Pope's Lectio Divina at Visit to Rome's Major Seminary

Pope's Lectio Divina at Visit to Rome's Major Seminary
"Peter speaks: It is almost a first encyclical, with which the first Apostle, vicar of Christ, speaks to the Church of all times"

Rome, February 14, 2013 (Zenit.org) | 1950 hits

Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave last Friday, when he visited Rome's major seminary on the occasion of Saturday's feast of Our Lady of Confidence, patron of the seminary.


The reflection draws from 1 Peter 1:3-5.

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Eminence,

Dear Brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,

Dear Friends!

It is a great joy for me to be with you every year, to see so many young men who walk toward the priesthood, who are attentive to the voice of the Lord, who wish to follow this voice and seek the way to serve the Lord in this our time.

We heard three verses of the First Letter of Saint Peter (cf. 1:3-5). Before going into this text, it seems important to me to be attentive to the fact that it is Peter who is speaking. The first two words of the Letter are "Petrus apostolus" (cf. v. 1): he speaks, and he speaks to the Churches in Asia and calls the faithful "chosen and exiles of the Dispersion" (ibidem). Let us reflect a bit on this. Peter speaks, and he speaks – as we hear at the end of the Letter – of Rome, which he calls "Babylon" (cf. 5:13). Peter speaks: it is almost a first encyclical, with which the first Apostle, vicar of Christ, speaks to the Church of all times.

Peter, apostle. Hence, he speaks who has found Christ Jesus the Messiah of God, who has spoken as the first in the name of the future Church: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (cf. Matthew 16:16). He is speaking who has introduced us to this faith. He speaks to whom the Lord said: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" (cf. Matthew 16:19), to whom he entrusted his flock after the Resurrection, saying to him three times: "Feed my lambs, tend my sheep" (cf. John 21:15-17). Speaking also is the man who fell, who denied Jesus and who had the grace to see Jesus' glance, to be touched in his heart and to have found forgiveness and a renewal of his mission. However, it is important that this man, full of passion, of desire for God, of desire for the kingdom of God, for the Messiah, that this man who found Jesus, the Lord and the Messiah, is also the man who sinned, who fell, and yet he remained under the eyes of the Lord and thus remains responsible for the Church of God, he remains entrusted by Christ to be the bearer of his love.

Peter the apostle is speaking, but the exegetes tell us: it is not possible that this Letter is of Peter, because the Greek is so good that it cannot be the Greek of a fisherman of the Lake of Galilee. And not only the language, the structure of the language is optimal, but also the thought is now quite mature, there are already concrete formulas in which the faith and the reflection of the Church is condensed. Hence, they say: it is already a state of development that cannot be Peter's. How to respond? There are two important positions: first, Peter himself – namely the Letter – which gives us a key because at the end of the writing he says: "I have written to you through Silvanus – by Silvanus." This through [by] can mean several things: it can mean that he [Silvanus] transports, transmits; it can mean that he helped in the writing; it can mean that he was really the practical writer. In any case, we can conclude that the Letter itself tells us that Peter was not alone in writing this Letter, but expresses the faith of a Church that is already on the path of faith, an ever more mature faith. He does not write by himself, an isolated individual, he writes with the help of the Church, of the persons who help to deepen the faith, to enter into the profundity of its thought, of its reasonableness, of its profundity. And this is very important: Peter does not speak as an individual, he speaks ex persona Ecclesiae, he speaks as man of the Church, certainly as a person, with his personal responsibility, but also as a person who speaks in the name of the Church: not just his private ideas, not as a genius of the 19th century who wished to express only personal, original ideas, which no one was able to express before. No. He does not speak as an individualistic genius, but speaks in fact in the communion of the Church. In Revelation, in the initial vision of Christ, it is said that the voice of Christ is the sound of many waters (cf. Revelation 1:15). This means that the voice of Christ gathers all the waters of the world, he bears in himself all the living waters that give life to the world; he is Person, but in fact this is the greatness of the Lord, who bears in himself the whole river of the Old Testament, in fact of the wisdom of the peoples. And what is said here about the Lord is true, in another way, also for the apostle, who does not wish to say his own word, but really bears in himself the waters of the faith, the waters of the whole Church, and thus, in fact, of fertility, of fecundity and precisely because of this, he is a personal witness that opens to the Lord, and so becomes open and wide. Therefore, this is important.

Then it also seems important to me that in the conclusion of the Letter Silvanus and Mark are named, two persons who also belong to Saint Paul's friendships. Thus, through this conclusion, the worlds of Saint Peter and Saint Paul go together: it is not an exclusively Petrine theology against a Pauline theology, but it is a theology of the Church, of the faith of the Church, in which there is diversity – certainly – of temperament, of thought, of style -- in speaking between Paul and Peter. It is good that these diversities exist, also today, diverse charisms, diverse temperaments; however, they are not conflicting and are united in the common faith.

I would also like to say one thing: Saint Peter writes from Rome. It is important that we already have the Bishop of Rome, we have the beginning of the succession, we have already the beginning of the concrete primacy located in Rome, not only consigned by the Lord, but located here, in this city, in this capital of the world. How did Peter come to Rome? This is a serious question. The Acts of the Apostles tell us that, after his escape from Herod's prison, he went to another place (cf. 12:17) – eis eteron topon – it is not known to which other place; some say Antioch, some say Rome. In any case, in this chapter, it is also said that, before escaping he entrusted the Judeo-Christian Church, the Church of Jerusalem, to James and, though entrusting it to James, he still remained Primate of the universal Church, of the Church of the pagans, but also of the Judeo-Christian Church. And here in Rome he found a large Judeo-Christian community. The liturgists tell us that in the Roman Canon there are traces of the typically Judeo-Christian language; thus we see that both parts of the Church were in Rome: the Judeo-Christian and the pagan-Christian, united, expression of the universal Church. And certainly for Peter the passage from Jerusalem to Rome is the passage to the universality of the Church, the passage of the Church of the pagans and of all times, to the Church which is also always of the Jews. And I think that, going to Rome, Saint Peter not only thought of this passage: Jerusalem/Rome, Judeo-Christian Church/universal Church. He certainly also remembered the last words Jesus addressed to him, reported by Saint John: "At the end, you will go where you do not wish to go. You will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you" (cf. John 21:18). It is a prophecy of the crucifixion. The philologists show us that it is a precise, technical expression, this "stretching out the hands," for the crucifixion. Saint Peter knew that his end would be martyrdom, that it would be the cross. And thus, he would be in the complete following of Christ. Hence, by going to Rome he was certainly going also to martyrdom: martyrdom awaited him in Babylon. Therefore, the primacy has this content of universality, but also a martyrological content. From the beginning, Rome was also a place of martyrdom. Going to Rome, Peter accepts again this word of the Lord: go to the Cross, and he also invites us to accept the martyrological aspect of Christianity, which can have many different forms. And the cross can have many different forms, but no one can be a Christian without following the Crucified One, without also accepting the martyrological moment.

After these words on the sender, a brief word also on the persons to whom it is written. I have already said that Saint Peter describes those to whom he writes with the words "eklektois parepidemois," "to the chosen that are dispersed exiles" (cf. 1 Peter 1:1). We have again this paradox of glory and cross: chosen but dispersed and exiles. Chosen: this was Israel's title of glory: we are the chosen, God has chosen us little people not because we are great – says Deuteronomy – but because He loves us (cf. 7:7-8). We are chosen: Saint Peter now transfers this to all the baptized, and the content itself of the first chapters of his First Letter is that the baptized enter in the privileges of Israel, they are the new Israel. Chosen: it seems to me worthwhile to reflect on this word. We are chosen. God has always known us, before our birth, our conception. God willed me to be a Christian, a Catholic; He willed me to be a priest. God has thought of me, has sought me among millions, among so many. He has seen me and chosen me, not for my merits, of which there were none, but because of his goodness; He wanted me to be bearer of his election, which is always also a mission, above all a mission, and responsibility for the others. Chosen: we must be grateful and joyful for this fact. God has thought of me, has chosen me as a Catholic, as bearer of his Gospel, as priest. It seems to me worthwhile to reflect several times on this, and to re-enter again in this fact of his election: He has chosen me, He has willed me. Now I respond.

Perhaps today we are tempted to say: you do not want to be joyful for being chosen, it would be triumphalism. It would be triumphalism if we thought that God chose me because I am so great. This would really be mistaken triumphalism. However, to be happy because God has willed me is not triumphalism, but gratitude, and I think that we must learn this joy again: God willed that I be born so, in a Catholic family, that I know Jesus from the beginning. What a gift to be willed by God, so that I have been able to know his face, I have been able to know Jesus Christ, the human face of God, the human history of God in this world! To be joyful because he chose me to be Catholic, to be in this Church of his, where subsistit Ecclesia unica; we must be joyful because God has given us this grace, this beauty of knowing the fullness of the truth of God, the joy of his love.

Chosen: it is at the same time a word of privilege and of humility. But "chosen" is – as I said – accompanied by "parapidemois," dispersed, exiles. As Christians we are dispersed and exiles; we see that today Christians are the most persecuted group in the world because they do not conform, because they are a stimulus against the tendencies of egoism, materialism, of all these things.

We Christians are certainly not only exiles; we are also Christian nations, we are proud of having contributed to the formation of a culture, there is a healthy patriotism, a healthy joy of belonging to a nation that has a great history of culture, of faith. Yet, as Christians, we are always exiles – the fate of Abraham, described in the Letter to the Hebrews. As Christians we are in fact today always exiles. In work places Christians are a minority, they are in a situation of exile; it is a wonder that one can still believe and live like this today. This also belongs to our life: it is a way of being with Christ Crucified, this being exiles, not living in the way that everyone lives, but living – or at least trying to live – according to his Word, in great difference from what everyone says. And this is in fact characteristic of Christians. All say: "but everyone does so, why not I?" No, not I, because I want to live according to God. Saint Augustine said once: "Christians are those that do not have their roots down here as do the trees, but they have their roots above, and they live not in the natural gravitation towards below." Let us pray to the Lord that He help us to accept this mission of living as dispersed persons, as a minority, in a certain sense; of living as exiles and yet of being responsible for others and, precisely in this way, giving strength to the good of our world.

We come finally to the three verses of today. I would only like to stress or, let us say, interpret as well as I can, three words: the word regenerated, the word inheritance, the word custodians of the faith. Regenerated – anaghennesas, says the Greek text – means: to be Christian is not simply a decision of my will, an idea of mine. I see that it is a group that please me, so I become a member of this group, I share their objectives, etc. No: to be Christian is not to enter in a group to do something, it is not just an act of my will, not primarily of my will, of my reason: it is an act of God. Regenerated does not concern only the sphere of the will, of thought, but the sphere of being. I am reborn: this means that to become Christian is first of all passive; I cannot make myself a Christian, but I come to be reborn, I come remade by the Lord in the profundity of my being. And I enter this process of rebirth, I let myself be transformed, renewed, regenerated. This seems very important to me: as a Christian I do not have an idea that I share with some others, and if I no longer like them, I can leave. No: in fact it concerns the depth of my being, that is, to become a Christian begins with an action of God, above all an action of His, and I let myself be formed and transformed.

It seems to me this is matter for reflection, for meditation, precisely in a year in which we reflect on the Sacraments of Christian initiation. To meditate on this passive and active depth of the regenerated being, of the becoming of a whole Christian life, of letting myself be transformed by his Word, for the communion of the Church, for the life of the Church, for the signs with which the Lord works in me, works with me and for me. And to be reborn, to be regenerated, indicates also that I thus enter into a new family: God, my Father, the Church, my Mother, other Christians, my brothers and sisters. Hence, to be regenerated, to let oneself be regenerated also implies letting oneself be inserted willingly in this family, to live for God the Father and from God the Father, to live from communion with Christ his Son, who regenerates me by his Resurrection, as the Letter says (cf. 1 Peter 1:3), to live with the Church letting myself be formed by the Church in so many senses, in so many ways, and to be open to my brothers, to really recognize in others my brothers, who are regenerated with me, transformed, renewed; one bears responsibility for the other. Hence a responsibility of Baptism which is a process of a whole lifetime.

Second word: inheritance. It is a very important word in the Old Testament, where Abraham is told that his seed will inherit the earth, and this was always his promise to his own: You will have the earth, you will be heirs of the earth. In the New Testament, this word becomes a word for us: we are heirs, not of a determined country, but of God's land, of God's future. Inheritance is something of the future, and so above all, this word says that as Christians we have the future: the future is ours, the future is God's. And thus, being Christians, we know that the future is ours and the tree of the Church is not a dying tree, but a tree that always grows again. Therefore, we have reason not to let ourselves be affected --as Pope John said – by the prophets of gloom, who say: well, the Church is a tree that came from the mustard seed, which grew in two millennia, which now has time behind her, and now is the time in which she dies." No. The Church always renews herself, is always reborn. The future is ours. Of course, there is a false optimism and a false pessimism. A false pessimism that says: the time of Christianity has ended. No: it begins again! The false optimism was that after the Council, when convents were closing, seminaries were closing, and they said: but … nothing is wrong, everything is all right … No! Everything is not all right. There are also grave, dangerous falls, and we must acknowledge them with healthy realism, that this is not right, it is not all right when things are mistaken. But at the same time we must also be certain that if here and there the Church is dying because of men's sins, because of their unbelief, at the same time she is reborn. The future is truly God's: this is the great certainty of our life, the great, true optimism that we know. The Church is the tree of God who lives in eternity and bears in herself eternity and the true inheritance: eternal life.

And, finally, custodians of the faith. The text of the New Testament, of the Letter of Saint Peter, uses here a strange word, phrouroumrnoi, which means: there are "the guardians," and the faith is as "the guardian" that guards the integrity of my being, of my faith. This word interprets above all the "guardians" of the doors of a city, where they are and guard the city, so that it is not invaded by powers of destruction. In this way the faith is "guardian" of my being, of my life, of my inheritance. We must be grateful for this vigilance of the faith that protects us, helps us, guides us, gives us security: God does not let me fall out of his hands. Custodians of the faith: so I end. Speaking of the faith I must always think of that sick Syro-Phoenician woman who, in the midst of the crowds, found access to Jesus, touches him to be cured, and is cured. The Lord says: "Who touched me?" They say to him: "But Lord, everyone touches you, how can you ask, who has touched me?" (cf. Mark 7:24-30). But the Lord knows: there is a way of touching Him, superficial, external, which has really nothing to do with a real encounter with Him. And there is a way of touching Him profoundly. And this woman really touched him: touched Him not only with her hand, but with her heart and thus she received the healing strength of Christ, touching Him really from within, from faith. This is faith: to touch with the hand of faith, to touch Christ with our heart and thus enter into the strength of his life, the healing strength of the Lord. And we pray to the Lord that we will be able to touch Him ever more and so be healed. We pray that He not let us fall, that He hold us always by the hand and so guard us for the true life. Thank you.

[Original text: Italian]

At the end the Holy Father stayed at the Seminary for dinner. Then he returned to the Vatican.

[Translation by ZENIT]

Benedict XVI's Homily at Ash Wednesday Mass

Benedict XVI's Homily at Ash Wednesday Mass
"The true disciple does not serve himself or the 'public,' but his Lord"
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Vatican City, February 13, 2013 (Zenit.org). | 842 hits

Here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI gave at this evening's Ash Wednesday Mass, held in St. Peter's Basilica. Because this was the last public liturgy to be celebrated by Benedict XVI, the Mass was moved from the traditional location of Santa Sabina to St. Peter's.


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Venerable Brothers,

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

Today, Ash Wednesday, we begin a new Lenten journey, a journey that extends for forty days and leads us to the joy of Easter, the victory of Life over death. Following the ancient Roman tradition of Lenten stationes, we have gathered for the celebration of the Eucharist. The tradition says that the first statio should take place in the Basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill. The circumstances have suggested that we gather in St. Peter's Basilica. Tonight we are great in number around the tomb of the Apostle Peter, also to request his intercession for the Church's journey at this particular time, renewing our faith in the Supreme Pastor, Christ the Lord. For me it is a good opportunity to thank everyone, especially the faithful of the Diocese of Rome, as I prepare to conclude my Petrine ministry, and ask for a special remembrance in prayer.

The readings that have been proclaimed provide us with ideas that, with the grace of God, we are called to make concrete attitudes and behaviors during this Lent. The Church proposes to us, first, the strong appeal that the prophet Joel addressed to the people of Israel, "Thus says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning" (2:12). Please note the phrase "with all my heart," which means from the center of our thoughts and feelings, from the roots of our decisions, choices and actions, with a gesture of total and radical freedom. But is this return to God possible? Yes, because there is a force that does not reside in our hearts, but that emanates from the heart of God. It is the power of his mercy. The prophet says, further: "Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, rich in faithful love, ready to repent of evil" (v. 13). The return to the Lord is possible as a 'grace', because it is the work of God and the fruit of that faith that we place in His mercy. But this return to God becomes a reality in our lives only when the grace of God penetrates to our inmost being and shakes it, giving us the power to "rend our hearts." The same prophet causes these words from God to resonate: "Rend your hearts and not your garments" (v. 13). In fact, even today, many are ready to "rend their garments" before scandals and injustices - of course, made by others - but few seem willing to act on their own "heart", on their own conscience and their own intentions, letting the Lord transform, renew and convert.

That "return to me with all your heart," then, is a reminder that involves not only the individual, but the community. We have heard, also in the first reading: "Play the horn in Zion, proclaim a solemn fast, call a sacred assembly. Gather the people, convoke a solemn assembly, call the old, gather the children and the infants at the breast; let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her bridal chamber"(vv.15-16). The community dimension is an essential element in faith and Christian life. Christ came "to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad" (cfr. Jn 11:52). The "we" of the Church is the community in which Jesus brings us together (cf. Jn 12:32): faith is necessarily ecclesial. And this is important to remember and to live in this time of Lent: each person is aware that he or she does not face the penitential journey alone, but together with many brothers and sisters in the Church.

Finally, the prophet focuses on the prayers of the priests, who, with tears in their eyes, turn to God, saying: "Do not expose your heritage to the reproach and derision of the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?' "(v.17). This prayer makes us reflect on the importance of the testimony of faith and Christian life of each of us and our community to show the face of the Church and how that face is sometimes disfigured. I am thinking in particular about sins against the unity of the Church, the divisions in the ecclesial body. Living Lent in a more intense and evident ecclesial communion, overcoming individualism and rivalry, is a humble and precious sign for those who are far from the faith or indifferent.

"Behold, now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor 6:2). The words of the Apostle Paul to the Christians of Corinth resonate for us, too, with an urgency that does not allow omission or inaction. The word "now" repeated several times says that we cannot let this time pass us by, it is offered to us as a unique opportunity. And the Apostle's gaze focuses on the sharing that Christ chose to characterize his life, taking on everything human to the point of bearing the very burden of men's sins. The phrase St. Paul uses is very strong: "God made him sin for our sake." Jesus, the innocent one, the Holy One, "He who knew no sin" (2 Cor 5:21), bears the burden of sin, sharing with humanity its outcome of death, and death on the cross. The reconciliation offered to us has cost a high price, that of the cross raised on Golgotha, on which was hung the Son of God made man. In this immersion of God in human suffering and in the abyss of evil lies the root of our justification. The "return to God with all your heart" in our Lenten journey passes through the cross, following Christ on the road to Calvary, the total gift of self. It is a way on which to learn every day to come out more and more from our selfishness and our closures, to make room for God who opens and transforms the heart. And St. Paul recalls how the announcement of the Cross resounds to us through the preaching of the Word, of which the Apostle himself is an ambassador; it is a call for us to make this Lenten journey characterized by a more careful and assiduous listening to the Word of God, the light that illuminates our steps.

In the Gospel of Matthew, to which belongs the so-called Sermon on the Mount, Jesus refers to three fundamental practices required by Mosaic Law: almsgiving, prayer and fasting; they are also traditional indications in the Lenten journey to respond to the invitation to "return to God with all your heart." But Jesus emphasizes that it is both the quality and the truth of the relationship with God that determines the authenticity of each religious gesture. For this reason He denounces religious hypocrisy, the behavior that wants to be seen, attitudes seeking applause and approval. The true disciple does not serve himself or the "public", but his Lord, in simplicity and generosity: "And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you" (Mt 6:4.6.18). Our witness, then, will always be more effective the less we seek our own glory, and we will know that the reward of the righteous is God himself, being united to Him, here below, on the journey of faith, and, at the end of life, in the peace and light of coming face to face with Him forever (cf. 1 Cor 13:12).

Dear brothers and sisters, we begin our Lenten journey, trusting and joyful. May the invitation to conversion resonate strongly in us, to "return to God with all your heart", accepting His grace that makes us new men, with the surprising novelty that is sharing in the very life of Jesus. Let none of us, therefore, be deaf to this appeal, that is addressed to us also in the austere rite, so simple and yet so beautiful, of the imposition of ashes, which we will perform shortly. May the Virgin Mary accompany us in this time, the Mother of the Church and model of every true disciple of the Lord. Amen!

[Original text: Italian]

[Translation by Peter Waymel]

(February 13, 2013) © Innovative Media Inc.

Pope's Homily on the Feast of the Presentation

Pope's Homily on the Feast of the Presentation

Vatican City, February 03, 2013 (Zenit.org).


Here is the translation of Pope Benedict's homily at a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica commemorating the Feast of the Presentation as well as the 27th World Day for Consecrated Life.


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Dear brothers and sisters!

In his account of Jesus’ childhood, St. Luke stresses how faithful Mary and Joseph were to the Law of the Lord. With profound devotion they perform everything that is prescribed after the birth of a male child. There are 2 very ancient prescriptions: one regards the mother and the other the newborn baby. For the woman it is prescribed that she abstain for 40 days from ritual practices and afterward offer a twofold sacrifice: a lamb as a holocaust and a turtledove or pigeon for sin; but if the woman is poor, she can offer 2 turtledoves or 2 pigeons (cf. Leviticus 12:1-8). St. Luke notes that Mary and Joseph offer the sacrifice of the poor (cf. 2:24) to show that Jesus was born in a family of simple folk, humble but strong in faith: a family belonging to the poor ones of Israel who form the true people of God. For the first born son, who, according to the Law of Moses, belongs to God, a ransom was prescribed, consisting in an offering of 5 shekels to be paid to a priest in any place. This was done in perennial remembrance of the fact that at the time of the Exodus, God spared the firstborn of the Hebrews (cf. Exodus 13:11-16).

It is important to observe that it was not necessary that these 2 acts – the purification of the mother and the ransoming of the son – be performed in the Temple. But Mary and Joseph wish to do them in Jerusalem, and St. Luke makes us see how the whole scene converges on the Temple, and he thus focuses on Jesus, who enters the Temple. And precisely through the prescriptions of the Law, the principal event becomes something else, namely, the “presentation” of Jesus in the Temple of God, which signifies the act of offering the Son of the Most High to the Father who sent him (cf. Luke 1:32, 35).

The words of the prophet Malachi that we heard in the first reading is confirmed this narrative of the evangelist: “Thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, I will send you a messenger to prepare the way before me and immediately the Lord whom you seek will enter his temple; the angel of the covenant, whom you seek, see he is coming ... He will purify the sons of Levi ... that they might offer a just sacrifice to the Lord’” (3:1, 3). Clearly here we are not talking about a child and nevertheless these words are fulfilled in Jesus, because, thanks to the faith of his parents, he was “immediately” brought to the Temple; and in the act of his “presentation,” or of his personal “offering” to God the Father, the theme of sacrifice and priesthood shines forth, as in the passage from Malachi. The child Jesus, who is immediately presented in the Temple, will be that adult who will purify the Temple (cf. John 2:13-22; Mark 11:15, 19) and above all will be the sacrifice and the high priest of the new covenant.

This is also the perspective of the Letter to the Hebrews, from which a passage was proclaimed in the second reading, so that the theme of the new priesthood is reinforced: the priesthood inaugurated by Jesus is an existential priesthood: “Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested” (Hebrews 2:18). And here we also see the theme of suffering, which is very clear in the Gospel passage in which Simeon pronounces his prophecy about the Child and the Mother: “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted – and you yourself a sword will pierce – so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35). The “salvation” that Jesus brings to his people, and which he incarnates in himself, passes through the cross, through the violent death that he will overcome and transform with his sacrifice of his life for love. This oblation is announced beforehand in the presentation in the Temple, a gesture that is, of course, motivated by the traditions of the old covenant, but that is intimately animated by the fullness of faith and love that corresponds to the fullness of time, to the presence of God and his Holy Spirit in Jesus. The Spirit, in effect, hovers above the whole scene of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, especially above the figures of Simeon and Anna. It is the Spirit, the “Paraclete,” that brings the “consolation” of Israel and guides the steps and hearts of those who await it. It is the Spirit that suggests the prophetic words to Simeon and Anna, words of benediction, of praise to God, of faith in the one he has consecrated, of thanksgiving because finally our eyes can see and our arms can hold “his salvation” (cf. 2:30).

“A light to reveal you to the gentiles and the glory of your people, Israel” (2:32): thus Simeon defines the Messiah of the Lord at the end of his song of blessing. The theme of light, which echoes the first and second songs of the Servant of the Lord in Deutero-Isaiah (cf. Isaiah 42:6, 49:6), is forcefully present in this liturgy. This liturgy, in fact, was opened with a suggestive procession, in which the superiors general of the institutes of consecrated life represented here participated, carrying lit candles. This sign, specific to the liturgical tradition of this feast, is very expressive. It manifests the beauty and the value of the consecrated life as a reflection of the light of Christ; a sign that recalls the entrance of Mary into the Temple: the Virgin Mary, the consecrated person par excellence, carried the Light Itself in her arms, the Incarnate Word, who had come to disperse the darkness of the world with God’s love.

Dear consecrated brothers and sisters, you are all represented in that symbolic pilgrimage, which in the Year of Faith expresses all the more your own entry into the Church to be confirmed in faith and renewed in the offering of yourselves to God. To each of you and your institutes I offer my most cordial greeting with affection and I thank you for your presence. In the light of Christ, with the many contemplative and apostolic charisms, you cooperate in the life and the mission of the Church in the world. In this spirit of gratitude and communion, I would like to make 3 proposals to you so that you might enter fully into that “door of faith” that is always open for us (cf. “Porta fidei,” 1).

I invite you first to nourish a faith that will be able to enlighten your vocation. I exhort you in this regard to recall to your mind, as in an interior pilgrimage, the “first love” with which the Lord Jesus Christ warmed your heart, not out of nostalgia but to nourish that flame. This is why it is necessary to be with him, in the silence of adoration, and in this way reawaken the will and the joy of sharing life, decisions, the obedience of faith, the blessedness of the poor, the radicality of love. Always beginning again from this meeting of love, you leave everything to be with him and, like him, place yourselves in the service of God and the brethren (cf. John Paul II, “Vita consecrata,” 1).

Second, I invite you to a faith that knows how to recognize the wisdom of weakness. In the joys and sufferings of the present time, when the difficulty and weight of the cross make themselves felt, do not doubt that the kenosis of Christ is already the paschal victory. Precisely in human limits and weakness we are called to live conformation to Christ, in a totalizing tension that anticipates, in the measure possible in time, eschatological perfection (ibid., 16). In the society of effectiveness and success, your life, marked by the humility and weakness of little ones, by empathy with those who do not have a voice, becomes an evangelical sign of contradiction.

Finally, I invite you to renew the faith that leads you as pilgrims toward the future. By its nature the consecrated life is a pilgrimage of the spirit in search of the Face that shows itself and hides itself: “Faciem tuam, Domine, requiram” (Psalm 26:8) (We seek your face, O Lord). This is the constant longing of your heart, the fundamental criterion that orients your journey, whether in the small steps of daily life or in the most important decisions. Do not join with the prophets of misadventure who proclaim the end of or the meaninglessness of the consecrated life of the Church in our time; rather, put on Jesus Christ and arm yourselves with the weapons of light, as St. Paul says (cf. Romans 13:11-14) – remaining awake and vigilant. St. Chromatius of Aquileia wrote: “May the Lord remove such a danger from us so that we are never lulled into the sleep of infidelity; but may he grant his grace and his mercy so that we can always be vigilant in fidelity to him” (Sermon 32, 4).

Dear brothers and sisters, the joy of consecrated life necessarily passes through participation in the cross of Christ. This is how it way for Mary Most Holy. Hers is the suffering of the heart that is wholly one with the Heart of the Son of God, pierced for love. From that wound poured forth God’s light and from the sufferings, sacrifices, gift of self of consecrated persons who live for the love of God and others there also shines the same light, the light that evangelizes the nations. On this feast I pray in a special way for you who live the consecrated life that your life always have the flavor of evangelical “parrhesia” (boldness) that in you the Good News is lived, witnessed to, announced and manifested as the Word of truth (cf. “Porta fidei,” 6).

Amen.

[Translation by Joseph Trabbic]

(February 03, 2013) © Innovative Media Inc.