'Blessed humility: The simple virtues of Joseph Ratzinger'
The gentleness of a simple man
Book review by Edoardo Rialti
Translated from
Oct. 18, 2012
Humility and humor. Andrea Monda starts with these two words to describe the personality of Benedict XVI, while uncovering that 'sweetness' or tenderness that is possible only for someone who is 'in the embrace of a power greater than our own'.
Andrea Monda, journalist and author of important books on JRR Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, begins his spiritual biography of Benedict XVI with those two words and two experiences that have much in common.
The author tries to read Benedict XVI's Pontificate in the light of the first words with which he presented himself to the world as Pope in 2005. Who is this 'simple and humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord'?
Monda says he has always attributed great importance to 'first things': the first impression, the first meeting, the first word said. The question was therefore whether the new Pope's words had been said in the emotion of such a solemn moment, or whether they should be considered seriously as indicative of the man.
Thus the book starts off by looking for the most impalpable and modest of all virtues, and how it relates to the words and gestures of the theologian Pope: "With the same candor and ever-fresh disposition with which the Professor in Munich responded to his students, the Supreme Pontiff today responds to small and big interlocutors, from Roman children preparing for their First Communion to the world of intellect, philosophy, and politics, and leaders of the most important international institutions".
There follows a kind of police investigation on the secret nature of humility, rich with citations and comparisons, but always spiced with a subtle irony that highlights the discreet but tenacious fascination aroused in anyone who gets to meet Benedict XVI up close.
"Unlike the mediatic vulgate which has depicted him as a cold-blooded Panzerkardinal, everyone who has met Joseph-Benedict 'live', has experienced the sweetness of this simple man who can dialog with anyone without a trace of arrogance or affectation".
Monda allows the reader to rediscover that placing oneself in the position of the 'meek', the 'humble' and 'the least', of whom the Bible and the Gospel speak, is possible only to someone who rests in the embrace of a power and wisdom far greater than ours.
That this is a Pope who basically considers himself always and only "the parish priest of the world", as Monda describes him.
"I had said, and even explained, in class, to my American students, that the very name Ratzinger could not possibly be that of a credible 'papabile'. And that was enough to shatter the halo of glory that they had surrounded me with".
[The last paragraph does not state who said the preceding quotation, but the context makes it clear that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI said it, though I have not seen the citation made before.]
Last June, when the book first appeared, I found this item which I set aside but forgot about till now, so it comes in quite handily.
'The words that best describe
this Pope are words that
hardly anyone uses anymore'
Interview with Andrea Monda
by Andrea Gagliarducci
Translated from
"I first met Joseph Ratzinger in 2000 - and in that meeting, his full humanity emerged. The stuff he's made of - it's his limpid and delicate gentleness, his joy. And to use a word that few have used about Pope Benedict XVI, his politeness. As I speak, I realize that I am using words to describe him that are almost obsolete, words that are hardly ever used these days to describe anyone."
{Reading anything about the Holy Father's life, and watching him on TV and his impeccably refined manners, I've always said a silent prayer for his parents, who must have brought up their children extremely well not just to be genuine devoted Catholics but also to observe what used to be called 'good manners and right conduct' in everything they did.]
Andrea Monda, journalist and author, describes his first meeting with the man who would become Benedict XVI. A meeting that led him first to write an article in 2007. And now to write a book published by Lindau this year.
From reading the book and a conversation with the author, one finds out soon enough that one of the words most used by the Pope in his texts is 'joy'. It underscores, says Monda, that the greatness of Benedict XVI has been in always having said Yes, of always accepting whatever life had in store for him.
"He wanted to be a theologian", Monda notes, "and he found himself a bishop, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and now Pope. His life hardly ever gave him what he really wanted for himself, but he has accepted whatever came his way, with humility".
He also points out that the beauty of Benedict XVI's personality does not lie in his wisdom but in his simplicity, whenever he is the 'parish priest of the world', meeting children, young people, seminarians, priests, responding to their questions off the cuff.
Just think of when last June, in Milan, he told the assembled families of the world, responding to a child. that "Paradise must be something like my childhood with my family".
In that statement, says Monda, "one sees the Pope's full humility. It is the trait that always fascinated me about him, since I first met him. At the time, he was called the Panzerkardinal, the German shepherd standing guard over the doctrine of the faith, the cardinal of NO. But there were also other commentaries that said he was a great theologian, crystal-clear in his thought, serious, of great depth. And yet when I met him, even this more favorable aspect became secondary".
Thus he began to reflect on Joseph Ratzinger's humility. "I realized that all truly great persons are united by the trait of humility. It is a strange virtue: the moment you think you are humble, you've lost it. Humility is a journey, one never arrives at completion. His greatness is really in the simplicity he has when he talks. I particularly find him amazing when he speaks with children".
It is then, he thinks, that the true image of the man Joseph Ratzinger emerges. "Behind the Pope there is always a man," Monda notes, "but a man about whom hardly anyone speaks."
"It is said that no news is good news. As a Christian, I speak of the Good News. I would say that my book is addressed to journalists, because Benedict XVI has been badly served by the reductive media narrative about him. A spiritual narration is the alternative."
The narration reveals Benedict XVI's filial love for the Mary, and his habit of kneeling or genuflecting, as he does often.
"Kneeling is the emblematic sign of humility," Monda points out. "Humility and Christianity are closely linked. Before Christianity, humility was described as respect for one's superior. But in Christianity, we have the paradox of God's kenosis - emptying himself - who becomes man and gets to wash even his disciples' feet. This 'scandalous' self-abasement is the summit of Christianity, and this Pope represents it.
"Benedict has reflected on it often - the more one 'rises', the more one must be humble. Service and obedience are two more words that seem to have been swept out of the Western horizon, they are hardly found in the mass media, but they are often in Benedict XVI's thoughts and words".
It is the mass media's loss that they do not know how to let themselves be 'pierced' by the massages launched by Benedict XVI in all his human kindness, Monda says.
They ignore this very human and alive aspect of Benedict XVI. In Milan last June, for example, where 2 million had assembled to be with the Pope, all they could report on was that this was a Pope who had been constrained to endure attacks from within his own household.
"I think he must have experienced all this [the Vatileaks mess] with great suffering because it involves his own affective relationships with the persons who are closest to him".
But in difficult situations, he can only exalt God. "There is Someone greater than me to whom I entrust myself".
"This is his great humility", Monda says. "In which one sees the true stature of a man who has reached as high as he can go as a priest, and the first thing he does is to ask that the faithful pray for him so that, as he would later say, he may not retreat from the wolves."
My addendum:
It is worth recalling Benedict XVI's first words to the world and the Catholic faithful when he first appeared as Pope on the central loggia of St. Peter's Basilica:
Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals have elected me, a simple, humble labourer in the vineyard of the Lord. The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to act even with insufficient instruments comforts me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers. In the joy of the Risen Lord, confident of his unfailing help, let us move forward. The Lord will help us, and Mary, His Most Holy Mother, will be on our side. Thank you
It is quintessential Joseph Ratzinger.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 18/10/2012 23:15]