Here is a report from the German service of Vatican Radio on Pope Benedict's homily to his Ratzinger Schuelerkreis at Mass yesterday morning in the Chapel of the Apostolic Palace at Castel Gandolfo. As the Holy Father spoke in German, it uses direct quotations unlike the item I translated earlier from RV's Italian service which reported what the Holy Father said indirectly.
Benedict XVI on mission:
Joy is an integral part of it
Translated from
the German service of
August 30, 2009
...The Holy Father spoke once more about an integral approach to tbe Bible:
If we wish to listen to the Message of the Lord, how he leads us to God, and how God comes to us through him, then we must listen to the Lord in full, not just in bits and pieces, in which something important emerges, but we must read his entire message, the Gospels, the New Testament and the Old Testament together.
He said that for Israel, God's Law was not considered bondage but a cause for great joy:
We are no longer groping in the dark, we are no longer searching for what 'rightness' is, we are no longer sheep without a shepherd who do not know where to go and what the right way is - God has shown us all this. He himself shows us the way, we know his will, and thereby, we know the truth, the right wisdom.
Today, he said, the joy that was Israel's is considered remarkable:
What Catholic can say he rejoices, that he is proud, that God has laid down the Law for us, that his wisdom took eternal form in the Crucified Christ against foolishness that thinks itself wisdom?
It is not triumphalism, the Pope said, to think this way. The Pope reiterated that joy in God's message was an integral part of the Church's missionary work:
I believe that this joy must be made manifest among us again, we must rejoice that - amid the chaos of the world, in the disorientation of contemporary philosophies, religious theories and opinions, we are able to see the face of God in Christ, that he made himself known to us, that we know what God's will is, and therefore, that we know how to live.
Only when this knowledge becomes joy in us, gratitude for the gift that we could never have caused ourselves but which is generously given to us, then will Christianity be tru;y missionary and truly able to 'infect' others.
The Gospel message, he said, has no other purpose but to lead men to friendship with God, and that Christ holds the definitive truth about man.
Purification is a two-way event. It starts in that he comes to us - He who is Truth and Love - he takes us by the hand, and more, he penetrates into our being. To the degree that we allow ourselves to be touched by him, that we have dialog and friendship with him in the most intimate unity, one Body and one Spirit - as the Canon says today - then we become pure from his own purity, and thus, compassionate and loving as he is.
SIR, the news agency of the Italian bishops' conference, has since released a report in Italian based on the excerpts published by the German service of Vatican Radio. I hope the Vatican press Office sees fit to release the full text.It's so frustrating to get bits and pieces.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 14/09/2009 20:56]