AUDIENCE OF 12/10/08
Catechesis #16 of the Pauline Year Cycle
Here is a translation of the official text of the Holy Father's catechesis at his Wednesday audience this week. The release of the text was delayed overnight, apparently to transcribe the actual text delivered by the Pope who extemporized in a number of places.
Dear brothers and sisters,
Following St. Paul, we saw two things in the catechesis last Wednesday. The first is that our human history was poisoned from the start by the abuse of freedom which aimed to emancipate man from divine will.
Thus, he does not find true freedom but places himself in opposition to the truth, and consequently, falsifies our human realities. Above all, it (the abuse of freedom) falsifies fundamental relations - with God, between man and woman, between man and the earth.
We said that this poisoning of our history has spread throughout its fabric and that this inherited defect has been growing and is now visible everywhere.
The second was this: We learned from St. Paul that in Jesus Christ - he who is God and man - there came to be a new beginning in history and to history. With him, who came from God, a new story began that started with his Yes to the Father, founded not on the arrogance of false emancipation, but on love and truth.
Now the question is: how can we enter into this new beginning, into this new story? How does this new story get to me?
With the first poisoned story we are inevitably linked by our
biological descendance
[the official text corrects the 'theological' that was used in the OR article] since we all belong to the single body of mankind.
But the communion with Jesus, the new birth, the new humanity, how are they realized? How does Jesus come into my life, into my being?
The fundamental response of St. Paul, of the entire New Testament is - through the Holy Spirit.
If the first story comes to us, so to speak, through biology, the second comes in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Risen Christ. This Spirit created at Pentecost the start of a new humanity, of the new community - the Church, the Body of Christ.
But we must be even more concrete: this Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, how can it become my Spirit? The answer is that in happens through three modalities that are intimately connected to each other.
The first is this: the Spirit of Christ knocks at the doors of my heart, it touches me intimately. But in order that the new humanity should be a true body, so that the spirit can unite us and truly create a community - since the new beginning is characterized by overcoming divisions and creating the aggregation of what is dispersed - this Spirit of Christ visibly avails itself of two elements of visible aggregation: the word of announcement, and the sacraments, particularly Baptism and the Eucharist.
In the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul says: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (10,9), that is, you will have entered into a new history - a story of life and not of death.
Then St. Paul continues: "But how can they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can people preach unless they are sent?" (10,14-15). In a succeeding passage, he says: "Faith comes from listening" (Rom 10,17).
Faith is not a product of our thinking, of our reflection - it is something new that we cannot invent but can only receive as a gift, as a novelty produced by God.
Faith does not come from reading but from listening. It is not just an internal thing but a relationship with Someone. It presupposes an encounter with the announcement, it presupposes the existence of an 'other' who announces and creates communion.
Finally, he who makes the announcement does not speak for himself, but is sent. He is within a structure of mission that starts with Jesus sent by the Father, and goes down to the apostles - the word 'apostles' means 'messengers' - and continues in the ministry, in the missions handed down by the apostles.
The new fabric of history appears in this structure of missions, in which ultimately we hear God himself speaking, his personal word - his Son - speaks to us, comes down to us.
The Word was made flesh - Jesus - in order to truly create a new humanity. Therefore, the word of announcement becomes a sacrament in Baptism, which is a rebirth from water and the Spirit, as St. John would say.
In Chapter 6 of the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul speaks very profoundly of Baptism - we heard the text but it is useful to repeat it here: "Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life" (6,3-4).
Naturally, in this catechesis, I cannot enter into a detailed interpretation of a text that is not easy. I wish to note briefly three things.
The first: "We have been baptized" is a passive statement. No one can baptize himself, he needs somebody else. No one can make himself Christian all by himself. To become Christian is a passive process. Only from another can we become Christians. And that 'other' that makes us Christians, which gives us the gift of faith, is first of all, the community of believers, the Church.
From the Church, we receive our faith in Baptism. Without allowing ourselves to be formed by this community, we do not become Christians. An autonomous, self-made Christianity is a self-contradiction.
In the first instance then, this other is the community of believers, the Church, but even this community does not act by itself, according to its own ideas and desires. Even the community lives in the same passive process: only Christ can constitute the Church. Christ is the true giver of the Sacraments. This is the first point: No one baptizes himself, no one makes himself Christian. We become Christians.
The second point is this: Baptism is more than just a cleansing: it is death and resurrection. Paul himself, speaking in the letter to the Galatians about the turning point in his life realized in his encounter with the Risen Christ, describes it with the words, "I died". At that point, a new life really starts for him.
To become a Christian is not a cosmetic operation that would add something beautiful to an existence that is already more or less complete. It is a new beginning and a rebirth: death and resurrection. Obviously, in resurrection, what was good in the preceding existence re-emerges.
The third point: Matter is part of the sacrament. Christianity is not something that is purely spiritual. It involves the body. It involves the cosmos. It extends towards the new earth and new heavens.
Let us return to the last words in the text of St. Paul, who says, we can "walk in a new life". An element for examination of conscience by us all: to walk in a new life. That is Baptism.
Now we come to the sacrament of the Eucharist. I have shown in earlier catecheses with what profound respect St. Paul verbally transmits the tradition on the Eucharist which he received from the witnesses of that last night. He transmits these words like a precious treasure entrusted to his faithfulness.
And so, we really hear in these words the witnesses of the Last Supper: "For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me'. In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me'" (1 Cor 11, 23-25).
It is an inexhaustible text. Even here, two brief observations. Paul transmits the words of the Lord over the chalice: this chalice is 'the new covenant in my blood'. In these words are hidden a reference to two fundamental texts from the Old Testament.
The first reference is to the promise of a new covenant in the book of the prophet Jeremiah (cfr 31,31-34). Jesus tells the apostles and tells us: Now, at this hour, with me and in my death, the new covenant will be realized; from my blood will start the new story of mankind.
But there is also another reference, in these words, to the moment of the covenant on Sinai, where Moses said, "This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words of his"(Ex 24,8).
In this case, it was the blood of animals. The blood of animals can only be an expression of a desire, an anticipation of the true sacrifice, of the true worship. With the gift of the chalice, the Lord gives us the true sacrifice. The only true sacrifice is the love of the Son. With his gift of love, eternal love, the world enters into the new covenant.
Celebrating the Eucharist means that Christ gives himself to us, his love, so we may conform ourselves to him and thus create a new world.
The second important aspect of the doctrine on the Eucharist appears in the same First Letter to the Corinthians where St. Paul says: "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf" (10,16-17).
These words show both the personal as well as the social character of the sacrament of the Eucharist. Christ unites personally with each of us, but he also unites with the man and the woman next to me. The bread is for me as well as for others. Thus, he unites us all to him, and all of us with each other.
We receive Christ in communion. But Christ unites equally with my neighbor. Christ and my neighbor are inseparable in the Eucharist. Thus we are all one bred, one body.
Eucharist without solidarity with others is an abuse of the Eucharist. Here we are at the root which is also the center of the doctrine of the Church as the Body of Christ, of the Risen Christ. We can also see all the realism of this doctrine.
Christ gives us his Body in the Eucharist, he gives himself in his body, and so he makes us his body, he unites us to his risen body. If man eats ordinary bread, the bread becomes, through the process of digestion, part of his body, transformed to the substance of human life.
In Holy Communion, the inverse process happens. Christ the Lord assimilates us into himself, he introduces us into his glorious body, and thus all of us together become his body.
Whoever reads only Chapter 12 of the First Letter to the Corinthians and Chapter 12 of the Letter to the Romans may think that the image of the body of Christ as an organism is only a kind of sociological-theological parable.
Actually, in Roman politology, this symbol of the body with different members that form a unity was used for the State itself, to say that the State is an organism in which everyone has a function: the multiplicity and diversity of functions together make up a body in which everyone has his place.
Just reading Chapter 12 of the Letter to the Corinthians, one might think that Paul was translating this (symbol) only to the Church, and that even here, it only implies a sociology of the Church.
But if we keep the Pauline text in mind (Chapter 10), we will see that the realism of the Church is something else - much more profound and true than that of a State-organism. Because Christ really gives his body and makes us his body. We become truly united with the resurrected body of Christ, and thus united with one another.
The Church is not a corporation like the State - it is a body. It is not an organization but an organism.
Finally, just a brief word about the sacrament of matrimony. In the first Letter to the Corinthians, we find only a few references, whereas the Letter to the Ephesians truly develops a profound theology of matrimony.
Paul defines matrimony as 'a great mystery' (6,32). He says it in reference to Christ and his Church. This passage highlights a reciprocity which is configured in a vertical dimension. The language of love should adopt a reciprocal submission which has its model in the love of Christ for the Church.
This relationship between Christ and the Church makes the theological aspect of matrimonial love primary - it exalts the affective relationship between spouses. An authentic matrimony will be lived best if in its constant human and affective growth, it always remains linked to the efficacy of the Word and the significance of Baptism.
Christ has sanctified the Church, purifying it through a washing with water accompanied by the Word. Participation in the body and blood of the Lord cements and makes visible a union that has been rendered indissoluble by grace.
Finally, let us listen to the words of St. Paul to the Philippians: "The Lord is near" (4,5). I think we have understood that through the Word and through the sacraments, in all our life, the Lord is near.
Let us pray to him so that we may always be touched in the intimacy of our being by this, his nearness, so that joy may be born, since it must be born wherever Jesus is truly near.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For comparison purposes, I am keeping this translation of the 'provisional' text and earlier comments here.
As mentioned earlier, tomorrow's issue of L'Osservatore Romano does not contain the 'official text' of the Holy Father's catechesis today but what amounts to a lengthy paraphrase.
Actually, thanks to Vatican Radio's podcast of the catechesis
media01.vatiradio.va/podcast/00141619.MP3
which enables me to listen to it over and over on a loop, I followed the Pope's delivery against the text published in OR.
It turns out that the 'paraphrase' actually uses the Pope's prepared text, because he substantially delivered it as reported. Except that here and there in delivery, he interjected a few additional phrases or sentences, or altered the syntax of a few sentences, but obviously, never in any way that substantially alters the message - only to emphasize a point better or to express it more colloquially.
Therefore I will translate the OR article - which studiously avoids using quotation marks - as the Pope's basic text, thus avoiding the attributive phrases like "the Pope said' or 'the Pope underlined' or 'the Pope emphasized' that it necesssarily uses. But I will use suspension points at the places where he inserts something that I cannot transcribe faithfully because his voice fades at certain points, and italics for the additions I am positive about.
The theology of the sacraments
according to St. Paul:
The Church is a Body
not an organization
Translated from
the 12/11/08 issue of
The catechesis of the Holy Father at the General Audience of December 10 at the Aula Paolo VI was dedicated to St. Paul's theology of the sacraments.
Provisional Text
CATECHESIS #16 OF THE PAULINE CYCLE
Following St. Paul, we saw two things in the catechesis last Wednesday. The first is that our human history was poisoned from the start by the abuse of freedom which aimed to emancipate man from divine will.
Thus, he does not find true freedom but places himself in opposition to the truth, and consequently, falsifies our human realities. Above all, it (the abuse of freedom) falsifies fundamental relations - with God, between man and woman, between man and the earth.
We said that this poisoning of our history has spread throughout its fabric and that this inherited defect is permanently growing and visible everywhere.
The second was this: We learned from St. Paul that in Jesus Christ, there came to be a new beginning in history and to history. With him, who came from God, a new story began that started with his Yes to the Father, not from the arrogance of false emancipation, but from love and truth.
Now the question is: how can we enter into this new beginning, into this new story? How does this new story get to me?
With the first poisoned story we are inevitably linked by our biological descendance [wrongly transcribed in the OR article as 'theological', which makes no sense] since we all belong to the single body of mankind.
But the communion with Jesus, the new birth, the new humanity, how are they realized? How does Jesus come into my life, into my being?
The fundamental response of St. Paul, of the entire New Testament is - through the Holy Spirit.
If the first story comes to us, so to speak, through biology [again, the OR transcription is 'theology'; in both cases, the Pope clearly says 'biologica' and 'biologia'], the second comes in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Risen Christ. This Spirit created at Pentecost the start of a new humanity, of the new community - the Church, the Body of Christ.
But we must be even more concrete: this Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, how can it become my Spirit? The answer is through three modalities that are intimately connected to each other.
The first: the Spirit of Christ knocks at the doors of my heart, it touches me intimately. But in order that the new humanity should be a true body, so that the spirit can unite us and truly create a community...., this Spirit of Christ visibly avails itself of two instruments, completely dissimilar: the word of announcement, and the sacraments, particularly Baptism and the Eucharist.
In the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul says: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (10,9), that is, you will have entered into a new history - a story of life and not of death.
Then St. Paul continues: "But how can they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can people preach unless they are sent?" (10,14-15).
In another text, he says briefly: faith comes from listening. If faith is not a product of our thinking, of our reflection, it is something new that we cannot invent but can only receive as a gift, as a novelty made by God.
Faith does not come from reading but from listening. It is not just an internal thing but a relationship.... [Here, he has his longest insertion - that it presupposes an encounter between the one who announces and the one who listens, it presupposes therefore an 'other' who makes the announcement]
Because finally, the announcement does not speak for itself but it is something sent, It is within a structure of mission that starts with Jesus sent by the Father, and goes down to the apostles - the word 'apostles' means 'messengers' - and continues in the ministry, in the missions handed down by the apostles.
The new fabric of history appears in this structure of missions, in which ultimately we hear God himself speaking, his personal word - his Son - speaks to us; the Word of God comes down to us.
The Word was made flesh in Jesus, to truly create a new humanity. Therefore, the announcement becomes a sacrament in Baptism - a rebirth from water and the Spirit, as St. John would say.
In Chapter 6 of the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul speaks very profoundly of Baptism - we heard this in the text that was read earlier, but it is useful to repeat it here: "Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life" (6,3-4).
[He then remarks that 'Obviously I cannot enter here into a detailed interpretation of a text that is 'not so easy'] Briefly, let us just note three points. The first: the verb 'to be baptized' is passive. No one can baptize himself, he needs somebody else. No one can make himself Christian all by himself. To become Christian is also passive. Only from another can we become Christians. And that 'other' that makes us Christians, which gives us the gift of faith, is first of all, the community of believers, the Church.
From the Church, we receive our faith in Baptism. Without allowing ourselves to be formed by this community, we do not become Christians. An autonomous, self-made Christianity is a self-contradiction.
Not only is the community of believers, the Church, needed by the individual, but even this community does not act by itself, according to its own ideas and desires... The community itself is also 'passive' - only Christ can constitute the Church....
The second point: Baptism is more than just a cleansing: it is death and resurrection. Paul himself describes in the letter to the Galatians the turning point in his life realized in his encounter with the Risen Christ, with the words, "I died"... At that point, a new life really starts for him.
To become a Christian is not a cosmetic operation that would add something beautiful to an existence that is already more or less complete. It is a new beginning and a rebirth: death and resurrection....
The third point: Matter is part of the sacrament. Christianity is not something that is purely spiritual. It involves the body. It involves the cosmos. It extends towards the new earth and new heavens.
Returning to St. Paul...let us see what he says about the Eucharist. I have shown in earlier catecheses with what profound respect St. Paul verbally transmits the tradition on the Eucharist which he received from the witnesses of that last night. He transmits these words like a precious treasure entrusted to his faithfulness.
And so, we really hear in these words the testimony of the Last Supper: "For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me'. In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me'" (1 Cor 11, 23-25).
Let me make two observations on this inexhaustible text. Paul transmits the words of the Lord over the chalice: this chalice is 'the new covenant in my blood'. In these words are hidden a reference two two fundamental texts from the Old Testatment.
The first reference is to the promise of a new covenant in the book of the prophet Jeremiah (cfr 31,31-34). Jesus tells the apostles and tells us: Now, at this hour, with me and in my death, the new covenant will be realized; from my blood will start the new story of mankind.
But there is also another reference, in these words, to the moment of the covenant on Sinai, where Moses said, here is the blood of the covenant tnat the Lord has concluded with you on the basis of these words.
In this case, it was the blood of animals. The blood of animals can only be... an anticipation of the true sacrifice, the true worship. With the gift of the chalice, the Lord gives us the true sacrifice. The only true sacrifice is the love of the Son. With his gift of love, eternal love, the world enters into the new covenant.
Celebrating the Eucharist means that Christ gives himself to us, his love, so we may conform ourselves to him and thus create a new world.
The second important aspect of the doctrine on the Eucharist sppears in the same First Letter to the Corinthians where St. Paul says: "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf" (10,16-17).
These words show both the personal as well as the social character of the sacrament of the Eucharist. Christ unites personally with each of us, but he also unites with the man and the woman next to me. The bread is for me as well as for others. Thus, he unites us all to him, and all of us with each other.
Eucharist without solidarity with others is an abuse of the Eucharist. Here we are at the root which is also the center of the doctrine of the Church as the Body of Christ, of the Risen Christ. We can also see all the realism of this doctrine.
Christ gives us his Body in the Eucharist, he gives himself in his body, and so he makes us his body, he unites us to his risen body. If man eats ordinary bread, the bread becomes, through the process of digestion, part of his body, transformed to the substance of human life.
In Holy Communion, the inverse process happens. Christ the Lord assimilates us into himself, he introduces us into his glorious body, and thus all of us together become his body.
Whoever reads only Chapter 12 of the First Letter to the Corinthians and Chapter 12 of the Letter to the Romans may think that the image of the body of Christ as an organism is only a kind of sociological-theological parable.
Actually, in Roman politology, this symbol of the body with different members that form a unity was used for the State itself, to say that the State is an organism in which everyone has a function: the multiplicity and diversity of functions together make up a body in which everyone has his place.
Just reading Chapter 12 of the Letter to the Corinthians, one might think that Paul was translating this (symbol) only to the Church, and that even here, it only implies a sociology of the Church.
But if we keep the Pauline text in mind, we will see that the realism of the Church is something else - much more profound and true than that of a State-organism. Because Christ really gives his body and makes us his body. We become truly united with the resurrected body of Christ, and thus united with one another.
The Church is not a corporation like the State - it is a body. It is not an organization but an organism.
Finally, let us look at what Paul says about marriage. In the first Letter to the Corinthians, we find only a few references, whereas the Letter to the Ephesians truly develops a profound theology of matrimony.
Paul defines matrimony as 'a great mystery' (6,32). He says it in reference to Christ and his Church. This passage highlights a reciprocity which is configured in a vertical dimension. The language of love should adopt a reciprocal submission which has its model in the love of Christ for the Church.
This relationship between Christ and the Church makes the theological aspect of matrimonial love primary - it exalts the affective relationship between spouses. An authentic matrimony will be lived best if in its constant human and affective growth, it always remains linked to the efficacy of the Word and the significance of Baptism.
Christ has sanctified the Church, purifying it through a washing with water accompanied by the Word. Participation in the body and blood of the Lord cements and makes visible a union that has been rendered indissoluble by grace.
Finally, let us listen to the words of St. Paul to the Philippians: "The Lord is near" (4,5)... Through the Word and through the sacraments, in all our life, the Lord is near.
Let us pray to him so that we may always be touched in the intimacy of our being by this, his nearness, so that joy may be born, since it must be born wherever Jesus is truly near.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/12/2008 21:41]