From an address by Pope Paul VI
Nazareth, a modelNazareth is a kind of school where we may begin to discover what Christ’s life was like and even to understand his Gospel. Here we can observe and ponder the simple appeal of the way God’s Son came to be known, profound yet full of hidden meaning. And gradually we may even learn to imitate him.
Here we can learn to realize who Christ really is. And here we can sense and take account of the conditions and circumstances that surrounded and affected his life on earth: the places, the tenor of the times, the culture, the language, religious customs, in brief everything which Jesus used to make himself known to the world. Here everything speaks to us, everything has meaning. Here we can learn the importance of spiritual discipline for all who wish to follow Christ and to live by the teachings of his Gospel.
How I would like to return to my childhood and attend the simple yet profound school that is Nazareth! How wonderful to be close to Mary, learning again the lesson of the true meaning of life, learning again God’s truths. But here we are only on pilgrimage. Time presses and I must set aside my desire to stay and carry on my education in the Gospel, for that education is never finished. But I cannot leave without recalling, briefly and in passing, some thoughts I take with me from Nazareth.
First, we learn from its silence. If only we could once again appreciate its great value. We need this wonderful state of mind, beset as we are by the cacophony of strident protests and conflicting claims so characteristic of these turbulent times. The silence of Nazareth should teach us how to meditate in peace and quiet, to reflect on the deeply spiritual, and to be open to the voice of God’s inner wisdom and the counsel of his true teachers. Nazareth can teach us the value of study and preparation, of meditation, of a well-ordered personal spiritual life, and of silent prayer that is known only to God.
Second, we learn about family life. May Nazareth serve as a model of what the family should be. May it show us the family’s holy and enduring character and exemplifying its basic function in society: a community of love and sharing, beautiful for the problems it poses and the rewards it brings; in sum, the perfect setting for rearing children—and for this there is no substitute.
Finally, in Nazareth, the home of a craftsman’s son, we learn about work and the discipline it entails. I would especially like to recognize its value—demanding yet redeeming—and to give it proper respect. I would remind everyone that work has its own dignity. On the other hand, it is not an end in itself. Its value and free character, however, derive not only from its place in the economic system, as they say, but rather from the purpose it serves.
In closing, may I express my deep regard for people everywhere who work for a living. To them I would point out their great model, Christ their brother, our Lord and God, who is their prophet in every cause that promotes their well being.
Tag Archives: Pope Paul VI
“The Smoke Of Satan” Homily – Jimmy Akin
As the Church is in the news and Cardinals and bishops clash, (if reports are to be believed) here’s a bit from the thought of Pope Paul Vl reflecting on Vatican II
Here’s the paragraph in which the quotation occurs, as well as the following one:
Referring to the situation of the Church today, the Holy Father
affirms that he has a sense that “from some fissure the smoke of Satan
has entered the temple of God.” There is doubt, incertitude,
problematic, disquiet, dissatisfaction, confrontation. There is no
longer trust of the Church; they trust the first profane prophet who
speaks in some journal or some social movement, and they run after him
and ask him if he has the formula of true life. And we are not alert
to the fact that we are already the owners and masters of the formula
of true life. Doubt has entered our consciences, and it entered by
windows that should have been open to the light. Science exists to
give us truths that do not separate from God, but make us seek him all
the more and celebrate him with greater intensity; instead, science
gives us criticism and doubt. Scientists are those who more
thoughtfully and more painfully exert their minds. But they end up
teaching us: “I don’t know, we don’t know, we cannot know.” The
school becomes the gymnasium of confusion and sometimes of absurd
contradictions. Progress is celebrated, only so that it can then be
demolished with revolutions that are more radical and more strange, so
as to negate everything that has been achieved, and to come away as
primitives after having so exalted the advances of the modern world.
This state of uncertainty even holds sway in the Church. There was
the belief that after the Council there would be a day of sunshine for
the history of the Church. Instead, it is the arrival of a day of
clouds, of tempest, of darkness, of research, of uncertainty. We
preach ecumenism but we constantly separate ourselves from others. We
seek to dig abysses instead of filling them in.
In the next section the subject of the devil is further expounded upon:
How has this come about? The Pope entrusts one of his thoughts to
those who are present: that there has been an intervention of an
adverse power. Its name is the devil, this mysterious being that the
Letter of St. Peter also alludes to. So many times, furthermore, in
the Gospel, on the lips of Christ himself, the mention of this enemy of
men returns. The Holy Father observes, “We believe in something that
is preternatural that has come into the world precisely to disturb, to
suffocate the fruits of the Ecumenical Council, and to impede the
Church from breaking into the hymn of joy at having renewed in fullness
its awareness of itself. Precisely for this reason, we should wish to
be able, in this moment more than ever, to exercise the function God
assigned to Peter, to strengthen the Faith of the brothers. We should
wish to communicate to you this charism of certitude that the Lord
gives to him who represents him though unworthily on this earth.”
Faith gives us certitude, security, when it is based upon the Word of
God accepted and consented to with our very own reason and with our
very own human spirit. Whoever believes with simplicity, with
humility, sense that he is on the good road, that he has an interior
testimony that strengthens him in the difficult conquest of the truth.
Read Jimmy Akins analysis here: via The Smoke Of Satan Homily.
Pope Benedict XVI-USCCB
USCCB President Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s statement on the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.
Follow the story on Catholic News Service.
Biography of Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Joseph Ratzinger, was born on April 16, 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Germany. He was ordained a priest on June 29, 1951. His father, a police officer, came from a traditional family of farmers from Lower Bavaria.
He spent his adolescent years in Traunstein, and was called into the auxiliary anti-aircraft service in the last months of World War II. From 1946 to 1951, the year in which he was ordained a priest and began to teach, he studied philosophy and theology at the University of Munich and at the higher school in Freising. In 1953, he obtained a doctorate in theology with a thesis entitled: “The People and House of God in St. Augustine’s Doctrine of the Church”. Four years later, he qualified as a university teacher. He then taught dogma and fundamental theology at the higher school of philosophy and theology of Freising, then in Bonn from 1959 to 1969, in Münster from 1963 to 1966, and in Tubinga from 1966 to 1969. In 1969, he became a professor of dogmatic theology and of the history of dogma at the University of Regensburg and Vice President of the same university.
In 1962 he was already well known when, at the age of 35, he became a consultor of the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joseph Frings, at the Second Vatican Council. His numerous publications, include the ‘Introduction to Christianity’, a collection of university lessons on the profession of apostolic faith, published in 1968 and “Dogma and Revelation,” an anthology of essays, sermons and reflections dedicated to the pastoral ministry, published in 1973.
In March 1977, Pope Paul VI named Fr. Ratzinger Archbishop of Munich and Freising and on May 28, 1977 he was consecrated—the first diocesan priest in 80 years to take over the pastoral ministry of the large Bavarian diocese. Paul VI elevated him to the College of Cardinals in the consistory of June 27, 1977.
On November 25, 1981, he was nominated by John Paul II to be Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Vice Dean of the College of Cardinals on November 6, 1998. On November 30, 2002, he was elected as Dean of the College of Cardinals.
He served as President of the Commission for the Preparation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and after 6 years of work, he presented the New Catechism to the Holy Father in 1992.
Following the death of John Paul II on April 2, 2005, and his funeral on April 8, Cardinal Ratzinger presided over the conclave to elect a new pope as dean of the College of Cardinals. The conclave opened on April 18 and Cardinal Ratzinger was elected as the 265th Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church on April 19, 2005. He chose the name “Benedict” and became Pope Benedict XVI.
Read more: Pope Benedict XVI.
Be Holy! 