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Vespers with Roman university students
December 15, 2011
Pope Benedict XVI prayed Solemn Vespers with Rome’s university students Thursday evening in St Peter’s Basilica.
In his homily, the Holy Father spoke of the Christian duty to seek the truth amd to wait with steadfast hope and vigilance, saying, “To seek the face of God is our deepest aspiration, and it is also the answer to the basic question, which is ever more clearly present in and to contemporary society.”
The Advent celebration of Vespers with the students of Rome’s institutions of higher learning has become an annual tradition
Illustration: The Annunciation, miniature from The Golden Book of Hours of Bona Sforza, 1490-1517, British Library, London.
Here is a translation of the Holy Father's homily:
“Be patient, brothers, until the coming of the Lord” (Jms 5,7).
With these words the Apostle James indicates to us the interior attitude with which to prepare ourselves to heed and accept once more the announcement of the birth of the Redeemer in the cave of Bethlehem, ineffable mystery of light, love and grace.
To you, dear universitarians of Rome, whom I have the joy of meeting on this traditional occasion, I address my greeting with affection: I welcome you, in close proximity to the Holy Nativity, with your desires, Your expectations, your concerns. And I greet the academic communities that you represent.
I thank the Rector Magnificus, Prof. Massimo Egidi, for the kind words he addressed to me in the name of you all, and in which he highlighted the delicate mission of the university professor.
I greet most cordially the Minister for Universities, Prof. Francesco Profumo, and the academic authorities of the various universities.
Dear friends, St. James exhorts us to imitate the farmer who “patiently awaits the precious fruit of the earth” (Jms 5,7).
To you who now live in the heart of the cultural and social environment of our time, who are experiencing the new and increasingly refined technologies, who are protagonists in a historical dynamism that sometimes seems overwhelming, the Apostle’s invitation may seem anachronistic, almost like an invitation to step out of history, not to want to see the fruits of your work, of your research.
But is it so? Is the invitation to await God out of date? Even more radically we can ask ourselves: What does Christmas mean to me – is it really important for my existence, to build society?
In our time, there are many – especially those that you meet in the halls of universitiea - who are giving voice to the question of whether we should await someone or something, whether we ought to await another Messiah, another god; whether it is worthwhile at all to trust in that Baby whom, on the night of the Nativity, we find in the manger between Mary and Joseph.
The Apostle’s exhortation to constant patience, which could leave many perplexed in our time, is in fact the way to accept profoundly the question of God, the sense that he has in our life and in history, because it is precisely with patience, fidelity and constancy in the search for God, in the openness to him, that he reveals his face.
We do not need a generic, undefined God, but a living and true God, who opens the horizons for man’s future to a perspective of firm and secure hope, a hope rich with eternity which allows us to face the present in all its aspects with courage.
But we should then ask ourselves: Where can I find the true face of this God? Or better yet, where is it that God himself will come to meet me, showing me his true face, revealing his mystery, entering into my story?
Dear friends, St. James’s invitation, “Be patient, brothers, until the coming of the Lord!”, reminds us that the certainty of the great hope for the world is given to us, that we are not alone, and that it is not for us alone to construct history.
God is not far from man, but is bent towards him, and became man (Jn 1,14) so that man may understand in whom resides the solid foundation of everything, the fulfillment of his most profound aspirations: in Christ (cfr Esort. ap. postsin. Verbum Domini, 10).
Patience is the virtue of those who trust in this presence in history, who do not allow themselves to give in to the temptation to place all their hope in the immediate, in perspectives that are purely horizontal, in initiatives that are technically perfect but far from the most profound reality, but in that which gives the highest dignity to the human being: the transcendent dimension, his being a creature in the image and likeness of God, carrying in his heart the desire to lift himself up to him.
There is, however, another aspect that I wish to underllne this evening. St. James has told us: “See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it” (5,7).
God, in the incarnation of the Word, in the incarnation of his Son, has seen the time of man, of his growth, what he has done in history. That Baby is the sign of God’s patience, who before everything is patient, constant and faithful in his love for us – he is the true ‘farmer’ of history who knows how to wait.
How many times have men attempted to build the world by themselves, without God or against him! The result has been the tragedy of the ideologies which, in the end, have shown themselves to be against man and his profound dignity.
Constant patience in constructing history, on the personal as well as the community level, is not identical to the traditional virtue of prudence, which one certainly needs, but it is something greater and more complex.
To be constant and patient means to construct history together with God, because only by building on him and with him will the construction be well founded, not instrumentalized for ideological ends, but truly worthy of man.
This evening then, let us rekindle in an even more luminous way the hope in our hearts, because the Word of God reminds us that the coming of the Lord is near, OR rather, that the Lord is with us and that it is possible to build together with him.
In the cave of Bethlehem, the solitude of man was defeated, our existence was no longer left to the impersonal forces of natural and historical processes, our home can be built on rock. We can project our own history, the history of mankind, not towards a utopia, but in the certainty that the God of Jesus Christ is present and is with us.
Dear university friends, let us proceed with joy towards Bethlehem. Let us welcome into our arms the Baby that Mary and Joseph will present to us. Let us begin from him and with him, facing all difficulties.
The Lord asks each of us to collaborate in the construction of the city of man, uniting faith and culture seriously and passionately. Therefore I ask you to always seek, with patient constancy, the true face of God, aided by the pastoral way that is proposed to you during this academic year.
To seek the face of God is the profound aspiration of our heart and is also the response to the fundamental question that will always emerge anew even in contemporary society. You, dear university friends, know that the Church of Rome, under the wise and considerate leadership of the Cardinal Vicar and his chaplains, is close to you.
Let us thank the Lord because, as we have been reminded, twenty years ago, Blessed John Paul II instituted the Office for University Ministry in the service of Rome’s academic community. The work done so far has promoted the birth and development of the [university] chaplaincies into a well-organized network, where the formative offerings of the various universities – state or private, catholic and pontifical – can contribute to elaborating a culture of service towards man's integral development.
At the end of this liturgy, the icon of Sedes Sapientiae – Seat of Wisdom – will be consigned by a university delegation from Spain to the students of Rome’s La Sapienza University. It will begin its Marian peregrination in the chaplaincies, and I shall be accompanying it in prayer. You know that the Pope trusts you and your testimony of faithfulness and apostolic commitment.
Dear friends, tonight let us hurry forward with trust towards Bethlehem, carrying with us the expectations and hopes of our brothers, so that everyone may encounter the Word of life and put their trust in him. That is the wish that I address to the academic community of Rome: to bring to everyone the announcement that the true face of God is in the Baby of Bethlehem, so near to each of us that no one can feel himself excluded, no one should doubt the likelihood of encounter, because he is the patient and faithful God, who can wait and who respects our freedom.
To him this evening, let us trustfully confess the most profound desire of our heart: “I seek your face, Lord; come in haste”. Amen.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/12/2011 16:36] |