It is past midnight now, and I feel like I am still moving on automatic pilot, almost in an unreal parallel world... and then, I came across this article which is truly most beautiful and moving, because it comes from the heart of a priest who was formed by the teachings of Joseph Ratzinger. It's what I had always thought I would feel if I were a boy or a young man wanting to be a priest, not just imbibing the theology of Joseph Ratzinger, but seeing him as the model of a priest - all the hopes and wishes I have had for all the seminarians, priests and bishops who have been privileged to be addressed by him all these years...
In any case, by the end of the article, I found myself bawling my heart out, shedding all the pent-up tears of love and veneration for Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI - whom I could not have imagined I could love any better, but I do, more and more - along with the shock, dismay and bewilderment that I have not had a chance to indulge in all day. Thank you, Fr. Smith, for sharing your story...
Benedict XVI and the mustard seed
Rev Fr Christopher Smith
February 11, 2013
On 19 April 2005 I made it into Piazza San Pietro just as smoke was coming out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. It was a grey cloudy day, so it was hard to make out whether the smoke was white or black. The bells were supposed to ring to announce the election of the successor to John Paul II, but nothing happened, so we were all confused.
The Piazza began to fill with more and more people, seminarians, sisters and laypeople running down the Via della Conciliazione as fast as they could. The atmosphere was electric, because we all knew that we were going to participate in something historic.
Rome had been my home for almost seven years by that point. I had moved there after graduating from Christendom College because I wanted to live in the heart of Christendom, close to the Holy Father. I also was desperate to find my place in the Church, to find my vocation.
When I entered seminary a year after my move to the Eternal City, I passed through the portals of the Roman Major Seminary, the house of formation for the Diocese of Rome. I was bonded to Rome, to Peter and to the Church, and began to find my place in the Church and in the world.
Those were the declining years of John Paul II’s reign. I had several opportunities to meet and serve the Pope, and I was always awed in his presence. To see him so sick and suffering, but carrying on as he did, was amazing.
But there was another figure who had always been close to me: Joseph Ratzinger. Even as I was always close to John Paul II, it was Ratzinger who inspired me from an early age. I had read Vittorio Messori’s
The Ratzinger Report when I was in high school, and at college read deeply from the rich canon of Ratzinger’s theological works. I knew that to be steeped in Ratzinger’s thought was not always to make oneself appreciated.
Shortly after I entered the seminary, Ratzinger’s long awaited
The Spirit of the Liturgy came out. I had devoured all of his other writings on the liturgy, and longed to see how his teaching on the sacred liturgy and music could be lived in the heart of the Church.
But the other seminarians warned me that to identify myself too closely with Ratzinger was “career suicide.” All I had ever wanted to be was a parish priest anyway, so I was not worried about that. Yet I was a New Man at the seminary and so I exchanged the Ignatius Press cover of that seminal work for a 1970s bookcover of the encyclicals of Paul VI. Needless to say, I fooled no one.
That book sparked endless discussion at the seminary, in favor and against, and I increasingly began to imbibe the Ratzingerian view of the world, the Church and theology. A professor at the Gregorian nicknamed me Ratzinger because I always invoked his name, a moniker of which I was humbled and proud, even if it was meant as a light-hearted jab.
For a seminarian in Rome in the early years of the Third Millennium, Ratzinger was a formidable personage. I heard him speak several times, and wanted so much to spend hours in a room picking his brain on so many things. The only regret that I take with me from those years in Rome is that I was so struck by his humility I could never bring myself to crowd around him like the others did.
But my devotion was total. From time to time, I would serve the early Masses at St Peter’s Basilica, and come across the Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith as he ambled across the Piazza to go to to work. And I always shouted out,
Buon giorno, Eminenza! hoping one day to serve him in some capacity.
After John Paul II’s death, Ratzinger’s presence, quiet, serene and hopeful, dominated the Roman scene. I participated in so many Masses both for the mourning for the passing of the only Pope I had never known and the election of the next Peter.
As the cardinals filed by, there were sounds of enthusiasm from the faithful. But whenever Ratzinger walked by, the sound was deafening. If vox populi, vox Dei had any weight with the porporati at all, they could not have ignored the visible and audible response of the People of God to the Bavarian theologian. [This is something that I do not recall any Vaticanista or visiting commentarista ever noted before or after the Conclave!]
He is a theologian of incomparable stature. When the Bishop of Charleston assigned me to study dogmatic theology for my license, it was not my first choice. I had never thought of it before; I wanted to be a liturgist. But in Ratzinger I uncovered the fact that liturgy, and its reform and restoration, finds its deepest meaning in the Christ which dogmatic theology encounters in awe and wonder.
Dogma became the academic road ecclesiastical obedience laid out for me, and it bound me even more to the man who would be elected as the Successor to St Peter.
I cannot adequately describe what I felt to hear the word Joseph as the Dean proclaimed the new Pope. I knew it had to be him. I knew for weeks it had to be him. I count the day of his election as one of the happiest of my life, because it was so personally significant to me. A man who had inspired me to be a priest, a theologian and a Christian engaged with both the Tradition and the modern world at the same time now reigned from the Throne of the Fisherman.
The Mass of the Inauguration of the Petrine Ministry and his Enseatment at the Lateran Basilica were moments of pure joy for me. I wanted to call them coronation and enthronement, they were so glorious.
But more impressive than the ceremonies surrounding these historical events I was privileged to take a part in, was listening to him teach as Peter. Clear, distinct, and poetic all at the same time. A master class with one of the greatest professors in human history was being offered to all of humanity, if we would just listen and learn.
During the Mass at the Lateran Basilica, I was given the great honor to distribute Holy Communion. I was upset, however, to discover that I was to go all the way outside of the Basilica and down the Piazza and out into the streets to perform my appointed task. Selfishly, I balked at the idea of not being able to participate in the end of a liturgy which meant so much for me.
But as I looked back at the grand doors of the Mother and Head of all the Churches of the City and the World, carrying Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament in my hands, I was flooded with a sense of completion. Formed close to the heart of the Church, I was imbued with spirit of Eternal Rome, the vision of Pope Benedict XVI and the mission of the fishermen.
It would not do for me to tarry around Rome while the man I revered as my greatest Teacher made the world into his classroom. Like any good student, I had to go back into my mission field to hand on what I had received.
The only Pope I have ever named in the Canon has been Benedict. Today, the day on which he announces his resignation, I offered the Ordinary Form in English and said his name like I have every day of my priesthood. I offered that Mass, on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, and prayed for him, knowing he was sick, and all the sick on this World Day dedicated to them.
After Mass, I discovered the news by text message from a friend I had called from the Piazza on Election Day. Later that day, I offered the Extraordinary Form in Latin. I’m not sure if what I did was rubrically correct, but to the prayers of this day’s feast I added the prayers for the Pope.
And I freely admit how hard it was for me to say that name that I have pronounced every day since my Ordination shortly after his election with such gratitude.
I am a priest of the Benedict XVI Generation.
The way that I approach theology, liturgy, preaching, pastoral life, everything, has been profoundly influenced by this amazing man. I will always thank God for his constant presence in my life, and in the lives of those I touch because of his example to me. I have enough sentiment in me to want to write the Holy Father personally to tell him all this, but I know that he will never receive it. But even in that he continues to teach me.
Few understood the rich symbolism involved when Benedict XVI visited the grave of the oft misunderstood Celestine V and placed his pallium upon it in 2009. Now, in hindsight, it comes across as a prophetic moment.
As the Sovereign Pontiff, our sweet Christ on Earth, transitions into a life of prayer and penance, in a hidden Nazareth within the walls of the Vatican, he shows us that the Church belongs to Christ. The sign of the mustard seed becomes a reality in the 265th successor to St Peter.
In 1996, in his famous interview with Peter Seewald, he said, "Maybe we are facing a new and different kind of epoch in the church’s history, where Christianity will again be characterized more by the mustard seed, where it will exist in small, seemingly insignificant groups that nonetheless live an intense struggle against evil and bring good into the world – that let God in".
It is the hallmark of a man who practices what he preaches. Pope Benedict XVI shows us the way by example of how to live as a Christian in a world increasingly hostile to the Gospel and the Church: as mustard seeds of faith.
He may not know it until the Final Judgment, but Joseph Ratzinger has inspired countless young men and women, priests, religious and laypeople to be just like those mustard seeds. We are privileged that he has shown us the way.
Viva il Papa!
St. Corbinian’s bear goes free
by Jeff Miller
February 11, 2013
Days like this make me so wish that I was independently wealthy so I could have blogged my reaction to the Pope’s resignation and not having to go to work. That reaction has been bubbling up through me all day.
I remember when he was elected and when I first heard the word “Joseph” I was already jumping up and down and screaming for joy. Whatever the exact opposite reaction to this is what I experienced this morning.
When I first saw a reference to this on Twitter I thought surely this is typical bad media coverage, but I soon found out this was not so. I felt that buzzed feeling you have when you come close to having an accident where both your mind and body reacts.
I am both shocked and yet not surprised. There have certainly been clues to this possibly happening, and I thought that just perhaps at a later date this might just be an option he might choose. That he choose it now is what mostly surprised me. It is one thing to think about such a possibility and another to see it happen.
Most of my reaction was quite selfish. I thought “Noooooooooooo” this can’t be! I so love pretty much everything about Pope Benedict XVI. I greedily soak up everything he says and writes and so it is like a blow to have this taken away.
[I still find it unthinkable what it will be like 16 days from now and not to have my daily dose of B16!
Still you also have to wonder about what he would have written if he had not become Pope and was able to retire.
[He would have written the JESUS books, anyway, because that was the great projnect he set for himself.] There has always been a tension in him about how to serve the Church, from the time he was first appointed bishop, his years as Prefect of the CDF, and then becoming Pope. His coat of arms with the bear of St. Corbinian has been an indicator of this and he has long carried the pack for his beloved Church. To carry and to go where he did not personally choose, but to live a life of service to the Church. Yet even St. Corbinian’s bear was finally loosed to return to the forests.
I certainly won’t be second-guessing his decision. If he thought this was the best for the Church then who am I to disagree? His decision will also certainly have some influence on future Popes as another possible route. The path of suffering that Blessed John Paul II took was a blessing for the world and perhaps even this act of humility by the current Pope will also be in its own way. So much of the world only see the office of Pope as a power and not the weight of the world the office holder assumes...
I am annoyed, though, by all the talk of who is “papabile.” Right now I just really don’t want to talk about it. Speaking of his possible successor now feels to me like having your wife die and talking about possible girlfriends. This is a silly metaphor, yet it has some validity in my own reaction...
It is hard to believe that when Easter does come that it is almost assured that it will be with a new Pope. His resignation has led me to that Lenten feeling of loss two days early, and this Lent is going to be exceptionally penitential in one dimension. The media and the talking heads are the penitential aspect I am thinking about. The collective low IQ of the media will take a logarithmic downturn over the coming month or so in regards to the conclave.
No doubt we are already hearing and will be hearing constantly how the election of a new pope will change the Church. If they only pick the right guy then all those annoying doctrines well be shed like the skin of a snake and sloughed off with the shiny new skin of progress...
As a convert I remember feeling some jealousy before, when some Catholics would be able describe the day of election of more than one Pope. Now I don’t feel quite the same way.
While I was glad to rack up one experience of white smoke and Habemus Papam, I would have preferred to delay by more than a decade the need of white smoke again.
'Joseph'
By Thomas L. McDonald
February 11, 2013
The Room of Tears is the place where a Pope traditionally first goes after being chosen [to don papal garments for the first time]. Here, they contemplate the burden they are about to assume: a 2000-year-old office founded by Christ himself not on a book or a government or a place, but on a man named Simon, thereafter known as Cephas, petros, rock: Peter.
It’s an impossible burden only upheld with the aid of the Holy Spirit. It’s likely that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wept when he retired to this room, for he truly did not want this office. A quiet, scholarly, humble man, he had labored in the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith for many long years, and wanted nothing more than to retire quietly to Germany and write.
But when the Holy Spirit calls, you answer. All of us serving in the faith know that, none so well as he did. Some gnashed their teeth and railed when he was chosen to assume the office of Peter. I didn’t. After my return to the faith, I read Cardinal Ratzinger closely and came to love the man, his wisdom, his clarity, his charity. He was the master catechist of our age, and as one called to the catechetical ministry, I felt a connection to this Pope that I never had with Bl. John Paul II.
He is the person I admire most in the world, now more than ever, when this man caricatured as an “arch-conservative” (and who anyone with eyes to see knew was nothing of the sort) has once again done something bold and unexpected. He has recognized his limitations, and acted accordingly.
There are those who will point to Bl. John Paul II who suffered and bent under the burden of the Petrine office as illness consumed him. They will be right to do so, because it was a powerful witness to the dignity of human life. It also affected the way he managed the Church, and as the abuse scandal exploded, that was something we could ill afford. Perhaps this potential for failure loomed large in Benedict’s mind when he made this decision.
He will never again be just another man. What he will be is, right now, uncertain. After being Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, Father, Professor, I think, for a little while at least, at the end, he wants to just be Joseph.
May God bless and keep him in this and in all things, and may He continue to guide our Church.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/02/2013 11:40]