected in Thomas' preaching which in a clear and simple way presents the mysteries of the faith, the content of Christian prayer, and the demands of a moral life shaped by the natural law and the Gospel's new commandment of love. With the Angelic Doctor, let us pray for the grace to love the Lord with all our heart, and to love our neighbour, "in God and for God."

I offer a warm welcome to the numerous student groups present, and in a special way to those taking part in the programmes sponsored by the Foyer Unitas Lay Centre, the Anglican Centre of Rome and the Midwest Theological Forum. I also thank the choirs for their praise of God in song. Upon all the English-speaking visitors, especially those from Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, the Bahamas and the United States of America, I invoke God's abundant blessings.

©Copyright 2010 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

[In Italian, he said:]

I now greet young people, the sick and newlyweds. Today is the liturgical memorial of St. Joseph Cafasso and the 150th anniversary of his death. May the example of this engaging figure of an exemplary priest, to whom I would like to dedicate next Wednesday's catechesis, help you, dear young people, to experience personally the liberating force of the love of Christ, who renews profoundly the life of man; may he sustain you, dear sick, to offer your sufferings for the conversion of those who are prisoners of evil; may he encourage you, dear newlyweds, to be a sign of the fidelity of God also with mutual forgiveness, motivated by love.

[Translation by ZENIT]

Papal Address on 400th Anniversary of Matteo Ricci's Death

Papal Address on 400th Anniversary of Matteo Ricci's Death

"An Example of Balance Between Doctrinal Clarity and Prudent Pastoral Action"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 21, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered May 29 upon receiving several dioceses of the Marches region on the 400th anniversary of the Italian Jesuit missionary Father Matteo Ricci (1552-1610).

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Your Eminences,
Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Distinguished Authorities,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am pleased to meet you to commemorate the fourth centenary of the death of Fr Matteo Ricci, SJ. I offer a fraternal greeting to Bishop Claudio Giuliodori of Macerata-Tolentino-Recanati-Cingoli-Treia, who is leading this numerous pilgrimage.

With him, I greet my Brother Bishops of the Episcopal Conference of the Marches and their respective Dioceses, the Civil, Military and Academic Authorities; the priests, seminarians and students, as well as the Pueri Cantores.

Macerata is proud of such an illustrious citizen, a religious and a priest! I greet the Members of the Society of Jesus to whom Fr Ricci belonged and in particular Fr Adolfo Nicolás, Superior General, the Jesuits' friends and collaborators and the educational institutes connected with them. A thought also goes to all the Chinese.

This great missionary a true protagonist of Gospel proclamation in China in the modern age, following the first evangelization there by Archbishop Giovanni da Montecorvino reached the end of his earthly life in Peking on 11 May 1610.

The extraordinary privilege he was granted, unthinkable for a foreigner, of being buried in Chinese soil is proof of the high esteem in which he was held, both in the Chinese capital and at the Imperial Court itself.

Today it is also possible to venerate his tomb in Peking, fittingly restored by the Local Authorities. The many initiatives promoted in Europe and in China in honour of Fr Ricci show the keen interest that his work continues to kindle in the Church and in the different cultural contexts.

The history of the Catholic missions includes figures important because of their zeal and courage in bringing Christ to new and distant lands; but Fr Ricci is a unique case of a felicitous synthesis between the proclamation of the Gospel and the dialogue with the culture of the people to whom he brought it; he is an example of balance between doctrinal clarity and prudent pastoral action. Not only his profound knowledge of the language but also his assumption of the lifestyle and customs of the cultured Chinese classes, the result of study and its patient, far-sighted implementation, ensured that Fr Ricci was accepted by the Chinese with respect and esteem, no longer as a foreigner but as the "Master of the Great West".

Among the important figures of Chinese history in the "Millennium Museum", Peking, only two foreigners are recorded: Marco Polo and Fr Matteo Ricci.

This missionary's work presents two dimensions that must not be separated: the Chinese inculturation of the Gospel proclamation and the presentation to China of Western culture and science. The scientific aspects often attracted greater interest but the perspective with which Fr Ricci entered into relations with the Chinese world and culture should not be forgotten. It consisted of a humanism that viewed the person as part of his context, cultivated his moral and spiritual values, retaining everything positive that is found in the Chinese tradition and offering to enrich it with the contribution of Western culture and, above all, with the wisdom and truth of Christ.

Fr Ricci did not go to China to take it the science and culture of the West but rather to bring to it the Gospel, to make God known.

He wrote: "For more than 20 years, every morning and every evening I have prayed with tears to Heaven. I know that the Lord of Heaven takes pity on living creatures and pardons them.... The truth about the Lord of Heaven is already in human hearts. But human beings do not immediately understand it and are not inclined to reflect on such a matter" (Il vero significato del "Signore del Cielo", [the true meaning of the "Lord of Heaven"], Rome 2006, pp. 69-70).

And it was precisely while he was proclaiming the Gospel that Fr Ricci discovered in those with whom he was conversing the request for a broader exchange, so that the encounter motivated by faith also became an intercultural dialogue; a disinterested dialogue, free from financial or political ambition and lived in friendship. This makes the work of Fr Ricci and his followers one of the loftiest and happiest peaks in the relationship between China and the West.

The "Treaty of Friendship" (1595), one of his first and best known works in Chinese, is eloquent in this regard. In Fr Ricci's thought and teaching science, reason and faith find a natural synthesis: "Anyone who knows Heaven and earth", he wrote in the preface to the third edition of the world map, "can prove that the One who rules Heaven and earth is absolutely good, absolutely great and absolutely one. The ignorant reject Heaven, but knowledge that does not relate back to the Emperor of Heaven as to the first cause is no knowledge at all".

However, admiration for Fr Ricci must not lead us to forget the role and influence of his Chinese conversation partners. The decisions he made did not depend on an abstract strategy of inculturation of the faith but rather on events as a whole, on the meetings and experiences that he continued to have, which is why what he was able to achieve was also thanks to his encounter with the Chinese.

He experienced this encounter in many ways but deepened it through his relationship with a few friends and followers, especially his four famous converts, "pillars of the nascent Chinese Church".

The first and most famous of them was Xu Guangqi, a native of Shanghai, a literary man and a scientist, mathematician, astronomer and agricultural expert who reached the highest ranks in the imperial bureaucracy, an integral man of great faith and Christian life, who was dedicated to serving his country and occupied an important place in the history of Chinese culture.

It was he, for example, who convinced and helped Fr Ricci to translate into Chinese Euclid's Elements, a fundamental work of geometry, and who persuaded the Emperor to entrust the reform of the Chinese calendar to Jesuit astronomers.

Li Zhizao, another of the Chinese scholars who converted to Christianity, likewise helped Fr Ricci in completing the last and most developed editions of the world map that were to give the Chinese a new image of the world.

He described Fr Ricci in these words: "I believed him to be a unique man because he lives in celibacy, steers clear of intrigue in his office, speaks little, has an orderly conduct and this is his daily practice he cultivates virtue secretly and serves God ceaselessly".

Thus it is right to associate with Fr Matteo Ricci his closest friends who shared with him the experience of faith.

Dear brothers and sisters, may the memory of these men of God dedicated to the Gospel and to the Church, their example of fidelity to Christ, their deep love for the Chinese people, their commitment of intelligence and study and their virtuous lives be an opportunity to pray for the Church in China and for the entire Chinese people, as we do every year, on 24 May, addressing Mary Most Holy, venerated in the famous Shrine of Sheshan in Shanghai; and may they also be an incentive and an encouragement to live the Christian faith intensely, in dialogue with the different cultures but in the certainty that in Christ true humanism is fulfilled, open to God, rich in moral and spiritual values and capable of responding to the deepest desires of the human soul.

Today I too, like Fr Matteo Ricci, express my profound esteem to the noble Chinese people and to their 1,000-old culture, in the conviction that a renewed encounter with Christianity will bear abundant fruits of good, just as it then fostered a peaceful coexistence among peoples. Many thanks.

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Papal Homily for Rome Diocesan Ordinations

Papal Homily for Rome Diocesan Ordinations

"This Is the Sure Road to Find True Joy"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 20, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is the translation of a homily given today by Benedict XVI at a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica for the priestly ordination of 14 deacons of the Diocese of Rome.
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Dear Brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,
Dear Ordinands,
Dear Brothers and Sisters!

As bishop of this diocese I am particularly delighted to welcome into the "presbyterium" 14 new priests. Together with the cardinal vicar, the auxiliary bishops and all the presbyters I thank the Lord for the gift of these new pastors of the People of God. I would like to address a particular greeting to you, dear ordinands: today you are at the center of the attention of the People of God, a people symbolically represented by the people who fill this Vatican Basilica. They fill it with prayer and songs, with sincere and deep affection, with authentic emotion, with human and spiritual joy. Among this People of God, there is a special place occupied by your parents and relatives, friends and companions, superiors and seminary educators, the various parish communities and the different realities of the Church from which you come and who have accompanied you on your journey and those whom you yourselves have already served pastorally. But we do not forget the singular closeness in this moment of many [other] people, humble and simple but great before God, such as, for example, the cloistered, children, the sick and infirm. They accompany you with the precious gift of their prayers, their innocence and their suffering.

It is, therefore, the entire Church of Rome, that today gives thanks to God and prays for you, that puts so much faith and hope in your tomorrow, that awaits abundant fruits of holiness and goodness from your priestly ministry. Yes, the Church counts on you. It counts very much on you! The Church needs each one of you, aware as it is of the gifts that God offers you and, together with the absolute need in the heart of every man to meet with Christ, the one and only universal Savior of the world, to receive from him the new and eternal life, true freedom and perfect joy. Thus each of us feels invited to enter into the "mystery," into the event of grace that is taking place in your hearts with presbyteral Ordination, letting ourselves be enlightened by the Word of God that has been proclaimed.

The Gospel that we have heard presents to us a significant moment in the journey of Jesus in which he asks his disciples what people think of him and how they themselves judge him. Peter replies in the name of the 12 with a confession of faith, which differs in a substantial way from the view that people have of Jesus; he affirms in fact: You are the Christ of God (cf. Luke 9:20). Whence is this act of faith born? If we go to the beginning of the Gospel passage, we note that Peter's confession is tied to a moment of prayer: "Jesus was in a solitary place to pray. The disciples were with him," says St. Luke (9:18). The disciples, thus, become involved in Jesus' absolutely unique being and speaking with the Father. And in that way they are permitted to see the Master in the depths of his condition as Son. They are permitted to see what others do not see; by "being with him," by "staying with" him in prayer, there comes a knowledge that goes beyond the opinions of the people to reach the profound identity of Jesus, to reach the truth. Here we are furnished with a very precise pointer for the life and mission of the priest: in prayer he is called to rediscover the ever new face of his Lord and always the most authentic content of his mission. Only he who has an intimate relationship with the Lord is drawn by him, can bring him to others, can be sent. This is an "abiding with him" that must always accompany the exercise of priestly ministry; it must be the central part of it, also and above all in difficult moments when it seems that "having things to do" must take priority. Wherever we are, whatever we do, we must always "abide with him."

There is a second element I wish to highlight in today's Gospel. Immediately after Peter's confession, Jesus announces his passion and resurrection and follows this announcement with a teaching regarding the path of his disciples, which is a following of him, the Crucified, on the road of the cross. And he then adds -- with a paradoxical expression -- that being a disciple means "losing oneself," but in order to fully find oneself again (cf. Luke 9:22-24). What does this mean for every Christian, but especially what does it mean for a priest? Discipleship, but we can safely say: the priesthood can never be a way to achieve security in life or to gain a social position. He who aspires to the priesthood to enhance his own personal prestige and power has misunderstood the meaning of this ministry at its root. He who wants above all to realize an ambition of his own, to achieve a personal success, will always be a slave to himself and public opinion. To be considered, he will have to flatter; he must say what the people want to hear, he must adapt himself to changing fashions and opinions and, thus, he will deprive himself of the vital relationship with the truth, reducing himself to condemning tomorrow what he praises today. A man who plans his life like this, a priest who sees his ministry in these terms, does not truly love God and others, but only himself and, paradoxically, ends up losing himself. The priesthood -- let us always remember -- rests on the courage to say yes to another will, in the awareness, to be cultivated every day, that conforming ourselves to the will of God, being "immersed" in this will, not only does not erase our originality, but, on the contrary, we will enter more and more into the truth of our being and our ministry.

Dear Ordinands, I would like propose for your reflection a third point, closely connected to the one just expounded: Jesus' invitation to "lose yourself," to take up the cross, recalls the mystery we are celebrating: the Eucharist. You are granted today, with the sacrament of Holy Orders, to preside at the Eucharist! You are entrusted with the redemptive sacrifice of Christ, you are entrusted with his body that is given and his blood that is shed. Of course, Jesus offers his sacrifice, his humble and total gift of love, to the Church his Bride, on the cross. It was on that wood, that the Father dropped a grain of wheat in the field of the world so that dying it would become mature fruit, the giver of life. But, in God's plan, this gift of Christ is made present in the Eucharist thanks to that "potestas sacra" that the sacrament of Orders confers on you presbyters. When we celebrate Holy Mass we hold in our hands the Bread of Heaven, the Bread of God, which is Christ, the grain broken to multiply and become the true food of life for the world. It is something that cannot but fill you with intimate wonder, lively joy and immense gratitude: Now the love and gift of Christ crucified and glorious, pass through your hands, your voice, your heart! It is an ever new experience of wonder to see that in my hands, in my voice the Lord accomplishes this mystery of his presence!

How can we not now beg the Lord that he grant you an ever vigilant awareness of this gift, which is at the center of your being priests! And that he may give you the grace to know how to experience in depth all the beauty and strength of this your presbyteral service and, at the same time, the grace to be able to live this ministry with consistency and generosity every day. The grace of the presbyterate, that soon you will be granted, will connect you intimately, even structurally, to the Eucharist. For this, it will connect you in the depths of your heart with the sentiments of Jesus who loves to the end, to the total gift of self, to his being bread multiplied for the holy feast of unity and communion. It is this is the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that is destined to enflame your soul with the love itself of the Lord Jesus. It is an outpouring that, while telling of the absolute gratuity of the gift, carves into your being an indelible law -- the new law, a law that moves you to insert and make flourish in the concrete fabric of the attitudes and gestures of your everyday life the donating love itself of Christ crucified. Let us listen again to the voice of the Apostle Paul. Indeed in this voice we recognize the powerful voice of the Holy Spirit: "You who were baptized into Christ are clothed in Christ" (Galatians 3:27). Already with Baptism, and now in virtue of the sacrament of Orders, you clothe yourselves in Christ. May care for the Eucharist always be accompanied by the commitment to a Eucharistic life lived in obedience to one single great law: that of love that gives itself entirely and serves with humility, a life that the grace of the Holy Spirit renders ever more like that of Christ Jesus, the Eternal High Priest, servant of God and men.

Dear friends, the road that today's Gospel indicates to us is the road of your spirituality and your pastoral action, of its effectiveness and incisiveness, even in the most strenuous and arid situations. Moreover, this is the sure road to find true joy. May Mary, the handmaid of the Lord, who conformed her will to the will of God, who gave birth to Christ, giving him to the world, who followed the Son to the foot of the cross in the supreme act of love, accompany every day in your life and of your ministry. Thanks to the affection of this Mother, tender and strong, you can be joyfully faithful to that which is given to you today as presbyters: conformity to Christ the Priest, who knew how to obey the will of the Father and love man to the end.

Amen!

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

On the Power of the Cross

On the Power of the Cross

"Taking up the Cross Means Committing Oneself to Defeating Sin"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 20, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the public address Benedict XVI gave today before praying the midday Angelus with the pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters!

This morning in St. Peter's Basilica I conferred the presbyteral order on 14 deacons of the Diocese of Rome. The sacrament of Holy Orders manifests, on God's part, his solicitous nearness to men and, on the part of him who receives, the complete availability to become the instrument of this nearness, with a radical love, to Christ and to the Church. In this Sunday's Gospel, the Lord asks his disciples: "But you, who do you say that I am?" (Luke 9:20). The Apostle Peter promptly answers this question: "You are the Christ, the Messiah of God" (Luke 9:20), thus going beyond all the earthly opinions that held Jesus to be one of the prophets. According to St. Ambrose, with this profession of faith, Peter "embraced everything together, because he expressed the nature and the name" of the Messiah (Exp. in Lucam VI, 93, CCL 14, 207). And Jesus, before this profession of faith, renews to Peter and the other disciples the invitation to follow him on the demanding road of love to the cross. To us too, who can know the Lord through faith in his Word and in the sacraments, Jesus makes the proposal to follow him every day and also reminds us that to be his disciples it is necessary to appropriate the power of the cross, the highest of our goods and the crown of our hope.

St. Maximus the Confessor observes that "the distinct sign of the power of our Lord Jesus Christ is the cross that he carried on his back" ("Ambiguum" 32, PG91, 1284 C). In fact, "[the Lord] said to everyone: 'If someone wants to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23). Taking up the cross means committing oneself to defeating sin, which blocks the way to God, accepting the Lord's will every day, making faith grow above all in the face of problems, difficulties, suffering. The holy Carmelite Edith Stein testified to this in a time of persecution. Thus she wrote at the Carmel of Cologne in 1938: "Today I understand ... what it means to be the bride of Christ in the sign of the cross, even though I will never completely comprehend it since it is a mystery ... The more that gloom surrounds us, the more we must open our heart to the light that comes from on high" ("La scelta di Dio. Lettere (1917-1942)," Roma 1973, 132-133). Even today there are many Christians in the world who, animated by God, assume the cross every day, whether it be daily trials, whether it be that procured by human barbarity, which sometimes requires the courage of the supreme sacrifice. May the Lord grant everyone of us always to place our firm hope in him, certain that, following him carrying our cross, we will reach the light of the Resurrection with him.

Let us entrust to the maternal care of the Virgin Mary the new priests ordained today, who join the ranks of those the Lord has called by name: May they always be faithful disciples, courageous proclaimers of the Word of God and administrators of the gifts of salvation.

[After the Angelus the Holy Father addressed the faithful in various languages. In Italian he said:]

I would like to make an urgent appeal that peace and security soon be reestablished in southern Kyrgyzstan after the grave clashes that have taken place in recent days. To the families of the victims and those who suffer because of this tragedy I express my heartfelt nearness and assurance of my prayers. I invite, furthermore, all the ethnic groups of the country to renounce all violence or provocation and I ask the international community to see that humanitarian aid may quickly reach the stricken populations.

Today the United Nations celebrates World Refugee Day, to recall attention to the problems of those who have been forced out of their own land and familiar customs, traveling to environments that, often, are profoundly different. Refugees desire to find welcome and to be recognized in their dignity and their fundamental rights; at the same time they intend to offer their contribution to the society that welcomes them. Let us pray that, in a just reciprocity, there be a response adequate to such expectations and they show the respect that they have for the identity of the community that receives them.

[The Holy Father said in English:]

I greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at this Angelus prayer. In today's Gospel Jesus calls us to carry our cross in union with him. May we always give ourselves to him and thus discover anew the joy that he promises to those who follow him. Upon you and your loved ones at home, I invoke the blessings of Almighty God.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

On Aquinas, Philosophy and Theology

On Aquinas, Philosophy and Theology

Faith "Protects Reason From Every Temptation to Mistrust Its Own Capacities"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 16, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience in St. Peter's Square.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I would like to continue a presentation of St. Thomas Aquinas, a theologian of such value that the study of his thought was explicitly recommended by the Second Vatican Council in two documents, the decree "Optatam Totius," on formation for the priesthood, and the declaration "Gravissimum Educationis," which deals with Christian education. However, already in 1880, Pope Leo XIII, who greatly esteemed [Thomas] and was a promoter of Thomistic studies, wished to declare St. Thomas the patron of Catholic schools and universities.

The main reason for this appreciation lies not only in the content of his teaching, but also in the method he used, above all his new synthesis and distinction between philosophy and theology. The Fathers of the Church had found themselves faced with different philosophies of a Platonic type, in which a complete vision of the world and of life was presented, including the question of God and of religion. In confronting these philosophies, they themselves elaborated a complete vision of reality, starting from the faith and using elements of Platonism, to respond to the essential questions of man. They called this vision, based on biblical revelation and elaborated with a correct Platonism in the light of faith, "our philosophy." The word "philosophy" was not, therefore, the expression of a purely rational system and, as such, different from faith, but it indicated a comprehensive vision of reality, constructed in the light of faith, but made by and thought out by reason; a vision that, it is true, went beyond the capacity proper to reason, but that, as such, was also satisfying for it.

For St. Thomas the encounter with the pre-Christian philosophy of Aristotle (who died around 322 B.C.) opened a new perspective. Aristotelian philosophy was, obviously, a philosophy elaborated without knowledge of the Old and the New Testament, an explanation of the world without Revelation, by reason alone. And this consistent rationality was convincing. Thus the old form of the Fathers' "our philosophy" no longer worked. The relationship between philosophy and theology, between faith and reason, had to be thought out again.

There existed a complete and convincing "philosophy" in itself, a rationality preceding faith, and then "theology," thinking with the faith and in the faith. The pressing question was this: Are the world of rationality, philosophy thought out without Christ, and the world of faith compatible? Or do they exclude one another?

There was no lack of elements that affirmed the incompatibility between the two worlds, but St. Thomas was firmly convinced of their compatibility -- more than that, that a philosophy elaborated without the knowledge of Christ almost awaited the light of Jesus to be complete. This was the great "surprise" of St. Thomas, which determined his path as a thinker. To show this independence of philosophy and theology and, at the same time, their reciprocal rationality was the historic mission of the great teacher. And thus we can understand why, in the 19th century, when an incompatibility between modern reason and faith was forcefully declared, Pope Leo XIII indicated St. Thomas as the guide in the dialogue between the one and the other.

In his theological work, St. Thomas presupposes and makes concrete this rationality. Faith consolidates, integrates and enlightens the patrimony of truth that human reason acquires. The trust that St. Thomas accords to these two instruments of knowledge -- faith and reason -- can lead back to the conviction that both proceed from the one source of all truth, the divine Logos, which operates both in the realm of creation as well as in that of redemption.

Together with the agreement between reason and faith, it must be acknowledged that they make use of different cognitive procedures. Reason accepts a truth on the strength of its intrinsic evidence, indirect or immediate; faith, instead, accepts a truth based on the authority of the Word of God who reveals himself. At the beginning of his Summa Theologiae St. Thomas writes: "The order of the sciences is twofold; some proceed from principles known through the natural light of reason, such as mathematics, geometry and similar ones; others proceed from principles known through a higher science: as perspective proceeds from principles known through geometry and music from principles known through mathematics. And in this way the sacred doctrine (namely, theology) is a science because it proceeds from principles known through the light of a higher science, namely, the science of God and of the saints" (I, q. 1, a. 2).

This distinction ensures the autonomy both of human sciences as well as of the theological sciences. However, this is not the equivalent of separation, but implies rather a reciprocal and advantageous collaboration. Faith, in fact, protects reason from every temptation to mistrust its own capacities, it stimulates it to open to ever more vast horizons, it keeps alive in it the search for foundations and, when reason itself applies itself to the supernatural sphere of the relationship between God and man, it enriches its work. According to St. Thomas, for example, human reason can without a doubt attain to the affirmation of the existence of one God, but only faith, which receives divine Revelation, is able to attain to the mystery of the Love of God, One and Triune.

On the other hand, it is not only faith that helps reason. Reason also, with its means, can do something important for faith, rendering it a threefold service that St. Thomas summarizes in the preface of his commentary to Boethius' De Trinitate: "To demonstrate the foundations of the faith; to explain through similarities the truth of the faith; to refute the objections that are raised against the faith" (q. 2, a. 2). The whole history of theology is, fundamentally, the exercise of this effort from the intelligence, which shows the intelligibility of faith, its internal articulation and harmony, its reasonableness and its capacity to promote the good of man. The correction of theological reasoning and its real cognitive meaning is based on the value of theological language, which is, according to St. Thomas, primarily an analogical language. The distance between God, the Creator, and the being of his creatures is infinite; the dissimilarity is always greater than the similarity (cf. DC 806). Despite this, in all the difference between Creator and creature, there is an analogy between created being and the being of the Creator, which enables us to speak with human words about God.

St. Thomas based the doctrine of analogy, as well as his exquisitely philosophical arguments, also on the fact that with Revelation, God himself has spoken to us and has, therefore, authorized us to speak of him. I consider it important to recall this doctrine. In fact, it helps us to surmount some objections of contemporary atheism, which denies that religious language is equipped with an objective meaning, and maintains instead that it has only a subjective or simply emotional value. This objection results from the fact that positivist thought is convinced that man does not know being, but only the functions of reality that are experienced. With St. Thomas and with the great philosophical tradition, we are convinced that, in reality, man does not only know the functions, object of the natural sciences, but he knows something of being itself -- for example he knows the person, the you of the other, and not only the physical or biological aspect of his being.

In the light of this teaching of St. Thomas, theology affirms that, though limited, religious language is equipped with meaning -- because we touch being -- as an arrow directed toward the reality it signifies. This fundamental agreement between human reason and Christian faith is recognized in another basic principle of Aquinas' thought: divine grace does not annul but supposes and perfects human nature. Human nature, in fact, even after sin, is not completely corrupt, but wounded and weakened. Grace, lavished by God and communicated through the Mystery of the Incarnate Word, is an absolutely free gift with which nature is healed, strengthened and aided in the pursuit of happiness, the innate desire in the heart of every man and every woman. All the faculties of the human being are purified, transformed and elevated by divine grace.

An important application of this relation between nature and grace is recognized in the moral theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, which is very timely. At the center of his teaching in this field, he puts the new law, which is the law of the Holy Spirit. With a profoundly evangelical focus, he insists on the fact that this law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to all those who believe in Christ. To such grace is joined the written and oral teaching of the doctrinal and moral truths, transmitted by the Church. Stressing the fundamental role in moral life of the Holy Spirit's action, of grace, from which the theological and moral virtues flow, St. Thomas makes one understand that every Christian can attain the lofty prospects of the "Sermon on the Mount" if he lives an authentic relationship of faith in Christ, if he opens himself to the action of his Holy Spirit. However -- Aquinas adds -- "even if grace is more effective than nature, still nature is more essential for man" (Summa Theologiae, Ia, q, 29, a. 3), due to which, in the Christian moral perspective, there is a place for reason, which is capable of discerning the natural moral law. Reason can recognize [this law] considering what is good to do and what is good to avoid to obtain that happiness which is in each one's heart, and which also imposes a responsibility toward others and, hence, the search for the common good. In other words, the virtues of man, theological and moral, are rooted in human nature. Divine grace supports, sustains and drives the ethical commitment but, on their own, according to St. Thomas, all men, believers and non-believers, are called to recognize the exigencies of human nature expressed in natural law and to be inspired in it in the formulation of positive laws, that is, those issuing from the civil and political authorities to regulate human coexistence.

When the natural law and the responsibility it implies are denied, the way is opened dramatically to ethical relativism on the individual plane and to the totalitarianism of the state on the political plane. The defense of man's universal rights and the affirmation of the absolute value of the dignity of the person postulate a foundation. Is not the natural law precisely this foundation, with the non-negotiable values that it indicates? The Venerable John Paul II wrote in his encyclical "Evangelium Vitae" words that remain very timely: "It is therefore urgently necessary, for the future of society and the development of a sound democracy, to rediscover those essential and innate human and moral values which flow from the very truth of the human being and express and safeguard the dignity of the person: values which no individual, no majority and no State can ever create, modify or destroy, but must only acknowledge, respect and promote" (No. 71).

In conclusion, Thomas proposes to us a broad and trustworthy concept of human reason: broad because it is not limited to the spaces of the so-called empirical-scientific reason, but open to the whole being and hence also to the fundamental and inalienable questions of human living; and trustworthy because human reason, above all if it accepts the inspirations of the Christian faith, is a promoter of a civilization that recognizes the dignity of the person, the intangibility of his rights and the strength of his duties. It is not surprising that the doctrine about the dignity of the person, fundamental for the recognition of the inviolability of man's rights, matured in realms of thought that took up the legacy of St. Thomas Aquinas, who had a very lofty concept of the human creature. He defined it, with his rigorously philosophical language, as "that which is most perfect found in the whole of nature, that is a subsistent subject in a rational nature" (Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 29, a. 3).

The profundity of St. Thomas Aquinas' thought stems -- let us never forget it -- from his lively faith and his fervent piety, which he expressed in inspired prayers, such as this one in which he asks God: "Grant me, I pray, a will that seeks you, a wisdom that finds you, a life that pleases you, a perseverance that waits for you with trust and a trust that in the end succeeds in possessing you."

[Translation by ZENIT]

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

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Continuing our catechesis on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages, we turn to the teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which the Church has consistently upheld as a model of sound theological method. Thomas' insistence on the harmony of faith and reason respected the autonomy and complementarity of these two ways of knowing the truth which has its ultimate origin in God's Word. Faith sheds fuller light on the truths which reason is naturally capable of knowing, while drawing from revelation a supernatural knowledge of the divine mysteries and the Triune God himself. Reason for its part serves to demonstrate faith's credibility, to defend its teaching, and to show its inner consistency and intelligibility. The complementary relationship between faith and reason reflects the truth that God's grace build on, elevates and perfects human nature, which is thus enabled to pursue the felicity which is its deepest desire. Thomas' conviction that we are naturally able to acknowledge the principles of the natural moral law remains timely, since that law, grounded in the truth of man's nature, is the basis of respect for human dignity and universal human rights. Saint Thomas is the patron of Catholic schools and universities; let us ask him to obtain for all of us the wisdom and understanding born of a deep and living Christian faith!

I am pleased to greet the English-speaking visitors present in today's audience, especially the many parish and student groups. I offer a warm welcome to all who have come from Hong Kong, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Upon all of you I invoke God's blessings of joy and peace!

©Copyright 2010 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

[In Italian, he said:]

I greet, finally, young people, the sick and newlyweds. Dear young people always draw from Christ present in the Eucharist the spiritual food to advance along the way of sanctity; for you, dear sick people, may Christ be the support and comfort in your trial and suffering; and for you, dear newlyweds, may the sacrament which has rooted you in Christ be the source that nourishes your daily love.

[Translation by ZENIT]

Papal Homily at End of Year for Priests

Papal Homily at End of Year for Priests

"The Priesthood ... Is not Simply Office, but Sacrament"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 11, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is the Vatican translation of the address delivered today by Benedict XVI at the papal Mass on the feast of the Sacred Heart that marked the end of the Year for Priests.

* * *

Dear Brothers in the Priestly Ministry,

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Year for Priests which we have celebrated on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the death of the holy Curè of Ars, the model of priestly ministry in our world, is now coming to an end. We have let the Curé of Ars guide us to a renewed appreciation of the grandeur and beauty of the priestly ministry. The priest is not a mere office-holder, like those which every society needs in order to carry out certain functions. Instead, he does something which no human being can do of his own power: in Christ’s name he speaks the words which absolve us of our sins and in this way he changes, starting with God, our entire life. Over the offerings of bread and wine he speaks Christ’s words of thanksgiving, which are words of transubstantiation – words which make Christ himself present, the Risen One, his Body and Blood – words which thus transform the elements of the world, which open the world to God and unite it to him.

The priesthood, then, is not simply "office" but sacrament: God makes use of us poor men in order to be, through us, present to all men and women, and to act on their behalf. This audacity of God who entrusts himself to human beings – who, conscious of our weaknesses, nonetheless considers men capable of acting and being present in his stead – this audacity of God is the true grandeur concealed in the word "priesthood". That God thinks that we are capable of this; that in this way he calls men to his service and thus from within binds himself to them: this is what we wanted to reflect upon and appreciate anew over the course of the past year. We wanted to reawaken our joy at how close God is to us, and our gratitude for the fact that he entrusts himself to our infirmities; that he guides and sustains us daily. In this way we also wanted to demonstrate once again to young people that this vocation, this fellowship of service for God and with God, does exist – and that God is indeed waiting for us to say "yes".

Together with the whole Church we wanted to make clear once again that we have to ask God for this vocation. We have to beg for workers for God’s harvest, and this petition to God is, at the same time, his own way of knocking on the hearts of young people who consider themselves able to do what God considers them able to do. It was to be expected that this new radiance of the priesthood would not be pleasing to the "enemy"; he would have rather preferred to see it disappear, so that God would ultimately be driven out of the world. And so it happened that, in this very year of joy for the sacrament of the priesthood, the sins of priests came to light – particularly the abuse of the little ones, in which the priesthood, whose task is to manifest God’s concern for our good, turns into its very opposite. We too insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again; and that in admitting men to priestly ministry and in their formation we will do everything we can to weigh the authenticity of their vocation and make every effort to accompany priests along their journey, so that the Lord will protect them and watch over them in troubled situations and amid life’s dangers.

Had the Year for Priests been a glorification of our individual human performance, it would have been ruined by these events. But for us what happened was precisely the opposite: we grew in gratitude for God’s gift, a gift concealed in "earthen vessels" which ever anew, even amid human weakness, makes his love concretely present in this world. So let us look upon all that happened as a summons to purification, as a task which we bring to the future and which makes us acknowledge and love all the more the great gift we have received from God. In this way, his gift becomes a commitment to respond to God’s courage and humility by our own courage and our own humility. The word of God, which we have sung in the Entrance Antiphon of today’s liturgy, can speak to us, at this hour, of what it means to become and to be a priest: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble of heart" (Mt 11:29).

We are celebrating the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and in the liturgy we peer, as it were, into the heart of Jesus opened in death by the spear of the Roman soldier. Jesus’ heart was indeed opened for us and before us – and thus God’s own heart was opened. The liturgy interprets for us the language of Jesus’ heart, which tells us above all that God is the shepherd of mankind, and so it reveals to us Jesus’ priesthood, which is rooted deep within his heart; so too it shows us the perennial foundation and the effective criterion of all priestly ministry, which must always be anchored in the heart of Jesus and lived out from that starting-point.

Today I would like to meditate especially on those texts with which the Church in prayer responds to the word of God presented in the readings. In those chants, word (Wort) and response (Antwort) interpenetrate. On the one hand, the chants are themselves drawn from the word of God, yet on the other, they are already our human response to that word, a response in which the word itself is communicated and enters into our lives. The most important of those texts in today’s liturgy is Psalm 23(22) – "The Lord is my shepherd" – in which Israel at prayer received God’s self-revelation as shepherd, and made this the guide of its own life. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want": this first verse expresses joy and gratitude for the fact that God is present to and concerned for humanity. The reading from the Book of Ezechiel begins with the same theme: "I myself will look after and tend my sheep" (Ez 34:11). God personally looks after me, after us, after all mankind. I am not abandoned, adrift in the universe and in a society which leaves me ever more lost and bewildered. God looks after me. He is not a distant God, for whom my life is worthless. The world’s religions, as far as we can see, have always known that in the end there is only one God. But this God was distant. Evidently he had abandoned the world to other powers and forces, to other divinities. It was with these that one had to deal. The one God was good, yet aloof. He was not dangerous, nor was he very helpful. Consequently one didn’t need to worry about him. He did not lord it over us.

Oddly, this kind of thinking re-emerged during the Enlightenment. There was still a recognition that the world presupposes a Creator. Yet this God, after making the world, had evidently withdrawn from it. The world itself had a certain set of laws by which it ran, and God did not, could not, intervene in them. God was only a remote cause. Many perhaps did not even want God to look after them. They did not want God to get in the way. But wherever God’s loving concern is perceived as getting in the way, human beings go awry.

It is fine and consoling to know that there is someone who loves me and looks after me. But it is far more important that there is a God who knows me, loves me and is concerned about me. "I know my own and my own know me" (Jn 10:14), the Church says before the Gospel with the Lord’s words. God knows me, he is concerned about me. This thought should make us truly joyful. Let us allow it to penetrate the depths of our being. Then let us also realize what it means: God wants us, as priests, in one tiny moment of history, to share his concern about people. As priests, we want to be persons who share his concern for men and women, who take care of them and provide them with a concrete experience of God’s concern. Whatever the field of activity entrusted to him, the priest, with the Lord, ought to be able to say: "I know my sheep and mine know me". "To know", in the idiom of sacred Scripture, never refers to merely exterior knowledge, like the knowledge of someone’s telephone number. "Knowing" means being inwardly close to another person. It means loving him or her. We should strive to "know" men and women as God does and for God’s sake; we should strive to walk with them along the path of friendship with God.

Let us return to our Psalm. There we read: "He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me" (23[22]:3ff.). The shepherd points out the right path to those entrusted to him. He goes before them and leads them. Let us put it differently: the Lord shows us the right way to be human. He teaches us the art of being a person. What must I do in order not to fall, not to squander my life in meaninglessness? This is precisely the question which every man and woman must ask and one which remains valid at every moment of one’s life. How much darkness surrounds this question in our own day! We are constantly reminded of the words of Jesus, who felt compassion for the crowds because they were like a flock without a shepherd. Lord, have mercy on us too! Show us the way! From the Gospel we know this much: he is himself the way.

Living with Christ, following him – this means finding the right way, so that our lives can be meaningful and so that one day we might say: "Yes, it was good to have lived". The people of Israel continue to be grateful to God because in the Commandments he pointed out the way of life. The great Psalm 119(118) is a unique expression of joy for this fact: we are not fumbling in the dark. God has shown us the way and how to walk aright. The message of the Commandments was synthesized in the life of Jesus and became a living model. Thus we understand that these rules from God are not chains, but the way which he is pointing out to us. We can be glad for them and rejoice that in Christ they stand before us as a lived reality. He himself has made us glad. By walking with Christ, we experience the joy of Revelation, and as priests we need to communicate to others our own joy at the fact that we have been shown the right way.

Then there is the phrase about the "darkest valley" through which the Lord leads us. Our path as individuals will one day lead us into the valley of the shadow of death, where no one can accompany us. Yet he will be there. Christ himself descended into the dark night of death. Even there he will not abandon us. Even there he will lead us. "If I sink to the nether world, you are present there", says Psalm 139(138). Truly you are there, even in the throes of death, and hence our Responsorial Psalm can say: even there, in the darkest valley, I fear no evil. When speaking of the darkest valley, we can also think of the dark valleys of temptation, discouragement and trial through which everyone has to pass. Even in these dark valleys of life he is there. Lord, in the darkness of temptation, at the hour of dusk when all light seems to have died away, show me that you are there. Help us priests, so that we can remain beside the persons entrusted to us in these dark nights. So that we can show them your own light.

"Your rod and your staff – they comfort me": the shepherd needs the rod as protection against savage beasts ready to pounce on the flock; against robbers looking for prey. Along with the rod there is the staff which gives support and helps to make difficult crossings. Both of these are likewise part of the Church’s ministry, of the priest’s ministry. The Church too must use the shepherd’s rod, the rod with which he protects the faith against those who falsify it, against currents which lead the flock astray. The use of the rod can actually be a service of love. Today we can see that it has nothing to do with love when conduct unworthy of the priestly life is tolerated. Nor does it have to do with love if heresy is allowed to spread and the faith twisted and chipped away, as if it were something that we ourselves had invented. As if it were no longer God’s gift, the precious pearl which we cannot let be taken from us. Even so, the rod must always become once again the shepherd’s staff – a staff which helps men and women to tread difficult paths and to follow the Lord.

At the end of the Psalm we read of the table which is set, the oil which anoints the head, the cup which overflows, and dwelling in the house of the Lord. In the Psalm this is an expression first and foremost of the prospect of the festal joy of being in God’s presence in the temple, of being his guest, whom he himself serves, of dwelling with him. For us, who pray this Psalm with Christ and his Body which is the Church, this prospect of hope takes on even greater breadth and depth. We see in these words a kind of prophetic foreshadowing of the mystery of the Eucharist, in which God himself makes us his guests and offers himself to us as food –as that bread and fine wine which alone can definitively sate man’s hunger and thirst. How can we not rejoice that one day we will be guests at the very table of God and live in his dwelling-place? How can we not rejoice at the fact that he has commanded us: "Do this in memory of me"? How can we not rejoice that he has enabled us to set God’s table for men and women, to give them his Body and his Blood, to offer them the precious gift of his very presence. Truly we can pray together, with all our heart, the words of the Psalm: "Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life" (Ps 23[22]:6).

Finally, let us take a brief look at the two communion antiphons which the Church offers us in her liturgy today. First there are the words with which Saint John concludes the account of Jesus’ crucifixion: "One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out" (Jn 19:34). The heart of Jesus is pierced by the spear. Once opened, it becomes a fountain: the water and the blood which stream forth recall the two fundamental sacraments by which the Church lives: Baptism and the Eucharist. From the Lord’s pierced side, from his open heart, there springs the living fountain which continues to well up over the centuries and which makes the Church. The open heart is the source of a new stream of life; here John was certainly also thinking of the prophecy of Ezechiel who saw flowing forth from the new temple a torrent bestowing fruitfulness and life (Ez 47): Jesus himself is the new temple, and his open heart is the source of a stream of new life which is communicated to us in Baptism and the Eucharist.

The liturgy of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus also permits another phrase, similar to this, to be used as the communion antiphon. It is taken from the Gospel of John: Whoever is thirsty, let him come to me. And let the one who believes in me drink. As the Scripture has said: "Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water" (cf. Jn 7:37ff.) In faith we drink, so to speak, of the living water of God’s Word. In this way the believer himself becomes a wellspring which gives living water to the parched earth of history. We see this in the saints. We see this in Mary, that great woman of faith and love who has become in every generation a wellspring of faith, love and life. Every Christian and every priest should become, starting from Christ, a wellspring which gives life to others. We ought to be offering life-giving water to a parched and thirst world. Lord, we thank you because for our sake you opened your heart; because in your death and in your resurrection you became the source of life. Give us life, make us live from you as our source, and grant that we too may be sources, wellsprings capable of bestowing the water of life in our time. We thank you for the grace of the priestly ministry. Lord bless us, and bless all those who in our time are thirsty and continue to seek. Amen.

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

On the Year for Priests, Year of Fruits

On the Year for Priests, Year of Fruits

"The Priest Is Formed by Christ’s Charity Itself"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 13, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today before and after praying the midday Angelus with crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square.

* * *

Dear brothers and sisters!

The Year for Priests concluded a few days ago. Here in Rome we experienced some unforgettable days with the presence of more than 15,000 priests from every part of the world. So, today I would like to give thanks to God for all the good things that have come to the universal Church this year. No one could ever measure them but certainly they see them and still more they will see their fruits.

The Year for Priests concluded on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is traditionally the “day of priestly sanctification”; this time it was so in a very special way. In fact, dear friends, the priest is a gift from the Heart of Christ: a gift for the Church and for the world. From the Heart of the Son of God, overflowing with charity, there stream all the goods of the Church and in a special way it is the origin of the vocations of those men who, conquered by the Lord Jesus, leave everything to dedicate themselves entirely to the service of the people, following the example of the Good Shepherd. The priest is formed by Christ’s charity itself, that love that moved him to give his life for his friends and also to pardon his enemies. Because of this priests are the first builders of the civilization of love. And here I think of many priests, known and unknown, some elevated to the honors of the altar, others whose memory remains indelibly in the faithful, perhaps in a small parish community -- as happened in Ars, that village of France where St. John Marie Vianney undertook his ministry. There is no need to add words to what has been said of him in recent months. But his intercession must accompany us from now on. May his prayer, his “Act of Love,” that we have recited so many times during the Year for Priests, continue to nourish your colloquy with God.

There is another figure whom I would like to recall: Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, priest and martyr, who was proclaimed “Blessed” just last Sunday in Warsaw. He exercised his generous and courageous ministry alongside those who worked for freedom, for the defense of life and its dignity. His work in the service of goodness and truth was a sign of contradiction for the regime that governed Poland at that time. The love of the Heart of Christ led him to give his life, and his witness was the seed of a new springtime in the Church and society. If we look at history we can observe that so many pages of authentic spiritual and social renewal have been written by the contribution of Catholic priests, animated only by the passion for the Gospel and for man, for his true religious and civil liberty. How many initiatives of integral human promotion have begun in the intuition of a priestly heart!

Dear brothers and sisters, let us entrust all the priests of the world to Mary’s Immaculate Heart -- whose liturgical memorial we celebrated yesterday -- so that by the power of the Gospel they may continue to build in every place the civilization of love.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

[After the Angelus the Holy Father greeted the pilgrims in various languages. In English, he said:]

I am happy to greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present for this Angelus prayer, especially the group of faithful from Seychelles. Last Friday, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I had the joy of concluding the Year for Priests, marked by moving moments of community prayer and adoration. Let us continue to remember all priests in our prayers, thanking Christ for this great gift of his love and asking him to keep them in his grace as faithful friends and ministers. I wish you all a pleasant stay in Rome and a blessed Sunday!

© Copyright 2010 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

[In Spanish, he said:]

I cordially greet the Spanish-speaking groups that have participated in this Marian prayer, particularly the faithful from Colombia and Mexico, as well as the members of the Brotherhood of Our Father Jesus of Nazareth and Holy Mary of Sorrows, of Jaen.

Precisely in this Andalusian diocese, and specifically in the city of Linares, the beatification of Manuel Lozano Garrido took place yesterday. [He] was a faithful layman who knew how to irradiate the love of God with his example and his writings, even among the sufferings that confined him to a wheelchair for nearly 28 years. At the end of his life, he also lost his sight, but he continued to win hearts for Christ with his serene joy and his unwavering faith.

Journalists can find in him an eloquent testimony of the good that can be done when one's pen reflects the greatness of the soul and is put at the service of truth and noble causes. Happy Sunday.

[Translation by Kathleen Naab]

[In Italian, the Pope said:]

I would like first of all to recall with joy the proclamation of two new blesseds, both of whom lived in the last century. Yesterday in Spain, Manuel Lozano Garrido was beatified. He was a layman and journalist who, despite sickness and handicap, worked with Christian spirit and fecundity in the field of social communications. This morning in Slovenia, Cardinal Bertone, as my legate, presided at the final celebration of the National Eucharistic Congress, in which he proclaimed blessed the young martyr Lojze Grozde. Grozde was particularly devoted to the Eucharist, which nourished his indestructible faith, his capacity for sacrifice for the salvation of souls and his apostolate in Catholic Action to bring other young people to Christ.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]