Tag Archives: Pope

Pope Benedict XVI – Mustard Seed in Germany

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The Anchoress has this.

“Peter Seewald, the German journalist and former atheist, encountered that mustard seed when he interviewed then-Cardinal Ratzinger for God and the World — a long discussion that was transcribed word-for-word (and according to Seewald, virtually unchanged in editing) that resulted in both a fascinating book and Seewald’s own conversion. His follow-up conversation with Ratzinger-as-Pope, Light of the World, showed the mustard seed still potent. Now he writes of Benedict’s visit to Germany:

“[Benedict’s success was] a small miracle…shortly before [he arrived] there was a very aggressive, anti-clerical assault by the media.”

“All of this brings to mind George Orwell’s ‘1984,’ in which an imaginary enemy, a nightmare, is created in order to scare people.” “And yet,” Seewald noted, “despite all of this incredible effort by the media, an innumerable amount of people stood up and refused to be deceived.”
[…]
It’s as if they were saying that everything would be wonderful and orderly in the world if the Vatican just ceased to exist.”

“We were all witnesses to something much greater. Where were all the masses of critics and protesters? They never showed up. And yet 350,000 people made great sacrifices in order to personally listen to the Pope and to attend Mass with him. Millions watched on television. The Pope’s books are selling faster than ever … And undoubtedly never before has so much intelligence, wisdom and truth, so much of what is fundamental, been heard in Germany.”
[…]
[The media] work like crazy in a state of antagonism against the Pope…to see Benedict XVI “walk through the ferocious pack of media dogs without losing his composure for one second” was amazing.

The Pope’s Own Words -Condom Stance

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The headlines read: 

“Pope Benedict says that condoms can be used to stop the spread of HIV? ”

“Pope signals historic leap in fight against Aids: Condoms can be justified”

“Pope says some condom use ‘first step’ of morality”

Read the Pope actual statement here and here, in a note issued by Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. concerning certain remarks by the Pope on the use of condoms, which appear the new book “Light of the World”.

Worldwide Prayer for the Unborn

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The Holy Father has announced a worldwide vigil of prayer for unborn children.  On Saturday evening, November 27, in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome the Holy Father  will begin the season of Advent. He will lift up in prayer all the children living in the womb, and call God’s protection on them.

Please join Pope BenedictXVI in prayer.  He has invited all the bishops of the world to join him.  The Advent prayer may be prayed as a Novena or through the season of Advent:

Advent Prayer for LIfe

God of Life,
We rejoice in the promise of your coming.

You have sent your Son, born in Bethlehem.
He is the Prince of Peace, and
The one in whose name all oppression shall cease.

May we welcome his coming each day
And prepare for his coming at the end of time.
May we build a culture that welcomes him
By welcoming every child, born and unborn.

We pray through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Priests for Life offers Advent Prayer Cards for your parishes (free).

Pervasive Darkness – Everlasting Light – Benedict XVI

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Sometimes the blindness of those who forgo God leaves me speechless.  There is simply too much to say about God, Life and Eternity that silence and prayer must suffice, especially when you know that no one is actually asking the questions that might turn on the lights and light up their life.

Here is an email I received that begs God’s grace and an answer:

“By the way, besides my atheist status I am a full out Liberal ready to take everyone’s extra money to feed hungry children so watch out! 😉 I get in as much trouble for my Liberal Democrat status as my non faith in mainstream religion. I am spiritual and giving but don’t recognize religion as something that works for me. That’s the difference.  So many people proclaim their loyalty and belief in a god but are not good people, I try to be good without the need of a god’s blessing or promise of eternal life. In other words, I try to be good for nothing…… joke here.”

I thought I would answer by bringing  in the Big Guns for the really Big Picture:

From Jesus of Nazareth by ‘Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI:

“At the heart of all temptations… is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive Him as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with all the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives, constructing a world by our own lights without reference to God, building on our own foundation, refusing to acknowledge the reality of anything beyond the political and material, while setting God aside as an illusion that is the temptation the threatens us in many varied forms.  Moral posturing is part and parcel of temptation. It does not invite us directly to do evil; no, that would be far to blatant. It pretends to show us a better way, where we finally abandon our illusions and threw ourselves into the work of actually making the world a better place.  It claims moreover to speak for true realism; what’s real is what’s right there in front of us, power and bread.  By comparison, the things of God fade into unreality, into a secondary world that no one really needs.

God is the issue.  Is He real, reality Itself or isn’t He?  Is He good or do we have to invent the good ourselves?  The God question is the fundamental question, and it sets us down right at the crossroads of human existence. What must the Savior of the world do, or not do that is the question the temptations of Jesus are about.”

Alfred Delp, a German theologian, executed by the Nazi’s said:

“Bread is important.  Freedom is more important, but what is most important of all is unbroken fidelity and faithful adoration.”

Benedict XVI continues:

“When this ordering of goods is no longer respected, but turned on its head, the result is not justice or concern for human suffering the result is rather ruin and destruction even of material good themselves.  When God is regarded as a secondary matter that can be set aside temporarily, or permanently, on account of more important things, it is precisely these supposedly more important things, that come to nothing. It is not just the negative outcome of a Marxist experiment that proves this, the aid given by the West to developing countries has been purely technically and materially based.  It has not only left God out of the picture but has driven men away from God. and this aid proudly claiming to know better is itself what first turned the Third World into what we now mean today by that term.It has thrust aside indigenous religious , ethical and social structures and filled the resulting vacuum with its technocratic mindset.  The idea was that we can turn stones into bread; instead our aide has only given stones in place of bread.  The issue is the primacy of God.”

Christ the Good Shepherd

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From a homily on the Gospels by Saint Gregory the Great, pope

Christ the Good Shepherd

I am the good shepherd. I know my own—by which I mean, I love them—and my own know me. In plain words: those who love me are willing to follow me, for anyone who does not love the truth has not yet come to know it.

My dear brethren, you have heard the test we pastors have to undergo. Turn now to consider how these words of our Lord imply a test for yourselves also. Ask yourselves whether you belong to his flock, whether you know him, whether the light of his truth shines in your minds. I assure you that it is not by faith that you will come to know him, but by love; not by mere conviction, but by action. John the evangelist is my authority for this statement. He tells us that anyone who claims to know God without keeping his commandments is a liar.

Consequently, the Lord immediately adds: As the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. Clearly he means that laying down his life for his sheep gives evidence of his knowledge of the Father and the Father’s knowledge of him. In other words, by the love with which he dies for his sheep he shows how greatly he loves his Father.

Again he says: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them; they follow me, and I give them eternal life. Shortly before this he had declared: If anyone enters the sheepfold through me he shall be saved; he shall go freely in and out and shall find good pasture. He will enter into a life of faith; from faith he will go out to vision, from belief to contemplation, and will graze in the good pastures of everlasting life.

So our Lord’s sheep will finally reach their grazing ground where all who follow him in simplicity of heart will feed on the green pastures of eternity. These pastures are the spiritual joys of heaven. There the elect look upon the face of God with unclouded vision and feast at the banquet of life for ever more.

Beloved brothers, let us set out for these pastures where we shall keep joyful festival with so many of our fellow citizens. May the thought of their happiness urge us on! Let us stir up our hearts, rekindle our faith, and long eagerly for what heaven has in store for us. To love thus is to be already on our way. No matter what obstacles we encounter, we must not allow them to turn us aside from the joy of that heavenly feast. Anyone who is determined to reach his destination is not deterred by the roughness of the road that leads to it. Nor must we allow the charm of success to seduce us, or we shall be like a foolish traveler who is so distracted by the pleasant meadows through which he is passing that he forgets where he is going.

“God Rejects No One” “The Church Rejects No One”

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Pope Benedict marks the celebration  of the 1950th anniversary of the shipwreck of the Apostle Paul on the Island of Malta (Acts 27:12 – 28:1) with a pilgrimage to Malta.

Address to the Young People of Malta ( and the world)

“Saint Paul, as a young man, had an experience that changed him for ever. As you know, he was once an enemy of the Church, and did all he could to destroy it. While he was travelling to Damascus, intending to hunt down any Christians he could find there, the Lord appeared to him in a vision. A blinding light shone around him and he heard a voice saying, “Why do you persecute me? … I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:4-5). Paul was completely overcome by this encounter with the Lord, and his whole life was transformed. He became a disciple, and went on to be a great apostle and missionary. Here in Malta, you have particular reason to give thanks for Paul’s missionary labours, which spread the Gospel throughout the Mediterranean.

Every personal encounter with Jesus is an overwhelming experience of love. Previously, as Paul himself admits, he had “persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it” (Gal 1:13). But the hatred and anger expressed in those words was completely swept away by the power of Christ’s love. For the rest of his life, Paul had a burning desire to carry the news of that love to the ends of the earth.

Maybe some of you will say to me, Saint Paul is often severe in his writings. How can I say that he was spreading a message of love? My answer is this. God loves every one of us with a depth and intensity that we can hardly begin to imagine. And he knows us intimately, he knows all our strengths and all our faults. Because he loves us so much, he wants to purify us of our faults and build up our virtues so that we can have life in abundance. When he challenges us because something in our lives is displeasing to him, he is not rejecting us, but he is asking us to change and become more perfect. That is what he asked of Saint Paul on the road to Damascus. God rejects no one. And the Church rejects no one. Yet in his great love, God challenges all of us to change and to become more perfect.

Saint John tells us that perfect love casts out fear (cf. 1 Jn 4:18). And so I say to all of you, “Do not be afraid!” How many times we hear those words in the Scriptures! They are addressed by the angel to Mary at the Annunciation, by Jesus to Peter when calling him to be a disciple, and by the angel to Paul on the eve of his shipwreck. To all of you who wish to follow Christ, as married couples, as parents, as priests, as religious, as lay faithful bringing the message of the Gospel to the world, I say, do not be afraid! You may well encounter opposition to the Gospel message. Today’s culture, like every culture, promotes ideas and values that are sometimes at variance with those lived and preached by our Lord Jesus Christ. Often they are presented with great persuasive power, reinforced by the media and by social pressure from groups hostile to the Christian faith. It is easy, when we are young and impressionable, to be swayed by our peers to accept ideas and values that we know are not what the Lord truly wants for us. That is why I say to you: do not be afraid, but rejoice in his love for you; trust him, answer his call to discipleship, and find nourishment and spiritual healing in the sacraments of the Church.

Here in Malta, you live in a society that is steeped in Christian faith and values. You should be proud that your country both defends the unborn and promotes stable family life by saying no to abortion and divorce. I urge you to maintain this courageous witness to the sanctity of life and the centrality of marriage and family life for a healthy society. In Malta and Gozo, families know how to value and care for their elderly and infirm members, and they welcome children as gifts from God. Other nations can learn from your Christian example. In the context of European society, Gospel values are once again becoming counter-cultural, just as they were at the time of Saint Paul.

In this Year for Priests, I ask you to be open to the possibility that the Lord may be calling some of you to give yourselves totally to the service of his people in the priesthood or the consecrated life. Your country has given many fine priests and religious to the Church. Be inspired by their example, and recognize the profound joy that comes from dedicating one’s life to spreading the message of God’s love for all people, without exception.

I have spoken already of the need to care for the very young, and for the elderly and infirm. Yet a Christian is called to bring the healing message of the Gospel to everyone. God loves every single person in this world, indeed he loves everyone who has ever lived throughout the history of the world. In the death and Resurrection of Jesus, which is made present whenever we celebrate the Mass, he offers life in abundance to all those people. As Christians we are called to manifest God’s all-inclusive love. So we should seek out the poor, the vulnerable, the marginalized; we should have a special care for those who are in distress, those suffering from depression or anxiety; we should care for the disabled, and do all we can to promote their dignity and quality of life; we should be attentive to the needs of immigrants and asylum seekers in our midst; we should extend the hand of friendship to members of all faiths and none. That is the noble vocation of love and service that we have all received. Let it inspire you to dedicate your lives to following Christ.”