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Human Intelligence Can Find Key to Understanding the World in Sacred Scripture

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/03/01 at 12:00 AM

 The Holy Father focused on the phrase “Creator of heaven and earth”, explained in light of the first chapter of Genesis.

“God,” the Pope said, “is the source of all things and the beauty of creation reveals the omnipotence of the loving Father. As the origin of life … He cares for what has He has created with unceasing love and faithfulness. Creation, therefore, becomes the place in which to know God’s omnipotence and goodness and becomes a call to faith for believers so that we might proclaim God as Creator. … In the light of faith, human intelligence can find the key to understanding the world In Sacred Scripture. Particularly … in the first chapter of Genesis, with the solemn presentation of divine creative action … The phrase ‘and God saw it was good’ is repeated six times. … Everything God creates is good, and beautiful, full of wisdom and love. God’s creative action brings order and infuses harmony and beauty into it. In the story of Genesis, it later says that the Lord created with His word and ten times in the text the phrase ‘God said’ is repeated… Life springs forth, the world exists, so that everything might obey the Word of God.”

“But does it still make sense to talk about creation,” the Pope wondered, “in this age of science and technology? The Bible isn’t intended to be a natural science manual. Its intention is to reveal the authentic and profound truth of things. The fundamental truth revealed in the stories of Genesis is that the world isn’t a collection of opposing forces, but has its origin and stability in the Logos, in God’s eternal reason, which continues to sustain the universe. There is a plan for the world that springs from this reason, from the Creator Spirit.”

“Men and women, human beings, the only ones capable of knowing and loving the Creator,” are the apex of all creation. “The creation stories in Genesis … help us to know God’s plan for humanity. First, they say that God formed man out of the clay of the ground. … This means that we are not God; we have not made ourselves; we are clay. But it also means that we come from the good earth by an act of the Creator. … Beyond any cultural and historical distinctions, beyond any social difference, we are one humanity, formed from the one earth of God who … blew the breath of life into the body He formed from the earth. … The human being is made in the image and likeness of God. … We carry within us His life-giving breath and all human life is under God’s special protection. This is the deepest reason for the inviolability of human dignity against any temptation to judge the person according to criteria of utility or power.”

In the first chapters of Genesis, “there are two significant images: the garden with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the serpent. The garden tells us that the reality that God has placed the human being within is not a savage forest, but a place that protects, nourishes, and sustains. Humanity must recognize the world, not as property to plunder and exploit, but as a gift from the Creator … to cultivate and care for respectfully, following its rhythms and logic, in accordance with God’s plan. The serpent is a figure derived from oriental fertility cults that fascinated Israel and that were a constant temptation to forsake the mysterious covenant with God.” That is why, “the serpent raised the suspicion that the covenant with God was a chain that … took away freedom and the most beautiful and precious things in life. The temptation becomes the building of a world of one’s own without accepting the limits of being a creature, the limits of good and evil, of morality. Dependence on the love of God the Creator is seen as a burden to be overthrown. … But when our relationship with God is distorted, when we put ourselves in His place, all our other relationships are altered. Then the other becomes a rival, a threat. Adam, after have succumbed to temptation, immediately accuses Eve. … The world is no longer the garden in which to live in harmony, but a place to exploit, one in which … envy and hatred of the other enter into our hearts.”

The Pope emphasized one last element of the creation stories. “Sin begets sin and all the sins of history are related. This aspect leads us to speak of what is called ‘original sin’. What is the meaning of this reality, which is so difficult to understand? … First, we must keep in mind that no person is closed in upon themselves. … We receive life from others, not only at birth, but every day. The human being is relational: I am only myself in you and through you, in the loving relationship with the You of God and the you of the other. Sin alters or destroys our relationship with God … taking the place of God … Once that fundamental relationship is altered, our other relationships are also compromised or destroyed. Sin ruins everything. Now, if the relational structure of humanity is altered from the beginning, all humans enter the world characterized by the alteration of that relationship; we enter into the world changed by sin, which marks us personally. The initial sin disrupts and damages human nature. … And humanity cannot get out of this situation alone, cannot redeem itself. Only the creator can restore the correct relationships. … This takes place in Jesus Christ follows the exact opposite path of Adam. … While Adam does not recognize his being as a creature and wants to supplant the place of God, Jesus, the Son of God is in perfect filial relation to the Father. He lowers himself, becomes a servant, walks the path of love, humbling himself even to death on the cross in order to restore the relationship with God. Christ’s Cross becomes the new Tree of Life.”

“Living by faith,” Benedict XVI concluded, “means acknowledging God’s greatness and accepting our smallness, our creatureliness, letting God fill us with His love. Evil, with its burden of pain and suffering, is a mystery that is illuminated by the light of faith, giving us the certainty of being able to be freed from it.”

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The Logic of God Is Different From the Logic of Man

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/02/28 at 11:11 AM

Pope Benedict commented on today’s Gospel reading from St. Mark in which “Jesus began to speak openly about what would happen to Him at the end. … It is clear that a great interior distance separates Jesus and His disciples. They are, so to speak, on two different wave lengths, and so the words of the Master are either not understood, or understood only superficially”.

For example, the Holy Father went on, “the Apostle Peter, after having shown his faith in Jesus, reproved Him because He predicted that He would be rejected and killed”. In their turn the disciples, following the second announcement of the Passion, “began discussing which of them was greatest”. Finally, following the third announcement “James and John asked Jesus to be allowed to sit at His right and left hand when He was in glory.

“But there are several other signs of this distance”, Benedict XVI added, “for example, the disciples were unable to heal an epileptic boy, whom Jesus later healed with the power of prayer. Moreover, certain children were presented to Jesus, the disciples reproved them but Jesus was indignant and insisted they stay, affirming that only those like unto children can enter the Kingdom of God”.

All this, the Holy Father explained, “reminds us that God’s logic is always “other” with respect to our own. … For this reason, following the Lord always requires a profound conversion on the part of man, a change in his or her way of thinking and living. It requires an openness of heart, in order to listen and allow oneself to be enlightened and transformed from within. A key point in which God and man are different is pride: God has no pride, because He is absolute fullness, and is completely given to love and the giving of life. In us, on the other hand, pride is deeply rooted and requires constant vigilance and purification. We, who are small, desire to appear great, to be the first, while God does not fear to humble Himself and make Himself the last”.

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Saying “I believe in God the Father Almighty’ Is Saying “I believe in the power of God’s love”

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/02/28 at 11:11 AM

The first and most fundamental definition that the Creed teaches us about God is that He is the Almighty Father. This was the theme of Benedict XVI’s Wednesday catechesis during today’s general audience that was held in the Paul VI Audience Hall.

“It isn’t always easy today to speak about fatherhood,” the Pope began, “…and, not having adequate role models, it even becomes problematic to imagine God as a father. For those who have had the experience of an overly authoritarian and inflexible father, or an indifferent, uncaring, or even absent one, it is not easy to calmly think of God as Father or to confidently surrender themselves to Him. But Biblical revelation helps us to overcome these difficulties by telling us about a God who shows us what it truly means to be a ‘father’. Above all it is the Gospel that reveals to us this face of God as Father, who loves us even to the point of giving us the gift of His Son for the salvation of humanity.”

In the light of the Scriptures and the writings of the evangelists, the Holy Father explained that God is our Father because “He has blessed us and chosen us before the foundation of the world. He has truly made us His children in Jesus. And, as Father, God accompanies our existence with love, giving us His Word, His teaching, His grace, His Spirit. …If He is so good as to ‘make His sun rise on the bad and the good and … rain to fall on the just and the unjust’, then we can always, without fear and in complete faith, entrust ourselves to His forgiveness as Father when we choose the wrong path.”

Tracing the history of salvation, Psalm 136 repeats “for his mercy endures forever”, and the pontiff emphasized, “The love of God the Father never fails, never tires of us. … Faith gives us this certainty that becomes the sure rock upon which to build our lives. We can face every difficulty and every danger, the experience of the darkness of times of crisis and pain, sustained by the confidence that God does not abandon us and is always near to save us and bring us to everlasting life.”

The kind face of the Father who is in heaven is fully shown in the Lord Jesus. “Knowing Him we know the Father and seeing Him we can see the Father. … Faith in God the Father requires that we believe in the Son, through the action of the Spirit, recognizing the Cross that saves as the definitive revelation of divine love. God is our Father, forgiving our sins and bringing us to the joy of the risen life.”

“We can ask ourselves, how is it possible to imagine an all-powerful God by looking at the Cross of Christ? … We would certainly like a divine omnipotence that corresponded to our thoughts and our desires; an ‘almighty’ God … who vanquishes our adversaries, who changes the course of events, and who takes away our pain. … Faced with evil and suffering, … it is difficult for many of us to believe in God the Father and to believe that He is all-powerful.”

“Faith in God the Almighty, however, leads us to follow very different paths: learning to understand that God’s thoughts and God’s paths are different from ours and that even His omnipotence is different?it isn’t expressed with mechanical or arbitrary force… Actually, God, in creating free creatures, in giving us freedom, gave up a part of His power, allowing us the power of our freedom. Thus He loves and respects love’s free response to His call. His omnipotence isn’t expressed in violence or destruction but rather through love, mercy, and forgiveness; through His tireless call to a change of heart, through an attitude that is only weak in appearance, and which is made of patience, clemency, and love.”

“Only the truly powerful can endure evil and show compassion. Only the truly powerful can fully exercise the power of love. And God, to whom all things belong because He made them all, reveals His strength by loving everything and everyone, patiently awaiting our conversion because He wants us as His children. …The omnipotence of love isn’t a worldly power, but is that of total gift and Jesus, the Son of God, reveals to the world the Father’s true omnipotence by giving His life for us sinners. This is the true … divine power: responding to evil not with evil but with good, responding to murderous hatred with a love that gives life. Evil is thus truly vanquished, because it is washed by God’s love. Death is thus definitively defeated, because it is transformed into the gift of life. God the Father resurrects His Son. Death, the great enemy, is swallowed up and deprived of its sting and we are freed from sin; we can grasp our reality as children of God.”

“So, when we say ‘I believe in God, the Father Almighty’, we express our faith in the power of God’s love who in His Son who died and rose again conquers hate, evil, and sin and gives us eternal life, a life as children who desire to remain forever in the ‘Father’s House’.”

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Christ Guides the Journey of Humanity

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/02/28 at 11:11 AM

The Holy Father   commented on Jesus’ words about the end of time, often considered one of the most difficult texts in the Gospel.

“This difficulty derives from both the content and the language”, explained Benedict XVI. “It describes a future that exceeds our own categories of comprehension, and Jesus therefore uses images and words from the Old Testament, but above all, He introduces a new centre, Himself, the mystery of His person, His death and His resurrection. … It is Jesus Himself who connects present and future; the ancient words of the prophets finally find a point of reference in the Nazarene Messiah: He is the true foundation which, amid the world’s disorder, remains firm and stable”.

“We know that in the Bible the Word of God is the origin of creation. All of creation, starting from the heavenly bodies – the sun, the moon and heavens – obey the Word of God, and exist inasmuch as they are ‘called into being’ by the Word. This creative power of the Divine Word is concentrated in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, and passes through His human words, the true ‘firmament’ that guides man’s thoughts and actions on earth. Therefore, Jesus does not describe the end of the world, and when He uses apocalyptic images, He does not act as a ‘seer’. On the contrary, He wishes to ensure that His disciples in every age remain unmoved by dates and predictions, and gives them instead a more profound understanding, showing them the right path to take, now and in the future, towards eternal life. Everything changes, the Lord reminds us, but the Word of God does not change, and before it each of us is responsible for our own actions. It is on this basis that we will be judged”.

“Natural disasters occur in our times too, as, unfortunately, do wars and violence. We too need a stable foundation for our lives and our hopes, especially in view of the relativism that surrounds us. May the Virgin Mary help us to find this stable centre in the person of Christ and His Word”, the Pope concluded.

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Man is a Seeker of the Absolute

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/02/28 at 11:11 AM

Benedict XVI, continuing a series of catecheses on the subject of Catholic faith, focused on what, he said, “is a fascinating aspect of human and Christian experience: the fact that man carries within him a mysterious desire for God”.

Such an affirmation, the Pope went on, “may seem provocative in the context of secularised Western culture. Many of our contemporaries could, in fact, object that they feel not the slightest desire for God. For large sectors of society He is no longer awaited or desired; rather He leaves people indifferent, something about which they do not even have to make an effort to express themselves.

“Yet the fact is that what we have defined as ‘desire for God’ has not completely disappeared and still today it emerges in man’s heart in many different ways. Human desire always tends towards certain concrete things which are often anything but spiritual, yet it nonetheless has to consider the question of what good truly is, and this means facing something other than itself, something man cannot construct but is called to recognise. What is it that can truly satisfy man’s desire?

“In my first Encyclical ‘Deus caritas est’ I sought to examine how this phenomenon is realised in the experience of human love, which in our time is most easily recognised as a moment of ecstasy and abandonment, a place in which man has the experience of being overcome by a desire greater than himself. Through love a man and a woman, the one thanks to the other, enjoy a new experience of the greatness and beauty of life and reality. If what I experience is not a mere illusion, if I truly wish the other’s good, also as a way to my own good, then I must be ready not to focus on my own self, to place myself at the service of the other, even to the point of self-renouncement. Thus the answer to the question about the meaning of the experience of love involves the purification and healing of desire, which is a requirement of the love we bear the other.

“We must exercise, train and correct ourselves so that we can truly love others”, Pope Benedict added. Yet “not even the beloved is capable of satisfying the desire that dwells in the human heart. Quite the contrary, the more authentic our love for another person is, the more it raises the question about the origin and destiny of that love, the possibility that it may last forever”.

“Similar considerations could also be made about other human experiences such as friendship, the experience of beauty or love of knowledge. Everything good that man experiences tends towards the mystery which surrounds man himself. Each desire that arises in the human heart is an echo of a fundamental desire which is never fully sated”.

The Holy Father went on: “Man is well aware of what does not satisfy him, but is unable to imagine or define that which would make him experience that happiness for which his heart longs. We cannot know God on the basis only of human desire. Here there is an abiding mystery: man is searching for the absolute, but his search advances with slow and hesitant steps”.

“Even in our own time, which seems so averse to the transcendent dimension” it is possible “to open the way towards an authentic religious sense of life which shows how the gift of faith is neither absurd nor irrational”, said Benedict XVI. In this context he proposed “a pedagogy of desire, … including at least two aspects: Firstly, the acquisition or reacquisition of a taste for the authentic joys of life. Not all satisfactions produce the same effect upon us; some leave positive traces and are capable of pacifying our hearts making us more active and generous. Others, on the other hand, following the initial light they bring, seem to delude the expectations that aroused them and sometimes leave bitterness, dissatisfaction or a sense of emptiness in their wake”.

A second aspect of the pedagogy of desire consists of “never being satisfied with the goals we have reached”, said the Holy Father. “It is the most authentic joys which are able to liberate within us that sense of healthy disquiet which leads us to be more demanding, to desire a more exalted or more profound good, and at the same time to becoming increasingly aware that nothing finite can fill our hearts. Thus will we learn to tend, unarmed, towards that good which we cannot construct or procure by our own efforts, without allowing ourselves to be discouraged by the fatigue or obstacles that come from our sin”.

Finally the Holy Father noted that “desire always remains open to redemption, even when it takes the wrong paths, when it seeks artificial paradises and seems to lose its capacity to desire the true good. Even in the abyss of sin man never loses that spark which enables him to recognise and savour what is truly good, and to start along the path of ascension on which God, with the gift of His grace, will not fail to give His aid”.

“This does not mean, then, smothering the desire that is in man’s heart, but liberating it so that it can reach its true height. When desire opens a window to God this is a sign of the presence of faith in a person’s heart, faith which is a grace of God”, Benedict XVI concluded.

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Transmitting the Passion for Christ to the World

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/02/28 at 11:11 AM

In his reflections Benedict XVI commented on the Gospel reading from St. Mark’s narrative of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.

“The Lord chose to undergo the attack of the tempter so as to defend us with His help and instruct us with His example”, said the Holy Father quoting a text written by St. Leo the Great. This episode teaches us that man is never free from temptation, but we can become stronger than any enemy “by following the Lord every day with patience and humility, learning to build our lives not without Him or as if He did not exist, but in Him and with Him, because He is the source of true life. The temptation to remove God, to regulate ourselves and the world counting only on our own abilities, has always been present in the history of man”, the Pope said.

In Christ, God addresses man “in an unexpected way, with a closeness that is unique, tangible and full of love. God became incarnate and entered man’s world in order to take sin upon Himself, to overcome evil and to bring man back into God’s world. But His announcement was accompanied by a request to respond to such a great gift. Indeed, Jesus said “repent, and believe in the good news’. This is an invitation to have faith in God and to convert every day of our lives to His will, orienting our every action and our every thought towards what is good. The period of Lent is a good time to renew and strengthen our relationship with God through daily prayer, acts of penance and works of fraternal charity”.

Vatican City (VIS)

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Christians’ Firm Hope in the Resurrection

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/02/28 at 11:11 AM

The Holy Father presided at Mass for the souls of cardinals and bishops who died during the course of last year.

Extracts from his homily are given below:

“Burial places constitute a sort of assembly, where the living can encounter the deceased and consolidate the ties of a communion which death was not able to break. And here in Rome, in those unique cemeteries, the catacombs, we are aware as in no other place of the profound links with ancient Christianity, which we experience as close to us.

“When we enter the Roman catacombs – or the cemeteries of our cities and towns – it is as if we cross an intangible threshold and enter into communication with those whose past is there, a past made up of joy and pain, defeat and hope. This occurs because death concerns humanity today exactly as it did then; and even if many things from the past have become foreign to us, death has remained the same”.

“But how can we Christians respond to the question of death? We respond with our faith in God, with a firm hope based on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thus death opens the way to life, eternal life, which is not infinite repetition of the present, but something completely new. Faith tells us that the true immortality to which we aspire is not an idea, a concept, but rather a relationship of full communion with the living God: it means abiding in His hands, in His love, and in Him becoming at one with all our brothers and sisters whom He created and redeemed. … This is life which reaches fullness in God; a life that we can now only glimpse just as we catch sight of a clear sky through the fog”.

“The pastors we remember today served the Church with faith and love, at times facing difficult challenges in order to ensure the flock entrusted to their care received the necessary care and attention. In the variety of their respective gifts and tasks, they showed perseverance and vigilance, wisdom and zealous dedication to the Kingdom of God, offering a valuable contribution in the period following Vatican Council II, a time of renewal throughout the Church”.

The Eucharistic banquet they attended, first as the faithful and then, daily, as ministers, foretells most eloquently what the Lord promised in the Sermon on the Mount: the possession of the Kingdom of Heaven, participation in the banquet of the heavenly Jerusalem. Let us pray that this might be accomplished for everyone. Our prayer is nourished by the firm hope that ‘does not disappoint’, because it is guaranteed by Christ Who chose to experience death in order to triumph over it through the prodigious event of the Resurrection”.

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Faith Means Believing in the Love of God Which Redeems Us from Slavery

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/02/28 at 11:11 AM

The faith, its meaning and significance in the modern world, were the main themes of Benedict XVI’s catechesis during his weekly general audience held this morning in St. Peter’s Square. “In our time”, the Pope said, “we need a renewed education in the faith. Certainly this must include a knowledge of its truths and of the events of salvation, but above all it must arise from an authentic encounter with God in Jesus Christ”.

“Today, along with many signs of goodness, a spiritual desert is spreading around us. … Even the ideas of progress and well-being are revealing their shadows and, despite the great discoveries of science and progress of technology, mankind today does not seem to have become freer. … Many forms of exploitation, violence and injustice persist. … Moreover, there are growing numbers of people who seem disorientated and who, in their search to go beyond a purely horizontal vision of reality, are ready to believe everything and the opposite of everything. In this context, certain fundamental questions arise: … What meaning does life have? Do men and women, we and coming generations, have a future? What awaits us beyond the threshold of death?”

From these questions, the Pope explained, it is clear that “scientific knowledge, though important for the life of man, is not of itself enough. We need not only material bread, we need love, meaning and hope. We need a sure foundation … which gives our lives true significance even in moments of crisis and darkness, even in daily difficulties. This is what the faith gives us. It means entrusting ourselves confidently to the ‘You? that is God, the which gives me certainty: a certainty different but no less solid than that which comes from exact calculations and science. The faith is not a mere intellectual assent on man’s part to the specific truths about God, it is an act by which I freely entrust myself to God Who is a Father and Who loves me, … Who gives me hope and inspires my trust.

“Of course”, the Pope added, “such adherence to God is not without content. Through it we are aware that God showed Himself to us in Christ. … With the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, God descended to the depths of our human condition in order to draw it to Himself, to raise it to His heights. Faith means believing in this love of God, which does not diminish in the face of the corruption of man, in the face of evil and death; on the contrary, it is capable of transforming all forms of slavery, giving them the possibility of salvation”.

“This possibility of salvation through faith is a gift which God gives to all mankind. I believe we should meditate more often – during our daily lives often marked by problems and dramatic situations – on the fact that Christian belief means abandoning oneself trustingly to the profound meaning which upholds me and the world, the meaning which we cannot give to ourselves but only receive as a gift, and which is the foundation upon which we can live without fear. We must be capable of announcing this liberating and reassuring certainty of the faith with words, and showing it with our Christian lives”.

“Underpinning our journey of faith is Baptism, the Sacrament which gives us the Holy Spirit, makes us children of God in Christ, and marks our entry into the community of faith, into the Church. A person does not believe alone, without God’s grace, nor do we believe by ourselves, but together with our brothers and sisters. From Baptism on all believers are called to re-live this confession of the faith and to make it their own, together with their brethren”.

The Holy Father concluded: “The faith is a gift of God but it is also a profoundly free and human act. … It does not run counter to our freedom or our reason. … Believing means entrusting oneself in all freedom and joy to God’s providential plan for history, as did the Patriarch Abraham, as did Mary of Nazareth”.

In his greetings at the end of his audience, the Pope recalled how “last Monday we celebrated the memory of Blessed John Paul II, who remains alive among us”. In this context, he invited young people “to learn to face life with his ardour and enthusiasm”, and the sick “to carry the cross of suffering joyfully, as he himself taught us”.

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The Church Becomes Fully Visible in the Liturgy

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/02/28 at 11:11 AM

 The time dedicated to liturgical prayer in the life of Christians, especially during Mass, was the central theme of Benedict XVI’s catechesis.

Prayer, the Pope explained, “is the living relationship of the children of God with their immeasurably good Father, with His Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit. Therefore the life of prayer consists in dwelling habitually in the presence of God and knowing Him. … Such communion of life with the One Triune God is possible through Baptism, by which we are united to Christ, … because only in Christ can we dialogue with God the Father as children”.

For Christians prayer means “constantly gazing at Christ in ways that are ever new”, said the Holy Father. “Yet we must not forget that we discover Christ and know Him as a living Person in the Church. She is ‘His Body’. … The unbreakable bond between Christ and the Church, through the unifying power of love, does not annul ‘you’ and ‘me’ but exalts them to their most intense unity. … Praying means raising oneself to the heights of God, by means of a necessary and gradual transformation of our being”.

By participating in the liturgy “we make the language of mother Church our own, we learn to speak in her and for her. Of course this comes about gradually, little by little. I must progressively immerse myself into the words of the Church with my prayers, life and suffering, with my joy and my thoughts. This is a journey which transforms us”, the Pope said.

The question of “how to pray” is answered by following the Our Father, the prayer which Jesus taught us. “We see that its first two words are ‘Father’ and ‘our’, and the response then becomes clear: I learn to pray and I nourish my prayer by addressing myself to God as Father, and by praying with others, with the Church, accepting the gift of her words, which little by little become familiar and rich in meaning. The dialogue God establishes with each one of us in prayer, and we with Him, always includes a ‘with’. We cannot pray to God individualistically. In liturgical prayer, especially the Eucharist, … in all prayer, we speak not only as single individuals, but enter into that ‘us’ which is the prayerful Church”.

The liturgy, then, “is not some form of ‘self-expression’ of a community. … It means entering into that great living community in which God Himself nourishes us. The liturgy implies universality”, and it “is important for all Christians to feel that they are truly part of this universal ‘us’, which is the foundation and refuge for the ‘me’, in the Body of Christ which is the Church”.

To do this we must accept the logic of the incarnation of God, Who “came close to us, making Himself present in history and in human nature. … This presence continues in the Church, His Body. The liturgy, then, is not the recollection of past events but the living presence of Christ’s Paschal Mystery which transcends and unites time and space”.

“It is not the individual priest or member of the faithful, or the group, which celebrates the liturgy. Rather, the liturgy is primarily the action of God through the Church with all her history, her rich tradition and her creativity. This universality and fundamental openness, which is specific to all the liturgy, is one of the reasons for which it cannot be invented or modified by a single community or by experts, but must remain faithful to the forms of the universal Church”.

The Church becomes fully visible in the liturgy, the Holy Father concluded, “the act by which we believe that God enters our lives and we can encounter Him. The act in which … He comes to us and we are illuminated by Him”.

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Eucharistic Communion and Contemplation Are Inseparable

In 06 Scripture & Theology on 2013/02/28 at 12:00 AM

Pope Benedict pronounced a homily in which he focused on the sacredness of the Eucharist, and in particular on the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.”A unilateral interpretation of Vatican Council II has penalized this dimension”, the Holy Father explained, “effectively limiting the Eucharist to the moment of celebrating Mass. It is, of course, very important to recognize the importance of celebration, in which the Lord calls His people, bringing them together around the table of the Word and Bread of life, nourishing them and uniting them to Himself in the sacrificial offering. This interpretation of the liturgical gathering, in which the Lord works and achieves His mystery of communion, naturally retains all its validity, but a rightful balance must be restored. … By concentrating our relationship with the Eucharistic Christ only on Mass we run the risk that the rest of time and space is emptied of His presence. Thus our perception of Jesus’ constant, real and close presence among us and with us is diminished”.

“It is a mistake to establish a contrast between celebration and adoration, as if they were in competition with one another. The opposite is true. The cult of the Blessed Sacrament represents the spiritual ‘environment’ within which the community can celebrate the Eucharist correctly and truthfully. Only if preceded, accompanied and followed by this interior attitude of faith and adoration, can liturgical activity express its full meaning and value”, the Pope said.He then went on to explain that, at the moment of adoration, we are all at the same level, “on our knees before the Sacrament of Love. The common and ministerial priesthood come together in the cult of the Eucharist. … By remaining together in silence before the Lord, present in His Sacrament, we have one of the most authentic experiences of being Church, one that is complementary to our celebration of the Eucharist. … Communion and contemplation cannot be separated, they go together”, and if contemplation is lacking “even sacramental communion can become a superficial gesture on our part”.

Turning then to consider the sacredness of the Eucharist, Benedict XVI noted that here too, in the recent past, there has been “some misunderstanding of the authentic message of Holy Scripture. The Christian novelty of worship has been influenced by a certain secularist mentality of the 1960s and 1970s. It is true, and it remains valid, that the centre of worship is no longer in the ancient rites and sacrifices, but in Christ Himself, His person, His life, His Paschal Mystery. Yet this fundamental novelty must not lead us to conclude that the sacred no longer exists”.

Christ “did not abolish the sacred but brought it to fulfilment, inaugurating a new worship which is entirely spiritual but which nonetheless, as long as our journey in time continues, still uses signs and rites. These will only fall into disuse at the end, in the celestial Jerusalem where there will be no temple”.

Moreover, the Holy Father went on, “the sacred has an educational function. Its disappearance inevitably impoverishes culture, and especially the formation of the new generations. … Our Father God … sent His Son into the world, not to abolish the sacred but to bring it to fulfilment. At the culmination of this mission, at the Last Supper, Jesus established the Sacrament of His Body and His Blood, the Memorial of His Paschal Sacrifice. By doing so he put Himself in the place of the ancient sacrifices, but He did so in the context of a rite, which he ordered the Apostles to perpetuate as a supreme sign of the true sacrifice, which is Him. With this faith, … day after day we celebrate the Eucharistic Mystery, and adore it as the centre of our lives and the heart of the world”.

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