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It is always worth going back to re-read the great trilogy of homilies given by Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI in April 2005. It's the best tribute we can do to him on these anniversary days. On April 18, 2005, just before the cardinals entered the Sistine Chapel to elect a new Pope, he gave what is now commonly referred to as the 'dictatorship of relativism' speech although he said much more than than; on April 20, the first homily he delivered as Pope to the cardinal electors the day after his election, delivered in Latin; and on April 24, the homily at the inaugural Mass of his Petrine ministry - the anniversary we observe today. They continue to be very powerful and will always be powerful because always relevant. Man will always be man and therefore fallible - as men of the Church will continue to be fallible...
MASS, IMPOSITION OF THE PALLIUM
AND CONFERRAL OF THE FISHERMAN'S RING
FOR THE BEGINNING OF THE PETRINE MINISTRY
OF THE BISHOP OF ROME
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
St. Peter's Square
Sunday, 24 April 2005
Your Eminences,
My dear Brother Bishops and Priests,
Distinguished Authorities and Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
During these days of great intensity, we have chanted the litany of the saints on three different occasions: at the funeral of our Holy Father John Paul II; as the Cardinals entered the Conclave; and again today, when we sang it with the response: Tu illum adiuva – sustain the new Successor of Saint Peter.
On each occasion, in a particular way, I found great consolation in listening to this prayerful chant. How alone we all felt after the passing of John Paul II – the Pope who for over twenty-six years had been our shepherd and guide on our journey through life! He crossed the threshold of the next life, entering into the mystery of God. But he did not take this step alone.
Those who believe are never alone – neither in life nor in death. At that moment, we could call upon the Saints from every age – his friends, his brothers and sisters in the faith – knowing that they would form a living procession to accompany him into the next world, into the glory of God. We knew that his arrival was awaited. Now we know that he is among his own and is truly at home.
We were also consoled as we made our solemn entrance into Conclave, to elect the one whom the Lord had chosen. How would we be able to discern his name? How could 115 Bishops, from every culture and every country, discover the one on whom the Lord wished to confer the mission of binding and loosing?
Once again, we knew that we were not alone, we knew that we were surrounded, led and guided by the friends of God.
And now, at this moment, weak servant of God that I am, I must assume this enormous task, which truly exceeds all human capacity. How can I do this? How will I be able to do it?
All of you, my dear friends, have just invoked the entire host of Saints, represented by some of the great names in the history of God’s dealings with mankind. In this way, I too can say with renewed conviction: I am not alone. I do not have to carry alone what in truth I could never carry alone. All the Saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me. And your prayers, my dear friends, your indulgence, your love, your faith and your hope accompany me.
Indeed, the communion of Saints consists not only of the great men and women who went before us and whose names we know. All of us belong to the communion of Saints, we who have been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we who draw life from the gift of Christ’s Body and Blood, through which he transforms us and makes us like himself.
Yes, the Church is alive – this is the wonderful experience of these days. During those sad days of the Pope’s illness and death, it became wonderfully evident to us that the Church is alive. And the Church is young. She holds within herself the future of the world and therefore shows each of us the way towards the future.
The Church is alive and we are seeing it: we are experiencing the joy that the Risen Lord promised his followers. The Church is alive – she is alive because Christ is alive, because he is truly risen.
In the suffering that we saw on the Holy Father’s face in those days of Easter, we contemplated the mystery of Christ’s Passion and we touched his wounds. But throughout these days we have also been able, in a profound sense, to touch the Risen One. We have been able to experience the joy that he promised, after a brief period of darkness, as the fruit of his resurrection.
The Church is alive – with these words, I greet with great joy and gratitude all of you gathered here, my venerable brother Cardinals and Bishops, my dear priests, deacons, Church workers, catechists. I greet you, men and women Religious, witnesses of the transfiguring presence of God. I greet you, members of the lay faithful, immersed in the great task of building up the Kingdom of God which spreads throughout the world, in every area of life.
With great affection I also greet all those who have been reborn in the sacrament of Baptism but are not yet in full communion with us; and you, my brothers and sisters of the Jewish people, to whom we are joined by a great shared spiritual heritage, one rooted in God’s irrevocable promises. Finally, like a wave gathering force, my thoughts go out to all men and women of today, to believers and non-believers alike.
Dear friends! At this moment there is no need for me to present a programme of governance. I was able to give an indication of what I see as my task in my Message of Wednesday 20 April, and there will be other opportunities to do so. My real programme of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together with the whole Church, to the word and the will of the Lord, to be guided by Him, so that He himself will lead the Church at this hour of our history.
Instead of putting forward a programme, I should simply like to comment on the two liturgical symbols which represent the inauguration of the Petrine Ministry; both these symbols, moreover, reflect clearly what we heard proclaimed in today’s readings.
The first symbol is the Pallium, woven in pure wool, which will be placed on my shoulders. This ancient sign, which the Bishops of Rome have worn since the fourth century, may be considered an image of the yoke of Christ, which the Bishop of this City, the Servant of the Servants of God, takes upon his shoulders. God’s yoke is God’s will, which we accept. And this will does not weigh down on us, oppressing us and taking away our freedom.
To know what God wants, to know where the path of life is found – this was Israel’s joy, this was her great privilege. It is also our joy: God’s will does not alienate us, it purifies us – even if this can be painful – and so it leads us to ourselves. In this way, we serve not only him, but the salvation of the whole world, of all history.
The symbolism of the Pallium is even more concrete: the lamb’s wool is meant to represent the lost, sick or weak sheep which the shepherd places on his shoulders and carries to the waters of life.
For the Fathers of the Church, the parable of the lost sheep, which the shepherd seeks in the desert, was an image of the mystery of Christ and the Church. The human race – every one of us – is the sheep lost in the desert which no longer knows the way.
The Son of God will not let this happen; he cannot abandon humanity in so wretched a condition. He leaps to his feet and abandons the glory of heaven, in order to go in search of the sheep and pursue it, all the way to the Cross. He takes it upon his shoulders and carries our humanity; he carries us all – he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.
What the Pallium indicates first and foremost is that we are all carried by Christ. But at the same time it invites us to carry one another. Hence the Pallium becomes a symbol of the shepherd’s mission, of which the Second Reading and the Gospel speak.
The pastor must be inspired by Christ’s holy zeal: for him it is not a matter of indifference that so many people are living in the desert. And there are so many kinds of desert.
There is the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love.
There is the desert of God’s darkness, the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life. The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast.
Therefore the earth’s treasures no longer serve to build God’s garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction.
The Church as a whole and all her Pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance.
The symbol of the lamb also has a deeper meaning. In the Ancient Near East, it was customary for kings to style themselves shepherds of their people. This was an image of their power, a cynical image: to them their subjects were like sheep, which the shepherd could dispose of as he wished.
When the shepherd of all humanity, the living God, himself became a lamb, he stood on the side of the lambs, with those who are downtrodden and killed. This is how he reveals himself to be the true shepherd: “I am the Good Shepherd . . . I lay down my life for the sheep”, Jesus says of himself (Jn 10:14f).
It is not power, but love that redeems us! This is God’s sign: he himself is love. How often we wish that God would make show himself stronger, that he would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world.
All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity. We suffer on account of God’s patience. And yet, we need his patience.
God, who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified him. The world is redeemed by the patience of God. It is destroyed by the impatience of man.
One of the basic characteristics of a shepherd must be to love the people entrusted to him, even as he loves Christ whom he serves. “Feed my sheep”, says Christ to Peter, and now, at this moment, he says it to me as well.
Feeding means loving, and loving also means being ready to suffer. Loving means giving the sheep what is truly good, the nourishment of God’s truth, of God’s word, the nourishment of his presence, which he gives us in the Blessed Sacrament.
My dear friends – at this moment I can only say:
Pray for me, that I may learn to love the Lord more and more. Pray for me, that I may learn to love his flock more and more – in other words, you, the holy Church, each one of you and all of you together.
Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves. Let us pray for one another, that the Lord will carry us and that we will learn to carry one another.
The second symbol used in today’s liturgy to express the inauguration of the Petrine Ministry is the presentation of the fisherman’s ring.
Peter’s call to be a shepherd, which we heard in the Gospel, comes after the account of a miraculous catch of fish: after a night in which the disciples had let down their nets without success, they see the Risen Lord on the shore. He tells them to let down their nets once more, and the nets become so full that they can hardly pull them in; 153 large fish: “and although there were so many, the net was not torn” (Jn 21:11).
This account, coming at the end of Jesus’s earthly journey with his disciples, corresponds to an account found at the beginning: there too, the disciples had caught nothing the entire night; there too, Jesus had invited Simon once more to put out into the deep.
And Simon, who was not yet called Peter, gave the wonderful reply: “Master, at your word I will let down the nets.” And then came the conferral of his mission: “Do not be afraid. Henceforth you will be catching men” (Lk 5:1-11).
Today too the Church and the successors of the Apostles are told to put out into the deep sea of history and to let down the nets, so as to win men and women over to the Gospel – to God, to Christ, to true life.
The Fathers made a very significant commentary on this singular task. This is what they say: for a fish, created for water, it is fatal to be taken out of the sea, to be removed from its vital element to serve as human food. But in the mission of a fisher of men, the reverse is true.
We are living in alienation, in the salt waters of suffering and death; in a sea of darkness without light. The net of the Gospel pulls us out of the waters of death and brings us into the splendour of God’s light, into true life.
It is really true: as we follow Christ in this mission to be fishers of men, we must bring men and women out of the sea that is salted with so many forms of alienation and onto the land of life, into the light of God.
It is really so: the purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men. And only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.
We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.
There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him.
The task of the shepherd, the task of the fisher of men, can often seem wearisome. But it is beautiful and wonderful, because it is truly a service to joy, to God’s joy which longs to break into the world.
Here I want to add something: both the image of the shepherd and that of the fisherman issue an explicit call to unity. “I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must lead them too, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd” (Jn 10:16); these are the words of Jesus at the end of his discourse on the Good Shepherd. And the account of the 153 large fish ends with the joyful statement: “although there were so many, the net was not torn” (Jn 21:11).
Alas, beloved Lord, with sorrow we must now acknowledge that it has been torn! But no – we must not be sad! Let us rejoice because of your promise, which does not disappoint, and let us do all we can to pursue the path towards the unity you have promised. Let us remember it in our prayer to the Lord, as we plead with him: yes, Lord, remember your promise. Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd! Do not allow your net to be torn, help us to be servants of unity!
At this point, my mind goes back to 22 October 1978, when Pope John Paul II began his ministry here in Saint Peter’s Square. His words on that occasion constantly echo in my ears: “Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors for Christ!”
The Pope was addressing the mighty, the powerful of this world, who feared that Christ might take away something of their power if they were to let him in, if they were to allow the faith to be free.
Yes, he would certainly have taken something away from them: the dominion of corruption, the manipulation of law and the freedom to do as they pleased. But he would not have taken away anything that pertains to human freedom or dignity, or to the building of a just society.
The Pope was also speaking to everyone, especially the young. Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us?
Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom?
And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation.
And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life. Amen.
Perhaps not even Leo the Great delivered three great homilies following in quick succession as Benedict XVI did that April of 2005. But they only prefigured the great Paschal Triduum-Easter quadrilogy of homilies he would go on to deliver every year in the next six years...
Sorry I could not find a better report than the following to give an idea - a rather pale one compared to the reality - of the ceremony in St. Peter's Square on April 24, 2005, when for the first time since his brief appearance on the central loggia of St. Peter's Basilica on April 19, the world saw Benedict XVI formally installed as Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.
Benedict XVI officially installed:
Says 'listening with the Church'
will be his 'program of governance'
By Stacy Meichtry
April 24, 2005
Pope Benedict XVI officially took the reins of the Roman Catholic church Sunday, receiving the symbols of his authority with a call for unity with other faiths and a pledge to govern the church through cooperation rather than papal mandate.
In a ceremony colored by centuries-old pageantry, Benedict accepted the fisherman's ring and seal -- the symbol of his continuity with St. Peter -- and a lamb's wool pallium -- a sash that signifies the pope's role as the shepherd of the faithful. [It's not a sash - in the form Benedict XVI took it on that day, it was a long stole; since 2009, he has reverted to the collar form used by metropolitan bishops, except the papal pallium has the crosses in red, while the bishops have theirs in black.]
Benedict then delivered a homily that aimed to recast these tokens of papal power as symbols of servitude, signaling a dramatic departure from his former role as the church's chief doctrinal authority.
"At this moment there is no need for me to present a program of governance," he told the 350,000-strong crowd, composed of dignitaries, religious leaders, royalty and rank-and-file faithful. "My real program of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together with the whole church."
Benedict extended his call to Christian churches "not yet in full communion" with the pontiff and to the "Jewish people," whom he characterized as "brothers and sisters," united with the church through "a great shared spiritual heritage."
As Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict was the chief author of a document that reasserted Catholicism's superiority over other faiths and claimed that other Christian churches derive salvific power through their links to Catholicism. [A false reading of Dominus Iesus.]
On Sunday, Benedict showed no signs of excluding anyone from his reign. [That is such an uninformed reading! The Pope is a Universal Pastor whose ministry is therefore not exclusive. It is entirely another thing to clarify Catholic doctrine for all the faithful by affirming that the defining characteristic of the one Church Jesus founded, - which was undivided until the Great Schism of 1043, leaving the Roman Catholic Church as the only universal Christian church that traces its origins all the way back to the apostles [As do a few Oriental churches begun directly by the Apostles and therefore called 'apostolic churches'.]
"Like a wave gathering force, my thoughts go out to all men and women of today, to believers and non-believers alike," Benedict said.
Benedict began the ceremony beneath the Basilica, in a space believed to mark the burial spot of Catholicism's first Pope St Peter. He wore heavy golden vestments, embroidered with a seashell patterns and gripped a papal staff that once belonged to his predecessor, John Paul II. {So too did the miter and chasuble he wore.]
Upon appearing in the square, Benedict stood immobile before the cheering crowd. His eyes scanned the throng while his face remained expressionless.
With St. Peter's massive façade looming over his shoulder, Benedict waited as the fisherman's ring and the pallium were carried from the altar to his throne.
Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez, the Chilean who proclaimed Benedict's name to the world from the basilica balcony last Tuesday, placed the pallium around the pontiff's neck. A simple stole made of white lambs wool, the pallium was embroidered with five crimson crosses that Estevez pinned with silver stakes to signify the nailing of Christ to the cross.
Benedict described the pallium, an accessory popular among Medieval popes, as a "yoke" that "does not alienate us, it purifies us -- even if this can be painful."
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State, brought a golden jewel box before the pontiff with its lid ajar, exposing the glittering fisherman's ring, emblazoned with a relief of Peter casting his fishing net -- the image traditionally used to seal apostolic letters. Benedict plucked it from the box and slid his right ring finger through it.
Twelve people representing Christ's disciples then lined up to kneel before Benedict and kiss his ring. Among the 12 chosen was a religious woman -- the first ever to participate in the ritual.
As Benedict read the Mass's homily, his eyes fixed to the text. Occasionally he invoked the name of John Paul, stirring applause from the crowd and memories of his predecessor's commanding skills as an orator.
Once he cited John Paul's Mass of Investiture in 1978, when the late pontiff imported: "Do not be afraid!" The words stood in stark contrast to Benedict's soft-spoken message.
"I am not alone," Benedict declared, prompting loud cheers from the audience. "You see," he said, briefly lifting his eyes to the crowd in a brief departure from his text. "We see it. We hear it."
Benedict's call for unity also contrasted with the dire tones of the messages he had delivered as a cardinal -- most notably a Good Friday address that characterized the Church as a sinking ship and the pre-conclave Pro Eligendo Mass, in which the former cardinal called on the Church to defend itself against an ideology-based "dictatorship of relativism."
Sunday Benedict cast his condemnation of ideological influence in a more subtle light.
"All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way. They justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity," he said. "God, who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the crucified, not by those who crucify."
"Pray for me," he said, "that I may not flee for fear of the wolves."
After the Mass concluded, Benedict mounted a white jeep and circled the square to the cheers of onlookers who held out their hands and flashed digital cameras.
Beyond the square, an endless crowd packed the Via della Conciliazione, which was lined with jumbotrons for the occasion. Similar screens were positioned outside Vatican City walls to accommodate late arrivals.
City officials estimated that 100,000 pilgrims from the ope's native Germany attended the event.
Among them was Simone Steffan, 30, who traveled 12 hours by train from Munich to arrive in Rome Sunday morning and secure a spot in the square.
"I saw the top of his hat," she said, describing the pontiff's cruise on the popemobile. Steffan followed most of the Mass in a state of incomprehension, waiting for the pontiff to speak in his native tongue. Her wish was not fulfilled. "I just wanted one word in German," she said.
Dignitaries from more than 131 countries also attended the Mass, including German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Prince Albert II of Monaco and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams; Metropolitan Chrisostomos, a top envoy for Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Christian Orthodox; and a senior representative of the Russian Orthodox church, Metropolitan Kirill were present at the Mass and scheduled to meet with the freshman pontiff later in the day.
Following the Mass, dignitaries formed a line inside the Basilica to greet the newly installed pope. Schroeder gently bowed and shook hands with Benedict while Queen Sofia of Spain, wearing a lacy white dress and a flowing veil, knelt before the pontiff and planted a kiss on his newly minted ring.
Although Spain ranks among Europe's largest Catholic countries, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain's prime minister, did not attend Benedict's investiture Mass. This week, the lower chamber of the Spanish parliament passed by an overwhelming majority a bill that allows gay couples to marry and adopt children.
As the former Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict condemned homosexuality as a premarital sexual relationship. [How can the reporter of a major newspaper get that so wrong? Catholic teaching considers the physical homosexual act sinful, just as pre-marital heterosexual sex is.] He has not addressed the issue since becoming Pope as Vatican officials have worked hard to present their pope in a softer hue. [Yeah, right!. As if any Pope would begin his Pontificate by lecturing about homosexuality which is not exactly among the top problems for the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.]
Saturday Benedict met with the media and thanked them for their hard work and the intensive coverage they have provided during this time of the death of a Pope and the election of a new one.
Benedict "has been catapulted into this position," said Costantino Mirra, 52, who runs a sanitation company in southern Italy. "Before he had an embarrassing job," he said, referring to Benedict's days as the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. "Now he can reflect, taking his new job one day at a time."
While his ministry officially began today, Benedict has been in the public eye for months. As the dean of the College of Cardinals, he was designated to celebrate the only Mass of the year that drew more supporters than Sunday's ceremony: John Paul's funeral.
In a repeat performance of that day, Italian authorities employed elaborate security measures. Boats patrolled the Tiber River, a no-fly zone was imposed, anti-missile units were put in position as were NATO surveillance aircraft. The city of Rome reported that 10,000 police were deployed.
In a final invocation of the late pope, Benedict reformulated John Paul's 1978 call to not be afraid: "I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ!"
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/04/2012 15:49] |