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GENERAL AUDIENCE TODAY
The Holy Father flew in this morning by helicopter from Castel Gandolfo for his regular Wednesday General Audience at St. Peter's Square.
More than 40,000 faithful gathered on a beautiful spring day to listen to him speak further on the significance of the Resurrection as one of the fundamental mysteries of the Christian faith. Here is what he said for the benefit of English-speaking pilgrims:
Our General Audience today is marked by the spiritual joy of Easter, as the Church continues her celebration of Christ’s glorious resurrection from the dead.
The resurrection is the greatest of God’s mighty acts in history; mysterious beyond all imagining, it is also a real event attested by trustworthy witnesses who in turn became messengers of this Good News before the world. In every generation, the Gospel of Christ, crucified and risen, must constantly be proclaimed anew.
Each of us, as a disciple of Christ, is called to testify to the reality and power of the new life bestowed by the Risen Lord upon those who believe.
Saint Mark, at the end of his Gospel, tells us that the Lord "worked with" the Apostles, and "confirmed the message by the signs which accompanied it" (Mk 16:20).
Today too, the Risen Christ wishes to work with us, so that we may reflect his words in our words and reveal the power of his love by our actions.
During this Easter season, may our personal encounter with the Lord deepen our faith, hope and love, and inspire us to proclaim, with our lips and in our lives, the Good News that "Christ is truly risen!".
I offer a warm welcome to the newly-ordained deacons from the Pontifical Irish College, together with their families and friends. Dear young deacons: may the grace of your ordination conform you ever more fully to the Lord in humble obedience and faithful service to the building up of the Church in your beloved homeland.
Upon all the English-speaking visitors present at today’s Audience, especially those from England, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, Malta, Croatia, Australia, Japan and the United States, I invoke the joy and peace of the Risen Christ!
Here is a full translation of today's catechesis:
Dear brothers and sisters:
The usual General Audience of Wednesday is flooded today with the luminous joy of Easter. These days, in fact, the Church celebrates the mystery of the Resurrection and experiences great joy at the good news of the triumph of Christ over evil and death.
This joy is prolonged not only during the Octave of Easter, but throughout the 50 days till Pentecost. After the weeping and dismay of Good Friday, and after the expectation-laden silence of Holy Saturday, the stupendous announcement: "Truly the Lord has risen and appeared to Simon" (Lk 24,34),
This, in the whole history of teh world, is the 'good news' par excellence - it is the 'Gospel' that has been handed down through the centuries, from generation to generation.
Christ's REsurrection is the supreme and unsurpassable act of God's power. It is an absolutely extraordinary event, the most beautiful and mature fruit of 'the mystery of God". It is so extraordinary that it is is indescribable in its dimensions which escape our human capacity for knowledge and investigation.
Nonetheless, it is also a historical fact, real, witnessed and documented. It is the event that is the foundation of our whole faith. It is the central content of what we believe and the principal reason for why we believe.
The New Testament does not describe the Resurrection of Jesus as it happens. It only gives the testimony of those whom Jesus met in person after his resurrection.
The three synoptic Gospels tell us that the announcement "He has risen!" was first proclaimed by some angels. Therefore, it is an announcement that comes from God, one that God entrusts to his 'messengers' so that they would transmit to to everyone.
And so these are the very angels who ask the women who came early to the tomb that first Easter, to go quickly and tell the disciples: "He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him." (Mt 28,7).
In this way, through the women of the Gospel, the divine mandate reached each and everyone so that each, in turn, could transmit to others, with fidelity and courage, the same news: the beautiful and joyous news, which is also the bearer of joy.
Yes, dear friends, all our faith is founded on the constant and faithful transmission of this 'good news'. We, today, wish to tell God of our profound gratitude for the numberless ranks of believers in Christ who have preceded us through the centuries, because they never failed in their fundamental mandate to announce the Gospel they had received.
The good news of Easter, then, requires the work of enthusiastic and courageous witnesses. Every disciple of Christ, and therefore, each of us, is called to be a witness. This is the precise, demanding and exalting mandate of the risen Lord.
The 'news' of the new life in Christ should shine in the life of each Christian, it should be alive and functioning - and truly capable of changing the heart of whoever gives him his entire existence.
He is alive above all because Christ himself is this living and vivifying spirit.
St. Mark reminds us of this at the end of his Gospel where he writes that the Apostles "went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs" (Mk 16,20).
The experience of the Apostles is also ours and that of every believer, every disciple who becomes an 'annunciator'. Even we, in fact, are sure that the Lord, today as yesterday, works together with his witnesses.
This is a fact that we can recognize every time we see the seeds of true and lasting peace sprout, wherever the commitment and the example of Christians and men of good will is inspired by respect for justice, patient dialog, convinced esteem of others, disinterest, personal and communitarian sacrifice.
Unfortunately, we also see in the world so much suffering, violence and incomprehension. The celebration of the Paschal mystery, the joyous contemplation of the Resurrection of Christ, who conquered sin and death with the power of God's love, is a propitious occasion to rediscover and profess with more conviction our faith in the risen Lord, who accompanies the witnesses to his word by working wonders together with them.
We will be truly and profoundly witnesses of the risen Christ when we allow the wonder of his love to show through; when in our words, and even better, in our actions that are fully consistent with the Gospel, the voice and the hand of Jesus himself can be recognized.
Therefore, the Lord sends us to be his witnesses everywhere. But we can be such only starting from and in continuous reference to the Easter experience, that which Mary of Magdala expressed when she announced to the other disciples, "I saw the Lord" (Jn 20,18).
In this personal encounter with the Risen One is the indestructible foundation and the central content of our faith, the fresh and inexhaustible spring of our hope, the ardent dynamism of our charity.
And thus our entire life will fully coincide with the announcement that "Christ the Lord has truly risen".
So let us allow ourselves to be won over by the fascination of the Resurrection of Christ. May the Virgin Mary sustain us with her protection and help us to fully savor the joy of Easter, so that in turn we will know to bring it to all our brothers.
Once more, a Happy Easter to everyone!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/04/2010 03:01] |