SUMMARY:
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BENEDICT XVI'S FINAL GENERAL AUDIENCE: “I ASKED GOD TO ENLIGHTEN ME
TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION, NOT FOR MY OWN GOOD, BUT FOR THE GOOD OF
THE CHURCH.”
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AUDIENCES
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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
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NOTICE
______________________________________
BENEDICT
XVI'S FINAL GENERAL AUDIENCE: “I ASKED GOD TO ENLIGHTEN ME TO MAKE
THE RIGHT DECISION, NOT FOR MY OWN GOOD, BUT FOR THE GOOD OF THE
CHURCH.”
Vatican
City, 27 February 2013 (VIS) – Today, Benedict XVI celebrated his
last general audience. In St. Peter's Square, crowded with tens of
thousands of people wishing to bid him farewell, the Pontiff said:
“Thank you for coming in such large numbers to this, my last
general audience. Thank you, I am truly moved! And I see the Church
is alive! I think we also have to thank the Creator for the beautiful
weather that He is giving us now, even in winter.”
Following
is the entire text of the Holy Father's words.
“Like
the Apostle Paul in the Biblical text that we have heard, I feel in
my heart that I have to especially thank God who guides and builds up
the Church, who plants His Word and thus nourishes the faith in His
People. At this moment my heart expands and embraces the whole Church
throughout the world and I thank God for the 'news' that, in these
years of my Petrine ministry, I have received about the faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ and for the love that truly circulates in the Body
of the Church, making it to live in the love and the hope that opens
us to and guides us towards the fullness of life, towards our
heavenly homeland.”
“I
feel that I am carrying everyone with me in prayer in this God-given
moment when I am collecting every meeting, every trip, every pastoral
visit. I am gathering everyone and everything in prayer to entrust it
to the Lord: so that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will
through all spiritual wisdom and understanding in order to live in a
manner worthy of the Lord and His love, bearing fruit in every good
work (cf. Col 1:9-10).”
“At
this moment I have great confidence because I know, we all know, that
the Gospel's Word of truth is the strength of the Church; it is her
life. The Gospel purifies and renews, bearing fruit, wherever the
community of believers hears it and welcomes God's grace in truth and
in love. This is my confidence, this is my joy.”
“When,
on 19 April almost eight years ago I accepted to take on the Petrine
ministry, I had the firm certainty that has always accompanied me:
this certainty for the life of the Church from the Word of God. At
that moment, as I have already expressed many times, the words that
resounded in my heart were: Lord, what do You ask of me? It is a
great weight that You are placing on my shoulders but, if You ask it
of me, I will cast my nets at your command, confident that You will
guide me, even with all my weaknesses. And eight years later I can
say that the Lord has guided me. He has been close to me. I have felt
His presence every day. It has been a stretch of the Church's path
that has had moments of joy and light, but also difficult moments. I
felt like St. Peter and the Apostles in the boat on the See of
Galilee. The Lord has given us many days of sunshine and light
breezes, days when the fishing was plentiful, but also times when the
water was rough and the winds against us, just as throughout the
whole history of the Church, when the Lord seemed to be sleeping. But
I always knew that the Lord is in that boat and I always knew that
the boat of the Church is not mine, not ours, but is His. And the
Lord will not let it sink. He is the one who steers her, of course
also through those He has chosen because that is how He wanted it.
This was and is a certainty that nothing can tarnish. And that is why
my heart today is filled with gratitude to God, because He never
left—the whole Church or me—without His consolation, His light,
or His love.”
“We
are in the Year of Faith, which I desired precisely in order to
strengthen our faith in God in a context that seems to relegate it
more and more to the background. I would like to invite everyone to
renew their firm trust in the Lord, to entrust ourselves like
children to God's arms, certain that those arms always hold us up and
are what allow us to walk forward each day, even when it is a
struggle. I would like everyone to feel beloved of that God who gave
His Son for us and who has shown us His boundless love. I would like
everyone to feel the joy of being Christian. In a beautiful prayer,
which can be recited every morning, say: 'I adore you, my God and I
love you with all my heart. Thank you for having created me, for
having made me Christian...' Yes, we are happy for the gift of faith.
It is the most precious thing, which no one can take from us! Let us
thank the Lord for this every day, with prayer and with a coherent
Christian life. God loves us, but awaits us to also love Him!”
“It
is not only God who I wish to thank at this time. A pope is not alone
in guiding Peter's barque, even if it is his primary responsibility.
I have never felt alone in bearing the joy and the weight of the
Petrine ministry. The Lord has placed at my side so many people who,
with generosity and love for God and the Church, have helped me and
been close to me. First of all, you, dear Brother Cardinals: your
wisdom, your advice, and your friendship have been precious to me. My
collaborators, starting with my secretary of state who has
accompanied me faithfully over the years; the Secretariat of State
and the whole of the Roman Curia, as well as all those who, in their
various areas, serve the Holy See. There are many faces that are
never seen, remaining in obscurity, but precisely in their silence,
in their daily dedication in a spirit of faith and humility, they
were a sure and reliable support to me. A special thought goes to the
Church of Rome, my diocese! I cannot forget my Brothers in the
episcopate and in the priesthood, consecrated persons, and the entire
People of God. In my pastoral visits, meetings, audiences, and trips
I always felt great care and deep affection, but I have also loved
each and every one of you, without exception, with that pastoral love
that is the heart of every pastor, especially the Bishop of Rome, the
Successor of the Apostle Peter. Every day I held each of you in
prayer, with a father's heart.”
“I
wish to send my greetings and my thanks to all: a pope's heart
extends to the whole world. And I would like to express my gratitude
to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, which makes the
great family of Nations present here. Here I am also thinking of all
those who work for good communication and I thank them for their
important service.”
“At
this point I would also like to wholeheartedly thank all of the many
people around the world who, in recent weeks, have sent me touching
tokens of concern, friendship, and prayer. Yes, the Pope is never
alone. I feel this again now in such a great way that it touches my
heart. The Pope belongs to everyone and many people feel very close
to him. It's true that I receive letters from the world's
notables—from heads of states, from religious leaders, from
representatives of the world of culture, etc. But I also receive many
letters from ordinary people who write to me simply from their hearts
and make me feel their affection, which is born of our being together
with Christ Jesus, in the Church. These people do not write to me the
way one would write, for example, to a prince or a dignitary that
they don't know. They write to me as brothers and sisters or as sons
and daughters, with the sense of a very affectionate family tie. In
this you can touch what the Church is—not an organization, not an
association for religious or humanitarian ends, but a living body, a
communion of brothers and sisters in the Body of Jesus Christ who
unites us all. Experiencing the Church in this way and being able to
almost touch with our hands the strength of His truth and His love is
a reason for joy at a time when many are speaking of its decline. See
how the Church is alive today!”
“In
these last months I have felt that my strength had diminished and I
asked God earnestly in prayer to enlighten me with His light to make
me make the right decision, not for my own good, but for the good of
the Church. I have taken this step in full awareness of its
seriousness and also its newness, but with a profound peace of mind.
Loving the Church also means having the courage to make difficult,
agonized choices, always keeping in mind the good of the Church, not
of oneself.”
“Allow
me here to return once again to 19 April, 2005. The gravity of the
decision lay precisely in the fact that, from that moment on, I was
always and for always engaged by the Lord. Always—whoever assumes
the Petrine ministry no longer has any privacy. He belongs always and
entirely to everyone, to the whole Church. His life, so to speak, is
totally deprived of its private dimension. I experienced, and I am
experiencing it precisely now, that one receives life precisely when
they give it. Before I said that many people who love the Lord also
love St. Peter's Successor and are fond of him; that the Pope truly
has brothers and sisters, sons and daughters all over the world and
that he feels safe in the embrace of their communion; because he no
longer belongs to himself but he belongs to all and all belong to
him.”
“'Always'
is also 'forever'--there is no return to private life. My decision to
renounce the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this. I
am not returning to private life, to a life of trips, meetings,
receptions, conferences, etc. I am not abandoning the cross, but am
remaining beside the Crucified Lord in a new way. I no longer bear
the power of the office for the governance of the Church, but I
remain in the service of prayer, within St. Peter's paddock, so to
speak. St. Benedict, whose name I bear as Pope, will be a great
example to me in this. He has shown us the way for a life that,
active or passive, belongs wholly to God's work.”
“I
also thank each and every one of you for the respect and
understanding with which you have received this important decision. I
will continue to accompany the Church's journey through prayer and
reflection, with the dedication to the Lord and His Bride that I have
tried to live every day up to now and that I want to always live. I
ask you to remember me to God, and above all to pray for the
Cardinals who are called to such an important task, and for the new
Successor of the Apostle Peter. Many the Lord accompany him with the
light and strength of His Spirit.”
“We
call upon the maternal intercession of Mary, the Mother of God and of
the Church, that she might accompany each of us and the entire
ecclesial community. We entrust ourselves to her with deep
confidence.”
“Dear
friends! God guides His Church, always sustaining her even and
especially in difficult times. Let us never lose this vision of
faith, which is the only true vision of the path of the Church and of
the world. In our hearts, in the heart of each one of you, may there
always be the joyous certainty that the Lord is beside us, that He
does not abandon us, that He is near and embraces us with His love.
Thank you.”
AUDIENCES
Vatican
City, 27 February 2013 (VIS) - After this morning's general audience,
the Holy Father greeted the following in the Clementine Hall:
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Ivan Gasparovic, President of Slovakia
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Teodoro Lonfernini and Denise Bronzetti, Captains Regent of the
Republic of San Marino, with their spouses,
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Horst Lorenz Seehofer, Minister-President of Bavaria, and
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Archbishop Joan Enric Vives i Sicilia of Urgell, co-prince of
Andorra.
OTHER
PONTIFICAL ACTS
Vatican
City, 27 February 2013 (VIS) – Today the Holy Father:
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accepted the resignation presented by Auxiliary Bishop Gerard
Clifford of the Archdiocese of Armagh, Ireland, in accordance with
canon 401 para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law.
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accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the Archdiocese of
Liverpool, England, presented by Archbishop Patrick Altham Kelly, in
accordance with canon 401 para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law.
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appointed Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, archbishop of Krakow, as
special envoy to the 600th anniversary of the Cathedral Basilica of
Kaunas, Lithuania, which will take place on 5 May, 2013.
NOTICE
Vatican
City, 27 February 2013 (VIS) – Tomorrow, 28 February, the last day
of Benedict XVI's pontificate, the VIS will transmit two bulletins.
The first will be at the usual time and the second will be later in
the afternoon (Rome time) to inform our readers of the Pope's
departure from the Vatican and his arrival at the Apostolic Palace of
Castel Gandolofo, where he is expected to give a few words of
greeting.
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