The following event is listed in the Liturgical Calendar for the Pope released the other day by the Vatican and I have picked up a couple of details about it elsewhere. One thing led to another, and I have a pretext to recall how Cardinal Ratzinger ended MILESTONES...
Benedict XVI to consecrate
a Rome parish to St. Corbinian
On March 20, second Sunday of Lent, Benedict XVI will dedicate the new parish of San Corbiniano in Infernetto, a working class neighborhood in Rome's southern suburbs. The Diocese of Munich contributed to construction of the parish church.
St. Corbinian is, of course, the 8th century bishop who preceded St. Boniface in evangelizing the Germans and who founded the diocese of Munich and Freising. His symbol was the saddled bear.
Legend says that when Corbinian travelled to Rome before he became bishop, a bear killed his horse, so he saddled the bear and let him carry his load to Rome, after which he released the bear. When Joseph Ratzinger was named Archbishop of Munich-Freising, he adapted Corbinian's bear into his coat of arms as cardinal, and eventually as Pope.
While we often quote Benedict XVI's reference to himself as 'a simple worker in the vineyard of the Lord' from his first message to the world as Pope, the image he used of himself in the poignant ending to his memoir MILESTONES was that of a farm animal, a beast of burden, God's donkey. It is worthwile recalling this ending.
Describing his coat of arms as Archbishop of Munich-Freising, he refers first to the image of the crowned Moor whioch has been on the coat of arms of the Bishops of Freising for over a thousand years.
"No one is quite sure what it means. For me it is a sign of the universality of the Church," he writes, "which knows no distinction of races or classes, since all of us 'are one' in Christ (Gal 3:28)".
[Strange that this detail has escaped the Pope's Muslim detractors!]
He then says that he added for himself two symbols: First, the scallop shell as a sign of man's pilgrimage on earth, and because it reminded him of the legent of Augustine pondering the mystery of the Trinity and likening it to a boy by the seaside trying to pour the watr of the sea into a hole in the sand.
"The hole can no more contain the waters of the ocean than your intellect can comprehend the mystery of God. Thus, for me, the shell points to my great master Augustine, to my own theological work, and to the rgeatness of the mystery that extends farther than all our knowledge".
The second sumbol was Corbinian's bear.
The bear weighed down with the saint's burden reminded me of one of St. Augustine's meditations on the Psalms. In verses 22 and 23 of Psalm 72 (73), he saw expressed both the burden adn hope of his life...
What Augustine writes in this connection became for me a portrayal of my own destiny... (Meditating on the psalm), he sees an image of himself under the burden of his episcopal service. "A draft animal amI before you, for you, and this is precisely how I abide with you".
He had chosen the life of a scholar, but God had chosen to make him into a 'draft animal' - a good, sturdy ox to pull God's cart in this world... ust as the draft animal is closest to the farmer, doing his work for him, so is Augustine closest to God precisely through such humble service, completely within God's hand, completely his instrucment. He could not be closer to his Lord, or be more important to him.
The laden bear that took the place of St. Corbinian's donkey, the bear that became a donkey against its will. Is this not an image of what I should do and what I am? "A be3ast of burden have I become for you, and this is just the way for me to remain wholly yours and always abide with you"...
In the meantime, I have carried my load to Rome and have now been wandering the streets of the Eternal City for a long time. I do not know when I will be released, but one thing I do know: that the exclamation applies to me too: "I have become your donkey, and in this way I am with you".
No matter how many times I have read this ending, with its unseen predestination, it never fails to bring on the tears.