SUMMARY:
-
CONTEMPLATION OF CHRIST DOES NOT DISTANCE US FROM REALITY
-
PRAYERS FOR THE EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS IN IRELAND
-
BAPTISM FREES US FROM ISOLATION
-
CELEBRATIONS TO BE PRESIDED BY THE POPE: JULY - SEPTEMBER
-
OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
______________________________________
CONTEMPLATION
OF CHRIST DOES NOT DISTANCE US FROM REALITY
Vatican
City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - St. Paul's experience of contemplation and
the power of prayer, as recounted in his Second Letter to the
Corinthians, provided the central theme of Benedict XVI's catechesis,
during his general audience held this morning in the Paul VI Hall.
Paul
did not respond to the voices questioning the legitimacy of his
apostolate by enumerating the communities he had founded, nor did he
limit himself to recounting the difficulties he had had to face in
announcing the Gospel. Rather, the Pope explained, "he pointed
to his relationship with the Lord, ... which was so intense as to be
marked by moments of ecstasy and profound contemplation".
Indeed, the Apostle says: "I will boast all the more gladly of
my weakness, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me".
Thus
the Apostle of the Gentiles helps us to understand "that all the
difficulties we meet in following Christ and bearing witness to His
Gospel can be overcome by opening ourselves trustingly to the action
of the Lord. ... St. Paul clearly understood how to face and
experience each event in his life, especially those involving
suffering, difficulty and persecution: at the moment we feel our own
weakness the power of God becomes manifest, a power which does not
abandon or leave us alone but becomes our support and our strength".
"As
our union with the Lord grows and our prayer becomes more intense, we
too come to focus on the essential and to understand that it is not
the power of our own means that creates the Kingdom of God, but God
Who works miracles through our very weakness", the Pope said.
The
intense contemplation of God which St. Paul experienced was, like
that of the disciples on Mount Tabor, "enthralling and
tremendous". Contemplating the Lord is "enthralling because
He draws us to Himself, seizing our hearts and carrying them aloft to
His heights were we experience the peace and beauty of His love. It
is tremendous because it exposes our human frailty and inadequacy,
the fatigue of defeating the Evil One who ensnares our lives".
"In
a world in which we risk relying only on the power of human means, we
are called to rediscover and bear witness to the power of prayer,
through which we grow day by day as our lives are conformed to that
of Christ", said the Holy Father. He then went on to recall the
Nobel Prize-winner and Protestant theologian Albert Schweitzer who
said that "'Paul is a mystic and nothing more than a mystic', a
man truly enamoured of Christ and so united to Him as to able to say:
Christ lives in me. St. Paul's mysticism was not founded only on the
exceptional events of his life, but also on his intense daily
relationship with the Lord, Who always supported him with His Grace.
"In
our own life of prayer we too may experience moments of particular
intensity in which we feel the Lord's presence more keenly",
Benedict XVI added. "But it is important to remain constant and
faithful in our relationship with God, especially in moments of
aridity, difficulty and suffering. Only if we are seized by the love
of Christ will we be able to face adversity, as Paul did, in the
conviction that we can do all things through Him Who gives us
strength".
The
Holy Father went on: "The more space we give to prayer, the more
we will see our lives transformed and animated by the real power of
God's love. This is what happened, for example, to Blessed Mother
Teresa of Calcutta who, in contemplating Jesus, discovered the
ultimate reason and incredible strength to recognise Him in the poor
and abandoned, despite her fragile figure.
"The
contemplation of Christ in our life does not distance us from
reality", the Pope concluded. "It makes us even more
involved in human affairs, because the Lord, drawing us to Himself in
prayer, enables us to remain close to all our brothers and sisters in
His love".
PRAYERS
FOR THE EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS IN IRELAND
Vatican
City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - At the end of his catechesis this morning,
Benedict XVI dedicated some remarks to the fiftieth International
Eucharistic Congress, which is currently being held in the Irish
capital Dublin on the theme: "The Eucharist. Communion with
Christ and with One Another".
The
congress, the Holy Father said, "is an important opportunity to
reaffirm the central place of the Eucharist in the life of the
Church. Jesus, Who is truly present in the Sacrament of the altar,
with the supreme Sacrifice of love on the cross gives Himself to us,
He becomes our food in order to assimilate us to Him, to bring us
into communion with Him. Through this communion we are also united
among ourselves, we become a single object in Him, members of one
another.
"I
invite you to remain spiritually united to Christians in Ireland and
the world, praying for the work of the congress, that the Eucharist
may always be the pulsating heart of all Church life", he
concluded.
BAPTISM
FREES US FROM ISOLATION
Vatican
City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - On the evening of Monday 11 June in the
basilica of St. John Lateran, Benedict XVI inaugurated the diocesan
ecclesial congress of Rome, which comes to an end today. During the
three-day event participants discussed the importance of Baptism in
the context of the theme of the gathering: "Go and make
disciples, baptising and teaching. Let us rediscover the beauty of
Baptism".
Extracts
from the Pope's off-the-cuff inaugural address are given below:
"Baptism
means being united to God in a new and unique existence. ... Thinking
about this, we immediately see that it has certain consequences. The
first of these is that God is no longer distant from us. ... We are
in God and God is in us. The priority, the central place of God in
our lives is a first consequence of Baptism".
"A
second consequence ... is that we become Christian. ... Of course, my
own decision is also necessary, but above all it is an action of God
with me. ... I am assumed by God ... and, by saying 'yes' to this
action by God, I become Christian. ... A third element ... is that,
by being immersed in God, I am naturally united to my brothers and
sisters, because everyone else is also in God and, if I am drawn out
of my isolation, ... then I am immersed in communion with others".
"This
rite, like the rite of nearly all the Sacraments, is made up of two
elements: matter (water) and word. ... Christianity is not something
purely spiritual. ... God is the creator of all matter, ... and that
is why it is very important for matter to be part of our faith. ...
The other element is the word, which takes three forms:
renunciations, promises and invocations. It is important that these
words ... mark our life journey".
"Let
us examine the renunciations. They are three in number and I will
first consider the second: 'Do you renounce the lure of evil?' ... In
the early Church ... they used the phrase: 'Do you renounce the pomp
of the devil'. ... The pomp of the devil referred to the brutal
public shows in which cruelty became a form of entertainment, in
which killing men became a spectacle. ... Yet, beyond this immediate
meaning, ... the phrase also referred to a certain kind of culture,
... and Baptism fundamentally means ... freeing oneself from that
culture. Today too we see cultures in which the truth does not count.
In which all that counts is the spirit of calumny and destruction. A
culture which does not seek goodness, a culture which uses its
morality as a mask to confuse and destroy. To this culture in which
falsehood is disguised as truth and information, to this culture
which seeks only material wealth and denies God, we say 'no'".
"The
first renunciation is: 'Do you renounce sin to live in the freedom of
the children of God?' Today freedom and Christian life ... seem to
move in opposite directions. Being Christian is taken to mean a kind
of slavery and freedom is seen as emancipation from Christian faith,
in the final analysis emancipation from God. ... Yet God made Himself
vulnerable ... because He loves us. ... Our first concern must be ...
not to destroy His love, ... because to do so is to go against our
own selves and our own freedom".
"And
ultimately: 'Do you renounce Satan?' This tells us that there is a
'yes' to God and a 'no' to the power of the Evil One, who ... wishes
to become god of this world".
"Finally
there remains the question ... of the Baptism of children. Is it
right to do so or would it be better for them to follow a
catechumenal journey before Baptism? The other question that always
arises is: Can we impose a religion upon children? ... Yet the true
question is, in fact: Is it right to give life in this world without
having received consent? ... I would say that it is possible and
right to do so only if, along with life, we also give the guarantee
that life, despite all the problems of the world, is good ... and
protected by God. ... Only the anticipation of the meaning can
justify the anticipation of life. Therefore Baptism as a guarantee of
God's goodness, as an anticipation of meaning, as an anticipation of
God's 'yes' which protects this life, justifies the anticipation of
life".
CELEBRATIONS
TO BE PRESIDED BY THE POPE: JULY - SEPTEMBER
Vatican
City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - Given below is the calendar of liturgical
celebrations due to be presided over by the Holy Father between the
months of July and September.
JULY
-
Sunday 15. Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Pastoral visit to
Frascati. Mass at 9.30 a.m.
AUGUST
-
Wednesday 15: Solemnity of the Assumption, Mass at 8 a.m. in the
parish church of St. Thomas of Villanova in Castelgandolfo.
SEPTEMBER
-
Friday 14 to to Sunday 16: Apostolic trip to Lebanon.
OTHER
PONTIFICAL ACTS
Vatican
City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Fr. Marcello
Romano of the clergy of the diocese of Guanhaes, Brazil, diocesan
administrator, as bishop of Aracuai (area 23,526, population 416,000,
Catholics 277,000, priests 34, religious 40), Brazil. The
bishop-elect was born in Conceicao do Mato Dentro, Brazil in 1965 and
ordained a priest in 1994. He has served as pastor in a number of
different parishes.
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