On the Eucharist as Antidote to Individualism

On the Eucharist as Antidote to Individualism


"Without the Eucharist the Church Simply Would Not Exist"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 26, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today before and after praying the midday Angelus with those gathered in St. Peter's Square.

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Dear brothers and sisters!

Today in Italy and other countries Corpus Domini is celebrated, the feast of the Eucharist, the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord, which he instituted with the Last Supper and which is the Church's most precious treasure. The Eucharist is like the beating heart that gives life to the whole mystical body of the Church: a social organism entirely founded on the spiritual but concrete link with Christ. As the Apostle Paul states: "Because there is one bread, we, although many, are one body: all of us in fact participate in the one bread" (1 Corinthians 10:17).

Without the Eucharist the Church simply would not exist. It is the Eucharist in fact that makes a human community a mystery of communion, able to bring God to the world and the world to God. The Holy Spirit, which transforms the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, also transforms into members of the Body of Christ those who receive it with faith, so that the Church is truly the sacrament of the unity of men with God and of men with each other.

In a culture that is ever more individualistic -- like that in which Western societies are immersed and which is spreading throughout the world -- the Eucharist constitutes a kind of "antidote," which operates in the minds and hearts of believers and continually sows in them the logic of communion, of service, of sharing, in a word, the logic of the Gospel. The first Christians, in Jerusalem, were an evident sign of this new way of life because they lived in fraternity and held all of their goods in common so that no one should be indigent (cf. Acts 2:42-47). Where did all of this come from? From the Eucharist, that is, the risen Christ, really present with his disciples and working with the power of the Holy Spirit. And in the succeeding generations, through the centuries, the Church, despite human limits and errors, continued to be a force for communion in the world. We think especially of the most difficult periods, the periods of trial: What did it mean, for example, for countries that were under the heal of totalitarian regimes to have the possibility to gather for Sunday Mass! As the ancient martyrs of Abitene proclaimed: "Sine Dominico non possumus" – without the "Dominicum," that is, the Sunday Eucharist, we cannot live. But the void produced by false freedom can be dangerous, and so communion with the Body of Christ is a medicine of the intellect and will to rediscover taste for the truth and the common good.

Dear friends, let us call upon the Virgin Mary, whom my predecessor, Blessed John Paul II defined as a "Eucharistic woman" ("Ecclesia de Eucharistia," 53-58). In her school our life too becomes fully "Eucharistic," open to God and to others, able to transform evil into good by the power of love, which fosters unity, communion, fraternity.

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

Dear brothers and sisters, today too I have the joy to announce the proclamation of some newly beatified persons. Yesterday, in Lübeck, Germany, Johannes Prassek, Eduard Müller and Hermann Lange, who were killed by the Nazis in Hamburg in 1943, were beatified. Today there will be three beatifications in Milan: Don Serafino Morazzone, an exemplary parish priest in Lecchese, who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries; Father Clement Vismara, heroic PIME missionary in Burma; and Enrichetta Alfieri, a Sister of Charity, called the "angel" of the Milanese prison of San Vittore. We praise the Lord for these luminous witnesses to the Gospel!

In Italy on this Sunday that precedes the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul we celebrate the Day for the Pope's Charity. I would like to thank warmly all those who, with prayer and donations, offer their support to my apostolic and charitable ministry. Thank you! May the Lord give you recompense!

[In English he said:]

I am happy to welcome all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors, particularly the group from Saint Fidelis Parish in Toronto. In many places today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. May our hearts rejoice in the great gift of Jesus, the Bread of Life, who has given himself for us and has come to nourish us. As we open our hearts to others and walk the path of life, may he always sustain and guide us. God bless you all!

[Concluding in Italian, he said:]

I wish you all a good Sunday, a good week. Happy Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. I wish you all a good Sunday!

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

On Learning to Pray With the Psalms

On Learning to Pray With the Psalms


Addressing Him "With the Words That He Himself Gives Us"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 22, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the Italian-language catechesis Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience held in St. Peter's Square. The Pope continued with his series of catecheses on prayer, turning today to a consideration of the Book of Psalms.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

In the preceding catecheses, we paused to consider a number of Old Testament figures who are particularly significant for our reflection on prayer. I spoke about Abraham, who intercedes for the foreign cities; about Jacob, who in his nighttime combat receives a blessing; about Moses, who begs for forgiveness for his people; and about Elijah, who prays for the conversion of Israel. With today's catechesis, I would like to begin down a new path: Rather than commenting on particular accounts of persons at prayer, we will enter into the "prayerbook" par excellence, the Book of Psalms. In the upcoming catecheses we will read and meditate on a number of the most beautiful psalms which are also dearest to the Church's tradition of prayer. Today I would like to introduce them by speaking about the Book of Psalms as a whole.

The Psalter presents itself as a "formulary" of prayers, a collection of 150 psalms that the biblical tradition gives to the people of believers in order that they may become their -- our prayer -- our way of addressing God and of relating to Him. In this book, the whole of human experience with its many facets finds expression, along with the entire range of emotions that accompany man's existence. In the Psalms, joy and suffering, desire for God and the perception of one's own unworthiness, delight and the sense of abandonment, trust in God and painful solitude, fullness of life and fear of death are all interwoven and expressed. The believer's whole reality flows into these prayers, which first the people of Israel and then the Church took up as a privileged meditation on the relationship with the one God, and the fitting response to His self-revelation in history.

As prayer, the Psalms are manifestations of the soul and of faith, in which everyone can recognize himself and in which there is communicated that experience of special closeness to God, to which each man is called. And it is the whole complexity of human existence that converges in the complexity of the different literary forms of the various psalms: hymns, lamentations, individual and collective supplication, songs of thanksgiving, penitential psalms, and other genre that are found in these poetic compositions.

Despite this wide range of expression, two great areas can be identified that synthesize the prayer of the Psalter: petition, which is connected with lament, and praise -- two interconnected and almost inseparable dimensions. For petition is animated by the certainty that God will respond, and this opens up to praise and thanksgiving; and praise and thanksgiving flow from the experience of salvation received, which assumes the need for the help expressed by the petition.

In petition, the one who prays laments and describes his situation of distress, of danger, of desolation; or, as in the penitential psalms, he confesses guilt and sin, and asks to be forgiven. He lays bare his neediness before the Lord, in the confidence of being heard, and this implies an acknowledgement of God as good, as desirous of the good, and as the "lover of life" (cf. Wisdom 11:26) who is ready to help, save and forgive. Thus, for example, the Psalmist in Psalm 31 prays: "In thee, O Lord, do I seek refuge; let me never be put to shame [ … ] take me out of the net which is hidden for me, for thou art my refuge (verses 2,5 [1,4]). Therefore, already in the lament something of praise may emerge, announcing itself in the hope of divine intervention, and becoming explicit once divine salvation has become a reality.
In an analogous way -- in the psalms of thanksgiving and of praise -- in remembering the gift received or in contemplating the greatness of God's mercy, one recognizes one's own littleness as well as one's need for salvation, which is at the foundation of petition. In this way, one confesses to God one's own condition as a creature, inevitably marked as it is by death, and yet the bearer of a radical desire for life. For this reason, in Psalm 86 the Psalmist exclaims: "I give thanks to thee, o Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify thy name forever. For great is thy steadfast love toward me; thou hast delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol" (verses 12, 13). In this way, in the prayer of the Psalms, petition and praise are interwoven and blend together into one unique song that celebrates the Lord's eternal grace that bends down to our frailty.

The book of the Psalter was given to Israel and to the Church precisely in order that the people of believers might be permitted to unite themselves to this song. The Psalms, in fact, teach us to pray. In them, the Word of God becomes the word of prayer -- and they are the Psalmists' inspired words -- which also become the word of the one who prays the Psalms. This is the beauty and the special nature of this biblical book: Unlike other prayers we find in sacred Scripture, the prayers contained [in the Book of Psalms] are not inserted into a narrative story which specifies either their meaning or their function. The Psalms are given to the believer precisely as a text of prayer, which has as its one end that of becoming the prayer of the one who takes them up and, with them, addresses himself to God. Since they are the Word of God, he who prays the Psalms speaks to God with the very words that God has given to us; he addresses Him with the words that He Himself gives us. Thus, in praying the Psalms we learn to pray. They are a school of prayer.

Something analogous happens when a child begins to talk; when he learns, that is, to express his feelings, emotions, and needs with words that do not belong to him naturally, but which he learns from his parents and from those who live around him. What the child wants to express is his own personal experience, but the means of expression belong to others; and little by little he appropriates them -- the words received from his parents become his words, and through those words he also learns a way of thinking and feeling; he enters into a whole world of concepts, and in this [world] he grows, relates with reality, with men and with God. At last, the language of his parents becomes his language; he speaks with the words received from others, which by now have become his words.

And so it is with the prayer of the Psalms. They are given to us so that we might learn to address ourselves to God, to communicate with Him, to talk to Him about ourselves with His words, to find language for an encounter with Him. And, through those words, it will also be possible to know and to receive the standards of his way of acting, to approach the mystery of his thoughts and of his ways (cf. Isaiah 55:8-9), so as to grow always more in faith and love. As our words are not only words, but also teach us about a real and conceptual world, so also these prayers teach us about the heart of God, for which reason are we able not only to speak with God, but also to learn who God is and -- in learning how to speak with Him -- we learn what is it to be man, to be ourselves.

In this regard, the title given to the Psaltery by the Jewish tradition appears significant. It is called Tehellim, an Hebraic term that means "songs of praise," [which comes] from the root word we find in the expression "Halleluiah" -- literally: "praise the Lord." Thus, even though this prayerbook is so multifaceted and complex -- with its various literary genre and with its connection between praise and petition – it is ultimately a book of praise, that teaches us to give thanks, to celebrate the greatness of the gift of God, to acknowledge the beauty of His words and to glorify His holy Name.

This is the most fitting response before God's self-revelation, and the experience of His goodness. By teaching us to pray, the Psalms teach us that, even in the midst of desolation, in suffering, God's presence remains and is the source of wonder and of consolation; we can cry, beg, intercede, lament, but [we do so] in the knowledge that we are walking toward the light, where praise can be definitive; "in thy light do we see light" (Psalm 36:10 [9]).
But beyond the book's general title, the Jewish tradition has also given specific titles to many of the psalms, attributing them in great part to King David. A figure of notable human and theological depth, David is a complex personality who passed through the most varied experiences fundamental to life. A young shepherd of his father's flock -- passing through the ups and downs and at times dramatic events of life -- he becomes king of Israel, the shepherd of God's people. Although a man of peace, he fought many wars; an untiring and tenacious seeker of God, yet he betrayed His love, and this is characteristic: He always remained a seeker of God, even though he sinned gravely many times; a humble penitent, he received divine forgiveness, even divine pity, and he accepted a fate marked by suffering. Thus, in all his weakness, David was a king "after God's own heart" (cf. 1 Samuel 13:14); that is, a passionate man of prayer, a man who knew what it meant to petition and to praise. The connection of the Psalms with this illustrious king of Israel is important, then, for he is a messianic figure, the Lord's Anointed, in whom the mystery of Christ is in some way foreshadowed.

Just as important and meaningful are the ways and frequency with which the words of the psalms are repeated in the New Testament, taking up and underscoring the prophetic value suggested by the Psalter's connection with the messianic figure of David. In the Lord Jesus, who during His earthly life prayed with the Psalms, they find their definitive fulfillment and reveal their fullest and most profound meaning. The prayers of the Psalter, with which we speak to God, speak to us of Him, they speak to us of the Son, the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), who fully reveals to us the Face of the Father. The Christian, therefore, in praying the Psalms, prays to the Father in Christ and with Christ, taking up those songs within a new perspective, which finds its ultimate interpretative key in the Paschal mystery. Thus do the horizons of the one who prays open up to unexpected realities -- each Psalm acquires a new light in Christ and the Psalter is able to shine in all its infinite richness.

Dearest brothers and sisters, let us take this holy book in hand; let us allow ourselves to be taught by God to address ourselves to Him; let us make the Psalter a guide that helps us and accompanies us daily along the way of prayer. And let us, like Jesus' disciples, also ask: "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1), opening our hearts to receive the Teacher's prayer, in which all prayers attain their fulfillment. Thus, made sons in the Son, will we be able to speak to God calling Him "Our Father." Thank you.

[Translation by Diane Montagna]

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

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In our catechesis on Christian prayer, we have looked to a number of Old Testament figures who represent models of prayer. We now turn to the great "prayerbook" of sacred Scripture: the Book of Psalms. These inspired songs teach us how to speak to God, expressing ourselves and the whole range of our human experience with words that God himself has given us. Despite the diversity of their literary forms, the Psalms are generally marked by the two interconnected dimensions of humble petition and of praise addressed to a loving God who understands our human frailty. In Hebrew, the Psalms are called Tehellim or songs of praise; the prayer of praise is, in fact, our best response to the God who even at times of trial remains ever at our side. Many of the Psalms are attributed to David, the great King of Israel who, as the Lord’s Anointed, prefigured the Messiah. In Jesus Christ and in his paschal mystery the Psalms find their deepest meaning and prophetic fulfilment. Christ himself prayed in their words. As we take up these inspired songs of praise, let us ask the Lord to teach us to pray, with him and in him, to our heavenly Father.

I welcome the participants in the Congress of the European Society of Clinical Neurophysiology, with good wishes for their deliberations. I greet the Catholic educators from Canada and the United States meeting in Rome. I also greet the officers of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. My welcome goes to the American seminarians taking part in a study program in Rome, and to the novices of the Missionaries of Charity. Upon all the English-speaking pilgrims, especially those from England, Scotland, Sweden, Indonesia and the United States, I invoke God’s abundant blessings.

© Copyright 2011 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

[He concluded in Italian:]

Now I greet the young, the sick and newlyweds. May the example and the intercession of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, whose memorial we celebrated yesterday, spur you on, dear young people, to esteem the virtue of evangelical purity; may he help you, dear sick, to face suffering by finding comfort in Christ Crucified; and may he lead you, dear newlyweds, to an ever more profound love of God and of one another.

Tomorrow -- the feast of Corpus Domini – as is our custom, we will celebrate the Holy Mass at 7 P.M. at St. John Lateran. At the end, a solemn procession will follow that will travel along Via Merulana and conclude at St. Mary Major. I invite the faithful of Rome, as well as all pilgrims, to unite themselves to this act of profound faith in the Eucharist, which constitutes the most precious treasure of the Church and of mankind.

[Translation by Diane Montagna]

Fr. Cessario's homily for the anniversay of Fr. Cameron's ordination

Homily on Silver Jubilee of Magnificat Editor's Priestly Ordination


Father Peter John Cameron "Helps People to Live in the Truth"

BLOOMFIELD, Connecticut, JUNE 20, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is the homily preached May 28 by Dominican Romanus Cessario, on the occasion of the silver jubilee of the priestly ordination of Dominican Father Peter John Cameron. The Mass in honor of Father Cameron, the editor-in-chief of Magnficat, took place at St. Thomas Seminary.

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I. "Le Sacerdoce, c’est l’amour du cœur de Jésus."[i]

"The priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus." Saint John Marie Vianney goes on to inform us: "Only in heaven shall we know what a priest is. If we were to know this on earth, we would die, not of grief, but of love." In 1986, Father Cameron inscribed those words on his ordination card.[ii] For the priest himself, jubilees mark certain intervals between his consecration and his death. Twenty-five-year periods alert the priest that the moment of his definitive self-discovery approaches. As Aristotle observes, the end draws. For the rest of us, priestly jubilees afford an occasion for gratitude. Today, then, we thank God for Peter John Cameron: Catholic priest, spiritual father, and preacher of grace. We thank God for a son and brother, one who embodies the specific grace that Saint Dominic introduces into the world. Our Jubilarian, this praedicator gratiae, joins our thanksgiving, for he realizes that his share in Christ’s priesthood abides as both gift and mystery.

Why, in order to "know what a priest is," does the holy Curé of Ars make us wait until heaven? After all, in heaven, priests find themselves out of work. There’s nothing left for them to do. In heaven, so the Church teaches, priests join those countless blessed ones who worship God "day and night" (see Rev 7: 14,15), even if their celestial praises reflect the dignity that Christ accords them on earth. All things considered then, why must a person await heaven to discover the proper identity of the Catholic priest?

The answer is simple. Heaven discloses in a vision the graces that a priest mediates on earth: the truth he preaches, the transformation he enables, the lives he changes. Heaven reveals what, behind signs, the sacraments conceal. Heaven rewards in the sweet hereafter those who, impelled by divine movements, love gracefully here below. Heaven promises a love that never ends. Heaven means seeing God "face to face" (see 1Cor 13:12). Only the Catholic priest readies us for this kind of heaven, this heaven which the loving vision of God creates. Why? Without the Catholic priest, no transformations divinize, no sacraments effect what they signify, no saving premotions reach their term, no human love survives the grave, and, as far as we know, no one sees God "face to face." Small wonder Saint John Marie Vianney proclaims that only from the vantage point of heaven do the blessed discover what a priest is.

II. "...tamquam instrumentum animatum anima rationali, quod ita agit quod etiam agitur."[iii]

The simplest definition of the priest comes from the Catholic tradition. When the ancient fathers sought to explain the workings of Christ’s human nature, they borrowed a philosophical term. Instrument. Organon.[iv] Christ’s humanity, so Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches, remains an instrument of his divinity.[v] And because of the "ontological bond" that unites the priesthood to Christ, each priest becomes himself this saving instrumentality.[vi] To put it differently, Christ’s divine Person acts through the human person of the priest.[vii] As living instruments of the Lord Christ, priests mediate between God and the whole of creation. On his Silver Jubilee card, Father Cameron indicates the scope of this mediation: "Priesthood reaches to the depths of the whole existential truth of the created world, and above all the truth of man."[viii] The words come from Blessed Pope John Paul II.

The Catholic priest mediates "the truth of man." Are we surprised that the playwright Pope captures the imagination of the playwright Dominican? I should think not. Because of a certain connatural instinct for discovering the dramatic in human affairs, Peter John Cameron has brought to his priestly ministry the playwright’s talent for resolution. As more than a quarter of a million monthly readers of Magnificat bear witness, Father Cameron helps people resolve into the wisdom of God the ambiguities and contradictions that human living ordinarily entails. What is more important, Father Peter daily persuades people worldwide to discover in Christ their "righteousness, sanctification, and redemption" (1Cor 1:30). In short, this priest, our Jubilarian, helps people to live in the truth, the truth about themselves and the truth about God’s love.

"It is not good for the man to be alone" (Gen 2:18). The divine word about marriage also envisages the Catholic priest, whom the Church describes as a Bridegroom. As a groom, the priest must occupy himself with cherishing. The members of the Church require the unique friendship that the priest extends–his pastoral charity, his presence. For in the Christian life, no one self-begets. Just as husband and wife beget children, so Mother Church through the ministry of priests gives birth to Christians. This generation begins with the preaching of the gospel. In his book Why Preach, Father Cameron says that "preaching is parental," and he cites Saint Paul to support his choice of words: "I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (1Cor 4:15).[ix] We need priests for the same reason we need human fathers: To exist and to flourish. We need spiritual fathers to proclaim "the truth of man." We need them to administer the sacraments of salvation. In short, we need priests to reach heaven.

III. "O Jésus! que ton petit oiseau est heureux d’être faible et petit, que deviendrait-il s’il était grand?"[x]

Because the priesthood remains gift and mystery, no creature can steal it away.[xi] Instead, "so that no human being might boast" (1Cor 1:29), God chooses the men he wants to become priests. In the case of Peter John Cameron, this divine choice emerged early in his life. We find ourselves today at Hartford’s Saint Thomas Seminary, where our Jubilarian passed the better part of his high school years.

Early on, Peter Cameron discovered that priestly formation entails a self-emptying. He continues to follow Saint Paul’s encouragement contained in today’s first reading, "Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord" (1Cor 1:31). As a result, our Peter has been given the grace to penetrate the secret of the saints: "O Jesus, Your little bird is happy to be weak and little. What would become of it if it were big?"[xii]

Like a bird that flies toward the sun, the faithful priest fixes his gaze on the "Divine Sun," and when this predestined priest remains recollected in the Lord, he soars like an eagle.[xiii] Would you like to know the secret of a happy priesthood? Read our Jubilarian’s book on Mary, Living Our Lady’s Graces.[xiv] Each page contains the assurances that priests require to keep their gaze fixed peacefully on Jesus. In the blessed Virgin Mary, priests discover what makes them soar, what keeps them steadfast, what leaves them confident: "Peter looked intently at [the man crippled from birth], as did John, and said, "Look at us" (Ac 3:4).

IV. "adtingit enim a fine usque ad finem fortiter et disponit omnia suaviter" (Wis 8:1).

I first met Peter Cameron in Switzerland on the seventh of November 1978, the feast of all Dominican saints. That was thirty-three years ago. Another species of jubilee. A jubilee of redemption. We talked about the Dominicans, but also about Europe, especially France. Peter and his college chum, Martha Reynolds, were about to hitchhike to the Riviera. I told them about the coastal city of Saint-Raphaël. I urged them to walk along the Corniche d’Or. I wanted them to experience this singular road that runs above the deep-blue waters of the Mediterranean and through the reddish porphyry cliffs that adorn the Côte d’Azur. And to complete my tourist guiding, I mentioned the region’s culinary specialties. Upon their return, the cash-strapped students, who–so I later discovered–had to split one serving of soupe de poissons, brought me back a souvenir, a small piece of reddish porphyry rock from the Corniche d’Or. I still keep it on my bookshelf to remind me that God orders all things forcefully and still sweetly (see Wis 8:1).

After graduation in 1980 from Providence College, Peter entered the Dominican novitiate, and in 1981 he made his first profession at Dover, Massachusetts. Since I had returned from Fribourg to the House of Studies, our discussions that had begun on that feast day of all Dominican saints continued during the years that Brother Peter John spent as a seminarian in Washington. That is, until the thirtieth of May 1986, when the day arrived for Peter’s ordination in Providence. Like priests, teachers serve as instruments. Once their mediation achieves its purpose, they find themselves out of a job. A student becomes a teacher, just as a son becomes a father.

Then suddenly, one June afternoon in 1998, a few years after my arrival at the Brighton seminary, Peter asked me to meet someone visiting from Europe. Soon on a street corner in Boston’s North End, I found myself for the first time entre les deux Pierre. That is, in the company of Father Peter John Cameron and Monsieur Pierre-Marie Dumont, the French publisher of Magnificat. This encounter awakened in me a profound sense of divine providence, "the providence of God," as Sister Daniel Marie liked to say. For from our first meeting in Fribourg, I had shared with Peter the spiritual lessons taught me by Thomas Dominic Rover, Dominican priest and man of the theater. It was Father Rover who introduced me to Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, a seventeenth-century French priest and Dominican tertiary, and to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, a nineteenth-century French girl and Carmelite nun. From them, I have learned the secret of Ad Jesum per Mariam. To Jesus, through Mary! So I came away from that Boston street corner with the conviction that these two holy ones from France somehow had directed Magnificat toward another Dominican priest and man of the theater. Louis-Marie. Thérèse. They must want Father Cameron, I reasoned, to accomplish his Dominican vocation, contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere. To share with others the fruits of contemplation.

V. "Thank you for sending me a copy of your beautiful homily."[xv]

On 22 June 1986, Mrs. Cameron, Father Peter’s mother, Dee, wrote to thank me for participating in her son’s ordination festivities. Today I share her gratitude for his Silver Jubilee. And I know that Dee and I will rejoice exceedingly at the next solemn interval in Father Peter John’s priesthood, his Golden Jubilee, from whatever vantage point God ordains that we observe it.

NOTES

[i]. Saint John Marie Vianney, "Le Sacerdoce, c’est l’amour du cœur de Jésus..." in Le curé d’Ars. Sa pensée – Son cœur, ed. l’Abbé Bernard Nodet (Le-Puy: Xavier Mappus, 1966), p. 98.

[ii]. After 1986, the expression was quoted both in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1589, and by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2009 "Letter Proclaiming a Year for Priests on the 150th Anniversary of the ‘Dies Natalis’ of the Curé of Ars."

[iii]. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 7, art. 1, ad 3.

[iv]. See Summa theologiae III, q. 2, art. 7, ad 4, where the argument refers to Saint John Damascene, De Fide Orthodoxa III, 15 (PG 94, 1060).

[v]. See Summa theologiae III, q. 7, art. 1, ad 3.

[vi]. Pope John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Pastores dabo vobis, no. 12; also see Summa theologiae III, q. 78, art. 4.

[vii]. Pastores dabo vobis, no. 20, speaks about the "elements connected with the priest’s ‘consecration,’ which configures him to Christ the head and shepherd of the Church, with the ‘mission’ or ministry peculiar to the priest; which equips and obliges him to be a ‘living instrument of Christ the eternal priest’ and to act ‘in the name and in the person of Christ himself’ and with his entire ‘life,’ called to manifest and witness in a fundamental way the ‘radicalism of the Gospel.’"

[viii]. Karol Wojytla, Pope John Paul II, Sign of Contradiction (New York: The Seabury Press, 1979), p. 131.

[ix]. Peter John Cameron, O.P., Why Preach. Encountering Christ in God’s Word (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), chap. 6, pp. 149 & 145.

[x]. Thérèse de Lisieux, "Lettre a Soeur Marie du Sacré Coeur," Manuscript B 4r°-5v° in Oeuvres complètes (Paris, 1992), p. 230.

[xi]. Likewise, no human authority can eradicate what God indelibly creates in a priest, that is, a man ordained validly. See Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1583.

[xii]. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul, trans. John Clarke, O.C.D. (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications. 1976), p. 199.

[xiii]. Story of a Soul, p. 198: "In spite of my extreme littleness I still dare to gaze upon the Divine Sun, the Sun of Love, and my heart feels within it all the aspirations of an Eagle."

[xiv]. Peter John Cameron, O.P., Mysteries of the Virgin Mary. Living Our Lady’s Graces (Cincinnati, OH: Servant Books, 2010).

[xv]. Mrs. Dolores Cameron, Note to author, 22 June 1986.

Pope's Letter to Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music

Pope's Letter to Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music


"The Glory of God and the Sanctification of the Faithful"

VATICAN CITY, MAY 31, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the letter Benedict XVI addressed to the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music on the occasion of the centenary of its foundation, which was made public today by the Holy See.

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To the Venerable Brother

Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski

Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music

One hundred years have gone by since my holy predecessor Pius X founded the Higher School of Sacred Music, elevated to Pontifical Institute after twenty years by Pope Pius XI. This important event is a reason for joy for all the cultivators of sacred music, but more in general for all those, beginning of course with the pastors of the Church, who give weight to the importance of the Liturgy, of which sacred singing is an integral part (cf. Ecumenical Vatican Council II, Constitution "Sacrosanctum Concilium," No. 112). Hence, I am particularly happy to express my sincere congratulations for this event and to formulate to you, venerable brother, to the director and to all the community of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music my cordial wishes.

This institute, which depends on the Holy See, forms part of the singular academic reality constituted by the Pontifical Roman Universities. In a special way, it is linked to the St. Anselm Athenaeum and to the Benedictine Order, as attested also by the fact that its didactic headquarters are located, since 1983, in the abbey of St. Jerome in Urbe, whereas the legal and historical headquarters continue to be in Sant'Apollinare. On celebrating the centenary, my thought goes to all those -- and only the Lord knows them perfectly -- who cooperated in some way in the activity of the Higher School, before and after the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music: from the Superiors who succeeded one another in its direction, to the illustrious professors, to the generations of pupils. Added to the thanksgiving to God for the many gifts granted is the recognition of all that each one has given the Church, cultivating musical art at the service of divine worship.

To understand clearly the identity and mission of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, it is opportune to recall that Pope Saint Pius X founded it eight years after having issued the Motu Proprio Tra le sollecitudini, of Nov. 22, 1903, with which he carried out a profound reform in the field of sacred music, returning to the great tradition of the Church against the influences exercised by profane music, especially operatic. This masterful intervention needed, for its realization in the universal Church, a center of study and teaching that could transmit, in a faithful and qualified way, the lines indicated by the Supreme Pontiff, in keeping with the authentic and glorious tradition that goes back to St. Gregory the Great. Hence, in the span of the last one hundred years, this institution has assimilated, elaborated and transmitted the doctrinal and pastoral contents of the Pontifical Documents, as well as of Vatican Council II, concerning sacred music, so that they can illumine and guide the work of composers, of chapel maestros, of liturgists, of musicians and of all formators in this field.

In this connection, I wish to highlight a fundamental aspect that is particularly dear to me: how the essential continuity of the teaching on sacred music in the Liturgy has been perceived since St. Pius X up til today, despite the natural evolution. In particular, the Pontiffs Paul VI and John Paul II, in the light of the conciliar constitution "Sacrosanctum Concilium," wished to reaffirm the end of sacred music, namely, "the glory of God and the sanctification of the faithful" (No. 112), and the fundamental criteria of Tradition, which I limit myself to recall: the sense of prayer, of dignity and of beauty; the full adherence to the texts and to the liturgical gestures; the involvement of the assembly and, finally, the legitimate adaptation to the local culture, preserving at the same time the universality of the language; the primacy of Gregorian chant, as supreme model of sacred music, and the wise appreciation of the other expressive forms which form part of the historical-liturgical patrimony of the Church, especially but not only, polyphony; the importance of the "schola cantorum," in particular in the cathedral churches. They are important criteria, which must be considered carefully also today.

At times, in fact, these elements, which are found in "Sacrosanctum Concilium," such as, in fact, the value of the great ecclesial patrimony of sacred music or the universality that is characteristic of Gregorian chant, were considered expressions of a conception that responded to a past to be overcome and neglected, because it limited the liberty and creativity of the individual and the communities. However, we must always ask ourselves again: Who is the authentic subject of the liturgy? The answer is simple: the Church. Not the individual or the group that celebrates the liturgy, it is first of all the action of God through the Church, which has her history, her rich tradition and her creativity.

The liturgy, and consequently sacred music, "lives from a correct and constant relation between healthy 'traditio' and legitimate 'progressio,'" keeping very present that these two concepts -- that the conciliar Fathers clearly underscore -- integrate mutually because "tradition is a living reality that, because of this, includes in itself the principle of development, of progress" (Address to the Pontifical Liturgical Institute, May 6, 2011).

All this, venerable Brother, forms, so to speak, the "daily bread" of the life and work of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. On the basis of these solid and sure elements, to which are added an age-old experience, I encouraged you to carry on with renewed impetus and commitment your service in the professional formation of the students, so that they acquire a serious and profound competency in the different disciplines of sacred music. Thus, this Pontifical Institute will continue to offer a valid contribution for the formation, in this field, of the pastors and lay faithful in the different particular Churches, fostering also an adequate discernment of the quality of the musical compositions used in liturgical celebrations. For these important ends you can count on my constant solicitude, supported by a particular remembrance in prayer, which a entrust to the heavenly intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of Saint Cecilia, while wishing copious fruits from the centenary celebrations, I impart from my heart to you, to the director, to the professors, to the staff and to all the pupils of the Institute a special Apostolic Blessing.

In the Vatican, May 13, 2011

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

[Translation by ZENIT]

On Elijah's Lessons in Prayer

On Elijah's Lessons in Prayer


"True Adoration of God Does Not Destroy, But Renews"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 15, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the Italian-language catechesis Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience held in St. Peter's Square. The Pope continued with his new series of catecheses on prayer, reflecting today on prayer in sacred Scripture, in particular on the prayer of the Prophet Elijah.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

In the religious history of ancient Israel, great importance was given to the prophets, to their teaching and their preaching. Among them, there emerges the figure of Elijah, who was raised up by God in order to lead the people to conversion. His name means "the Lord is my God," and it is in accord with this name that his life unfolds -- [a life] totally consecrated to bringing about in the people the acknowledgement of the Lord as the one God. Sirach says of Elijah: "Then the prophet Elijah arose like a fire, and his word burned like a torch" (Sirach 48:1). By this flame, Israel rediscovers its way to God.

In his ministry, Elijah prays: He asks the Lord to bring back to life the son of a widow who had given him lodging (cf. 1 Kings 17:17-24); he cries out to God in weariness and distress as he flees for his life into the desert, pursued by queen Jezebel (cf. 1 Kings 19:1-4); but it is above all on Mount Carmel that he shows himself in all his power as intercessor when, before all of Israel, he begs the Lord to reveal Himself and to convert the people's hearts. It is this episode, recounted in Chapter 18 of the First Book of Kings, that we pause to consider today.

We are in the Northern Kingdom, in the 9th century B.C., at the time of King Ahab, in a moment when, in Israel, a situation of open syncretism had developed. In addition to the Lord, the people also adored Baal, the reassuring idol from which they believed came the gift of rain, and to whom they therefore attributed the power of giving fruitfulness to the fields and life to men and livestock alike. Although they claimed to follow the Lord, the invisible and mysterious God, the people also sought security in a comprehensible and predictable god, from which they thought they could obtain fecundity and prosperity in exchange for sacrifice. Israel was yielding to the seduction of idolatry -- a continual temptation for the believer -- by fooling itself into thinking it could "serve two masters" (cf. Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13) and ease the impenetrable ways of faith in the Almighty by also placing its trust in a powerless god fashioned by man.

It is precisely in order to unmask the deceptive foolishness of such an attitude that Elijah has the people of Israel gather on Mount Carmel and puts before them the necessity of making a choice: "If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him" (1 Kings 18:21). And the prophet, the bearer of God's love, does not leave his people alone before this choice, but helps them by pointing out [to them] the sign that will reveal the truth: Both he and the prophets of Baal will prepare a sacrifice and will pray, and the true God will reveal himself by responding with the fire that will consume the offering. Thus begins the confrontation between the Prophet Elijah and the followers of Baal, which in reality is between the Lord of Israel, the God of salvation and of life, and a mute and empty idol that can do nothing, neither good nor evil (cf. Jeremiah 10:5). There also begins the confrontation between two completely different ways of turning to God and ways of prayer.

The prophets of Baal in fact cry aloud, stir themselves up, dance limping about, and enter into a state of excitement that culminates in them cutting their own bodies "with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them" (1 Kings 18:28). They turn to themselves in order to approach their god, relying on their own abilities to bring about a response. The idol's deceptive reality is thus revealed: Man thinks of it as something that can be regulated, [something] that can be managed with one's own strength, that can be accessed on the basis of oneself and one's own vital forces. The adoration of an idol, instead of opening the human heart to the Other, and to a freeing relationship that allows one to leave egoism's narrow confines in order to enter the dimensions of love and reciprocal gift, closes the human person up within the exclusive and desperate circle of self seeking. And the deception is such that, in adoring the idol, man finds himself forced to resort to extreme acts in the illusory attempt to subject it to his own will. For this reason, the prophets of Baal reach the point of even doing themselves harm, of inflicting themselves with wounds, in a dramatically ironic gesture: In order to get a response, some sign of life from their god, they cover themselves in blood, thereby symbolically covering themselves in death.

Elijah's attitude to prayer is quite other. He asks the people to come near, thereby involving them in his action and in his petition. The goal of the challenge he posed to the prophets of Baal was to bring back to God the people who had gone astray by following idols; he therefore wants Israel to unite itself to him, and to thereby become a participant and protagonist in his prayer and in all that is happening. Then the prophet erects an altar, making use of -- as the text says -- "twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, 'Israel shall be your name'" (verse 31). These stones represent all Israel and are the tangible memorial of its history of election, of predilection and of salvation of which the people were the object.

Elijah's liturgical action has a decisive impact: The altar is the sacred place that indicates the Lord's presence, but the stones that form it represent the people, who now, through the prophet's mediation, are symbolically placed before God, becoming an "altar," the place of offering and of sacrifice.

But it is necessary that the symbol become a reality, that Israel acknowledge the true God and rediscover its own identity as the Lord's own people. For this reason, Elijah asks the Lord to reveal Himself, and the twelve stones intended to remind Israel of its own truth also serve to remind the Lord of His fidelity, which the prophet appeals to in prayer. The words of his invocation are dense in meaning and in faith: "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that thou, O Lord, art God, and that thou hast turned their hearts back" (verses 36-37; cf. Genesis 32:36-37).

Elijah turns to the Lord, calling Him God of the Fathers; he thus makes implicit reference to the divine promises and to the history of election and covenant that indissolubly united the Lord to His people. God's involvement in mankind's history is such that His Name is now inseparably connected with those of the Patriarchs, and the prophet pronounces that holy Name so that God might remember and reveal His fidelity; but he also does this in order that Israel might hear itself called by name and rediscover its own faithfulness. But Elijah's pronouncement of the divine title appears a bit surprising. Instead of using the usual formula, "God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob," he employs a less common appellative: "God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel." The substitution of the Name "Jacob" with "Israel" evokes Jacob's struggle at the ford of the Jabbok along with the name change to which the narrator makes explicit reference (cf. Genesis 32:21) and which I spoke about in one of the most recent catecheses. This substitution becomes pregnant with meaning within the context of Elijah's invocation. The prophet is praying for the people of the Northern Kingdom, which was called Israel, as distinct from Judah, which indicated the Southern Kingdom. And now, this people, who seem to have forgotten their own origins and their own privileged relationship with the Lord, hear themselves called by name, as the Name of God -- God of the Patriarch and God of the people -- is also pronounced: "Lord, God [ … ] of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel."

The people for whom Elijah prays is placed once again before its own truth, and the prophet asks that the Lord's truth also be revealed, and that He intervene in Israel's conversion by turning it away from the deception of idolatry, thus bringing it to salvation. His request is that the people finally know -- and know in fullness -- who truly is their God, and that they make the decisive choice to follow Him alone, the true God. For only in this way is God acknowledged as He truly is – Absolute and Transcendent -- without the possibility of putting him next to other gods, which would deny Him as the Absolute by relativizing Him. This is the faith that makes Israel God's people; it is the faith proclaimed in the well known text of the Shema'Israel: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). To God's absolute, the believer must respond with an absolute, total love that commits his entire life, his strength, his heart. And by his prayer, the prophet begs conversion precisely for his people's hearts: "that this people may know that thou, O Lord, art God, and that thou hast turned their hearts back!" (1 Kings 18:37). By his intercession, Elijah asks of God what God himself desires to do -- reveal Himself in all His mercy, faithful to His own reality as the Lord of life who forgives, converts and transforms.

And so it happens: "Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, 'The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God'" (verses 38-39). Fire, this element at the same time so necessary and so terrible, which is tied to the divine manifestations of the burning bush and of Sinai, now serves to signal the love of God that responds to prayer and reveals itself to His people. Baal, the mute and powerless god, failed to respond to his prophets' invocations. It was the Lord who responded, and in an unequivocal way, not only by burning the holocaust, but even by drying up all of the water that had been poured out around the altar. Israel can no longer doubt; divine mercy has come to meet them in their weakness, in their doubt, in their lack of faith. Now, Baal the vain idol is conquered, and the people, who seemed lost, rediscover the path of truth and rediscover themselves.

Dear brothers and sisters, what does this history of the past have to say to us? What is this history's present? What is in question here first and foremost is the priority of the first commandment: to adore God alone. Where God disappears, man falls into the slavery of idolatry, as the totalitarian regimes of our own time have demonstrated, along with the various forms of nihilism that make man dependent upon idols, upon idolatry -- they enslave him. Second: the primary end of prayer is conversion: the fire of God transforms our hearts and makes us capable of seeing God, of living according to God and of living for the other. And the third point: The Fathers tell us that this history of a prophet is also prophetic, if -- they say -- it foreshadows the future, the future Christ, it is a step on the path to Christ. And they tell us that here we see the true fire of God: the love that leads the Lord all the way to the Cross, to the total gift of Himself. True adoration of God, then, is to give oneself to God and to men -- true adoration is love. And true adoration of God does not destroy, but renews. Certainly, the fire of God, the fire of love burns, transforms, purifies, but it is precisely in this way that it does not destroy but rather creates the truth of our being, recreates our hearts. And thus, truly alive by the grace of the fire of the Holy Spirit, of God's love, may we be adorers in spirit and in truth. Thank you.

[Translation by Diane Montagna]

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

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In our continuing catechesis on Christian prayer, we now turn to the prophet Elijah as a model of intercessory prayer. At a time when the kingdom of Israel saw the spread of Baal-worship and syncretism, Elijah invited the people to renew their covenant with the Lord and to reject every form of idolatry. In the episode of his contest with the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel (cf. 1 Kg 18), he calls upon Israel to choose the Lord and prays for their conversion of heart. What is more, he urges the people themselves to draw near and share in his prayer. In response to Elijah’s prayer, God reveals his fidelity, mercy and saving power through the consuming fire sent down from heaven. He also enables the people to turn back to him and to reaffirm the covenant made with their fathers. As we look to Elijah’s example, let us be ever more convinced of the power of intercessory prayer, so that we can help all people to know the one true God, to turn away from every form of idolatry, and to receive the grace offered to us on the wood of the Cross and in the fire of the Holy Spirit.

I welcome the members of the Catholic-Pentecostal International Dialogue and I offer prayerful good wishes for the next phase of their work. I also welcome the Fiftieth Conference of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration, now meeting in Rome. I thank the choirs, and particularly the University Choir from Indonesia, for their praise of God in song. Finally, I greet the delegates to the General Chapter of the Congregation of the Resurrection. Upon all the English-speaking pilgrims, especially those from the Philippines, Canada and the United States, I invoke the Lord’s blessings of joy and peace.

© Copyright 2011 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

[In Italian, he said:]

Lastly I greet the young, the sick and newlyweds. Dear young people, for many of your peers the time of vacation has begun, while for others this is a time of exams. May the Lord help you to live this period with serenity, and experience the enthusiasm of faith. I invite you, dear sick, to find comfort in the Lord, who illumines your suffering with his salvific love. And to you, dear newlyweds, I offer the heartfelt wish that you learn to pray together, so that your love be ever truer and lasting.

[Translation by Diane Montagna]

Benedict XVI's Pentecost Homily

Benedict XVI's Pentecost Homily


"God Is Reason, God Is Will, God Is Love, God Is Beauty"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 12, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI gave today when he celebrated a Mass for the feast of Pentecost in St. Peter's Basilica.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters!

Today we celebrate the great solemnity of Pentecost. If, in a certain sense, all of the Church's liturgical celebrations are great, this one of Pentecost is so in a singular manner, because, arriving at the 50th day, it marks the fulfillment of the Easter event, of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, through the gift of the Risen Lord's Spirit. The Church has prepared us in recent days for Pentecost with her prayers, with the repeated and intense plea to God for a renewed outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us. The Church re-lived in this way the events of her origins, when the Apostles, gathered in the cenacle in Jerusalem "were perseverant and united in prayer together with some women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers" (Acts 1:14). They were gathered in humble and confident expectation that the Father's promise communicated to them by Jesus would be fulfilled: "Before long you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit … you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit, who will descend upon you" (Acts 1:5, 8).

In the Pentecost liturgy, corresponding to the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles of the birth of the Church (cf. Acts 2:1-11), is Psalm 103, which we heard: a praise that goes up from all creation, exalting the Creator Spirit, who did everything with wisdom: "How many are your deeds, O Lord! You have done them with wisdom; the earth is filled with your creatures … may it always be the glory of the Lord; may the Lord rejoice in his works" (Psalm 103:24, 31). What the Church wishes to tell us is this: The creator Spirit of all things, and the Holy Spirit whom Christ had sent from the Father to the community of disciples, are one and the same: creation and redemption belong reciprocally to each other and they constitute, in their depths, a single mystery of love and salvation. The Holy Spirit is first of all the Creator Spirit and so Pentecost is the feast of creation. For us Christians the world is the fruit of an act of the love of God, who made all things and who rejoices in them because they are "good," "very good," as the account of creation states (cf. Genesis 1:1-31).

Thus God is not totally Other, unnamable and obscure. God reveals himself, he has a face, God is reason, God is will, God is love, God is beauty. The faith in the Creator Spirit is the faith in the Spirit whom the risen Christ bestowed upon the Apostles and bestows on each one of us; they are therefore inseparably joined.

Today's second reading and Gospel show us this connection. The Holy Spirit is he who helps us recognize the Lord, and he makes us pronounce the Church's profession of faith: "Jesus is Lord" (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:3b). "Lord" is the title given to God in the Old Testament, a title that in the reading of the Bible took the place of his unspeakable name. The Church's Creed is nothing more than the development of what is said with this simple affirmation: "Jesus is Lord." St. Paul tells us of this profession of faith that it is from the word and work of the Holy Spirit. If we want to be in the Spirit, we must adhere to this Creed. Making it our own, accepting it as our word, we acquiesce to the work of the Holy Spirit.

The expression "Jesus is Lord" can be read in two senses. It means: Jesus is God, and at the same time: God is Jesus. The Holy Spirit illuminates this reciprocity: Jesus has divine dignity, and God has the human face of Jesus. God shows himself in Jesus and with this conveys to us the truth about ourselves. The event of Pentecost is letting ourselves be deeply enlightened by this word. Reciting the Creed we enter into the mystery of the first Pentecost: There occurs a radical transformation in the chaos of Babel, in those voices that vie against each other: the multiplicity becomes a multiform unity; from the unifying power of Truth comes growth in understanding. In the Creed that brings us together from the four corners of the earth, which, through the Holy Spirit, does this in a way that permits understanding even in the midst of the diversity of languages, through faith, hope and love, is formed the new community of the Church of God.

The Gospel passage offers us a marvelous image to clarify the connection between Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Father: the Holy Spirit is represented as the breath of the risen Jesus Christ (cf. John 20:22). The Evangelist John borrows an image here from the account of creation, where it says that God breathed into man's nostrils a breath of life (cf. Genesis 2:7). The breath of God is life. Now the Lord breathes into our soul the new breath of life, the Holy Spirit, his most intimate essence, and in this way we are welcomed into the family of God. With baptism and confirmation we are given this gift in a specific way, and with the sacraments of the Eucharist and penance it is continually repeated: the Lord breathes a breath of life into our soul. All of the sacraments, each in its proper way, communicate the divine life to man thanks to the Holy Spirit who works in them.

In today's liturgy we see another connection. The Holy Spirit is both Creator and the Spirit of Jesus Christ, in a way however that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one single God. And in light of the first reading we can add: The Holy Spirit animates the Church. She does not derive from the human will, from reflection, from man's ability and from his capacity to organize, because if this were the case, she would have already been extinct for some time, just as every human thing passes. She is rather the Body of Christ animated by the Holy Spirit. The images of wind and fire, used by St. Luke to represent the coming of the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 2:2-3), recall Sinai, where God was revealed to the people of Israel and he granted them his covenant; "Mount Sinai was covered in smoke," we read in the Book of Exodus, "because the Lord had descended upon it in fire" (19:18). In fact Israel celebrated the 50th day after Passover, after the commemoration of the flight out of Egypt, as the feast of Sinai, the feast of the Covenant. When St. Luke speaks of tongues of fire to represent the Holy Spirit, the ancient covenant, established on the basis of the Law received by Israel on Sinai, is recalled. Thus, the event of Pentecost is represented as a new Sinai, as the gift of a new covenant in which the alliance with Israel is extended to all the peoples of the earth, in which all of the barriers of the old Law crumble and its holiest and immutable core appears, which is love, that precisely the Holy Spirit communicates and spreads, the love that embraces all things. At the same time the Law expands, it opens while remaining more basic: It is the New Covenant that the Holy Spirit "writes" in the hearts of those who believe in Christ. The extension of the Covenant to all the nations of the earth is represented by St. Luke through the considerable list of peoples of that time (cf. Acts 2:9-11).

With this we are told something very important: that the Church is catholic from the very first moment, that her university is not the fruit of the subsequent inclusion of diverse communities. From the first instant, in fact, the Holy Spirit created her as the Church of all peoples; she embraces the whole world, she transcends all frontiers of race, class, nation; she razes all the bastions and unites men in the profession of God one and triune. From the very beginning the Church is one, catholic and apostolic: This is her true nature and as such she must be recognized. She is holy, not due to the capacity of her members, but because God himself, with his Spirit, always creates her, purifies her and sanctifies her.

Finally, today's Gospel gives us this beautiful expression: "The disciples rejoiced in seeing the Lord" (John 20:20). These words are profoundly human. The lost Friend is present again, and those who were frightened before now rejoice. But it says more than this. Because the lost Friend does not come from just anywhere but from the night of death -- and he passed through it! -- he is not just anyone but both the Friend and he who is the Truth that gives men life; and what he gives is not just any joy, but joy itself, the gift of the Holy Spirit. Yes, it is beautiful to live because I am loved, and it is the Truth who loves me. The disciples rejoice, seeing the Lord. Today on Pentecost this expression is also intended for us, because we can see him in faith; in faith he comes among us and he also shows to us his hands and side, and we rejoice in this. So, we wish to pray: Lord, show yourself! Give us the gift of your presence, and we will have the best gift: your joy. Amen!

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

On the Church's Baptism Day

On the Church's Baptism Day


"The Breath of the Holy Spirit Fills the Universe"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 12, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today before and after praying the Regina Caeli with those gathered in St. Peter's Square.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The Solemnity of Pentecost that we are celebrating today concludes the liturgical season of Easter. In effect, the paschal mystery -- the passion, death and resurrection of Christ and his ascension into heaven -- finds its fulfillment in the powerful effusion of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles gathered together with Mary, the Mother of the Lord, and the other disciples. It was the "baptism of the Church," a baptism in the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 1:5).

As recounted by the Acts of the Apostles, on the morning of Pentecost, a roaring, as of wind, rolled through the cenacle and upon each of the disciples a tongue like fire descended (cf. Acts 2:2-3). St. Gregory the Great comments: "Today the Holy Spirit has descended with a sudden sound upon the disciples and within his love has transformed the minds of beings of flesh, and while tongues of fire appeared without, hearts became enflamed within so that, receiving God in the vision of fire, they were ardent with love" (Hom. in Evang. XXX, 1: CCL 141, 256).

God's voice divinized the human language of the Apostles, who became able to proclaim the one divine Word polyphonically. The breath of the Holy Spirit fills the universe, generates faith, brings truth, preparing unity among the nations. "At that sound the crowd came together and was disturbed, for each one heard in his own language" of the "great deeds of God" (Acts 2: 6, 11).

Blessed Antonio Rosmini explains that "on the day of Christian Pentecost God promulgated … his law of love, writing with the Holy Spirit, not on tablets of stone but in the hearts of the Apostles, and through the Apostles communicated it then to the whole Church" ("Catechismo disposto secondo l'ordine delle idée," no. 737, Torino, 1863). The Holy Spirit, "who is the Lord and giver life" -- as we recite in the Creed -- is joined to the Father through the Son and completes the revelation of the Most Holy Trinity. He comes from God as the breath of his mouth and has the power to sanctify, to abolish divisions, to resolve the confusion wrought by sin. He, incorporeal and immaterial, bestows the divine goods, assisting living beings, so they act in conformity with the good. As intelligible Light he gives meaning to prayer, he gives vigor to the evangelizing mission, he makes the hearts of those who hear the glad tidings burn, he inspires Christian art and liturgical melody.

Dear friends, the Holy Spirit, who creates faith in us in the moment of our baptism, allows us to live as children of God, conscious and obliging, according to the image of the Only Begotten Son. The power to remit sins is a gift of the Holy Spirit too; in fact, appearing to the Apostles on Easter night, Jesus breathes upon them and says: "Receive the Holy Spirit. Those whose sins you forgive shall be forgiven" (John 20:23).

To the Virgin Mary, temple of the Holy Spirit, we entrust the Church, that she might always live according to Jesus Christ, his Word, and his commandments, and that through the perennial action of the Spirit Paraclete she might proclaim to all that "Jesus is Lord" (1 Corinthians 12:3).

[After praying the Regina Caeli, the Holy Father addressed the pilgrims in various languages. In Italian he said:]

Dear brothers and sisters, I am happy to recall that tomorrow in Dresden, Germany, Alois Andritzki, priest and martyr, who was killed by the National Socialists in 1943 at the age of 28, will be proclaimed blessed. Let us praise the Lord for this heroic witness of the faith, who joins the ranks of those who gave their lives in the name of Christ in the concentration camps.

This day of Pentecost I would like to entrust to your intercession the cause of peace in the world. May the Holy Spirit inspire courageous proposals for peace and support the effort to advance it, that dialogue might prevail over arms and respect for man's dignity overcome party interests. May the Spirit, who is the bond of communion, rectify hearts twisted by egoism and help the human family to rediscover and carefully safeguard its fundamental unity.

The day after tomorrow, June 14, is World Blood Donor Day -- millions of persons who in a silent way contribute to the help of brothers in difficulties. To all blood donors I address a cordial greeting and invite young people to follow their example.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

[In English he said:]

I offer a warm welcome to the English-speaking visitors gathered for this Regina Caeli prayer. My particular greeting goes to the group of ringers from the United States. On this Pentecost Sunday we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church. Let us pray that we may be confirmed in the grace of our Baptism and share ever more actively in the Church's mission of proclaiming the Good News of our salvation in Jesus Christ. Upon you and your families I cordially invoke the Holy Spirit's gifts of wisdom, joy and peace.

© Copyright 2011 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

[Concluding in Italian, he said:]

I wish everyone a good Sunday.

On the Joy the Gospel Brings

On the Joy the Gospel Brings


"It Is Possible for Humanity to Know True Joy"

VATICAN CITY, MAY 29, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today before and after praying the Regina Caeli with those gathered in St. Peter's Square.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The Book of the Acts of the Apostles states that after a first violent persecution, the Christian community of Jerusalem, except for the Apostles, spread to the surrounding areas. Philip, one of the deacons, arrived in a city of Samaria. There he preached the Risen Christ, and his proclamation was supported by numerous healings, so that the outcome of the episode was very positive: "There was great joy in that city." (Acts 8:8).

We are deeply impressed again and again by this expression, which in essence communicates a sense of hope, as if saying: It is possible! It is possible for humanity to know true joy, because wherever the Gospel arrives, life flourishes, just as an arid terrain that, irrigated by rain, is immediately verdant.

With the strength of the Holy Spirit, Philip and the other disciples accomplished in the villages of Palestine what Jesus had done: They preached the Good News and worked miraculous signs. It was the Lord who acted through them. As Jesus proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God, so the disciples proclaimed the Risen Jesus, professing that he is the Christ, the Son of God, baptizing in his name and driving out every illness from the body and the spirit.

"There was great joy in that city." Reading this passage, one thinks spontaneously of the healing power of the Gospel, which in the course of the centuries has "irrigated" so many populations, like a beneficial river. Some great men and women saints took hope and peace to whole cities -- we think of Charles Borromeo in Milan at the time of the plague; of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and of so many missionaries, whose names are known by God, who have given their lives to take the proclamation of Christ and to make profound joy flower among men. While the powerful of this world sought to conquer new territories for political and economic interests, Christ's messengers went everywhere for the purpose of taking Christ to men and men to Christ, knowing that he alone can give true liberty and eternal life.

Also today the vocation of the Church is evangelization: whether to populations which have not yet been "irrigated" by the living water of the Gospel, or those that, though having ancient Christian roots, are in need of new sap to bear new fruits, and rediscover the beauty and joy of the faith.

Dear friends, Blessed John Paul II was a great missionary, as an exhibition on display now in Rome shows. He re-launched the mission ad gentes and, at the same time, promoted the new evangelization. Let us entrust both to the intercession of Mary Most Holy. May Christ's Mother accompany the proclamation of the Gospel always and everywhere, so that the spaces where men rediscover the joy of living as children of God will multiply and spread in the world.

[After praying the Regina Caeli, the Holy Father greeted the people in various languages. In Polish, he said:]

I address my greeting to all the Poles. Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the death of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, Primate of the Millennium. Invoking the gift of his beatification, let us learn from him total abandonment to the Mother of God. May his trust expressed in the words: "I have put everything in Mary" be for us a particular model. We recall this at the end of the month of May dedicated in a particular way to Our Lady. I bless you from my heart.

[Translation by ZENIT]

[In English, he said:]

I greet the English-speaking visitors and pilgrims at today’s Regina Cæli, especially those from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In the Gospel today, our Lord declares: "I will not leave you orphans", promising that the gift of the Holy Spirit will make us adopted children of God. Let us pray that we may be faithful to that gift and live fully the new life that Christ offers us. May God bless you all!

© Copyright 2011 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

On Moses' Intercessory Prayer

On Moses' Intercessory Prayer


"A Man Stretched Between Two Loves"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 1, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the Italian-language catechesis Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience held in St. Peter's Square. The Pope continued with his new series of catecheses on prayer, reflecting today on prayer in sacred Scripture, in particular on the prayer of Moses.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In reading the Old Testament, one figure stands out among others: that of Moses, the man of prayer. Moses, the great prophet and leader during the time of the Exodus, carried out his role as mediator between God and Israel by becoming, among the people, the bearer of the divine words and commandments, by guiding them toward the freedom of the Promised Land, and by teaching the Israelites to live in obedience and trust toward God during their long sojourn in the desert; but also, and I would say especially, by praying. He prays for Pharaoh when God, through the plagues, was trying to convert the Egyptians' hearts (cf. Exodus 8:10); he asks the Lord to heal his sister Miriam who was struck with leprosy (cf. Numbers 12:9-13); he intercedes for the people who had rebelled, fearful of the scouts' report (cf. Numbers 14:1-19); he prays when fire was about to devour the camp (cf. Numbers 11:1-2) and when poisonous serpents were killing the people (cf. Numbers 21:4-9); he addresses himself to the Lord and reacts by protesting when the burden of his mission had grown too heavy (cf. Numbers 11:10-15); he sees God and speaks with him "face to face, as a man speaks to his friend" (cf. Exodus 24:9-17; 33:7-23; 34:1-10,28-35).

Also at Sinai, when the people ask Aaron to fashion for them a golden calf, Moses prays, thus carrying out in an emblematic way the true role of an intercessor. The episode is narrated in Chapter 32 of the Book of Exodus and has a parallel account in Deuteronomy Chapter 9. It is this episode that I would like to dwell upon in today's catechesis; and in particular on the prayer of Moses that we find in the Exodus account.

The people of Israel were at the foot of Mount Sinai while Moses, on the mountain, was awaiting the gift of the tablets of the Law, fasting for forty days and forty nights (cf. Exodus 24:18; Deuteronomy 9:9). The number forty has symbolic value and signifies the totality of experience, while fasting points to the fact that life comes from God, that it is he who sustains it. The act of eating, in fact, involves taking in the nourishment that sustains us; therefore fasting, or the renunciation of food, acquires in this case a religious significance: It is a way of indicating that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord (cf. Deuteronomy 8:3). Fasting, Moses shows himself to be awaiting the gift of the divine Law as a source of life: It reveals the Will of God and nourishes the heart of man, enabling him to enter into a covenant with the Most High, who is the fount of life, who is life itself.

But while the Lord, upon the mountain, gives the Law to Moses, at the foot of the mountain the people transgress it. Unable to withstand the mediator's delay and absence, the Israelites ask Aaron: "Make us a god, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him" (Exodus 32:1). Tired of a journey with an invisible God, now that Moses, the mediator, has also disappeared, the people ask for a tangible, touchable presence of the Lord, and find in the molten calf made by Aaron, a god made accessible, maneuverable, within man's reach. It is a constant temptation on the journey of faith: to elude the divine mystery by constructing a comprehensible god, corresponding to one's own plans, to one's own projects. What occurs at Sinai demonstrates all the foolishness and the illusory vanity of this demand since, as Psalm 106 ironically affirms, "they exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox who eats grass" (Psalm 106:20).

Therefore the Lord responds and orders Moses to go down the mountain, revealing to him what the people were doing, and ending with these words: "Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them: but of you I will make a great nation" (Exodus 32:10). As with Abraham in regard to Sodom and Gomorrah, so also now God reveals to Moses what he intends to do, as though not wanting to act without his agreement (cf. Amos 3:7). He says: "Let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot." In reality, this "let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot" is said precisely so that Moses might intervene and ask him not to do it, thereby revealing that God's desire is always to save. As with the two cities in the time of Abraham, punishment and destruction, in which the wrath of God is expressed as the rejection of evil, point to the gravity of the sin committed; at the same time, the intercessor's request is meant to manifest the Lord's will to forgive. This is the salvation of God, which involves mercy but together with it also exposes the truth of the sin, of the evil that is present, so that the sinner, aware of and rejecting his own sin, can allow himself to be forgiven and transformed by God. Intercessory prayer makes divine mercy so active within the corrupted reality of the sinful man, that it finds a voice in the supplication of one who prays and through him becomes present where salvation is needed.

Moses' prayer is wholly centered on the Lord's fidelity and grace. He at first relates the history of the redemption that God initiated with Israel's departure from Egypt, in order then to recall the ancient promise given to the Fathers. The Lord wrought salvation by freeing his people from Egyptian slavery; why then -- Moses asks -- "should the Egyptians say: 'With evil intent did he bring them forth, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth?'" (Exodus 32:12). The work of salvation begun must be brought to completion; if God were to allow his people to perish, this could be interpreted as a sign of a divine inability to bring to completion the project of salvation. God cannot permit this: He is the good Lord who saves, the guarantor of life, he is the God of mercy and forgiveness, of liberation from sin which kills. And so Moses appeals to God, to the interior life of God, against the exterior pronouncement. But then, Moses argues with the Lord, if his elect were to perish, even if they are guilty, he might appear incapable of conquering sin. And this is unacceptable. Moses had a concrete experience of the God of salvation; he was sent as a mediator of divine liberation, and now, with his prayer, he voices a twofold concern -- concern for the fate of his people, but alongside this, concern for the honor that is owed to the Lord, for the truth of his name. The intercessor, in fact, wants the people of Israel to be saved, because they are the flock that has been entrusted to him, but also because, in that salvation, the true reality of God is manifested. Love of the brothers and love of God interpenetrate in intercessory prayer; they are inseparable. Moses, the intercessor, is a man stretched between two loves, which in prayer overlap into but one desire for good.

Moses then appeals to God's faithfulness, reminding him of his promises: "Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou didst swear by thine own self, and didst say to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever'" (Exodus 32:13). Moses recalls the founding history of [Israel's] origins, of the fathers of the people, and of their wholly gratuitous election in which God alone had had the initiative. Not by reason of their merits did they receive the promise, but through the free choice of God and of his love (cf. Deuteronomy 10:15). And now, Moses asks that the Lord faithfully continue his history of election and salvation, by forgiving his people.

The intercessor does not make excuses for the sin of his people; he does not list presumed merits either of his people or of himself; rather, he appeals to the gratuitousness of God: a free God, who is total love, who never ceases to go in search of the one who has strayed, who always remains faithful to himself and offers the sinner the possibility of returning to him and of becoming, through forgiveness, just and capable of fidelity. Moses asks God to show himself stronger than sin and death, and by his prayer he brings about this divine self-revelation. A mediator of life, the intercessor shows solidarity with the people; desiring only the salvation that God himself desires, he renounces the prospect of becoming a new people pleasing to the Lord. The phrase that God had addressed to him, "but of you I will make a great nation," is not even taken into consideration by the "friend" of God, who instead is ready to take upon himself not only the guilt of his people, but also all of its consequences.

When, after the destruction of the golden calf, he will return to the mountain once again to ask for Israel's salvation, he will say to the Lord: "But now, if thou wilt forgive their sin -- and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written" (verse. 32). Through prayer, desiring God's desire, the intercessor enters ever more profoundly into the knowledge of the Lord and of his mercy, and becomes capable of a love that reaches even to the total gift of self.

In Moses, who stands upon the mountain height face to face with God, who becomes the intercessor for his people, and who offers himself -- "blot me out" -- the Fathers of the Church saw a prefiguration of Christ, who on the heights of the cross truly stands before God, not only as a friend but as Son. And not only does he offer himself -- "blot me out" -- but with his pierced heart he is blotted out, he becomes, as St. Paul himself says, sin; he takes our sins upon himself in order to spare us; his intercession is not only solidarity, but identification with us; he carries us all in his body. And in this way his whole existence as man and as Son is a cry to the heart of God, it is forgiveness, but a forgiveness that transforms and renews.

I think we should meditate upon this reality. Christ stands before the face of God and prays for me. His prayer on the cross is contemporaneous with all men, contemporaneous with me: He prays for me, he suffered and suffers for me, he identified himself with me by taking on our human body and soul. And he invites us to enter into his identity, making ourselves one body, one spirit with him, because from the heights of the cross he brought not new laws, tablets of stone, but rather he brought himself, his body and his blood, as the new covenant. He thereby makes us one blood with him, one body with him, identified with him. He invites us to enter into this identification, to be united with him in our desire to be one body, one spirit with him. Let us pray to the Lord that this identification may transform us, may renew us, since forgiveness is renewal -- it is transformation.

I would like to conclude this catechesis with the words of the Apostle Paul to the Christians in Rome: "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? [ … ] neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities [ … ] nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:33-35, 38, 39).

[Translation by Diane Montagna]

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

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Continuing our catechesis on Christian prayer, we now turn to the great prophetic figure of Moses. As the mediator between God and Israel, Moses is a model of intercessory prayer. We see this clearly in the episode of the golden calf (Ex 32). As Moses descends from Mount Sinai where he has spoken to God and received the gift of the Law, he confronts both the infidelity of the people, who now worship an idol of gold, and God’s wrath. Moses intercedes for his people, fully acknowledging the gravity of their sin. He also pleads with God to remember his mercy, to forgive their sin and thus to reveal his saving power. Moses’ prayer of petition is an expression of God’s own desire for the salvation of his people and his fidelity to the covenant. Through his intercessory prayer Moses grows in deeper knowledge of the Lord and his mercy, and becomes capable of a love which extends to the total gift of self. In this prayer Moses points beyond himself to that perfect intercessor who is Jesus, the Son of God, who brings about the new and eternal covenant in his blood, shed for the forgiveness of sin and the reconciliation of all God’s children.
I welcome the many school and university students present at today’s Audience. I offer a cordial greeting to the pilgrimage group of NATO soldiers stationed in Germany. I also greet the students and staff of Father Agnelo Higher Secondary School in Vashi, Mumbai. My welcome also goes to the seminarians of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. Upon all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors, especially those from England, Sweden, South Africa, India, Malaysia, the Philippines and the United States, I invoke the joy and peace of the Risen Lord.

[In Italian, he said:]

Finally I greet the youth, the sick and newlyweds. Today we begin the month of June, which is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Let us often pause to contemplate this profound mystery of divine Love. In the school of the Heart of Christ, may you, dear young people, learn to assume with serenity the responsibilities that await you. May you, dear sick, find in this infinite fount of mercy the courage and patience to fulfill God's will in every situation. And may you, dear newlyweds, remain faithful to the love of God, and may you witness to it by your married love.

[Translation by Diane Montagna]