The Italian service of Vatican Radio has the only report so far - datelined Sunday - about the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis seminar reunion which ended yesterday in Castel Gandolfo. And it's about post-seminar events...
Mass with Pope Benedict
closes Schuelerkreis reunion;
Schoenborn gives the homily
Translated from the Italian service of
August 29, 2010
The Holy Father today had a private audience with Mons. Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity after the Ratsinger Schulerkreis seminar at which he was the principal speaker.
The annual reunion of theologians who earned their doctorates from various German universities with Prof. Joseph Ratzinger as their thesis adviser ended today with a Mass concelebrated with the Pope at the Centro Mariapoli where the seminar was held Friday and Saturday.
The topic was about the interpretation of the teachings by the Second Vatican Council.
Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, Archbishop of Vienna, delivered the homily. Sergio Centofanti reports:
before the Mass, the Pope greeted the participants of the seminar, with reflections on the Gospel of the day regarding privlileged positions at God's banquet, with Jesus's exhortations on humility and love freely given - by sharing what we have with those who are in position to pay back.
Speaking in German, the Pope said:
Dear friends, in today's Gospel, the Lord points out how we actually continue to live like pagans: when we invite only those who can invite us back, and we give only to those who can give back.
But God's style is different - and we experience it in the Holy Eucharist. He invites us to his banquet - we who are lame, blind and deaf. He invites us who have nothing to give him....
In particular, at Mass, we are called on to be touched with gratitude for the fact that even if we have nothing to give God and that we are full of sin, he invites us to his table and wants to be at table with us...
But we should learn to feel our sinfulness, the fact that we have hardly emerged from pagan ways because we still barely live following the novelty of God's style.
And so, let us start Mass by asking forgiveness - a forgiveness that will change us, that will make it easier for us to be more like God, more in his image and likeness.
In his homily, Cardinal Schoenborn also reflected on the theme of humility, recalling that Jesus and entrusted the Kingdom of the Father to the Apostles, but that in order for this great calling not to make them presumptuous, he had placed them - and particularly the first amoing the Apostles - in the 'lowest place'.
He then went on to talk about the Christian attitude to humiliation and insults - that when they are despised, they bless their enemies.
"Humility transforms insults into grace. Thank you, Holy Father, because you embody for us the attitude of Christ who is meek and humble of heart. Is this not a wonderful thing in the Christian faith and experience> The joy that the parameters of heaven are so different for us..."
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/08/2010 15:44]