PHOTO POST-SCRIPT:
Departure from Les Combes
Just came across these photos from Catholic Press - among other things, they provide an impressive if unintended study of Benedict XVI in motion - the dynamism and kinetic energy that come forth strongly even in still photographs.
Our Papino is truly remarkable for a man his age and someone who suffered at sport! The lesson: One doesn't have to be an athlete or exercise buff to be physically fit. Cycling and walking evidently worked well for JR/B16... And obviously it was only his wrist he hurt when he stumbled that night in Les Combes.
(As I had to work with thumbnails in order to avoid the CPP watermark, I cannot enlarge the photos farther without losing sharpness.)
All the above ties in with the Pope's message yesterday to the world's best swimmers. I made this brief comment after oposting the translation of his address:
"I think the Pope's reflections above on the God-given wonder of the human body and its possibilities - and the citation from Psalm 8 - deserve to be included in every program on sports - in which the ideals stressed are always the abstract ones, almost taking for granted the very obvious physical/corporeal basis of every sports achievement."
Today, I am very glad to see that Avvenire saw fit to dedicate an editorial to that message of the Pope. Except that I am stumped why the editorial would say the Pope's citation of Psalm 8 was a 'disturbance' to God - he uses the verb 'scomodare' which means to 'disturb, to trouble' (and its noun 'scomodo', disturbance) though in the sense that he uses it, he seems to mean 'reproach'.
That's a strange reaction to the Psalm - one of the best-known passages even to people who have little or no acquaintance with the Bible. And all it expresses is sheer wonder and gratitude that God saw fit to create man at all!
"When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place - what are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them little less than a god, crowned them with glory and honor" (Ps 8,4-6).
In any case, with that reservation in mind - which I feel is totally unnecessary to make the point - here is a translation of the editorial:
The Pope teaches us
to love the body
by DAVIDE RONDONI
Translated from
Yesterday, the Pope paid compliments to the bodies of our swimmers and their colleagues. To those bodies whose grace and strength have lept us engrossed.
And to pay his compliments to such physical beauty, he reproaches God. Yes, ne reproaches God and what the Psalmist says of God and his creature man.
Benedict XVI said, to Federica, Alessia and the other swimming champions, quoting verses from Psalm 8,
"When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place - what are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them little less than a god, crowned them with glory and honor" (Ps 8,4-6).
How then, the Pope asks, can we not thank the Lord for having endowed man's body with such perfection [or possibility of perfection], for having "enriched man with beauty and harmony that can be expressed in so many ways!"
The Pope reproached
['disturbed/'troubled' if we stick to the dictionary meaning]] God in order to praise beauty and physical fitness. The best compliment possible. More elevated than all the hosannahs from sports commentators.
One might even say the Pope exaggerated.
[What exaggeration is there in citing such a beautiful and literally 'wonder-full' passage that men throughout the ages have accepted for what it is?] Yes, he exaggerated as believers always do in the face of wonders. They exaggerate, compared to all possible compliments, appreciations, panegyrics, and calls for an encore.
They bring in God. As if to say that one cannot consider the beauty of the physical man or woman without thinking of God. That is how Christians think. And the Pope knows it.
Most people looking at a beautiful body will think of other things. The usual things. And it is normal to do so. But Christians also think of God. And remember to thank him. To tell him: you have really made us in all shapes and forms.
In short, they do not necessarily think of temptation or lustful thoughts. No. One thinks that all such beauty comes from God. A sign of his glory.
Our heart can decide whether to yield instead to the temptation of possession or banality. In this age when the body has been so banalized or alternatively, glorified falsely and sadly for the purpose of brutally merchandising it, the Pope's words on the human body are a gust of fresh air.
It is an invitation to look at the grace, the strength and the beauty that God has endowed on his children. Like a powerful sign. One of the most powerful signs of his glory.
Benedict XVI invites us to be thankful for the human body. In its wholeness. As a sign and a reality full of significance. It is never a mute beauty, or one that speaks only of itself. It is beauty full of meaning, as the Pope said, rendering homage to the human body as Christians do.
A homage which is often neglected because of misplaced moralisms and little appreciation for the signs of God.
After all, this is the very same human body that God chose to take on, thus becoming the most beautiful of all men.
The homage was also a homage to Christianity which inspired all the great masterpieces of art in the depiction of the human body - whether in painting and sculpture, or in poetry as in Dante.
A culture that does not recognize the great significance of the body -that which the Psalmist calls the stunning mystery of Creation - will never know the value of the body.
To the degree that a culture exhibits or transforms the human body, disguises it or hides it, rather than loving it for the gift of God that it is, it shows in a thousand ways that it despises the body for lacking ultimate significance, in its view.
We see it all around us - nude bodies that are abused and exploited with ill-concealed rancour. If it is not treated as a great sign of the mystery of Creation, then the human body ends up being hated and despised.
It is hatred that enables it to be used and discarded after the brief splendor of 'pleasure' that it could bring. It is hatred to simply tend to it as the possible source of happiness that has been reduced to 'well-being' and therefore phoney.
That is why the Pope's compliments to the swimmers come from a page that is both ancient and to come. One cannot look at the beauty of the physical body without thinking of God.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/08/2009 11:21]