NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT

Thank you for that article, benefan. I'm glad Papa did what he did in time for Christmas. Even though what Paolo did was wrong and reprehensible, no doubt about it, I must say I believe him when he says he acted in good faith and I have difficulty believing Paolo was the only culprit in this whole sorry affair. If someone like him, who from all we know is deeply religious and devoted to Papa, feels this is the only way to try to change things for the better, then this says more about the athmosphere in the Roman Curia than about Paolo himself. Just my opinion of course.

Thanks for the great photos here and on the Pics and Videos thread, benevolens. You always find such unusual ones. And thanks for your opinion about Paolo's case. It is such a sad affair and has caused so much upset and embarrassment at the Vatican but there was no doubt that Papa would pardon Paolo.


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Pope: hospitality focus of Sunday Angelus

Vatican Radio
Dec. 23, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI prayed the Angelus on Sunday. Addressing pilgrims and tourists gathered in St Peter’s Square beneath the window of his study in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican on the fourth Sunday of Advent, the Holy Father spoke of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin, Elisabeth – the episode narrated during the Gospel reading for the day. “The episode,” said Pope Benedict, “does not represent a mere gesture of courtesy, but dramatises with great simplicity the encounter of the Old Testament with the New Testament.” The Holy Father explained that the elderly and yet miraculously fertile Elisabeth represents Israel awaiting the Messiah. Noting that the expression with which Elisabeth greets Mary, “Blessed art thou among women,” is one that in the Hebrew Scriptures is spoken to the warrior women Jael and Judith, whose efforts saved the nation of Israel from peril, Pope Benedict says, “Now, it is spoken to the gentle young woman who shall before too long give birth to the Saviour of the World.” Pope Benedict went on to say that the scene of the Visitation also expresses the beauty of welcoming. “Wherever there are those who welcome one another, where there is careful attention, wherever there are people who make room for another,” he said, “there is God – and the joy that comes from Him.”

“Let us imitate Mary in the Christmas season, visiting to those who are experiencing difficulty, especially the sick, the imprisoned, the elderly and little children,” prayed Pope Benedict, “and let us also imitate Elisabeth, who received her guest as God, Himself.” The Pope concluded by asking the faithful to pray that all men might seek God earnestly, and find that it is God Himself who comes first to visit us.”

After the traditional prayer of Marian devotion, Pope Benedict had greetings for pilgrims in many languages, including English:

I greet all the English-speaking visitors and pilgrims present at this Angelus prayer. Today, as we approach the Solemnity of our Lord’s Birth among us, let us strive again to make room in our hearts to welcome the Christ child with love and humility before such a great gift from on high. In anticipation, let me already wish you and your families a holy and peaceful Christmas!

Vatican’s Christmas Call to Faith

Year of Faith Adds Significance to Pope’s Holiday Schedule

BY Edward Pentin
National Catholic Register
Rome Correspondent
Posted 12/24/12

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI will be undertaking his usual intense schedule over Christmas this year, delivering 11 homilies and addresses from Christmas Eve until the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord.

But in contrast to previous years, this year’s celebrations will reflect solidarity with some of the economic austerity shared by much of the world.

The first sign that Christmas is drawing near at the Vatican is the lighting of an enormous Christmas tree in St. Peter’s Square. In past years, the tree was a gift from the northern Italian Alps or abroad; this year, however, the donation came from the Molise region, about 150 miles southeast of Rome. Measuring a height of more than 70 feet, it was delivered Dec. 5 to St. Peter’s Square with the help of a crane. The tree was to be lit on Dec. 14.

Before the traditions and liturgical celebrations of Christmas begin, the Pope will turn his attention to his colleagues in the Roman Curia Dec. 21, when he holds his annual meeting with cardinals and other officials. During the meeting, the Holy Father usually provides a review of the past year in the life of the Church — a year in which the Vatican itself has had to face the challenge of dealing with the unauthorized leaking of confidential documents from the papal apartments by the Pope’s former valet.

Christmas proper at the Vatican will then begin with the "Inauguration of the Crib" in St. Peter’s Square in the early evening of Dec. 24. Cardinal Angelo Comastri, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, is expected to lead the ceremony, which will include a concert of Christmas music and carols. After the closing prayer, the Holy Father will appear from his apartment window above the square to light the "Lamp of Peace."

The larger-than-life-size Nativity scene, at the foot of the square’s central obelisk, will still have the usual components of past cribs, but as with the Christmas tree, the Vatican has cut costs. Rather than look further afield, as in previous years, it has chosen the Molise region to provide the manger and the nearby Basilicata region to furnish the Nativity scene.

The tradition, begun by Blessed John Paul II in 1982, has hitherto been carried out by the Technical Services Department of the Governorate of Vatican City. This year’s Nativity display, however, is reported to cost the Vatican nothing, as it has been paid for entirely by sponsors.



Christmas Mass

The Christmas liturgies then get under way with midnight Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, beginning at 10pm local time. This will be followed by the Holy Father’s address and blessing urbi et orbi on the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord, delivered from the central loggia of the basilica.

This year’s message, as with previous ones, will call on the faithful to pray to God for those caught up in conflict or others faced with grave suffering. But he will couple these invocations with words of encouragement and hope, based on the birth of Christ and his universal message of reconciliation and peace.



The 12 Days of Christmas

The following day, on the feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr, Benedict XVI will deliver an Angelus address in St. Peter’s Square.

In an addition to his usual calendar of events, the Pope will also be holding an extra meeting on Dec. 29, when, in St. Peter’s Basilica, he greets participants of a European meeting of the Taize ecumenical community. The ecumenical group, based in Burgundy, France, is teaming up with the youth ministry of the Vicariate of Rome to hold its 35th European meeting in Rome. Tens of thousands of young people are expected to participate in the Dec. 28-Jan. 2 pilgrimage, which coincides with the Year of Faith.

The traditional Christmas schedule will then resume with the Pope presiding over vespers and Te Deum celebrations in thanks for the passing year in St. Peter’s Basilica on New Year’s Eve, followed by the 45th World Day of Peace on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God on Jan. 1.

This year’s message, whose theme is "Blessed Are the Peacemakers," takes note of the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and also of the encyclical letter Pacem in Terris by Pope John XXIII. Although already published earlier this month, the message will be officially presented to world leaders that day, during a Mass in which the Holy Father will deliver the homily. Benedict XVI will recite the Angelus prayer after the Mass.

The Holy Father officially brings the Christmas celebrations to a close on the Epiphany of the Lord on Jan. 6. The Mass will include episcopal ordinations and will be followed by an Angelus prayer.

As in previous years, after a challenging schedule of events, the Holy Father is expected to enjoy a few days of rest at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, which is 20 miles outside of Rome.

Christmas Eve at the Vatican

Vatican Radio
Dec. 24, 2012

Christmas celebrations get underway in earnest at the Vatican Monday evening, as pilgrims and tourists led by Roman families flock to St. Peter’s Square for the traditional lighting of the Christmas candle and unveiling of the giant Nativity scene.

Shortly after sundown children’s choirs and the Vatican Gendarme brass band struck up festive carols to entertain the people in the square, where since late afternoon queues had been forming in anticipation of the Christmas Vigil Mass.

The long lines snaked around the square, beneath the giant Christmas tree, with people joining in the carols and chatting. Then, shortly after 6pm, the curtains were drawn from the windows of the papal apartments and Pope Benedict XVI appeared.

In a tradition echoed in homes across the world each Christmas eve, the Holy Father placed a simple white candle on his window sill and lit it signalling the beginning of the final countdown to the Nativity. The candle is a sign of welcome, to the Christ-child and all travellers, harking back to that ancient Christmas Eve when Mary and Joseph found no room in Bethlehem.

It also signalled the unveiling of St. Peter’s Square’s giant Nativity Scene a closely guarded secret until sunset on Christmas Eve.

This Christmas the birthplace of Jesus comes from the Basilicata region of Southern Italy and features the Holy Family in a re-creation of the city of Matera’s ancient cave dwellings. It covers more than 140 square meters and includes over 100 terracotta statues of varying height, depicted in an intricate system of scenery and lighting on a raised platform. It is also the first year that the scene is being donated, resulting in significant savings for the Vatican.

The only thing missing, of course, is the statue of the infant Jesus. The Christ-child will be placed in the manager at the conclusion of the Christmas Vigil Mass, presided by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Mass begins at 10 pm Rome time, with full live coverage in English on Vatican Radio’s Vatican player. (right hand side of home page, click on TV on demand icon)

Papal Midnight Mass

Below is the complete text of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2012 Midnight Mass homily, delivered at St. Peter’s Basilica.

National Catholic Register
Dec. 24, 2012

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

Again and again the beauty of this Gospel touches our hearts: a beauty that is the splendor of truth. Again and again it astonishes us that God makes himself a child so that we may love him, so that we may dare to love him, and as a child trustingly lets himself be taken into our arms. It is as if God were saying: I know that my glory frightens you, and that you are trying to assert yourself in the face of my grandeur. So now I am coming to you as a child, so that you can accept me and love me.

I am also repeatedly struck by the Gospel writer’s almost casual remark that there was no room for them at the inn. Inevitably the question arises, what would happen if Mary and Joseph were to knock at my door. Would there be room for them? And then it occurs to us that Saint John takes up this seemingly chance comment about the lack of room at the inn, which drove the Holy Family into the stable; he explores it more deeply and arrives at the heart of the matter when he writes: “he came to his own home, and his own people received him not” (Jn 1:11). The great moral question of our attitude towards the homeless, towards refugees and migrants, takes on a deeper dimension: do we really have room for God when he seeks to enter under our roof? Do we have time and space for him? Do we not actually turn away God himself? We begin to do so when we have no time for him. The faster we can move, the more efficient our time-saving appliances become, the less time we have. And God? The question of God never seems urgent. Our time is already completely full. But matters go deeper still. Does God actually have a place in our thinking? Our process of thinking is structured in such a way that he simply ought not to exist. Even if he seems to knock at the door of our thinking, he has to be explained away. If thinking is to be taken seriously, it must be structured in such a way that the “God hypothesis” becomes superfluous. There is no room for him. Not even in our feelings and desires is there any room for him. We want ourselves. We want what we can seize hold of, we want happiness that is within our reach, we want our plans and purposes to succeed. We are so “full” of ourselves that there is no room left for God. And that means there is no room for others either, for children, for the poor, for the stranger. By reflecting on that one simple saying about the lack of room at the inn, we have come to see how much we need to listen to Saint Paul’s exhortation: “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom 12:2). Paul speaks of renewal, the opening up of our intellect (nous), of the whole way we view the world and ourselves. The conversion that we need must truly reach into the depths of our relationship with reality. Let us ask the Lord that we may become vigilant for his presence, that we may hear how softly yet insistently he knocks at the door of our being and willing. Let us ask that we may make room for him within ourselves, that we may recognize him also in those through whom he speaks to us: children, the suffering, the abandoned, those who are excluded and the poor of this world.

There is another verse from the Christmas story on which I should like to reflect with you – the angels’ hymn of praise, which they sing out following the announcement of the new-born Savior: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased.” God is glorious. God is pure light, the radiance of truth and love. He is good. He is true goodness, goodness par excellence. The angels surrounding him begin by simply proclaiming the joy of seeing God’s glory. Their song radiates the joy that fills them. In their words, it is as if we were hearing the sounds of heaven. There is no question of attempting to understand the meaning of it all, but simply the overflowing happiness of seeing the pure splendor of God’s truth and love. We want to let this joy reach out and touch us: truth exists, pure goodness exists, pure light exists. God is good, and he is the supreme power above all powers. All this should simply make us joyful tonight, together with the angels and the shepherds.

Linked to God’s glory on high is peace on earth among men. Where God is not glorified, where he is forgotten or even denied, there is no peace either. Nowadays, though, widespread currents of thought assert the exact opposite: they say that religions, especially monotheism, are the cause of the violence and the wars in the world. If there is to be peace, humanity must first be liberated from them. Monotheism, belief in one God, is said to be arrogance, a cause of intolerance, because by its nature, with its claim to possess the sole truth, it seeks to impose itself on everyone. Now it is true that in the course of history, monotheism has served as a pretext for intolerance and violence. It is true that religion can become corrupted and hence opposed to its deepest essence, when people think they have to take God’s cause into their own hands, making God into their private property. We must be on the lookout for these distortions of the sacred. While there is no denying a certain misuse of religion in history, yet it is not true that denial of God would lead to peace. If God’s light is extinguished, man’s divine dignity is also extinguished. Then the human creature would cease to be God’s image, to which we must pay honor in every person, in the weak, in the stranger, in the poor. Then we would no longer all be brothers and sisters, children of the one Father, who belong to one another on account of that one Father. The kind of arrogant violence that then arises, the way man then despises and tramples upon man: we saw this in all its cruelty in the last century. Only if God’s light shines over man and within him, only if every single person is desired, known and loved by God is his dignity inviolable, however wretched his situation may be. On this Holy Night, God himself became man; as Isaiah prophesied, the child born here is “Emmanuel”, God with us (Is 7:14). And down the centuries, while there has been misuse of religion, it is also true that forces of reconciliation and goodness have constantly sprung up from faith in the God who became man. Into the darkness of sin and violence, this faith has shone a bright ray of peace and goodness, which continues to shine.

So Christ is our peace, and he proclaimed peace to those far away and to those near at hand (cf. Eph 2:14, 17). How could we now do other than pray to him: Yes, Lord, proclaim peace today to us too, whether we are far away or near at hand. Grant also to us today that swords may be turned into ploughshares (Is 2:4), that instead of weapons for warfare, practical aid may be given to the suffering. Enlighten those who think they have to practice violence in your name, so that they may see the senselessness of violence and learn to recognize your true face. Help us to become people “with whom you are pleased” – people according to your image and thus people of peace.

Once the angels departed, the shepherds said to one another: Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened for us (cf. Lk 2:15). The shepherds went with haste to Bethlehem, the Evangelist tells us (cf. 2:16). A holy curiosity impelled them to see this child in a manger, who the angel had said was the Savior, Christ the Lord. The great joy of which the angel spoke had touched their hearts and given them wings.

Let us go over to Bethlehem, says the Church’s liturgy to us today. Trans-eamus is what the Latin Bible says: let us go “across”, daring to step beyond, to make the “transition” by which we step outside our habits of thought and habits of life, across the purely material world into the real one, across to the God who in his turn has come across to us. Let us ask the Lord to grant that we may overcome our limits, our world, to help us to encounter him, especially at the moment when he places himself into our hands and into our heart in the Holy Eucharist.

Let us go over to Bethlehem: as we say these words to one another, along with the shepherds, we should not only think of the great “crossing over” to the living God, but also of the actual town of Bethlehem and all those places where the Lord lived, ministered and suffered. Let us pray at this time for the people who live and suffer there today. Let us pray that there may be peace in that land. Let us pray that Israelis and Palestinians may be able to live their lives in the peace of the one God and in freedom. Let us also pray for the countries of the region, for Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and their neighbors: that there may be peace there, that Christians in those lands where our faith was born may be able to continue living there, that Christians and Muslims may build up their countries side by side in God’s peace.

The shepherds made haste. Holy curiosity and holy joy impelled them. In our case, it is probably not very often that we make haste for the things of God. God does not feature among the things that require haste. The things of God can wait, we think and we say. And yet he is the most important thing, ultimately the one truly important thing. Why should we not also be moved by curiosity to see more closely and to know what God has said to us? At this hour, let us ask him to touch our hearts with the holy curiosity and the holy joy of the shepherds, and thus let us go over joyfully to Bethlehem, to the Lord who today once more comes to meet us. Amen.

Pope: Christmas Urbi et Orbi Message (full text)

Vatican Radio
Dec. 25, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI has urged people never to loose hope in peace this Christmas, even in situations of conflict such as Syria, or nations afflicted by terrorism such as Nigeria, because the “Truth has sprung out of the earth”, with the birth of Christ.


Below the full text of Pope Benedict XVI’s Message this Christmas


“Veritas de terra orta est!” – “Truth has sprung out of the earth” (Ps 85:12).

Dear brothers and sisters in Rome and throughout the world, a happy Christmas to you and your families!

In this Year of Faith, I express my Christmas greetings and good wishes in these words taken from one of the Psalms: “Truth has sprung out of the earth”. Actually, in the text of the Psalm, these words are in the future: “Kindness and truth shall meet; / justice and peace shall kiss. / Truth shall spring out of the earth, /and justice shall look down from heaven. / The Lord himself will give his benefits; / our land shall yield its increase. / Justice shall walk before him, / and salvation, along the way of his steps” (Ps 85:11-14).

Today these prophetic words have been fulfilled! In Jesus, born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary, kindness and truth have indeed met; justice and peace have kissed; truth has sprung out of the earth and justice has looked down from heaven. Saint Augustine explains with admirable brevity: “What is truth? The Son of God. What is the earth? The flesh. Ask whence Christ has been born, and you will see that truth has sprung out of the earth … truth has been born of the Virgin Mary” (En. in Ps. 84:13). And in a Christmas sermon he says that “in this yearly feast we celebrate that day when the prophecy was fulfilled: ‘truth shall spring out of the earth, and justice shall look down from heaven’. The Truth, which is in the bosom of the Father has sprung out of the earth, to be in the womb of a mother too. The Truth which rules the whole world has sprung out of the earth, to be held in the arms of a woman ... The Truth which heaven cannot contain has sprung out of the earth, to be laid in a manger. For whose benefit did so lofty a God become so lowly? Certainly not for his own, but for our great benefit, if we believe” (Sermones, 185, 1).

“If we believe”. Here we see the power of faith! God has done everything; he has done the impossible: he was made flesh. His all-powerful love has accomplished something which surpasses all human understanding: the Infinite has become a child, has entered the human family. And yet, this same God cannot enter my heart unless I open the door to him. Porta fidei! The door of faith! We could be frightened by this, our inverse omnipotence. This human ability to be closed to God can make us fearful. But see the reality which chases away this gloomy thought, the hope that conquers fear: truth has sprung up! God is born! “The earth has yielded its fruits” (Ps 67:7). Yes, there is a good earth, a healthy earth, an earth freed of all selfishness and all lack of openness. In this world there is a good soil which God has prepared, that he might come to dwell among us. A dwelling place for his presence in the world. This good earth exists, and today too, in 2012, from this earth truth has sprung up! Consequently, there is hope in the world, a hope in which we can trust, even at the most difficult times and in the most difficult situations. Truth has sprung up, bringing kindness, justice and peace.

Yes, may peace spring up for the people of Syria, deeply wounded and divided by a conflict which does not spare even the defenceless and reaps innocent victims. Once again I appeal for an end to the bloodshed, easier access for the relief of refugees and the displaced, and dialogue in the pursuit of a political solution to the conflict.

May peace spring up in the Land where the Redeemer was born, and may he grant Israelis and Palestinians courage to end to long years of conflict and division, and to embark resolutely on the path of negotiation.

In the countries of North Africa, which are experiencing a major transition in pursuit of a new future – and especially the beloved land of Egypt, blessed by the childhood of Jesus – may citizens work together to build societies founded on justice and respect for the freedom and dignity of every person.

May peace spring up on the vast continent of Asia. May the Child Jesus look graciously on the many peoples who dwell in those lands and, in a special way, upon all those who believe in him. May the King of Peace turn his gaze to the new leaders of the People’s Republic of China for the high task which awaits them. I express my hope that, in fulfilling this task, they will esteem the contribution of the religions, in respect for each, in such a way that they can help to build a fraternal society for the benefit of that noble People and of the whole world.

May the Birth of Christ favour the return of peace in Mali and that of concord in Nigeria, where savage acts of terrorism continue to reap victims, particularly among Christians. May the Redeemer bring help and comfort to the refugees from the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and grant peace to Kenya, where brutal attacks have struck the civilian population and places of worship.

May the Child Jesus bless the great numbers of the faithful who celebrate him in Latin America. May he increase their human and Christian virtues, sustain all those forced to leave behind their families and their land, and confirm government leaders in their commitment to development and fighting crime.

Dear brothers and sisters! Kindness and truth, justice and peace have met; they have become incarnate in the child born of Mary in Bethlehem. That child is the Son of God; he is God appearing in history. His birth is a flowering of new life for all humanity. May every land become a good earth which receives and brings forth kindness and truth, justice and peace. Happy Christmas to all of you!

Pope: St. Stephen, model of New Evangelization

Vatican Radio
Dec. 26, 2012


“On St. Stephen’s Day, we are called to fix our gaze on the Son of God”, and like St. Stephen, deacon and first martyr of the Church “open up our lives to the light that directs us” on life’s path, said Benedict XVI in his Angelus reflections this Wednesday.


Below a Vatican Radio translation of the Holy Father’s Angelus reflection this St. Stephens Day


Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Each year, on the day after Christmas, the liturgy celebrates the feast of St. Stephen, deacon and first martyr. The book of Acts presents him as a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 6.8 to 10, 7.55); in him the full promise of Jesus recounted in today's Gospel passage is fulfilled, which is that believers who are called to bear witness in difficult and dangerous circumstances will not be abandoned or left defenceless: the Spirit of God will speak to them (cf. Mt 10:20). The deacon Stephen, in fact, worked, spoke and died animated by the Holy Spirit, bearing witness to the love of Christ to the point of extreme sacrifice. The first martyr is described, in his suffering, as a perfect imitation of Christ, whose passion is repeated even in the details. The life of Saint Stephen is entirely shaped by God, conformed to Christ, whose passion is repeated in him; in the final moment of death, on his knees, he takes up the prayer of Jesus on the cross, trusting in the Lord (cf. Acts 7.59 ) and forgiving his enemies: " Lord, do not hold this sin against them" (v. 60). Filled with the Holy Spirit, as his eyes are about to close, he fixed his gaze on "Jesus standing at the right hand of God" (v. 55), the Lord of all, who draws all to Him.

On St. Stephen’s Day, we are called to fix our gaze on the Son of God, who in the joyful atmosphere of Christmas we contemplate in the mystery of His Incarnation. In Baptism and Confirmation, with the precious gift of faith nourished by the Sacraments of the Church, especially the Eucharist, Jesus Christ has bound us to Him and wants to continue in us, through the action of the Holy Spirit, his work of salvation that redeems, enhances, elevates and leads all to fulfilment. Allowing ourselves be drawn by Christ, like St. Stephen, means opening our lives to the light that calls, directs and makes us walk the path of good, the path of humanity according to God’s loving plan.

Finally, St. Stephen is a model for all those who want to serve the new evangelization. He shows that the novelty of proclamation does not primarily consist in the use of original methods or techniques, which certainly have their uses, but in being filled with the Holy Spirit and allowing ourselves to be guided by Him. The novelty of proclamation lies in immerging ourselves deeply in the mystery of Christ, the assimilation of His Word and of His presence in the Eucharist, so that He Himself, the living Jesus, can act and speak through His envoy. In essence, the evangelizer becomes able to bring Christ to others effectively when lives of Christ, when the newness of the Gospel manifests itself in his own life. We pray to the Virgin Mary, so that the Church, in this Year of Faith, sees more men and women who, like St. Stephen, know how to give a convinced and courageous witness of the Lord Jesus

I am pleased to welcome all those present for this Angelus prayer. Today, immediately after Christmas Day, by tradition we celebrate the feast of the first martyr, Saint Stephen the Deacon. Like him, may we be blessed by God’s grace to have the courage to speak up and to defend the truth of our faith in public, with charity and constancy. God bless all of you and your loved ones!

Vatican Nativity Scene

The link below takes you to close-up photos of the very detailed nativity scene set up this year in St. Peter's Square.


www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151166470520723.438539.789187072...

Agenda for a year of faith: looking ahead at Pope Benedict's 2013

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service
Dec. 28, 2012

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Fortunetelling, like all occult practices, is strictly taboo at the Vatican; and prophecy is a rare gift among journalists. But Pope Benedict XVI's calendar for 2013 is already filling up with planned, probable or possible events. Here are 10 to watch for in the news during the coming year.

Italian elections: When Italians go to the polls Feb. 24, the big story for most foreign observers will be the fate of a comeback attempt by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. For the pope and other Italian bishops, a prime concern will be whether voters instead elect a center-left majority that could bring Italy into sync with other major Western European countries -- and out of line with Catholic moral teaching -- on such issues as in vitro fertilization and legally recognized unions of same-sex partners.

New Encyclical: Pope Benedict's fourth encyclical will be released in the first half of next year, very possibly in the spring, according to Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. Treating the subject of faith, the encyclical will complete a trilogy on the three "theological virtues"; the previous installments were "Deus Caritas Est" (2005) on charity, and "Spe Salvi" (2007) on hope.

Worldwide solemn eucharistic adoration: On the feast of Corpus Christi, June 2, Pope Benedict will lead an hour of eucharistic adoration to be observed simultaneously around the world, highlighting a traditional devotion that fell largely out of use in the decades after the Second Vatican Council, but which has lately grown more popular with the pope's personal encouragement. This promises to be one of the most visually impressive of many events scheduled for the Year of Faith, which ends Nov. 24.

New charter for health care workers: The Vatican plans to publish an updated version of its 1995 guidelines for Catholic hospitals, taking into account nearly two decades of technological developments and political trends in areas including abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research and human cloning. The document, whose target release date is in June, will reflect Catholic moral teaching on biomedical issues and Catholic social teaching on the equitable and effective provision of health care.

World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro: Hundreds of thousands of young Catholics are expected to gather in Rio in July for a week of events whose highlight will be the presence of the pope, encouraging them to cultivate their faith and religious identity. This will be Pope Benedict's second trip to Brazil, the country with the world's largest Catholic population, where he is also likely to address problems of inequality in a developing economy, as well as the need for good government and civil peace in Latin America as a whole.

New U.S. ambassador? The post of U.S. ambassador to the Vatican has been vacant since Miguel H. Diaz stepped down shortly after the November 2012 elections, and the choice of his replacement will be especially delicate given current tensions between the church and the Obama administration. All previous ambassadors have been Catholics, but it could be hard to find one who has not taken a public stand over the administration's plan -- strenuously opposed by U.S. bishops -- to require that most Catholic institutions provide insurance coverage for contraception and sterilizations, which violate the church's moral teaching.

New Secretary of State? Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has served as Pope Benedict's top aide since 2006. Some commentators, especially in the Italian press, have accused him of neglecting necessary administrative reforms and blamed him for mismanagement documented in the so-called "VatiLeaks" of confidential correspondence. Pope Benedict reaffirmed his confidence in his longtime collaborator last July, but the cardinal is already three years past the standard retirement age of 75, so he could well leave the stage this year. His replacement would likely be another Italian, perhaps Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, currently prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy.

New archbishop of Chicago? Cardinal Francis E. George, who has led the Archdiocese of Chicago since 1997, turned 75 -- the age at which bishops must offer to resign -- last Jan. 16. Pleased with the effects of his recent chemotherapy for kidney cancer, he has called his prognosis "very, very hopeful" and said that he has no plans to step down. But he has acknowledged the seriousness of his condition and the possibility that Pope Benedict might replace him this year.

New cardinals? The number of cardinals under the age of 80, the only ones eligible to vote for the next pope, will be down to no more than 110 by Oct. 19. Pope Benedict could choose to boost their number to the legal limit of 120 by calling a consistory on the day before the feast of Christ the King (Nov. 24, 2013), a traditional occasion for the creation of cardinals and the last day of the Year of Faith. Likely additions to the College of Cardinals include Archbishop Gerhard L. Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Archbishop Vincent G. Nichols of Westminster, England.

Anniversary of the Edict of Milan: 2013 is the 1,700th anniversary of the Roman Empire's legal toleration of Christianity, a watershed moment in the history of the church. Hopes have dimmed that Pope Benedict and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow might jointly commemorate the occasion at the Serbian birthplace of the Emperor Constantine I, who promulgated the edict. But the pope is almost certain to mark the anniversary in some way, perhaps taking the opportunity to highlight one of his primary concerns, threats to religious liberty around the world today.

Pope to Taizé youth: Be bearers of Christian unity

Vatican Radio
Dec. 29, 2012

This Saturday an estimated 40 thousand young people gathered around Pope Benedict XVI above the tomb of St Peter for a vigil of prayer at year’s end. They are the young men and women of Europe’s Taizé Community on their annual ‘pilgrimage of trust on earth’ and they had come to Rome to receive Pope Benedict’s blessing for their New Year’s ‘resolution’: To uncover the wellsprings of trust in God in today’s world.

Below, please find the text of the Holy Father’s address to the European meeting of the Taizé Community and the greeting to the Holy Father of Br. Alois, leader of the Community.


Thank you, dear Brother Alois, for your warm words, full of affection.

Dear young people, dear pilgrims of trust, welcome to Rome!

You have come in great numbers, from all over Europe and from other continents, to pray at the tombs of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. In fact, in this city both shed their blood for Christ. The faith that motivated these two great apostles of Christ is the same that compelled you to start out on this journey. During the year that is about to begin, you are proposing to uncover the well springs of trust in God in order to live it in your everyday life. It gladdens me that in this way, you have embraced the aims of the Year of Faith which began in October.

This is the fourth European meeting to be held in Rome. On this occasion, I would like to repeat the words my predecessor, John Paul II to young people during your third Meeting in Rome: "The Pope feels deeply committed together with you all on this pilgrimage of trust on earth ... I too am called to be a pilgrim of trust in the name of Christ". (30 December 1987).

ENGLISH

Just over seventy years ago, Brother Roger established the Taizé Community. Thousands of young people from all over the world continue to go there to seek meaning for their lives. The Brothers welcome them to share in their prayer and provide them with an opportunity to experience a personal relationship with God. It was to support these young people on their journey to Christ that Brother Roger had the idea of starting a “pilgrimage of trust on earth”.

A tireless witness to the Gospel of peace and reconciliation, ardently committed to an ecumenism of holiness, Brother Roger encouraged all those who passed through Taizé to become seekers of communion. We should listen in our hearts to his spiritually lived ecumenism, and let ourselves be guided by his witness towards an ecumenism which is truly interiorized and spiritualized. Following his example, may all of you be bearers of this message of unity. I assure you of the irrevocable commitment of the Catholic Church to continue seeking the paths of reconciliation leading to the visible unity of Christians. And so this evening I greet with special affection those among you who are Orthodox or Protestants.

FRENCH

Today, Christ is asking you the same question he asked his disciples, "Who am I to you?". Peter, at whose tomb we are gathered at this moment, replied: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt 16:15-16). His whole life became a concrete answer to this question. Christ also wants to receive a response from each of you born of a deep inner freedom and not of compulsion or fear. In responding to that question your life will find its strongest meaning. The text of the Letter of St. John that we have just heard helps us understand with great simplicity how to respond: "What we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another" (3:23). Have faith and love God and others! What could be more exciting? What could be more beautiful?

During these days in Rome, let this Yes to Christ grow in your hearts, above all by taking advantage of the long moments of silence that are an integral part of your community prayers, after having listened to the Word of God. This Word, says the Second Letter of Peter, is "like a lamp shining in a dark place," which you do well to be attentive to "until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" (1.19). You have to understand: if the morning star must arise in your hearts it is because it is not always present there.

Sometimes the evil and suffering of the innocent create doubt and confusion in you. And saying Yes to Christ can become difficult. But these doubts do not make you non-believers! Jesus did not reject the man in the Gospel who shouted: "I do believe, help my unbelief!" (Mk 9:24).

GERMAN

So that you do not lose faith during this battle, God never leaves you alone and isolated. He gives us all the joy and comfort of the communion of the Church. During your stay in Rome, thanks to the generous hospitality of many parishes and religious communities, you are undergoing a new experience of being Church. On your return home, to your various countries, I invite you to discover that God is making you all co-responsible for His Church, in all the variety of vocations. This communion which is the Body of Christ needs you and you all have a place in it. Starting with your gifts, from what is specific to each of you, the Holy Spirit forms and breathes life into this mystery of communion which is the Church, in order to convey the Good News of the Gospel to the world today.

POLISH

Together with silence, song has an important place in your community prayers. In these days the songs of Taizé fill the basilicas of Rome. Song is a support and incomparable expression of prayer. Singing to Christ, you open yourselves to the mystery of His hope. Do not be afraid to precede the dawn in praise of God, you will not be disappointed.

Dear young friends, Christ does not remove you from the world. He sends you there where His light is missing, so that you may bring it to others. Yes, you are all called to be small lights to those around you. With your attention to a more equitable distribution of the goods of the earth, with your commitment to justice and a new human solidarity, you will help those around you to better understand how the Gospel leads us to God and at the same time to others. So, with your faith, you will contribute to uncovering the wellsprings of trust on earth.

Be full of hope. God bless you, your family and friends!



Greeting to the Holy Father by Brother Alois

Most Holy Father,

Today a significant milestone in our “pilgrimage of trust on earth” is taking place. We have come from all over Europe and from other continents too, from various Church affiliations. What unites us is stronger than what divides us: one baptism and the same Word of God unite us. We have come here this evening to celebrate this unity around you, a unity which is real even if it is not yet fully realized. It is when we turn together towards Christ that it grows deeper.

Brother Roger left a legacy to our community—his desire to communicate the Gospel to young people in particular. He was deeply aware that the divisions between Christians are a barrier to handing on the faith. He opened paths of reconciliation that we have not yet finished exploring. Inspired by his testimony, there are very many people who want to anticipate reconciliation by their lives, to live already as people who are reconciled.
Reconciled Christians can become witnesses to peace and communion, bearers of a new solidarity among human beings.

Seeking a personal relationship with God is the basis of this approach. This ecumenism of prayer does not encourage a facile tolerance. It promotes a mutual listening which is demanding, and a true dialogue.

Praying here tonight, we cannot forget that the last letter written by Brother Roger, just before his violent death, was addressed to you, Holy Father, to tell you that our community wanted to walk in communion with you. Nor can we forget how, after his tragic death, your support was invaluable to encourage us to move forward. So I would like to express once again the deep affection of our hearts for your person and for your ministry.

Finally, I would like to bring the witness to hope of the many young Africans with whom we met a month ago at Kigali, Rwanda. They came from 35 countries, including Congo, North Kivu, to undertake a pilgrimage of reconciliation and peace. The great vitality of these young Christians is a promise for the future of the Church.

These young Africans wanted us to bring back a sign of their hope, sorghum seeds, so that they could grow in Europe. Can I take the liberty, Holy Father, of giving you, from them, a small traditional Rwandan basket called “agaseke” with some of these seeds of hope from Africa? Perhaps they could be planted in the Vatican gardens and blossom there?

Angelus: A prayer for all the families of the world

Vatican Radio
Dec. 30, 2012

This Sunday, as tens of thousands thronged St Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI marked the Feast of the Holy Family with a special prayer for “all the families of the world”: That parents “seriously concern” themselves with their children’s education, that they realise that every child is “an incomparable gift from God”, and that they are neither “friends nor masters” of their children’s lives but “guardians” of this gift.


Below a Vatican Radio translation of the Holy Father’s Angelus address this feast of the Holy Family.


"Dear brothers and sisters!

Today is the feast of the Holy Family of Nazareth. In the liturgy the passage from Luke’s Gospel presents the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph who, faithful to tradition, go to Jerusalem for the Passover with the twelve-year-old Jesus. The first time Jesus had entered the Temple of the Lord was forty days after his birth, when his parents had offered "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons" (Luke 2:24) on his behalf, which is the sacrifice of poor. "Luke, whose Gospel is filled with a whole theology of the poor and poverty, makes it clear ... that Jesus' family was counted among the poor of Israel; he helps us to understand that it was there among them where the fulfillment of God’s promise matured" ( The Infancy Narratives, 96). Today Jesus is in the Temple again, but this time he has a different role, which involves him in the first person. He undertakes the pilgrimage to Jerusalem as prescribed by the Law (Ex 23.17, 34.23 ff) together with Mary and Joseph, although he was not yet in his thirteenth year: a sign of the deep religiosity of the Holy Family. But when his parents return to Nazareth, something unexpected happens: he, without saying anything, remains in the City. For three days, Mary and Joseph search for him and find him in the Temple, speaking with the teachers of the Law (Lk 2: 46 ,47), and when they ask him for an explanation, Jesus tells them they have no cause to wonder, because that is his place, that is his home, with the Father, who is God (The Infancy Narratives 143). "He – Origen writes - professes to be in the temple of his Father, the Father who has revealed Himself to us and of which he says he is the Son" (Homilies on the Gospel of Luke, 18, 5).

Mary and Joseph’s concern for Jesus is the same as every parent who educates a child, introduces them to life and to understanding reality. Today, therefore, we should say a special prayer to the Lord for all the families of the world. Imitating the Holy Family of Nazareth, may parents seriously concern themselves about the growth and education of their children, so that they may mature as responsible and honest citizens, without ever forgetting that faith is a precious gift to be nourished in their children through personal example. At the same time we pray that every child is welcomed as a gift from God, is sustained by the love of the father and mother in order to advance as the Lord Jesus "in wisdom and age and favour before God and man " (Lk 2: 52). The love, loyalty and dedication of Mary and Joseph are an example for all Christian couples who are neither the friends nor masters of their children’s lives, but the guardians of this incomparable gift from God.

The silence of Joseph, the just man (cf. Mt 1:19), and the example of Mary who kept all things in her heart (cf. Lk 2:51), causes us to enter into the mystery full of faith and humanity of the Holy family. I wish for all Christian families to live in the presence of God with the same love and the same joy as the family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

I welcome all the English-speaking visitors present for this Angelus prayer. Today the Church throughout the world celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family. May Jesus, Mary and Joseph bring greater love, unity and harmony to all Christian families, that they in their turn may be a firm example to the communities in which they live. May God bless you and your dear families!

Pope to celebrate end of year Vespers

Vatican Radio
Dec. 31, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI will preside over first Vespers on Monday December 31, marking the end of 2012 and the Feast of Mary, Mother of God. Vespers will be sung in St. Peter’s Basilica at 5pm Rome time and will include the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, the singing of the Te Deum, Eucharistic benediction and prayers of thanks to God for the year just past. At the end of the celebration, Pope Benedict will go outside into St. Peter’s Square to pray in front of the large outdoor nativity scene which this year was donated by the southern Italian region of Basilicata.

Pope Benedict's Homily for Vespers

Vatican Radio
Dec. 31, 2012


Below, please find the full text of Pope Benedict XVI's homily for Solemn First Vespers for the Feast of Mary the Mother of God:


Dear Cardinals,
Venerable brothers in the Episcopate and the Priesthood,
Distinguished authorities,
Dear brothers and sisters,

I thank all of you who have chosen to participate in this liturgy of the last hour of the year of the Lord 2012. This “hour” bears a particular intensity and becomes, in a sense, a synthesis of all the hours of the year that is about to come to an end. I cordially greet the Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, consecrated persons and lay faithful, and especially the many people from the ecclesial community of Rome. In a special way I greet the Authorities present, beginning with the Mayor of the City, and thank them for choosing to share with us this moment of prayer and thanksgiving to God.

The “Te Deum” that we raise to the Lord this evening, at the end of a calendar year, is a hymn of thanksgiving that opens with the praise - "We praise you, O God, we proclaim you to be the Lord" - and ends with a profession of faith - "You are our hope, we will not be confounded forever." For all that came to pass over the course of the year, whether easy or difficult, barren or fruitful, we give thanks to God. The Te Deum, in fact, contains a profound wisdom, the wisdom that makes us say that, despite everything, there is good in the world, and this good is destined to triumph, thanks God, the God of Jesus Christ, who became incarnate, died, and rose again. Certainly, it is difficult, sometimes, to accept this profound reality, since evil makes more noise than the good: a brutal murder, the spread of violence, serious injustices make the news. Gestures of love and service, on the contrary, daily struggles endured with patience and fidelity are often left in the shadows. And this is why we cannot rely solely on the news if we want to understand the world and life. We must be able to remain in silence, in meditation, in calm and prolonged reflection; we must know how to stop and think. In this way, our mind can find healing from the inevitable wounds of daily life, can go deeper into the events that occur in our lives and in the world, and come to the knowledge that allows us to evaluate things with new eyes. Especially in the recollection of conscience, where God speaks to us, we learn to look truthfully at our own actions, even at the evil within us and around us, to begin a journey of conversion that makes us wiser and better, more capable of creating solidarity and communion, of overcoming evil with good. The Christian is a man of hope, even and especially in the face of the darkness that often exists in the world, not as a consequence of God’s plans, but because of the wrong choices of man, because the Christian knows that the power of faith can move mountains ( cf. Mt 17:20): the Lord can brighten even the deepest darkness.

The Year of Faith, which the Church is living, should arouse in the heart of each believer a greater awareness that the encounter with Christ is the source of true life and a solid hope. Faith in Jesus allows a constant renewal of goodness and of the ability to rise from the quicksand of sin and to begin anew. In the Word made flesh is possible, to rediscover the true identity of man, who finds himself destined for the infinite love of God and called to a personal communion with Him. This truth, that Jesus Christ came to reveal, is the certainty that drives us to face with confidence the year we are about to begin.

The Church, which has received from her Lord the mission to evangelize, knows well that the Gospel is for all people, especially the younger generations, to quench that thirst for truth that everyone carries in his heart and that is often obscured by all those things that occupy life. This apostolic commitment is all the more necessary when the faith risks being obscured in cultural contexts which hinder its personal roots and its social presence. Rome, too, is a city where the Christian faith must be proclaimed again and again and witnessed in a credible manner. On the one hand, there is the growing number of believers of other religions, the difficulties parish communities have in attracting young people, the spread of lifestyles marked by individualism and moral relativism; on the other, the quest, in so many people, for a sense of their own existence and for a hope that will not disappoint, that cannot leave us indifferent. Like the Apostle Paul (cf. Rom 1:14-15) all the faithful of this city should consider themselves under obligation of the Gospel towards the other inhabitants!

For this reason, for several years now, our Diocese has been committed to highlighting the missionary dimension of ordinary pastoral care, so that the faithful, supported especially by the Sunday Eucharist, can become disciples and coherent witnesses of Jesus Christ. Christian parents, who are for their children the primary educators in the faith, are called in a special way to this coherence in their lives. The complexity of life in a great city like Rome and in a culture that often seems indifferent to God, demands that we not leave fathers and mothers alone in so crucial a task, but rather that we support and accompany them in their spiritual life. In this regard, I encourage those who work in family ministry to implement the pastoral activities that emerged from the last Diocesan Convention, dedicated to baptismal and post-baptismal pastoral care. It requires a generous commitment to develop the paths of spiritual formation that after the baptism of children will go with the parents in order to keep the flame of faith alive, offering concrete suggestions so that, from an early age, the Gospel of Jesus will be announced. The emergence of groups of families, in which the Word of God is heard and the experiences of Christian life are shared helps to strengthen the sense of belonging to the ecclesial community and to grow in friendship with the Lord. It is also important to build a relationship of cordial friendship with those of the faithful who, after having baptized their child, distracted by the demands of everyday life, do not show great interest in living this experience: they will be able to experience the love of the Church, as a caring mother, stands by them to promote their spiritual life.

In order to proclaim the Gospel and to allow those who still do not know Jesus, or have abandoned Him, to cross again the threshold of faith and live in communion with God, it is essential to know in depth the meaning of the truths contained in the Profession of Faith. The commitment to a systematic training of pastoral workers, which for some years now has taken place in the various prefectures of the Diocese of Rome, is a valuable tool that must be pursued with commitment in the future, in order to form lay people who know how to echo the Gospel in every house and in every room, even in those listening centres that have brought so much fruit since the time of the city Missions. In this respect, the “Dialogues in the Cathedral,” which have been held in the Basilica of St. John Lateran for some years, constitute a particularly appropriate experience to encounter the City and to dialogue with those who seek God and truth, and who are inquiring into the into the great questions of human existence.

As in the past, so today the Church of Rome is called to announce and to tirelessly witness to the riches of the Gospel of Christ. It must do so also by supporting the many people living in situations of poverty and marginalization, as well as families in need, especially when they have to assist sick and disabled people. I hope very much that the Institutions at various levels will not allow their activities to cease, so that all citizens might have access to what is essential to a dignified life.

Dear friends, on the last night of the year that is coming to an end, and at the threshold of the new, let us praise the Lord! Let us show to “He who is and who was and who is to come” (Rev. 1:8) repentance and asking for forgiveness for their offenses, as well as the sincere thanks for the countless benefits granted by the divine goodness. In particular, we give thanks for the grace and truth that have come to us through Jesus Christ. In Him the fullness of all human time is placed. The future of every human being is kept safe in him. In Him, the fulfilment of the hopes of the Church and of the world comes true. Amen.

Pope on New Year's Day: find inner peace in God

Vatican Radio
Jan. 1, 2013

Pope Benedict celebrated mass in St Peter’s Basilica on New Year’s Day, marking the feast of Mary and the Church’s World Day of Peace. In his homily the Pope urged people to look to God and to his son Jesus for true peace in a world fraught with problems, darkness and anxieties.


Below, please find the English translation of the text of Pope Benedict's homily:


Dear Brothers and Sisters,

“May God bless us and make his face to shine upon us.” We proclaimed these words from Psalm 66 after hearing in the first reading the ancient priestly blessing upon the people of the covenant. It is especially significant that at the start of every new year God sheds upon us, his people, the light of his Holy Name, the Name pronounced three times in the solemn form of biblical blessing. Nor is it less significant that to the Word of God – who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14) as “the true light that enlightens every man” (1:9) – is given, as today’s Gospel tells us, the Name of Jesus eight days after his birth (cf. Lk 2:21).

It is in this Name that we are gathered here today. I cordially greet all present, beginning with the Ambassadors of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See. I greet with affection Cardinal Bertone, my Secretary of State, and Cardinal Turkson, with all the officials of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; I am particularly grateful to them for their effort to spread the Message for the World Day of Peace, which this year has as its theme “Blessed are the Peacemakers”.

Although the world is sadly marked by “hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism,” as well as by various forms of terrorism and crime, I am convinced that “the many different efforts at peacemaking which abound in our world testify to mankind’s innate vocation to peace. In every person the desire for peace is an essential aspiration which coincides in a certain way with the desire for a full, happy and successful human life. In other words, the desire for peace corresponds to a fundamental moral principle, namely, the duty and right to an integral social and communitarian development, which is part of God’s plan for mankind. Man is made for the peace which is God’s gift. All of this led me to draw inspiration for this Message from the words of Jesus Christ: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’ (Mt 5:9)” (Message, 1). This beatitude “tells us that peace is both a messianic gift and the fruit of human effort … It is peace with God through a life lived according to his will. It is interior peace with oneself, and exterior peace with our neighbours and all creation” (ibid., 2, 3). Indeed, peace is the supreme good to ask as a gift from God and, at the same time, that which is to be built with our every effort.

We may ask ourselves: what is the basis, the origin, the root of peace? How can we experience that peace within ourselves, in spite of problems, darkness and anxieties? The reply is given to us by the readings of today’s liturgy. The biblical texts, especially the one just read from the Gospel of Luke, ask us to contemplate the interior peace of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. During the days in which “she gave birth to her first-born son” (Lk 2:7), many unexpected things occurred: not only the birth of the Son but, even before, the tiring journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, not finding room at the inn, the search for a chance place to stay for the night; then the song of the angels and the unexpected visit of the shepherds. In all this, however, Mary remains even tempered, she does not get agitated, she is not overcome by events greater than herself; in silence she considers what happens, keeping it in her mind and heart, and pondering it calmly and serenely. This is the interior peace which we ought to have amid the sometimes tumultuous and confusing events of history, events whose meaning we often do not grasp and which disconcert us.

The Gospel passage finishes with a mention of the circumcision of Jesus. According to the Law of Moses, eight days after birth, baby boys were to be circumcised and then given their name. Through his messenger, God himself had said to Mary – as well as to Joseph – that the Name to be given to the child was “Jesus” (cf. Mt 1:21; Lk 1:31); and so it came to be. The Name which God had already chosen, even before the child had been conceived, is now officially conferred upon him at the moment of circumcision. This also changes Mary’s identity once and for all: she becomes “the mother of Jesus”, that is the mother of the Saviour, of Christ, of the Lord. Jesus is not a man like any other, but the Word of God, one of the Divine Persons, the Son of God: therefore the Church has given Mary the title Theotokos or Mother of God.

The first reading reminds us that peace is a gift from God and is linked to the splendour of the face of God, according to the text from the Book of Numbers, which hands down the blessing used by the priests of the People of Israel in their liturgical assemblies. This blessing repeats three times the Holy Name of God, a Name not to be spoken, and each time it is linked to two words indicating an action in favour of man: “The Lord bless you and keep you: the Lord make his face to shine upon you: the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace” (6:24-26). So peace is the summit of these six actions of God in our favour, in which he turns towards us the splendour of his face.

For sacred Scripture, contemplating the face of God is the greatest happiness: “You gladden him with the joy of your face” (Ps 21:7). From the contemplation of the face of God are born joy, security and peace. But what does it mean concretely to contemplate the face of the Lord, as understood in the New Testament? It means knowing him directly, in so far as is possible in this life, through Jesus Christ in whom he is revealed. To rejoice in the splendour of God’s face means penetrating the mystery of his Name made known to us in Jesus, understanding something of his interior life and of his will, so that we can live according to his plan of love for humanity. In the second reading, taken from the Letter to the Galatians (4:4-7), Saint Paul says as much as he describes the Spirit who, in our inmost hearts, cries: “Abba! Father!” It is the cry that rises from the contemplation of the true face of God, from the revelation of the mystery of his Name. Jesus declares, “I have manifested thy name to men” (Jn 17:6). God’s Son made man has let us know the Father, he has let us know the hidden face of the Father through his visible human face; by the gift of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts, he has led us to understand that, in him, we too are children of God, as Saint Paul says in the passage we have just heard: “The proof that you are sons is that God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts: the Spirit that cries, ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal 4:6).

Here, dear brothers and sisters, is the foundation of our peace: the certainty of contemplating in Jesus Christ the splendour of the face of God the Father, of being sons in the Son, and thus of having, on life’s journey, the same security that a child feels in the arms of a loving and all-powerful Father. The splendour of the face of God, shining upon us and granting us peace, is the manifestation of his fatherhood: the Lord turns his face to us, he reveals himself as our Father and grants us peace. Here is the principle of that profound peace – “peace with God” – which is firmly linked to faith and grace, as Saint Paul tells the Christians of Rome (cf. Rom 5:2). Nothing can take this peace from believers, not even the difficulties and sufferings of life. Indeed, sufferings, trials and darkness do not undermine but build up our hope, a hope which does not deceive because “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (5:5).

May the Virgin Mary, whom today we venerate with the title of Mother of God, help us to contemplate the face of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. May she sustain us and accompany us in this New Year: and may she obtain for us and for the whole world the gift of peace. Amen!

Pope Angelus: may new year be journey to peace

Vatican Radio
Jan. 1, 2013

In his address to thousands of pilgrims gathered in Saint Peter's Square for the first Angelus prayer of 2013, Pope Benedict likened the new year to "a journey" and prayed that it may lead on a path to peace "for every person and every family, for each country and for the whole world."


Below please find a Vatican Radio translation of his remarks:


Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Happy New Year to all! On this first day of 2013, I would like God’s blessing to be extended to every man and every woman in the world. I do this with the ancient formula contained in Sacred Scripture: "The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and show thee mercy. The Lord turn his face to you and give you peace "(Numbers 6:24-26).

Such as light and heat from the sun are a blessing to the earth, so the light of God is for humanity, when He shines His face upon it. This happened with the birth of Jesus Christ! God hath shown us the brilliance of His face: at the beginning in a very humble, hidden way - in Bethlehem, only Mary and Joseph and some shepherds were witnesses to this revelation -; but little by little, like the sun from dawn comes to noon, the light of Christ has grown and spread everywhere. Even in the short time of his earthly life, Jesus of Nazareth made the face of God shine in the Holy Land, and then, through the Church animated by his Spirit, extended to all peoples the Gospel of peace. "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favour rests" (Lk 2:14). This is the song of the angels at Christmas, and the song of the Christians in every clime, a song from the hearts and lips which passes into concrete actions, actions of love that build dialogue, understanding and reconciliation.

For this, eight days after Christmas, when the Church, like the Virgin Mother Mary, shows the world the infant Jesus, the Prince of Peace, we celebrate the World Day of Peace. Yes, that Child, Who is the Word of God made flesh, came to give men a peace which the world can not give (cf. Jn 14:27). His mission is to break down the "dividing wall of hostility" (Eph 2:14). And when, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, He proclaims his "Beatitudes", among them there is also "blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" (Mt 5:9). Who are the peacemakers? They are all those who, day by day, try to overcome evil with good, with the power of truth, with the weapons of prayer and forgiveness, with honest and well done work, with scientific research at the service of life, with the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. The peacemakers are many, but they are not loud. As leaven in dough, they raise humanity according to God's plan.

In this first Angelus of the new year, we ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, to bless us, like a mother blesses her children who must leave on a trip. A new year is like a journey: with the light and grace of God, may it be a path to peace for every person and every family, for each country and for the whole world.

AFTER THE ANGELUS

Dear brothers and sisters!

I share with all the most cordial good wishes for the new year: may it be a really good year, and it will be if we accept in us and among us, the love that Christ has given us. With gratitude I express my best wishes to the President of the Italian Republic and to the entire nation, as well as to other authorities who have sent me greetings.

I renew my affectionate greeting to the young people who came to Rome for the European meeting of the Taizé Community. I express my spiritual closeness to the ecclesial initiatives surrounding this World Day of Peace: I think, in particular, of the national March which took place last night in Lecce (Italy), as well as (this morning’s march) here in Rome, animated by the Community of Sant 'Egidio. I greet the members of the Family Love Movement who remained last night in prayer vigils in St. Peter's Square, in Milan and in L'Aquila. To all I repeat the words of Jesus: "Blessed are the peacemakers"!

Greetings to English speaking pilgrims:

I am pleased to greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present today for this prayer. Today, New Year’s Day, we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. With affectionate trust, Our Lady believed the message revealed to her by the angel’s word and bore Jesus Christ, true God and true man. May her powerful intercession bring you a happy and prosperous New Year!

Audience: The true origins of Jesus

Vatican Radio
Jan. 2, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his first general audience of the Year of Faith with a question: “Where do we believe Jesus comes from? How can the small and weak child have brought such radical novelty to the world to change the course of history?”

After the audience he tweeted a message to his millions of followers: “When we entrust ourselves to the Lord completely, everything changes. We are children of a Father who loves us, and never leaves us.


Below a Vatican Radio translation of the Holy Father’s catechesis


Dear Brothers and Sisters,

the Nativity of the Lord once again illuminates the darkness that often surrounds our world and our hearts with his light, bringing hope and joy. Where does this light come from? From the stable in Bethlehem, where the shepherds found "Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger" (Lk 2:16). Before this Holy Family, another and deeper question arises: how can the small and weak child have brought such radical novelty to the world to change the course of history? Is there not something mysterious in its origin that goes beyond that stable?

Again and again the question of the origin of Jesus emerges, the same one posed by the prosecutor Pontius Pilate during the trial: "Where are you from?" (Jn 19:29). Yet the origin is very clear. In the Gospel of John, when the Lord says: "I am the bread which came down from heaven," the Jews react muttering, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" (Jn 6.42). And, a little later, the citizens of Jerusalem are deeply opposed to Jesus’ claim Messiahship, stating “But we know where he is from. When the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from." (Jn 7 , 27). Jesus himself points out how inadequate their claim to know his origin, and with this already offers an indication to know where he comes from: "You know me and also know where I am from. Yet I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true"(Jn 7:28). Of course, Jesus was from Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, but what is known about his true origin?

In the four Gospels answer to the question "where" Jesus is from clearly emerges, his true origin is the Father, He comes entirely from Him, but in a different way from any prophet sent by God who preceded him. This originates in the mystery of God, who "no one knows", it is already contained in the infancy narratives of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which we are reading in this Christmas season. The angel Gabriel announces: "The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God"(Lk 1:35). We repeat these words every time we recite the Creed, the profession of faith: "et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto, ex Maria Virgine," "by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary". In this sentence we bow our heads for the veil that hid God is, so to speak, lifted and his unfathomable and inaccessible mystery touches us directly: God becomes Emmanuel, "God with us." When we listen to the Masses composed by the great masters of sacred music, I think of the example of Mozart's Great Mass, we immediately notice how they linger especially on this phrase, as if to try to express in the universal language of music that which words can not: the great mystery of God who becomes incarnate, who becomes man.

If we carefully consider the expression "through the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary," we find that it includes four subjects that interact. The Holy Spirit and Mary are explicitly mentioned, but it is understood "He," that is, the Son, became flesh in the womb of the Virgin. In the profession of faith, the Creed, Jesus is referred to by different names: "Lord, ... Christ, the only Son of God ... God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God ... consubstantial with the Father" (Nicene- Constantinople Creed). We see then that "He" refers to another person, the Father. The first subject of this sentence is, therefore, the Father who with the Son and the Holy Spirit, is the one God.

This affirmation in the Creed is not about the eternal being of God, but rather speaks of an action which takes part in the three divine Persons and that is realised “ex Maria Virgine”. Without her, the entry of God into human history would not have come to its end and that which is central to our profession of faith, would not have taken place: God is a God with us. Thus Mary belongs in an essential way to our faith in the God who acts, who intervenes in history. She offers her whole person, "agrees" to become the dwelling place of God.

Sometimes, even in the journey and life of faith we can feel our poverty, our inadequacy in the face of the witness to offer the world. But God chose a humble woman, in an unknown village, in one of the most distant provinces of the great Roman Empire. Always, even in the midst of the most difficult problems to face, we must trust in God, renewing faith in His presence and action in our history, like in that of Mary. Nothing is impossible with God! With him, our lives always walk on solid ground and are open to a future of firm hope.

Profess in the Creed: "through the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary," we affirm that the Holy Spirit as the power of the Most High God has worked in a mysterious way in the Virgin Mary's conception of the Son of God. The Evangelist Luke records the words of the Archangel Gabriel: "The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (1.35). Two references are obvious: first, at the time of creation. At the beginning of the Book of Genesis we read that "the spirit of God was hovering over the waters" (1.2), it is the Creator Spirit who gave life to all things and human beings. What happens in Mary, through the working of the divine Spirit, is a new creation: God, who called being from nothing, with the Incarnation gives life to a new beginning of humanity. The Church Fathers often speak of Christ as the new Adam, to mark the beginning of the new creation of the birth of the Son of God in the womb of the Virgin Mary. This makes us reflect on how the faith brings even to us a novelty so powerful as to make us be born anew. In fact, Baptism is the beginning of Christian life, when we are born again as children of God, to share in the filial relationship that Jesus has with the Father. And I would like to point out that Baptism is received, we "are baptized" – it is passive - because no one is capable of becoming a child on their own: it is a gift that is freely given. St. Paul recalls this adoptive sonship of Christians in a central passage of the Letter to the Romans, he writes: "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God"(8:14-16). Only if we open ourselves to God, like Mary, only if we entrust our lives to the Lord as a friend in whom we trust completely, everything changes, our life takes on a new meaning and a new face: that of the children of a Father who loves us and never abandons us.

Finally, I would add a further element in the words of the Annunciation. The angel says to Mary: "The power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow." It 'a reminder of the holy cloud that during the Exodus journey, stopped over the Tent of meeting, the ark of the covenant, which the people of Israel brought with them, and that indicated the presence of God (cf. Ex 40 ,40,34-38). Mary is the new holy tabernacle, the new Ark of the Covenant: with her "yes" to the words of the Archangel, God receives a home in this world, He whom the universe can not contain comes to dwell in the womb of a virgin.

So let us return to the question with which we began, the origin of Jesus, synthesized by Pilate's question: "Where are you?". From these considerations it appears clear from the beginning of the Gospels, what the true origin of Jesus is: He is the Only Begotten of the Father, he comes from God. We are before the great and disconcerting mystery that we celebrate at Christmas time: the Son of God, through the Holy Spirit, was born of the Virgin Mary. This is an announcement that always sounds new and carries hope and joy to our hearts, because each time it gifts us the certainty that, even though we often feel weak, poor, unable to face the challenges and evil of the world, the power of God always works and works wonders in weakness. His grace is our strength (cf. 2 Cor 12:9-10).

When we profess the mystery of the incarnation in the Creed, we bow our heads in awe and adoration. We acknowledge that the incarnation is the work of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, brought about through Mary’s free cooperation. The incarnation is the beginning of the new creation. Conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ is the new Adam who offers humanity rebirth in the waters of Baptism, by which we become sons and daughters of our heavenly Father. During this holy season, may we welcome the Saviour into our hearts, allow God’s power to strengthen and transform our weakness, and bear joyful witness to the dawning of the new creation.

I am pleased to greet all the English-speaking visitors present, including pilgrims from Norway, Japan, Vietnam and the United States. Upon you and your families I invoke the Lord’s blessings of joy, peace and prosperity for the year which has just begun. Happy New Year!

OVER 20 MILLION PARTICIPANTS IN PAPAL EVENTS SINCE 2005

Vatican City, 4 January 2013 (VIS) - The Prefecture of the Papal Household today published a communique in which it reported that during 2012, 2,351,200 faithful participated in the various encounters with Benedict XVI: general audiences (447,000), private audiences (146,800), liturgical celebrations (501,400), Angelus and Regina Coeli (1,256,000). These data refer exclusively to activities which took place within the Vatican and at Castel Gandolfo, and do not include other events during which hundreds of thousands of faithful have gathered around the Pope, such as apostolic visits to Mexico and Cuba last spring, and to Lebanon in September. During the past year the Pope also made several visits within Italy, for instance to Arezzo-San Sepolcro, Emilia Romagna, Loreto, and the World Meeting of Families in Milan in June.

The Prefecture of the Papal Household emphasises that these are approximate data calculated on the basis of requests to participate in events and invitations issued by the Prefecture. Additionally, an estimate has been given for the number of attendees at the Angelus and the major celebrations in St. Peter's Square.

In total, according to the data provided by the Prefecture of the Papal Household, 20,544,970 people have attended papal events with Benedict XVI.

Pope: bishops must be courageous

Vatican Radio
Jan. 6, 2013

Following a tradition begun during the Pontificate of Blessed John Paul II, four men were ordained Bishops during the Mass of the Epiphany this Sunday in St. Peter’s Basilica: Angelo Vincenzo Zani, Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education; Fortunatus Nwachukwu, Apostolic Nuncio to Nicaragua; Georg Ganswein, Personal Secretary to Pope Benedict XVI and Prefect of the Papal Household; Nicolas Thevenin, also Apostolic Nuncio in the Diplomatic Service of the Holy See, all four of whom are raised to the dignity of Archbishop. After the singing of the Veni Creator – the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, presented the elect, who were questioned by the Holy Father about their willingness to accept and discharge the duties of the office they were being asked to undertake.

In his homily, Pope Benedict reflected on the way the characters of the Wise Men can teach us something of the character of the ideal bishop. “These men who set out towards the unknown were,” said Pope Benedict, “in any event, men with a restless heart - men driven by a restless quest for God and the salvation of the world. They were filled with expectation,” he said, “not satisfied with their secure income and their respectable place in society. They were looking for something greater.” The Holy Father went on to speak of the challenges that face a bishop today, and the virtues he needs to face those challenges. He spoke of the humility of faith, of sharing the faith of the Church of every age, which will constantly be in conflict with the prevailing wisdom of those who cling to what seems certain. He said, “Anyone who lives and proclaims the faith of the Church is on many points out of step with the prevalent way of thinking, even in our own day.”

“[T]he courage to contradict the prevailing mindset is particularly urgent for a Bishop today,” said Pope Benedict. “[A Bishop] must be courageous.”

The Pope concluded with promises of prayers from all the faithful for the new bishops, that the Lord may always grant them the courage and humility of faith, asking Mary, who showed to the Wise Men the new King of the world, as a loving mother, to show Jesus Christ also to the new bishops, and to help them to be guides along the way which leads to Him.


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Pope Benedict: Homily for Epiphany


Dear Brothers and Sisters,

For the Church which believes and prays, the Wise Men from the East who, guided by the star, made their way to the manger of Bethlehem, are only the beginning of a great procession which winds throughout history. Thus the liturgy reads the Gospel which relates the journey of the Wise Men, together with the magnificent prophetic visions of the sixtieth chapter of the Book of Isaiah and Psalm 71, which depict in bold imagery the pilgrimage of the peoples to Jerusalem. Like the shepherds, who as the first visitors to the newborn Child in the manger, embodied the poor of Israel and more generally those humble souls who live in deep interior closeness to Jesus, so the men from the East embody the world of the peoples, the Church of the Gentiles – the men and women who in every age set out on the way which leads to the Child of Bethlehem, to offer him homage as the Son of God and to bow down before him. The Church calls this feast “Epiphany” – the appearance of the Godhead. If we consider the fact that from the very beginning men and women of every place, of every continent, of all the different cultures, mentalities and lifestyles, have been on the way to Christ, then we can truly say that this pilgrimage and this encounter with God in the form of a Child is an epiphany of God’s goodness and loving kindness for humanity (cf. Tit 3:4).

Following a tradition begun by Pope John Paul II, we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord also as the day when episcopal ordination will be conferred on four priests who will now cooperate in different ways in the ministry of the Pope for the unity of the one Church of Jesus Christ in the multiplicity of the Particular Churches. The connection between this episcopal ordination and the theme of the pilgrimage of the peoples to Jesus Christ is evident. It is the task of the Bishop in this pilgrimage not merely to walk beside the others, but to go before them, showing the way. But in this liturgy I would like to reflect with you on a more concrete question. Based on the account of Matthew, we can gain a certain idea of what sort of men these were, who followed the sign of the star and set off to find that King who would establish not only for Israel but for all mankind a new kind of kingship. What kind of men were they? And we can also ask whether, despite the difference of times and tasks, we can glimpse in them something of what a Bishop is and how he is to carry out his task.

These men who set out towards the unknown were, in any event, men with a restless heart. Men driven by a restless quest for God and the salvation of the world. They were filled with expectation, not satisfied with their secure income and their respectable place in society. They were looking for something greater. They were no doubt learned men, quite knowledgeable about the heavens and probably possessed of a fine philosophical formation. But they desired more than simply knowledge about things. They wanted above all else to know what is essential. They wanted to know how we succeed in being human. And therefore they wanted to know if God exists, and where and how he exists. Whether he is concerned about us and how we can encounter him. Nor did they want just to know. They wanted to understand the truth about ourselves and about God and the world. Their outward pilgrimage was an expression of their inward journey, the inner pilgrimage of their hearts. They were men who sought God and were ultimately on the way towards him. They were seekers after God.

Here we come to the question: What sort of man must he be, upon whom hands are laid in episcopal ordination in the Church of Jesus Christ? We can say that he must above all be a man concerned for God, for only then will he also be truly concerned about men. Inversely, we could also say that a Bishop must be a man concerned for others, one who is concerned about what happens to them. He must be a man for others. But he can only truly be so if he is a man seized by God, if concern for God has also become for him concern for God’s creature who is man. Like the Wise Men from the East, a Bishop must not be someone who merely does his job and is content with that. No, he must be gripped by God’s concern for men and women. He must in some way think and feel with God. Human beings have an innate restlessness for God, but this restlessness is a participation in God’s own restlessness for us. Since God is concerned about us, he follows us even to the crib, even to the Cross. “Thou with weary steps hast sought me, crucified hast dearly bought me, may thy pains not be in vain”, the Church prays in the Dies Irae. The restlessness of men for God and hence the restlessness of God for men must unsettle the Bishop. This is what we mean when we say that, above all else, the Bishop must be a man of faith. For faith is nothing less than being interiorly seized by God, something which guides us along the pathways of life. Faith draws us into a state of being seized by the restlessness of God and it makes us pilgrims who are on an inner journey towards the true King of the world and his promise of justice, truth and love. On this pilgrimage the Bishop must go ahead, he must be the guide pointing out to men and women the way to faith, hope and love.

Faith’s inner pilgrimage towards God occurs above all in prayer. Saint Augustine once said that prayer is ultimately nothing more than the realization and radicalization of our yearning for God. Instead of “yearning”, we could also translate the word as “restlessness” and say that prayer would detach us from our false security, from our being enclosed within material and visible realities, and would give us a restlessness for God and thus an openness to and concern for one another. The Bishop, as a pilgrim of God, must be above all a man of prayer. He must live be in constant inner contact with God; his soul must be open wide to God. He must bring before God his own needs and the needs of others, as well as his joys and the joys of others, and thus in his own way establish contact between God and the world in communion with Christ, so that Christ’s light can shine in the world.

Let us return to the Wise Men from the East. These were also, and above all, men of courage, the courage and humility born of faith. Courage was needed to grasp the meaning of the star as a sign to set out, to go forth – towards the unknown, the uncertain, on paths filled with hidden dangers. We can imagine that their decision was met with derision: the scorn of those realists who could only mock the reveries of such men. Anyone who took off on the basis of such uncertain promises, risking everything, could only appear ridiculous. But for these men, inwardly seized by God, the way which he pointed out was more important than what other people thought. For them, seeking the truth meant more than the taunts of the world, so apparently clever.

How can we not think, in this context, of the task of a Bishop in our own time? The humility of faith, of sharing the faith of the Church of every age, will constantly be in conflict with the prevailing wisdom of those who cling to what seems certain. Anyone who lives and proclaims the faith of the Church is on many points out of step with the prevalent way of thinking, even in our own day. Today’s regnant agnosticism has its own dogmas and is extremely intolerant regarding anything that would question it and the criteria it employs. Therefore the courage to contradict the prevailing mindset is particularly urgent for a Bishop today. He must be courageous. And this courage or forcefulness does not consist in striking out or in acting aggressively, but rather in allowing oneself to be struck and to be steadfast before the principles of the prevalent way of thinking. The courage to stand firm in the truth is unavoidably demanded of those whom the Lord sends like sheep among wolves. “Those who fear the Lord will not be timid”, says the Book of Sirach (34:16). The fear of God frees us from the fear of men. It liberates.

Here I am reminded of an episode at the very beginning of Christianity which Saint Luke recounts in the Acts of the Apostles. After the speech of Gamaliel, who advised against violence in dealing with the earliest community of believers in Jesus, the Sanhedrin summoned the Apostles and had them flogged. It then forbade them from preaching in the name of Jesus and set them free. Saint Luke continues: “As they left the council, they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonour for the name of Jesus. And every day… they did not cease to teach and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah” (Acts 5:40ff.). The successors of the Apostles must also expect to be repeatedly beaten, by contemporary methods, if they continue to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that can be heard and understood. Then they can rejoice that they have been considered worthy of suffering for him. Like the Apostles, we naturally want to convince people and in this sense to obtain their approval. Naturally, we are not provocative; on the contrary we invite all to enter into the joy of that truth which shows us the way. The approval of the prevailing wisdom, however, is not the criterion to which we submit. Our criterion is the Lord himself. If we defend his cause, we will constantly gain others to the way of the Gospel. But, inevitably, we will also be beaten by those who live lives opposed to the Gospel, and then we can be grateful for having been judged worthy to share in the passion of Christ.

The Wise Men followed the star, and thus came to Jesus, to the great Light which enlightens everyone coming into this world (cf. Jn 1:9). As pilgrims of faith, the Wise Men themselves became stars shining in the firmament of history and they show us the way. The saints are God’s true constellations, which light up the nights of this world, serving as our guides. Saint Paul, in his Letter to the Philippians, told his faithful that they must shine like stars in the world (cf. 2:15).

Dear friends, this holds true for us too. It holds true above all for you who are now to be ordained Bishops of the Church of Jesus Christ. If you live with Christ, bound to him anew in this sacrament, then you too will become wise men. Then you will become stars which go before men and women, pointing out to them the right path in life. All of us here are now praying for you, that the Lord may fill you with the light of faith and love. That that restlessness of God for man may seize you, so that all may experience his closeness and receive the gift of his joy. We are praying for you, that the Lord may always grant you the courage and humility of faith. We ask Mary, who showed to the Wise Men the new King of the world (cf. Mt 2:11), as a loving mother, to show Jesus Christ also to you and to help you to be guides along the way which leads to him. Amen.


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Pope Angelus: "Let God be known throughout the world"

After the Solemn Mass for the Epiphany, Pope Benedict led the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square in the traditional noon-day Angelus. Below, please find Pope Benedict's remarks during Sunday's Angelus address:


Dear brothers and sisters,

Please forgive the lateness. I ordained four bishops today in the St. Peter's Basilica, and the rite lasted a little longer than normal. But today we celebrate above all the Epiphany of the Lord, His manifestation to the people; while numerous Oriental Churches celebrate Christmas, in accordance with the Julian calendar. This slight difference, which superimposes these two events, highlights the fact that the Child, born in the humble grotto in Bethlehem, is the light of the world that guides the paths of all peoples. It is a combination that is reflected even from the point of view of the faith: on the one hand, at Christmas, in the presence of Jesus, we see the faith of Mary, of Joseph, and of the shepherds; on the other, in the Epiphany, we see the faith of the Magi, who have come from the East to adore the King of the Jews.

The Virgin Mary, together with her husband, represents the “branch” of Israel, the “remnant” foretold by the prophets, from which the Messiah will spring forth. The Magi represent the people – we can even say the civilisations, the cultures, the religions – that are, so to speak, on the path to God, in search of his reign of peace, of justice, of truth, and of liberty. First there is a nucleus, embodied above all by Mary, the “daughter of Sion”: a nucleus of Israel, the people that know and have faith in that God that was revealed to the Patriarchs and in the passage of history. This faith reaches its fulfilment in Mary, in the fullness of time: in her, “blessed because she has believed,” the Word was made flesh, God has “appeared” in the world. The faith of Mary becomes the first fruits and the model of the faith of the Church, the People of the New Covenant. But this people, from the beginning, is universal; and we see this today in the figure of the Magi, who come to Bethlehem following the light of a star and the indications of the Sacred Scriptures.

Saint Leo the Great says, “An innumerable succession was once promised to Abraham, which would be begotten not according to the flesh, but in the fertility of the faith” (Sermon 3 for Epiphany, 1: PL 54, 240). Mary’s faith can be compared to that of Abraham: it is the new beginning of the same promise, of the same immutable plan of God, that now finds its fulfilment in Jesus Christ. And the light of faith is so clear and strong that it makes the language of the cosmos and of the Scriptures intelligible, so that all those who, like the Magi, are open to the truth can recognise it and join in contemplating the Saviour of the world. Saint Leo continues, “Let the fullness of the peoples enter into the family of the patriarchs, let it enter . . . Let all the people . . . adore the Creator of the universe, and let God be known not only in Judea, but in all the earth” (ibid.). It is from this perspective that we can view the episcopal ordinations which I had the joy of conferring this morning in Saint Peter’s Basilica. Two of the new bishops will remain in service at the Holy See; while the other two will depart to become Papal Representatives in different countries. Let us pray for each of them, and for their respective ministries, that the light of Christ might shine forth throughout the whole world.

After the Angelus prayer, Pope Benedict greeted pilgrims and visitors from around the world. These are his remarks in English:

I greet all the English-speaking pilgrims present today, including the boys of the Palestrina Choir of Saint Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin, who sang this morning at the solemn Mass of the Epiphany. At that ceremony I had the joy of conferring episcopal ordination upon four priests, including Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu of Nigeria. May the new Bishops be faithful successors of the Apostles, always bearing witness to Christ, who today reveals the face of God to the nations. May the Lord bless all of you and grant you his peace!

Pope: appeal for a ceasefire in Syria

Vatican Radio
Jan. 7, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI has made an urgent appeal to civil and political authorities to work for peace. The Pope’s heartfelt cry came on Monday during his annual address to Members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See.

Speaking to representatives of the 179 States that currently have full diplomatic relations with the Vatican, as well as members of numerous international organizations such as the EU, the Order of Malta and the PLO, Pope Benedict emphasized that world leaders have a grave responsibility to work for peace. They are the first – he said – called to resolve the numerous conflicts causing bloodshed in our human family.

And the Pope went on to list urgent areas of concern starting with Syria which he described as being “torn apart by endless slaughter and the scene of dreadful suffering among its civilian population”.

“I renew my appeal for a ceasefire” – the Pope said – “and for the inauguration as quickly as possible of a constructive dialogue aimed at putting an end to a conflict which will know no victors but only vanquished if it continues, leaving behind it nothing but a field of ruins”.

Staying with the peacemaking theme, the Holy Father had strong words of preoccupation for the Holy Land where – he said – Israelis and Palestinians must “commit themselves to peaceful coexistence within the framework of two sovereign states”.

Benedict went on to mention Iraq, Lebanon, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the DRC, Mali, the Central African Republic and Nigeria which – he observed – is regularly the scene of terrorist attacks which reap victims above all among the Christian faithful gathered in prayer.

And the Pope condemned "religious fanatism” which he said is a falsification of religion itself since religion aims at reconciling men and women with God.

Looking also at signs of promise around the globe, the Pope said that peace building always comes about by the protection of human beings and their fundamental rights. Foremost among these – he stressed – “is respect for human life at every stage”, and in this regard he expressed gratification for a Council of Europe resolution calling for the prohibition of euthanasia.

Benedict then expressed concern for efforts being made by various countries to introduce or expand legislation which decriminalises abortion and for a recent decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights regarding in vitro fertilisation.

Staying with his peacemaking theme, the Holy Father emphasized that education is another privileged path to peacemaking. It is urgent – he pointed out – to train the leaders of tomorrow, and he appealed for investment in education in developing countries where the creation of legal systems which are equitable and respectful of human dignity are necessary if social and economic justice is to be achieved.

Peace in society – the Pope said – is also put at risk by certain threats to religious liberty and he pointed to the marginalization of religion in social life.

In an ever more open world – Benedict said – “building peace through dialogue is no longer a choice but a necessity”.

Turning his attention to the 50th anniversary of the Encyclical letter “Pacem in Terris” the Pope recalled that peace remains an empty word if it is not nourished and completed by charity. Indeed – he said – charity is at the heart of the diplomatic activity of the Holy See and of the whole Catholic Church. And in the name of charity “the Church wishes to be near to all those who suffer natural disasters”. And he mentioned flood victims, hurricane victims and earthquake victims of devastated regions across the world.

Pope Benedict XVI concluded his discourse recalling the Second Vatican Council which started 50 years ago – citing Pope Paul VIth who sent out messages which remain relevant, including one addressed to world leaders. “Your task” - he said – is to be in the world the promoters of order and peace among men. But never forget this: it is God who is the great artisan of order and peace on earth”.


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Pope: Address to the Members of the Diplomatic Corps


Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

As at the beginning of each New Year, I am happy to receive you, the distinguished Members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, and to offer you my greetings and personal good wishes, which I extend to all the beloved nations which you represent, together with the assurance of my constant thoughts and prayers. I am especially grateful to your Dean, Ambassador Alejandro Valladares Lanza, and to your Vice-Dean, Ambassador Jean-Claude Michel, for the kind words which they addressed to me in the name of all. In a special way I wish to greet those who take part in this meeting for the first time. Your presence is a significant and valued sign of the fruitful relations which the Catholic Church entertains with civil authorities the world over. It involves a dialogue which has at heart the integral spiritual and material good of each man and woman, and seeks to advance their transcendent dignity everywhere. As I stated in my Address on the occasion of the last Ordinary Public Consistory for the creation of new Cardinals: “the Church, from its origins, is oriented kat’holon, it embraces the whole universe”, and with it each people, each culture and each tradition. This “orientation” does not represent an intrusion in the life of the different societies, but serves rather to illumine the right conscience of their citizens, encouraging them to work for the good of each person and for the progress of the human race. It is in this context, and with the aim of fostering fruitful cooperation between Church and State in the service of the common good, that in the past year bilateral Accords were signed between the Holy See and Burundi, and with Equatorial Guinea, and the Accord with Montenegro was ratified. In this same spirit, the Holy See takes part in the work of various International Organizations and Institutions. In this regard, I am pleased that this past December its request to become an Extra-regional Observer in the Central American Integration System was accepted, not least by reason of the contribution which the Catholic Church offers in several sectors of the societies of that region. The visits of the various Heads of State and of Government whom I received in the course of the past year, as well as the memorable Apostolic Journeys which I made to Mexico, Cuba and Lebanon, were privileged occasions for reaffirming the civil commitment of Christians in those countries, and for promoting the dignity of the human person and the foundations of peace.

Here I am also pleased to mention the valued work accomplished by the Papal Representatives in constant dialogue with your Governments. I would like in particular to recall the esteem enjoyed by Archbishop Ambrose Madtha, Apostolic Nuncio in Côte d’Ivoire, who died tragically a month ago in an automobile accident, together with the chauffeur who was accompanying him.

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Gospel of Luke recounts that on Christmas night the shepherds heard choirs of angels who gave glory to God and invoked peace on mankind. The Evangelist thus emphasizes the close relationship between God and the ardent desire of the men and women of every age to know the truth, to practise justice and to live in peace (cf. Blessed John XXIII, Pacem in Terris: AAS 55 [1963], 257). These days, we are sometimes led to think that truth, justice and peace are utopian ideals, and mutually exclusive. To know the truth seems impossible, and efforts to affirm it appear often to lead to violence. On the other hand, according to a now widespread way of thinking, peacemaking consists solely in the pursuit of compromises capable of ensuring peaceful coexistence between different peoples or between citizens within a single nation. Yet from the Christian point of view, the glorification of God and human peace on earth are closely linked, with the result that peace is not simply the fruit of human effort, but a participation in the very love of God. It is precisely man’s forgetfulness of God, and his failure to give him glory, which gives rise to violence. Indeed, once we no longer make reference to an objective and transcendent truth, how is it possible to achieve an authentic dialogue? In this case, is it not inevitable that violence, open or veiled, becomes the ultimate rule in human relationships? Indeed, without openness to the transcendent, human beings easily become prey to relativism and find it difficult to act justly and to work for peace.

The consequences of forgetfulness of God cannot be separated from those resulting from ignorance of his true countenance, the root of a baneful religious fanaticism which, again in 2012, reaped victims in some countries represented here. As I have often observed, this is a falsification of religion itself, since religion aims instead at reconciling men and women with God, at illuminating and purifying consciences, and at making it clear that each human being is the image of the Creator.

Consequently, if the glorification of God and earthly peace are closely linked, it seems evident that peace is both God’s gift and a human task, one which demands our free and conscious response. For this reason, I wished my annual Message for the World Day of Peace to bear the title: Blessed are the Peacemakers. Civil and political authorities before all others have a grave responsibility to work for peace. They are the first called to resolve the numerous conflicts causing bloodshed in our human family, beginning with that privileged region in God’s plan, the Middle East. I think first and foremost of Syria, torn apart by endless slaughter and the scene of dreadful suffering among its civilian population. I renew my appeal for a ceasefire and the inauguration as quickly as possible of a constructive dialogue aimed at putting an end to a conflict which will know no victors but only vanquished if it continues, leaving behind it nothing but a field of ruins. Your Excellencies, allow me to ask you to continue to make your Governments aware of this, so that essential aid will urgently be made available to face this grave humanitarian situation. I now turn with deep concern towards the Holy Land. Following Palestine’s recognition as a Non-Member Observer State of the United Nations, I again express the hope that, with the support of the international community, Israelis and Palestinians will commit themselves to peaceful coexistence within the framework of two sovereign states, where respect for justice and the legitimate aspirations of the two peoples will be preserved and guaranteed. Jerusalem, become what your name signifies! A city of peace and not of division; a prophecy of the Kingdom of God and not a byword for instability and opposition! As I turn my thoughts towards the beloved Iraqi people, I express my hope that they will pursue the path of reconciliation in order to arrive at the stability for which they long. In Lebanon, where last September I met the various groups which make up society, may the many religious traditions there be cultivated by all as a true treasure for the country and for the whole region, and may Christians offer an effective witness for the building of a future of peace, together with all men and women of good will!

In North Africa too, cooperation between all the members of society is of primary concern, and each must be guaranteed full citizenship, the liberty publicly to profess their religion and the ability to contribute to the common good. I assure all Egyptians of my closeness and my prayers at this time when new institutions are being set in place.

Turning to sub-Saharan Africa, I encourage the efforts being made to build peace, especially in those places where the wounds of war remain open and where their grave humanitarian consequences are being felt. I think particularly of the Horn of Africa, and the East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where new of acts of violence have erupted, forcing many people to abandon their homes, families and surroundings. Nor can I fail to mention other threats looming on the horizon. Nigeria is regularly the scene of terrorist attacks which reap victims above all among the Christian faithful gathered in prayer, as if hatred intended to turn temples of prayer and peace into places of fear and division. I was deeply saddened to learn that, even in the days when we celebrated Christmas, some Christians were barbarously put to death. Mali is also torn by violence and marked by a profound institutional and social crisis, one which calls for the effective attention of the international community. In the Central African Republic, I hope that the talks announced as taking place shortly will restore stability and spare the people from reliving the throes of civil war.

The building of peace always comes about by the protection of human beings and their fundamental rights. This task, even if carried out in many ways and with varying degrees of intensity, challenges all countries and must constantly be inspired by the transcendent dignity of the human person and the principles inscribed in human nature. Foremost among these is respect for human life at every stage. In this regard, I was gratified that a resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in January of last year, called for the prohibition of euthanasia, understood as the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependent human being. At the same time, I must note with dismay that, in various countries, even those of Christian tradition, efforts are being made to introduce or expand legislation which decriminalizes abortion. Direct abortion, that is to say willed as an end or as a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law. In affirming this, the Catholic Church is not lacking in understanding and mercy, also towards the mother involved. Rather, it is a question of being vigilant lest the law unjustly alter the balance between the right to life of the mother and that of the unborn child, a right belonging equally to both. In this area, the recent decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights regarding in vitro fertilization, which arbitrarily redefines the moment of conception and weakens the defence of unborn life, is also a source of concern.

Sadly, especially in the West, one frequently encounters ambiguities about the meaning of human rights and their corresponding duties. Rights are often confused with exaggerated manifestations of the autonomy of the individual, who becomes self-referential, no longer open to encounter with God and with others, and absorbed only in seeking to satisfy his or her own needs. To be authentic, the defence of rights must instead consider human beings integrally, in their personal and communitarian dimensions.

Pursuing our reflection, it is worth emphasizing that education is another privileged path to peacemaking. The current economic and financial crisis, among other things, has also made this clear. The crisis developed because profit was all too often made absolute, to the detriment of labour, and because of unrestrained ventures in the financial areas of the economy, rather than attending to the real economy. There is a need, then, to rediscover the meaning of work and proportionate profit. To that end, it would be well to teach people how to resist the temptations of particular and short-term interests, and to look instead to the common good. Furthermore, it is urgent to train leaders who will one day guide national and international public institutions (cf. Message for the 2013 World Day of Peace, 6). The European Union also requires farsighted representatives capable of making the difficult choices necessary to rectify its economy and to lay solid foundations for growth. Alone, certain countries may perhaps advance more quickly, but together, all will certainly go further! If the differential index between financial taxes represents a source of concern, the increasing differences between those few who grow ever richer and the many who grow hopelessly poorer, should be a cause for dismay. In a word, it is a question of refusing to be resigned to a “spread” in social well-being, while at the same time fighting one in the financial sector.

Investment in education in the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America means helping them to overcome poverty and disease, and to create legal systems which are equitable and respectful of human dignity. Certainly, if justice is to be achieved, good economic models, however necessary, are not sufficient. Justice is achieved only when people are just! Consequently, building peace means training individuals to fight corruption, criminal activity, the production and trade in narcotics, as well as abstaining from divisions and tensions which threaten to exhaust society, hindering development and peaceful coexistence.

Continuing our meeting today, I would like to add that peace in society is also put at risk by certain threats to religious liberty: it is a question sometimes of the marginalization of religion in social life; sometimes of intolerance or even of violence towards individuals, symbols of religious identity and religious institutions. It even happens that believers, and Christians in particular, are prevented from contributing to the common good by their educational and charitable institutions. In order effectively to safeguard the exercise of religious liberty it is essential to respect the right of conscientious objection. This “frontier” of liberty touches upon principles of great importance of an ethical and religious character, rooted in the very dignity of the human person. They are, as it were, the “bearing walls” of any society that wishes to be truly free and democratic. Thus, outlawing individual and institutional conscientious objection in the name of liberty and pluralism paradoxically opens by contrast the door to intolerance and forced uniformity.

Moreover, in an ever more open world, building peace through dialogue is no longer a choice but a necessity! From this perspective, the joint declaration between the President of the Bishops’ Conference of Poland and the Patriarch of Moscow, signed last August, is a strong signal given by believers for the improvement of relations between the Russian and Polish peoples. I would also like to mention the peace accord concluded recently in the Philippines and I would like to underline the role of dialogue between religions for a peaceful coexistence in the region of Mindanao.

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

At the end of the Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris, whose fiftieth anniversary will be celebrated this year, my predecessor Blessed John XXIII remarked that peace remains “an empty word” if it is not nourished and completed by charity (AAS 55 [1963], 303). Indeed, it is at the heart of the diplomatic activity of the Holy See and, above all, of the concern of the Successor of Peter and of the whole Catholic Church. Charity cannot take the place of justice that has been denied; nor can justice, on the other hand, replace charity that has been refused. The Church daily practises charity in works of social assistance such as hospitals and clinics, her educational institutions such as orphanages, schools, colleges and universities, and through help given to peoples in distress, especially during and after conflicts. In the name of charity, the Church wishes also to be near all those who suffer due to natural disasters. I am thinking of the flood victims in Southeast Asia and of those of the hurricane which struck the East coast of the United States. I am also thinking of those who experienced the earthquake that devastated some regions of Northern Italy. As you know, I wanted to go there personally and see for myself the earnest desire to rebuild what had been destroyed. In this moment of its history, I hope that such a spirit of tenacity and shared commitment will move the entire beloved Italian nation.

To conclude our encounter, I would like to recall that, at the end of the Second Vatican Council – which started fifty years ago - the Servant of God, Pope Paul VI, sent out messages which remain relevant, including one addressed to world leaders. He encouraged them in this way: “Your task is to be in the world the promoters of order and peace among men. But never forget this: It is God […] who is the great artisan of order and peace on earth” (Message to Leaders, 8 December 1965, 3). Today, as I make those sentiments my own, I convey to you, the Ambassadors and other distinguished Members of the Diplomatic Corps, as well as to your families and colleagues, my very best wishes for the New Year. Thank you!

Pope: Caring for the suffering, like the Good Samaritan

Vatican Radio
Jan. 8, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI’s message for the World Day of the Sick, February 11th 2013, was published Tuesday. Titled “Go and do likewise” the Holy Father calls on people to imitate the Good Samaritan, in showing greater care for those sick in mind or in body, even those we may not know.

He says that “we need to draw from the infinite love of God, through an intense relationship with him in prayer, the strength to live day by day with concrete concern, like that of the Good Samaritan, for those suffering in body and spirit who ask for our help, whether or not we know them and however poor they may be”.

Below please find the full text of the Holy Father’s Message for World Day for the Sick 2013


“Go and do likewise” (Lk 10:37)Dear Brothers and Sisters,

1. On 11 February 2013, the liturgical memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, the Twenty-first World Day of the Sick will be solemnly celebrated at the Marian Shrine of Altötting. This day represents for the sick, for health care workers, for the faithful and for all people of goodwill “a privileged time of prayer, of sharing, of offering one’s sufferings for the good of the Church, and a call for all to recognize in the features of their suffering brothers and sisters the Holy Face of Christ, who, by suffering, dying and rising has brought about the salvation of mankind” (John Paul II, Letter for the Institution of the World Day of the Sick, 13 May 1992, 3). On this occasion I feel especially close to you, dear friends, who in health care centres or at home, are undergoing a time of trial due to illness and suffering. May all of you be sustained by the comforting words of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council: “You are not alone, separated, abandoned or useless. You have been called by Christ and are his living and transparent image” (Message to the Poor, the Sick and the Suffering).

2. So as to keep you company on the spiritual pilgrimage that leads us from Lourdes, a place which symbolizes hope and grace, to the Shrine of Altötting, I would like to propose for your reflection the exemplary figure of the Good Samaritan (cf. Lk 10:25-37). The Gospel parable recounted by Saint Luke is part of a series of scenes and events taken from daily life by which Jesus helps us to understand the deep love of God for every human being, especially those afflicted by sickness or pain. With the concluding words of the parable of the Good Samaritan, “Go and do likewise” (Lk 10:37), the Lord also indicates the attitude that each of his disciples should have towards others, especially those in need. We need to draw from the infinite love of God, through an intense relationship with him in prayer, the strength to live day by day with concrete concern, like that of the Good Samaritan, for those suffering in body and spirit who ask for our help, whether or not we know them and however poor they may be. This is true, not only for pastoral or health care workers, but for everyone, even for the sick themselves, who can experience this condition from a perspective of faith: “It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love” (Spe Salvi, 37).

3. Various Fathers of the Church saw Jesus himself in the Good Samaritan; and in the man who fell among thieves they saw Adam, our very humanity wounded and disoriented on account of its sins (cf. Origen, Homily on the Gospel of Luke XXXIV,1-9; Ambrose, Commentary on the Gospel of Saint Luke, 71-84; Augustine, Sermon 171). Jesus is the Son of God, the one who makes present the Father’s love, a love which is faithful, eternal and without boundaries. But Jesus is also the one who sheds the garment of his divinity, who leaves his divine condition to assume the likeness of men (cf. Phil 2:6-8), drawing near to human suffering, even to the point of descending into hell, as we recite in the Creed, in order to bring hope and light. He does not jealously guard his equality with God (cf. Phil 2:6) but, filled with compassion, he looks into the abyss of human suffering so as to pour out the oil of consolation and the wine of hope.

4. The Year of Faith which we are celebrating is a fitting occasion for intensifying the service of charity in our ecclesial communities, so that each one of us can be a good Samaritan for others, for those close to us. Here I would like to recall the innumerable figures in the history of the Church who helped the sick to appreciate the human and spiritual value of their suffering, so that they might serve as an example and an encouragement. Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, “an expert in the scientia amoris” (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 42), was able to experience “in deep union with the Passion of Jesus” the illness that brought her “to death through great suffering” (Address at General Audience, 6 April 2011). The Venerable Luigi Novarese, who still lives in the memory of many, throughout his ministry realized the special importance of praying for and with the sick and suffering, and he would often accompany them to Marian shrines, especially to the Grotto of Lourdes. Raoul Follereau, moved by love of neighbour, dedicated his life to caring for people afflicted by Hansen’s disease, even at the world’s farthest reaches, promoting, among other initiatives, World Leprosy Day. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta would always begin her day with an encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist and then she would go out into the streets, rosary in hand, to find and serve the Lord in the sick, especially in those “unwanted, unloved, uncared for”. Saint Anna Schäffer of Mindelstetten, too, was able to unite in an exemplary way her sufferings to those of Christ: “her sick-bed became her cloister cell and her suffering a missionary service. Strengthened by daily communion, she became an untiring intercessor in prayer and a mirror of God’s love for the many who sought her counsel” (Canonization Homily, 21 October 2012). In the Gospel the Blessed Virgin Mary stands out as one who follows her suffering Son to the supreme sacrifice on Golgotha. She does not lose hope in God’s victory over evil, pain and death, and she knows how to accept in one embrace of faith and love, the Son of God who was born in the stable of Bethlehem and died on the Cross. Her steadfast trust in the power of God was illuminated by Christ’s resurrection, which offers hope to the suffering and renews the certainty of the Lord’s closeness and consolation.

5. Lastly, I would like to offer a word of warm gratitude and encouragement to Catholic health care institutions and to civil society, to Dioceses and Christian communities, to religious congregations engaged in the pastoral care of the sick, to health care workers’ associations and to volunteers. May all realize ever more fully that “the Church today lives a fundamental aspect of her mission in lovingly and generously accepting every human being, especially those who are weak and sick” (Christifideles Laici, 38).

I entrust this Twenty-first World Day of the Sick to the intercession of Our Lady of Graces, venerated at Altötting, that she may always accompany those who suffer in their search for comfort and firm hope. May she assist all who are involved in the apostolate of mercy, so that they may become good Samaritans to their brothers and sisters afflicted by illness and suffering. To all I impart most willingly my Apostolic Blessing.

Audience: The greatest Christmas gift of all

Vatican Radio
Jan. 9, 2013

“In the Child of Bethlehem, God gives us the greatest gift possible, the gift of himself” and today we need to rediscover the “wonder” and “all-enveloping magnitude of this event”, because through the Incarnation God has revealed mankind’s “sublime dignity”.

The greatest Christmas gift of all and its real meaning and consequences for mankind were the focus of Pope Benedict XVI’s general audience Catechesis this Wednesday.


Below please find a Vatican Radio translation of the Holy Father’s audience text.


Dear Brothers and Sisters,

in this Christmas season we focus once again on the great mystery of God who came down from Heaven to take on our flesh. In Jesus, God became incarnate, He became man like us, and in doing so opened the door to heaven to us, to full communion with Him.

In these days, the word "incarnation" of God rang out several times in our churches, to express the reality we celebrate at Christmas: The Son of God became man, as we say in the Creed. What does this word, central to the Christian faith, mean? It is derived from the Latin "incarnatio." St. Ignatius of Antioch, and especially Saint Irenaeus have used this term reflecting on the Prologue of the Gospel of St. John, in particular on the expression "The Word became flesh" (Jn 1:14). Here the word "flesh", according to Hebrew tradition, refers to the person as a whole, under the aspect of his transience and temporality, his poverty and contingency. This is to say that the salvation wrought by God made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth touches man in his concrete reality and in every situation. God took on the human condition to heal it of all that separates us from Him, so that we can call Him, in his only begotten Son, by the name of "Abba, Father" and truly be his children. St. Irenaeus says, "This is why the Word became man, and the Son of God, Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God "(Adversus haereses, 3,19,1: PG 7.939; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 460).

"The Word became flesh" is one of those truths we have become so used to that the greatness of the vent it expresses hardly affects us any more. And indeed, in this Christmas season, in which the expression returns often in the liturgy, at times we are more concerned with outward appearances, the "colours" of the festivity, than what is at the heart of the great novelty that Christians celebrate, something absolutely unthinkable, that only God could operate and we can only enter with faith. The Logos which is with God, the Logos who is God (cf. Jn 1:1), through which they were created all things were created (cf. 1.3), which accompanied mankind with his light throughout history (cf. 1 0.4 to 5, 1.9), became flesh and made his dwelling place among us, became one of us (cf. 1:14). The Second Vatican Council says: "The Son of God ... worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin"(Gaudium et Spes, 22). It is important therefore, that we recover our wonder before this mystery, allow ourselves to be enveloped by the magnitude of this event: God walked our streets as man, he entered into the time of man, to communicate His life to us (cf. 1 Jn 1:1 - 4). And He did this not with the splendour of a sovereign, who subjugates the world with his power, but with the humility of a child.

A second element should also be underlined. At Christmas we usually exchange gifts with the people closest to us. Sometimes it may be an act done out of convention, but it generally expresses affection; it is a sign of love and esteem. In the prayer over the gifts at Christmas Mass we prayed: "Accept, O Lord, our offering in this night of light, and for this mysterious exchange of gifts transform us in Christ, your Son, who raised man next to you in glory". The idea of giving is at the heart of the liturgy and brings to our consciousness the original gift of Christmas: on that Holy night God, becoming flesh, wanted to become a gift for men, He gave a little of himself to us, took on our humanity to gift us His divinity. This is the great gift. Even in our giving is not important whether a gift is expensive or not; those who cannot afford to give a little of themselves, always give too little, indeed, sometimes they try to replace the heart and the meaning of giving with money or material things. The mystery of the Incarnation shows us that God did not do this: He did not give something; He gave himself in His only-begotten Son. Here we find the model for our giving, so that our relationships, especially the most important ones, are driven by generosity and love.

I would like to offer a third reflection: the fact of the Incarnation, of God becoming a man like us, shows us the unprecedented realism of Divine love. The action of God, in fact, is not limited to words, indeed we might say that he is not content to speak, but is immersed in our history and takes on fatigue and weight of human life. The Son of God became truly man, born of the Virgin Mary, in a specific time and place in Bethlehem during the reign of Augustus, under Governor Quirinius (Lk 2:1-2), he grew up in a family, had friends, he formed a group of disciples, he instructed the apostles to continue his mission, he completed the course of his earthly life on the Cross. This mode of action of God is a powerful stimulus to question the realism of our faith, which should not be limited to the sphere of feelings and emotions, but must enter into concrete existence, that is to touch our lives every day and direct them in a practical way. God did not stop at words, but He showed us how to live, sharing our own experience, except sin. The Catechism of St. Pius X, which some of us have studied as children, with its simplicity, to the question: "What should we do to live according to God?", gives this answer: "To live according to God we must believe the truth revealed by Him and keep His commandments with the help of His grace, which is obtained through the sacraments and prayer. " Faith has a fundamental aspect which affects not only the mind and the heart, but all of our lives.

A final element I propose for your consideration. St. John states that the Word, the Logos was with God from the beginning, and that all things were made through the Word, and nothing that exists was made without Him (cf. Jn 1:1-3). The Evangelist clearly alludes to the story of creation that is in the early chapters of Genesis, and read them in the light of Christ. This is a fundamental criterion in Christian reading of the Bible: the Old and New Testaments should always be read together and by beginning with the New the deepest sense also of the Old is disclosed. That same Word that has always existed with God, which is God Himself and by which and in view of which all things were created (cf. Col 1:16-17), became man: the eternal and infinite God immersed himself in human finitude, His creature, to bring man and the whole of creation to Him The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: " The first creation finds its meaning and its summit in the new creation in Christ, the splendour of which surpasses that of the first creation "(n. 349). The Fathers of the Church have likened Jesus to Adam, to the point of calling him the "second Adam" or the definitive Adam, the perfect image of God. With his incarnation the Son of God is a new creation, which gives the complete answer to the question "Who is man?". Only in Jesus is God's plan on the human being fully revealed: He is the definitive man according to God. The Second Vatican Council strongly reiterates: "In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear... Christ, the final Adam, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. "(Gaudium et Spes, 22; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 359). In this child, the Son of God contemplated at Christmas, we can recognize the true face of the human being, and only by opening action of his grace and trying every day to follow Him, do we realize God's plan for us.

Dear friends, in this period we meditate on the great and wonderful richness of the mystery of the Incarnation, to allow the Lord to enlighten us and transform us more and more to the image of his Son made man for us.

* * * * * I greet all the English-speaking visitors present, including the pilgrimage groups from Nigeria, Taiwan and Brazil. My cordial greeting goes to the Conference of Roman Catholic Cathedral Musicians from the United States. I also thank the choirs, including those from Saint Joseph University and from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for their praise of God in song. Upon all of you I invoke the Lord’s blessings of joy and peace!

The Pope’s message to the Vatican police: “Be kind”

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN INSIDER
Jan. 11, 2013

First they became targets in the Vatileaks scandal, mentioned in some documents that were published in a chapter of Italian writer Gianluigi Nuzzi’s book “Sua Santità” (“His Holiness”). Then they became protagonists in the scandal, as efficient investigators who helped uncover the poison pen letter writer by searching Paolo Gabriele’s home. Finally, they were again suspected of allegedly mistreating the Pope’s former butler during his detainment in the Vatican prison prior to the trial. This afternoon, Benedict XVI received the Vatican Gendarmerie in an audience, in which he expressed his support to the police force, urging its members to always be kind with pilgrims and visitors.

A statement issued by the Holy See said the Pope “had wanted to hold this audience in order to show encouragement to the police force and his gratefulness after a period of particularly tough challenges.” The reference to the Vatileaks scandal was implicit. General Domenico Giani gave a moving speech to Pope Benedict XVI in the Clementine Hall. Giani is a former Italian secret services agent, who re-militarised the Pope’s “guardian angels” after the demilitarisation ordered by Paul VI, kitting it out with the most cutting edge equipment. He thanked the Pope for his “deeply meaningful” gesture: “Inviting us all here today to meet you makes us immensely proud,” Giani said. The general thanked the Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, the President of the Governorate, Bertello, the Secretary General Sciacca and above all, Mgr. Georg Gänswein, the New Prefect of the Papal Household. “The entire Vatican family - he added – feel like little Cyrenians, serving you who carries the weight of humanity on your shoulders.”

Benedict XVI thanked the Gendarmerie for the “commendable commitment” shown to the “invaluable work” that they do. He expressed his esteem, encouragement and recognition for the work they carried out “discreetly, competently and efficiently and not without sacrifice.” “Every day I have the opportunity to meet some of you in your various workplaces and to witness your professionalism first hand,” the Pope added.

Ratzinger then said: “Amongst other things, the Gendarmerie is called to be polite and kind to pilgrims and visitors to the Vatican.” He explained that their surveillance and security work “sometimes requires a great deal of patience, perseverance and willingness to listen,” reiterating his invitation to members of the police to be kind: “In every pilgrim or visitor try to see the face of a brother that God has placed along your life path; greet them, therefore, with kindness and help them, feeling them as members of the great human family.” It is possible that these constant references to the importance of kindness could be in response to some complaints that were made by certain individuals in the diplomatic sphere about an incident that occurred in recent months, perhaps as a result of tensions over the Vatileaks scandal.

The Pope also sent out an informal invitation to heads of the Gendarmerie, to “increasingly foster relationships of trust that can offer support and encouragement tot all members of the Vatican Gendarmerie, even during tough moments.” This could be an indirect reference to tensions noted within the Vatican police force.

Despite the controversies and the documents published in Nuzzi’s book, General Giani remains firmly in place: the relationship of trust he shares with Cardinal Bertone and the Pope’s secretary is bulletproof and so there is no sign of changes being made to the Gendarmerie’s leadership, as presumed by those who foresaw the general taking up a position at Interpol. One likely change that is looming on the horizon is the replacement of the Gendarmerie’s number two man, the Vice Commander Raul Bonarelli, as he is approaching retirement age. The favourite to succeed Bonarelli is Colonel Costanzo Alessandrini, one of the men who is closest to General Giani. But there are some who think it is possible the new Vice Commander could come from the outside, possibly from one of the Pontifical universities. The individual chosen would preferably be someone with an administration/management-focused CV rather than an operational one.

Pope Benedict meets with Prince Albert II of Monaco

Vatican Radio
Jan. 12, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday met with Prince Albert II of Monaco, and his wife, Princess Charlene. The meeting marked the 55th anniversary of the meeting of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco with Pope Pius XII in 1957. According to a communiqué from the Vatican Press Office, their talks focused on the significant contribution of the Catholic Church in the social life of the Principality and various international issues, such as the integral development of peoples and the protection of natural resources and the environment. The couple gave Pope Benedict a picture and book about their ancestor, Cardinal Jerome Grimaldi, who lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Holy Father gave the prince and princess a sanguigna, or red pencil drawing, of St. Peter’s Basilica.


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Remember, tomorrow Benedict will baptize babies, always a touching and joyful event.

Vatican doctrinal chief says politics that ignore God are bound to fail

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
Jan. 11, 2013

ROME (CNS) -- Politicians who want to act as if God did not exist and as if there was no such thing as objective moral truths are bound to fail in their efforts to promote the common good, said the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

"The politics we have today in Europe and North America without ethical foundations, without a reference to God, cannot resolve our problems, even those of the market and money," said Archbishop Gerhard L. Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The archbishop, coordinator of the project to publish the complete works of Joseph Ratzinger-Pope Benedict XVI, said one of the key teachings of the pope is the importance of faith and reason going hand in hand.

Speaking Jan. 11 at a Vatican bookstore in downtown Rome, Archbishop Muller said, "Faith and reason are like two people who love each other deeply, who cannot live without each other, and who were intimately made for one another, so much so that they cannot be considered separate from one another and cannot reach their goals separately."

He quoted Pope Benedict XVI's speech to diplomats Jan. 7: "It is precisely man's forgetfulness of God, and his failure to give him glory, which gives rise to violence. Indeed, once we no longer make reference to an objective and transcendent truth, how is it possible to achieve an authentic dialogue?"

Archbishop Muller said that in the current run-up to Italian elections he has heard that some politicians want the Catholic Church to "talk about love, charity and mercy of God," but not insist that the truths it preaches be upheld.

"But where is love without truth?" the archbishop asked.

The archbishop made his comments during a short presentation of his new book in Italian, "Ampliare L'Orizzonte della Ragione. Per una Lettura di Joseph Ratzinger-Benedetto XVI," ("Broadening the Horizons of Reason: Reading Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI").

In the book, Archbishop Muller highlights: the importance Pope Benedict gives to the need for faith and reason to support and purify one another; the pope's insistence that Christianity is primarily about a relationship with Jesus Christ and not simply the acceptance of rules and doctrines; and the key role that studying the life and work of St. Augustine has had both on the pope's theology and on his ministry.

During the presentation, the archbishop also underscored how deeply Pope Benedict believes the liturgy, especially the Mass, is central to the life and future of the church.

The first volume of the pope's complete works in German to be translated into Italian was Volume 11 on the liturgy; the decision to begin with that, Archbishop Muller said, was "the express will of the Holy Father, because he said it is a decisive question for the church today and for its future."

"The liturgy is not just a memorial, but an encounter with God ... with Jesus Christ present among us," the archbishop said.

Pope Benedict believes the pre-Vatican II liturgy needed to be reformed, he said. The pope's position is not that of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, "with whom we are in discussions," but the pope also has taken pains to reverse the "many abuses" that took place with the reformed liturgy after the Second Vatican Council.

"The liturgy is very important for the church, and we must avoid these extremes of preserving forms at all costs and doing whatever one wants," he said.

Archbishop Muller said Catholics can rightly be proud of having such a great theologian as their pope. In fact, he said, he would list the pope -- along with the 18th-century Pope Benedict XIV and the fifth-century St. Leo the Great -- as the greatest theologian-popes.

At the same time, "the language of Benedict XVI is very simple," he said. "He has never used language to hermetically seal off his theology from people's real lives."

I didn't get to see this but it must have been amazing--20 babies!!!


Pope baptises babies on feast of Baptism of Our Lord

Vatican Radio
Jan. 13, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI baptised 20 babies in the Sistine Chapel Sunday, urging couples and godparents to lead their lives as an example of true Christian virtue even though it may seem unfashionable.

In his homily for this year’s celebration on the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, the Pope said “It's not always easy to openly and uncompromisingly show your beliefs, especially in the context in which we live, in a society that often considers unfashionable those who live out their faith in Jesus.”


Read the full text Vatican Radio’s unofficial translation of his homily here:


Dear brothers and sisters!

The joy arising from the celebration of Christmas finds its completion today in the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. To this joy is added another reason for those of us who are gathered here: in the Sacrament of Baptism that will soon be administered to these infants, the living and active presence of the Holy Spirit is manifested, enriching the Church with new children, enlivening and making them grow, and we cannot help but rejoice. I wish to extend a special greeting to you, dear parents and godparents, who today bear witness to your faith by requesting Baptism for these children, because they are regenerated to new life in Christ and become part of the community of believers.

The Gospel account of Jesus' baptism, which we have heard today according to St Luke’s account, shows the path of abasement and humility that the Son of God freely chose in order to adhere to the plan of the Father, to be obedient to His loving will for mankind in all things, even to the sacrifice on the Cross. Having reached adulthood, Jesus begins His public ministry by going to the River Jordan to receive from John the baptism of repentance and conversion. What happens may appear paradoxical to our eyes. Does Jesus need repentance and conversion? Of course not. Yet He Who is without sin is placed among the sinners to be baptized, to fulfil this act of repentance; the Holy One of God joins those who recognize in themselves the need for forgiveness and ask God for the gift of conversion – that is, the grace to turn to Him with their whole heart, to be totally His. Jesus wills to put Himself on the side of sinners, by being in solidarity with them, expressing the nearness of God. Jesus shows solidarity with us, with our effort to convert, to leave behind our selfishness, to detach ourselves from our sins, saying to us that if we accept Him into our lives, He is able to raise us up and lead us the heights of God the Father. And this solidarity of Jesus is not, so to speak, a mere exercise of the mind and will. Jesus was really immersed in our human condition; He lived it to the utmost – although without sin – and in such a way that He understands weakness and fragility. Therefore He is moved to compassion; He chooses to “suffer with” men, to be penitent together with us. This is the work of God that Jesus wishes to accomplish: the divine mission to heal those who are wounded and to cure those who are sick, to take upon Himself the sin of the world.

What happens at the moment when Jesus was baptized by John? In the face of this humble act of love on the part of the Son of God, the heavens open and the Holy Spirit is visibly manifested in the form of a dove, while a voice from on high expresses the pleasure of the Father, Who recognizes the Only-begotten Son, the Beloved. It is a true manifestation of the Holy Trinity, which gives testimony to the divinity of Jesus, to His being the promised Messiah, the One whom God has sent to free His people, so that His people might be saved (cf. Is 40, 2). Thus is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that we heard in the first reading: the Lord God comes with power to destroy the works of sin and His arm exercises dominion to disarm the Evil one; but keep in mind that this arm is the arm extended on the Cross, and the power of Christ is the power of the One who suffers for us: this is the power of God, differing from the power of the world. Thus God comes in power to destroy sin. Jesus truly acts as the good shepherd, that feeds His flock and gathers it together so that it will not be scattered (cf. Is 40, 10-11), and offers His own life that it might live. It is through His redemptive death that man is freed from the dominion of sin and reconciled with the Father; and through His resurrection that man is saved from eternal death and is made victorious over the Evil one.

Dear brothers and sisters, what happens in Baptism, which will soon be administered to your children? What happens is this: they will be united in a profound way and forever with Jesus, immersed in the mystery of His power, that is, in the mystery of His death, which is the source of life, in order to share in His resurrection, to be reborn to new life. See the miracle that is repeated today for your children: receiving baptism, they are reborn as children of God, partakers of the filial relationship that Jesus has with the Father, able to turn to God and call upon Him with full trust and confidence: “Abba, Father!” On your children, too, the heavens are opened, and God says: “these are my children, with whom I am well pleased.” Inserted into this relationship and freed from original sin, they become living members of the unique body which is the Church, and are enabled to live fully their vocation to holiness, so as to inherit eternal life, obtained for us by the resurrection of Jesus.

Dear parents, in asking for Baptism for your children, you manifest and bear witness to your faith, to the joy of being a Christian and of belonging to the Church. It is the joy that comes from knowing you have received a great gift from God – the faith – a gift that none of us have merited, but that has been freely given and to which we have responded with our “yes.” It is the joy of recognizing ourselves as children of God, of discovering that we have been entrusted into His hands, to know that we are welcomed into a loving embrace, in the same way that a mother supports and embraces her child. This joy, that directs the path of every Christian, is based on a personal relationship with Jesus, a relationship that guides the whole of human existence. He, in fact, is the meaning of our life, the One upon Whom it is worthy to gaze, in order to be enlightened by His Truth and be able to live life to the fullest. The way of faith that begins today for these children is therefore based on a certainty, on the experience that there is nothing greater than to know Christ and to communicate friendship with Him to others; only in this friendship is the great potential of the human condition truly revealed and we can experience what is beautiful and what is free (cf. Homily at Mass for the beginning of his pontificate, April 24, 2005). Those who have this experience are not willing to give up their faith for anything in the world.

Dear godfathers and godmothers, yours is the important duty of supporting and contributing to the work of parents in education, working alongside them in the transmission of the truths of faith and in witnessing to the values ​​of the Gospel, in raising these children in an ever deeper friendship with the Lord. May you always give them your good example, through the exercise of Christian virtues. It is not easy to demonstrate what you believe in openly and without compromise, especially in the context in which we live, in the face of a society that often considers those who live by faith in Jesus to be old-fashioned and out of date. In the wake of this mentality, there can be, even among Christians, the risk of understanding the relationship with Jesus as limiting, as something that is detrimental to personal fulfilment, “God is seen as a limitation of our freedom, a limitation that destroys man’s ability to be himself” (The Infancy of Jesus, 101). But it is not so! This view demonstrates that it has understood nothing of the relationship with God, because, proceeding along the path of faith, we understand that Jesus exercises over us the freeing action of God's love that takes us beyond our selfishness and keeps us from being turned in on ourselves, in order to lead a full life, a life in communion with God and open to others. “‘God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God abides in him’ (1 Jn 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny” (Encyclical Deus caritas est, 1).

The water with which these children will be signed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit immerses them in the “fount” of life that is God Himself and that will make them His own children. And the seed of the theological virtues, infused by God – faith, hope and charity – the seed that today is placed in their hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit, must always be fed by the Word of God and the Sacraments, so that these virtues of the Christian can grow and reach full maturity, in order to make each one of them a true witness of the Lord. While we invoke upon these little children the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we entrust them to the protection of the Holy Virgin: May she always guard them with her maternal presence and accompany them at every moment of their lives. Amen.

Pope Benedict: may we be renewed in our Baptism

Vatican Radio
Jan. 13, 2013

Appearing at his study window at midday Sunday, Pope Benedict greeted thousands of pilgrims gathered under drizzling rain in Saint Peter’s Square. In his remarks at the Angelus prayer, the Pope spoke of Sunday’s Feast of the Baptism of the Lord and invited Catholics to “contemplate our share in the divine life through the gift of the Holy Spirit in the waters of Baptism.”

The Holy Father was speaking to pilgrims after having celebrated the traditional feast day liturgy in the Sistine Chapel where he baptised twenty babies.

In his remarks to English speaking pilgrims, the Pope said “May we be renewed in our own Baptism and strengthened in witness to the Gospel and its promises!”


The following is Vatican Radio's unofficial translation of the Pope's Angelus address:

Dear brothers and sisters!

This Sunday after the Epiphany ends the liturgical season of Christmas time: time of light, the light of Christ, as new sun appearing on the horizon of humanity, dispels the darkness of evil and ignorance. Today we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus: the Child, the son of the Virgin, whom we contemplated in the mystery of his birth, we see today an adult emerging himself in the waters of the Jordan River, thus sanctifying the waters and the entire cosmos - as evidenced by the Eastern tradition.

But why did Jesus, in whom there was no shadow of sin, go to be baptized by John? Because he wanted to make that gesture of penance and conversion, along with so many people who wanted to prepare for the coming of the Messiah? That gesture - which marks the beginning of Jesus' public life, takes the same line of the Incarnation, of God's descent from the highest to the abyss of hell.

The meaning of this downward movement of God can be summed up in one word: love, which is the name of God. The Apostle John writes: "In this was manifested the love of God in us, that God sent into the world his only Son so that we might live through him" and He sent him" as a victim of expiation for our sins "(1 Jn 4.9 to 10). That is why the first public act of Jesus was His baptism by John, who, seeing him, said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (Jn 1:29).

The Evangelist Luke recounts that when Jesus once baptised, “was praying, the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit in a bodily shape like a dove descended upon him, and a voice came from heaven: "You are the Son my beloved, in you I am well pleased '"(3:21-22).

This Jesus is the Son of God who is totally immersed in the will of the Father's love. This Jesus is the One who died on the cross and resurrected by the power of the same Spirit that now rests upon Him, and consecrates him. This Jesus is the new man who wants to live as a son of God, that is in love; the man who, in the face of evil in the world, chooses the path of humility and responsibility, chooses not to save himself but give his own life for truth and justice.

Being Christian means living like this, but this kind of life involves a rebirth: reborn from above, from God, by grace. This rebirth is Baptism, which Christ has given to the Church to regenerate men to new life. An ancient text attributed to St. Hippolytus says: "Who enters with faith in this bath of rebirth, renounces the devil and sides with Christ, denies the enemy and recognizes that Christ is God, is stripped of slavery and is clothed in filial adoption "(Discourse on the epiphany, 10: PG 10, 862).

According to tradition, this morning I had the joy of baptising a large group of children who were born in the last three or four months. At this time I would like to extend my prayer and my blessing to all newborns, but especially encourage everyone to make a memorial of his or her own Baptism, to the spiritual rebirth that has opened the way to eternal life. May every Christian, in this Year of Faith, rediscover the beauty of being born again from above, from the love of God, and live as a child of God.

BENEDICT XVI PRAISES WORK OF VATICAN'S PUBLIC SAFETY INSPECTORATE

Vatican City, 14 January 2013 (VIS) - This morning the Holy Father received members of the General Inspectorate of Public Safety in the Vatican as is customary at the beginning of the new year, to exchange greetings for the new year. In his address he emphasized the dedication and professionalism with which they undertake their tasks, especially during events with faithful and pilgrims who "arrive from all over the world to meet the successor of Peter and to visit the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, as well as to pray at the tombs of my venerated predecessors, particularly Blessed John Paul II.

The Pope recalled that the duty of the members of the Inspectorate also extends to his pastoral visits and apostolic trips to Italy and he thanked them for "the manner and spirit that animate your vigilant and qualified service. It is a manner that, at the same time that it honours your identity as functionaries of the Italian State and members of the Church, also attests to the good relations between Italy and the Holy See." He also expressed the desire that this task, not exempt from sacrifice and danger, be always inspired by "a steadfast Christian faith that is, undoubtedly, the most precious treasure and spiritual valour that your families have entrusted you with and which you are called to impart to your children. The Year of Faith that the entire Church is now living is also, for you, an opportunity to return to the Gospel message in order to let it enter more deeply into your consciences and your daily life, courageously witnessing to the love of God in every area, even that of your jobs."

"May your presence be," he concluded, "an ever more valid guarantee of that good order and tranquillity that are fundamental to building a peaceful and calm social life and that, besides being taught by the Gospel message, are a sign of true civilization."

Abp. Müller: Pope is man of wide horizons

Vatican Radio
Jan. 15, 2013

“I've known few people in life with such a breadth of vision and intellectual preparation” says Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, speaking about Joseph Ratzinger – now Pope Benedict XVI – and his teaching both before and after his election to the Chair of Peter. Archbishop Müller, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, recently presented the book “Expanding the Horizon of Reason” which aims at presenting a “reading” of the teaching of the theologian Pope.

In an interview with Alessandro De Carolis, Archbishop Müller speaks about Pope Benedict and his works:

Abp. Müller: [Pope Benedict] has come a long way in his life and in his reflections. He began at age 15; he is now 85. So he has over seventy years of deep reflection and meditation. He has had many experiences in his life: as a young man, he experienced Nazism and fascism, war, various events of human life ... For this reason, he has never been an intellectual who lives in an ivory tower, but is present in the life of all people, deeply embedded in the history of the twentieth century, but also in the current moment. He is one of the few men to have such wide horizons: he knows the development of philosophy in Europe, starting with the Greeks and Romans, and ending with the modern philosophers. He knows, too, the history of the Church, the questions and challenges posed by the natural sciences today. I know few people with this depth of thought, which is so necessary today.

De Carolis: In his years of service as the Pope, Benedict XVI has shown that even a great theologian can speak the language of the common people, finding new expressions for the ancient truths of the faith. What is striking about this?

Müller: We say: Jesus Christ is the Word of God, but when He came to this world, He spoke in a very simple way, to the hearts of all. He did speak to the Pharisees, to the great intellectuals of the world of His time, but always witnessed to the great respect that God has for all people. For this reason, it is necessary and very important that all theologians should be pastors who reach out to all, because God loves not only intellectuals and geniuses, but all people.

De Carolis: In a paragraph from the book you address the issue of the language of new media. What is particularly relevant in the specific Magisterium of Benedict XVI?

Müller: Faith and Revelation are means that God uses to communicate with us. Through these media we are able to communicate, not in an ideological fashion - that is, wanting to influence people against their reason - but in an open dialogue with the truth, because only truth can save humanity – not propaganda.

Audience: The face of God revealed in Christ

Vatican Radio
Jan. 16, 2013

Torrential rains swept St Peter’s Wednesday as pilgrims huddled in queues waiting to enter the Paul VI hall for the weekly audience with Pope Benedict XVI. In his catechesis the Holy Father continued his series of lessons on the Year of Faith, focusing this week on God’s Revelation of Himself to humanity in Jesus Christ.

“During the Christmas season we celebrated the mystery of the Incarnation as the culmination of God’s gradual self-revelation to Israel, a revelation mediated by those great figures such as Moses and the Prophets who kept alive the expectation of God’s fulfilment of his promises. Jesus, the Word made flesh, is truly God among us, “the mediator and the fullness of all revelation” (Dei Verbum, 2). In him, the ancient blessing is fulfilled: God has made his face to shine upon us (cf. Num 6:25). As the Incarnate Son, the one mediator between God and man (cf. 1 Tim 2:5), Jesus does not simply speak to us about God; he shows us the very face of God and enables us to call him our Father. As he says to the apostle Philip, “whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). May our desire to see the Lord’s face grow through our daily encounter with him in prayer, in meditation on his word and in the Eucharist, and thus prepare us to contemplate for ever the light of his countenance in the fullness of his eternal Kingdom”.



Below a Vatican Radio translation of the Holy Father’s full catechesis:


Dear Brothers and Sisters,

the Second Vatican Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, affirms that the intimate truth of the Revelation of God, shines for us "in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of all Revelation" (n. 2 ). The Old Testament tells us how God, after creation, despite original sin, despite the arrogance of man who wants to take the place of his Creator, again offers the possibility of His friendship, especially through the covenant with Abraham and the journey of a small nation, that of Israel, which He chooses not with the criteria of earthly power, but simply out of love. It is a choice that remains a mystery and reveals the way of God calls some not to exclude others, but so they become bridges that lead to Him. Electing, always electing the other. In the history of the people of Israel we can retrace the steps of a long journey in which God makes Himself known, reveals Himself, enters into history in words and actions. For this work He uses mediators, such as Moses, the Prophets, the Judges, who communicate His wishes to the people, remind us of the need for fidelity to the covenant and keep alive expectation for the full and definitive realization of the divine promises.

And it is the realization of these promises that we have contemplated in Christmas: God's Revelation reaches its peak, its fullness. In Jesus of Nazareth, God truly visits His people, He visits humanity in a way that goes beyond all expectations: He sends His only begotten Son who became man. Jesus tells us something about God, he does not simply speak about the Father, but is the revelation of God. In the Prologue to his Gospel, Saint John writes: "No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed Him"(Jn 1:18).

I would like to focus on this "has revealed Him". In this regard, St. John, in his Gospel, speaks to us of a significant fact, that we have just heard. Approaching the Passion, Jesus assures his disciples, urging them not to be afraid and to have faith; then, he begins a dialogue with them in which he speaks of God the Father (cf. Jn 14.2 to 9). At one point, the apostle Philip asks Jesus, "Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us" (Jn 14:8). Philip is very practical and concrete, he says what we all want to say: he asks to "see" the Father, to see His face. The answer of Jesus, not only to Philipp but to all of us, introduces us to the heart of the Church's Christological faith; For the Lord says: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9).This expression summarizes the novelty of the New Testament, the novelty that appeared in the cave of Bethlehem: God can be seen, he showed his face is visible in Jesus Christ.

The theme of "seeking the face of God", the desire to see this face, to see how God really is, is present throughout the Old Testament, so much so that the Hebrew term pānîm, which means "face", occurs no less than 400 times, 100 of which refer to God. Yet the Jewish religion, by prohibiting all images, because God can not be depicted - as their neighbors did with the worship of idols, and from this the prohibition of images in the Old Testament- seems to totally exclude "seeing" from worship and piety. What does seek the face of God mean then, for the pious Israelite, recognizing that there can be no image? The question is important: on the one hand it is as if to say that God can not be reduced to an object, like an image that can be picked up, but neither can anything can take God’s place; on the other, it is affirmed that God has a face, that He is a "You" that can enter into a relationship, that He is not closed within Heaven looking down upon humanity. God is certainly above all else, but He turns to us and hears, sees and speaks to us, makes covenants, He is capable of love. Salvation history is the history of this relationship of God with humanity, of this relationship in which He progressively reveals Himself to man, making Himself and His face known.

Right at the beginning of the year, on January 1, we heard, in the liturgy, the beautiful prayer of blessing over the people: "The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!"(Numbers 6:24-26). The splendour of the divine face is the source of life, it is what allows us to see reality; and the light of his countenance is our guide in life. In the Old Testament there is a figure which is connected in a very special way the theme of the "face of God”; Moses, whom God chose to free the people from slavery in Egypt, to gift the Law of the covenant and to lead them to the Promised Land. In chapter 33 of the Book of Exodus, it is said that Moses had a close and confidential relationship with God: "The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as one speaks with his friend" (v. 11). By virtue of this confidence, Moses asks God: "Show me thy glory," and the Lord's answer is clear: "I will will make all my beauty pass before you, and in your presence I will pronounce my name ... But my face you cannot see, for no man sees me and still lives ... Here is a place near me ... so that you may see my back; but my face is not to be seen "(vv. 18-23). On the one hand, then, there is a face to face dialogue, as friends, but on the other there is the impossibility, in this life, of seeing the face of God, which remains hidden; its’ vision is limited. The Fathers say this: you can only see my back, which means that you can only follow Christ and see from behind the mystery of God. We can only follow God, seeing his back.

Something new happens, however, with the Incarnation. The search for the face of God receives an incredible sea change, because we can now see this face: it is that of Jesus, the Son of God who became man. In Him the path of God's Revelation that began with the call to Abraham is fulfilled, He is the fullness of this Revelation because he is the Son of God, he is both a "mediator and fullness of all Revelation" (Dogmatic Constitution. Dei Verbum, 2), and in Him the content of Revelation and Revelator coincide. Jesus shows us the face of God and teaches us the name of God in the priestly prayer at the Last Supper, He says to the Father: "I have manifested thy name to the men ... I made known your name to them " (cf. Jn 17,6.26). The term "name of God" means God as the One who is present among men. God had revealed his name to Moses at the burning bush, to be invoked, giving a concrete sign of His "existence" among men. All this finds fulfillment and fullness in Jesus: He inaugurates a new modality of God's presence in history, because he who sees Him sees the Father, as he tells Philip (cf. Jn 14:9). Christianity - says Saint Bernard - is the "religion of the Word of God," which is not, however, "a written and mute word, but an incarnate and living one" (Hom. super missus est, IV, 11: PL 183, 86B). In the of patristic and medieval tradition a special formula is used to express this reality: Jesus is the Verbum abbreviatum (cf. Rom 9.28, referring to Isaiah 10:23), the short and substantial Word of the Father, of whom he told us everything. In Jesus all of the word is present.

In Jesus even mediation between God and man is fulfilled. In the Old Testament there is a host of figures who preformed this task, particularly Moses, the deliverer, the guide, the "mediator" of the covenant, as defined by the New Testament (cf. Gal 3:19; Acts 7 , 35, Jn 1:17). Jesus, true God and true man, is not simply one of the mediators between God and man, but is "the mediator" of the new and everlasting covenant (cf. Heb 8:6; 9.15, 12.24), "For there is one God- St Paul says - There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human "(1 Tim 2:5, Gal 3:19-20). In him we see and meet the Father, in Him we can invoke God as "Abba, Father" in Him we are gifted salvation. The desire to really know God, to see his face is in every man, even the atheists. And we consciously have this desire to see just who He is and what He is for us. But this desire is only realized by following Christ, so we see his back and finally, see, God as a friend, His face in the face of Christ. It is important that we follow Christ not only in times of need and when we find space in our daily tasks, but with our very lives.

Our entire existence should be directed to the encounter with Him, to love Him; and, love of neighbour must also have a central place, a love that, in the light of the Crucifix, enables us to recognize the face of Jesus in the poor, the weak, the suffering. This is only possible if the true face of Jesus has become familiar to us in listening to His Word, and especially in the mystery of the Eucharist. In the Gospel of St. Luke the passage of the two disciples of Emmaus, who recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread, is significant. For us, the Eucharist is the great school in which we learn to see the face of God, where we enter into an intimate relationship with Him and learn at the same time to turn our gaze to the final moment of history, when He will fill us with the light of His face. On earth we walk towards this fullness, in the joyful expectation for the coming of the Kingdom of God

Appeal

The day after tomorrow, Friday, January 18, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins, which this year has the theme: "What the Lord requires of us," inspired by a passage from the prophet Micah (cf. Mi 6, 6 - 8). I invite everyone to pray, asking God with insistence for the great gift of unity among the disciples of the Lord. May the inexhaustible power of the Holy Spirit encourage us in a sincere commitment to the search for unity, so that together we may all profess that Jesus is the Savior of the world.

Greetings

I am pleased to greet all the English-speaking visitors present at today’s Audience, including the pilgrimage groups from Australia and the United States of America. My particular greeting goes to the pilgrims from the Catholic Near East Welfare Association. I also welcome the deacons from Saint Paul Seminary and the many college and university students present. May the light of the Lord’s face shine upon all of you and fill you with his richest blessings of joy and peace!

Although Papa won't be involved in this celebration, I'll bet he won't be able to resist taking a peek out his window at the scene. It sounds like a great event for kids.


A FARM UNDER HEAVEN IN ST. PETER'S SQUARE

Vatican City, 15 January 2013 (VIS) – Thursday, 17 January, in celebration of the Feast of St. Anthony Abbot, patron and protector of animals, the Italian Association of Livestock Farmers (AIA) will hold its traditional exhibition of farm animals, "A Farm under Heaven", in front of St. Peter's Square.

The day will officially begin with Mass for the farmers and their families to be celebrated in the Vatican Basilica at 10:30 a.m., presided by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, vicar general of His Holiness for Vatican City. This will be followed by the solemn blessing of a procession of horses and riders along Via della Conciliazione. Even from 9:00 a.m. on, however, in the Pio XII Square directly in front of the Bernini colonnade around St. Peter's Square, there will be an exhibit of the national agriculture and livestock association's production including cows, goats, sheep, chickens, and more.

Just as in past years, pet owners are invited to bring their cats and dogs for a free check-up from veterinarians provided by the association.

The tradition of celebrating St. Anthony Abbot's feastday, deeply rooted in the farming community, is very widespread in all of the Italian agricultural communities. In the words of the president of AIA, Nino Andena, "it is a moment of celebration that we want to share with others in order to testify to the active role of farmers and ranchers within society."