Entry 0345: Reflections on the Solemnity of
Saints Peter and Paul by Pope Benedict XVI
On eight
occasions in the course of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI delivered reflections on 29 June, the solemnity of Saints
Peter and Paul, in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. Here are the texts of eight brief addresses delivered on these
occasions prior to the recitation of the
Angelus, four homilies delivered during the celebration of first
vespers, and eight homilies preached during the celebration of Holy Mass.
Vatican Basilica, Friday, 29 June 2007
Vatican
Basilica, Sunday, 29 June 2008
Vatican Basilica, Monday, 29 June 2009
St Paul the 2,000th anniversary
of whose birth we have recently celebrated spread the Gospel with divine Grace,
sowing among pagan peoples the word of truth and salvation. Although the two Holy
Patrons of Rome had received from God different charisms and different missions
to fulfill, both are pillars of the Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic,
“permanently open to missionary and ecumenical Endeavour, for she is sent to
the world to announce and witness, to make present and spread the mystery of communion
which is essential to her” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Communionis
Notio, 28 May 1992, no. 4: ORE. 17 June 1992, p.8). For this reason, during
Holy Mass this morning in the Vatican Basilica, I conferred on 38 Metropolitan Archbishops
the Pallium, which symbolizes both communion with the Bishop of Rome and
the mission to lovingly tend Christ’s one flock. On this solemn occasion, I also
wish to thank warmly the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as a testimony
of the spiritual bond between the Church of Rome and the Church of Constantinople
Vatican Basilica, Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Vatican Basilica, Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Vatican
Basilica, Friday,
29 June 2012
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
St
Peter’s Square, Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul
Wednesday,
29 June 2005
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
I humbly ask pardon
for being late.
As you know, we solemnly
celebrated Sts Peter and Paul in the Basilica. It is a feast especially celebrated
in Rome , where these
two outstanding witnesses of Christ suffered martyrdom and where their relics are
venerated.
The memorial of the
holy Patrons makes me feel particularly close to you, dear faithful of the Diocese
of Rome. Divine Providence has called me to be your Pastor: I thank you for the
affection with which you have welcomed me, and I ask you to pray that Sts Peter
and Paul obtain for me the grace to carry out faithfully the pastoral ministry entrusted
to me. As Bishop of Rome, the Pope carries out a unique and indispensable service
to the universal Church: he is the perpetual and visible principle and foundation
of the unity of the Bishops and of all the faithful.
A liturgical sign
of communion that unites the See of Peter and his Successor to the Metropolitans,
and through them to the other Bishops of the world, is the pallium, which this morning,
during the Eucharistic Celebration in St Peter’s Basilica, I conferred upon more
than 30 Pastors from various Communities. I renew my fraternal greeting to these
dear Brothers and to all who surround them.
I also affectionately
address a cordial greeting to the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
which has come here for this special occasion. How can we forget today that the
primacy of the Church in Rome
and of her Bishop is a primacy of service to catholic communion? Starting with the
dual event of the martyrdom of Peter and of Paul, all the Churches began to look
to Rome as a central
reference point for doctrinal and pastoral unity. The Second Vatican Council said:
“Holding a rightful place in the communion of the Church there are also particular
Churches that retain their own traditions, without prejudice to the Chair of Peter
which presides over the whole assembly of charity (see St Ignatius Martyr, Ad
Rom., Preaf.: ed. Funk, 1, p. 252), and protects their legitimate variety while
at the same time taking care that these differences do not hinder unity, but rather
contribute to it” (Constitution Lumen Gentium, no. 13).
May the Virgin Mary
obtain for us the desire that the Petrine ministry of the Bishop of Rome not be
seen as a stumbling block but as a support on the journey to unity and help us to
achieve Christ’s desire as soon as possible:
“ut unum sint”. May the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul intercede for
us.
SOLEMNITY
OF STS PETER AND PAUL
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
St
Peter’s Basilica. Wednesday, 29 June 2005
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
The Feast of the
Holy Apostles Peter and Paul is at the same time a grateful memorial of the great
witnesses of Jesus Christ and a solemn confession for the Church: one, holy,
catholic and apostolic. It is first and foremost a feast of catholicity.
The sign of Pentecost - the new community that speaks all languages and unites
all peoples into one people, in one family of God -, this sign has become a reality.
Our liturgical assembly, at which Bishops are gathered from all parts of the world,
people of many cultures and nations, is an image of the family of the Church distributed
throughout the earth.
Strangers have become
friends; crossing every border, we recognize one another as brothers and sisters.
This brings to fulfilment the mission of St Paul, who knew that he was the “minister
of Christ Jesus among the Gentiles, with the priestly duty of preaching the Gospel
of God so that the Gentiles [might] be offered up as a pleasing sacrifice, consecrated
by the Holy Spirit” (Rom 15: 16).
The purpose of the
mission is that humanity itself becomes a living glorification of God, the true
worship that God expects: this is the deepest meaning of catholicity - a
catholicity that has already been given to us, towards which we must constantly
start out again. Catholicity does not only express a horizontal dimension,
the gathering of many people in unity, but also a vertical dimension: it is only
by raising our eyes to God, by opening ourselves to him, that we can truly become
one.
Like Paul, Peter
also came to Rome ,
to the city that was a centre where all the nations converged and, for this very
reason, could become, before any other, the expression of the universal outreach
of the Gospel. As he started out on his journey from Jerusalem
to Rome , he must certainly have felt guided by the
voices of the prophets, by faith and by the prayer of Israel .
The mission to the
whole world is also part of the proclamation of the Old Covenant: the people of
Israel
were destined to be a light for the Gentiles. The great Psalm of the Passion, Psalm
22[21], whose first verse Jesus cried out on the Cross: “My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me?”, ends with the vision: “All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord; all the families of the nations shall bow down before him”
(Ps 22[21]: 28). When Peter and Paul came to Rome , the Lord on the Cross who had uttered the
first line of that Psalm was risen; God’s victory now had to be proclaimed to all
the nations, thereby fulfilling the promise with which the Psalm concludes.
Catholicity means
universality - a multiplicity that becomes unity; a unity that nevertheless
remains multiplicity. From Paul’s words on the Church’s universality we have
already seen that the ability of nations to get the better of themselves in order
to look towards the one God, is part of this unity. In the second century,
the founder of Catholic theology, St Irenaeus of Lyons , described very beautifully this bond between
catholicity and unity and I quote him. He says: “The Church spread across the world
diligently safeguards this doctrine and this faith, forming as it were one family:
the same faith, with one mind and one heart, the same preaching, teaching and tradition
as if she had but one mouth. Languages abound according to the region but the power
of our tradition is one and the same. The Churches in Germany do not differ in faith
or tradition, neither do those in Spain, Gaul, Egypt, Libya, the Orient, the centre
of the earth; just as the sun, God’s creature, is one alone and identical throughout
the world, so the light of true preaching shines everywhere and illuminates all
who desire to attain knowledge of the truth” (Adv. Haer. I 10, 2). The unity
of men and women in their multiplicity has become possible because God, this
one God of heaven and earth, has shown himself to us; because the essential truth
about our lives, our “where from?” and “where to?” became visible when he revealed
himself to us and enabled us to see his face, himself, in Jesus Christ. This truth
about the essence of our being, living and dying, a truth that God made visible,
unites us and makes us brothers and sisters. Catholicity and unity
go hand in hand. And unity has a content: the faith that the Apostles passed
on to us in Christ’s name.
I am pleased that
yesterday, the Feast of St Irenaeus and the eve of the Solemnity of Sts Peter and
Paul, I was able to give the Church a new guide for the transmission of the faith
that will help us to become better acquainted with and to live better the faith
that unites us: the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The essential content of what is presented in detail in the complete Catechism,
through the witness of the saints of all the ages and with reflections that have
matured in theology, is summed up here in this book and must then be translated
into everyday language and constantly put into practice. The book is in the form
of a dialogue with questions and answers.
The 14 images associated
with the various areas of faith are an invitation to contemplation and meditation.
In other words, a visible summary of what the written text develops in full detail.
At the beginning there is a reproduction of a 6th-century icon of Christ, kept at
Mount Athos , that portrays Christ in his dignity
as Lord of the earth but at the same time also as a herald of the Gospel which he
holds in his hand. “I am who am”, this mysterious name of God presented in the Old
Testament, is copied here as his own name: all that exists comes from him; he is
the original source of all being. And since he is one, he is also ever present,
ever close to us and at the same time, ever in the lead: an “indicator” on our way
through life, especially since he himself is the Way. This book cannot be read as
if it were a novel. Its individual sections must be calmly meditated upon and, through
the images, its content must be allowed to penetrate the soul. I hope that it will
be received as such and become a reliable guide in the transmission of the faith.
We have said that
the catholicity of the Church and the unity of the Church go together.
The fact that both dimensions become visible to us in the figures of the holy Apostles
already shows us the consequent characteristic of the Church: she is apostolic.
What does this mean?
The Lord established
Twelve Apostles just as the sons of Jacob were 12. By so doing he was presenting
them as leaders of the People of God which, henceforth universal, from that time
has included all the peoples. St Mark tells us that Jesus called the Apostles so
“to be with him, and to be sent out” (Mk 3: 14). This seems almost a contradiction
in terms. We would say: “Either they stayed with him or they were sent forth and
set out on their travels”. Pope St Gregory the Great says a word about angels that
helps us resolve this contradiction. He says that angels are always sent out and
at the same time are always in God’s presence, and continues, “Wherever they are
sent, wherever they go, they always journey on in God’s heart” (Homily, 34,
13). The Book of Revelation described Bishops as “angels” in their Church, so we
can state: the Apostles and their successors must always be with the Lord and precisely
in this way - wherever they may go - they must always be in communion with him and
live by this communion.
The Church is apostolic,
because she professes the faith of the Apostles and attempts to live it. There
is a unity that marks the Twelve called by the Lord, but there is also continuity
in the apostolic mission. St Peter, in his First Letter, described himself as “a
fellow elder” of the presbyters to whom he writes (5: 1). And with this he expressed
the principle of apostolic succession: the same ministry which he had received from
the Lord now continues in the Church through priestly ordination. The Word of God
is not only written but, thanks to the testimonies that the Lord in the sacrament
has inscribed in the apostolic ministry, it remains a living word. Thus, I now address
you, dear Brother Bishops. I greet you with affection, together with your relatives
and the pilgrims from your respective Dioceses. You are about to receive the Pallium
from the hands of the Successor of Peter. We had it blessed, as though by Peter
himself, by placing it beside his tomb. It is now an expression of our common responsibility
to the “chief Shepherd” Jesus Christ, of whom Peter speaks (I Pt 5: 4). The Pallium
is an expression of our apostolic mission. It is an expression of our communion
whose visible guarantee is the Petrine ministry. Unity as well as apostolicity
are bound to the Petrine service that visibly unites the Church of all places and
all times, thereby preventing each one of us from slipping into the kind
of false autonomy that all too easily becomes particularization of the Church and
might consequently jeopardize her independence. So, let us not forget that the purpose
of all offices and ministries is basically that “we [all] become one in faith and
in the knowledge of God’s son, and form that perfect man who is Christ come to full
stature”, so that the Body of Christ may grow and build “itself up in love” (Eph
4: 13, 16).
In this perspective,
I warmly and gratefully greet the Delegation of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople,
sent by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to whom I address a cordial thought,
and led by Metropolitan Ioannis, who has come for our feast day and is taking part
in our celebration. Even though we may not yet agree on the issue of the interpretation
and importance of the Petrine Ministry, we are nonetheless together in the apostolic
succession, we are deeply united with one another through episcopal ministry and
through the sacrament of priesthood, and together profess the faith of the Apostles
as it is given to us in Scripture and as it was interpreted at the great Councils.
At this time in a world full of skepticism and doubt but also rich in the desire
for God, let us recognize anew our common mission to witness to Christ the Lord
together, and on the basis of that unity which has already been given to
us, to help the world in order that it may believe. And let us implore the Lord
with all our hearts to guide us to full unity so that the splendor of the
truth, which alone can create unity, may once again become visible in the
world.
Today’s Gospel tells
of the profession of faith of St Peter, on whom the Church was founded: “You are
the Messiah... the Son of the living God” (Mt 16: 16). Having spoken today of the
Church as one, catholic and apostolic but not yet of the Church as holy,
let us now recall another profession of Peter, his response on behalf of the
Twelve at the moment when so many abandoned Christ: “We have come to believe; we
are convinced that you are God’s holy one” (Jn 6: 69). What does this mean?
Jesus, in his great
priestly prayer, says that he is consecrating himself for his disciples, an allusion
to the sacrifice of his death (see Jn 17: 19). By saying this, Jesus implicitly
expresses his role as the true High Priest who brings about the mystery of the “Day
of Reconciliation”, no longer only in substitutive rites but in the concrete substance
of his own Body and Blood. The Old Testament term “the Holy One of the Lord” identified
Aaron as the High Priest who had the task of bringing about Israel’s sanctification
(Ps 106[105]: 16; Vulgate: Sir 45: 6). Peter’s profession of Christ, whom he declares
to be the Holy One of God, fits into the context of the Eucharistic Discourse in
which Jesus announces the Day of Reconciliation through the sacrificial offering
of himself: “the bread I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world” (Jn 6:
51). So this profession is the background of the priestly mystery of Jesus, his
sacrifice for us all. The Church is not holy by herself; in fact, she is
made up of sinners - we all know this and it is plain for all to see. Rather, she
is made holy ever anew by the Holy One of God, by the purifying love of Christ.
God did not only speak, but loved us very realistically; he loved us to the point
of the death of his own Son. It is precisely here that we are shown the full grandeur
of revelation that has, as it were, inflicted the wounds in the heart of God himself.
Then each one of us can say personally, together with St Paul, I live “a life of
faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2: 20).
Let us pray to the
Lord that the truth of these words may be deeply impressed in our hearts, together
with his joy and with his responsibility; let us pray that shining out from the
Eucharistic Celebration it will become increasingly the force that shapes our lives.
SOLEMNITY
OF STS PETER AND PAUL
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
Saint
Peter’s Square, Thursday, 29 June 2006
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
I am a bit late because
the Celebration at St Peter’s was longer than expected. I ask your pardon.
Today, we are solemnly
honoring Sts Peter and Paul, “Apostles of Christ, pillars and foundations of the
city of God ”, as
today’s liturgy sings. Their martyrdom is considered the true act of birth of the
Church of Rome.
The two Apostles
gave their supreme witness close to each other in time and place: here in Rome , St
Peter was crucified and afterwards St Paul
was decapitated. Their blood mingled as if in a single witness to Christ, which
prompted St Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, in the middle of the second century to speak
of the “Church founded and organized at Rome
by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul” (Adversus Haeres 3, 3,
2).
A little later, from
North Africa , Tertullian exclaimed: “How happy is the Church of Rome on which the
Apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood” (De Praescriptione
Haereticorum, 36).
For this very reason
the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of the Apostle Peter, carries out a special ministry
at the service of the doctrinal and pastoral unity of the People of God scattered
across the world.
In this context,
it is also easier to understand the significance of the rite we renewed this morning
during Holy Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, that is, the conferral upon several Metro-politan
Archbishops of the Pallium, an ancient liturgical symbol that expresses the special
communion of these Pastors with the Successor of Peter. I extend my greeting to
these venerable Brother Archbishops and to all those who have accompanied them,
as I invite you all, dear brothers and sisters, to pray for them and the Churches
entrusted to their care.
There is yet another
reason that makes our joy today even greater:
it is the presence in Rome ,
on the occasion of the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul, of a special delegation
sent by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I. I repeat my welcome
with affection to the members of this delegation and I warmly thank the Patriarch
for having made the bond of brotherhood that exists between our Churches even more
evident with this gesture.
May Mary, Queen of
the Apostles, whom we invoke with trust, obtain for Christians the gift of full
unity. With her help and following in the footsteps of St Peter and St Paul , may the Church which is in Rome and the whole People of God offer the world
a witness of unity and of courageous dedication to the Gospel of Christ.
CAPPELLA
PAPALE ON THE SOLEMNITY OF STS PETER AND PAUL
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
St
Peter’s Basilica, Thursday, 29 June 2006
“You are Peter,
and on this rock I will build my Church” (Mt 16: 18).
What exactly was
the Lord saying to Peter with these words? With them, what promise did he make to
Peter and what task did he entrust to him? And what is he saying to us - to the
Bishop of Rome, who is seated on the chair of Peter, and to the Church today?
If we want to understand
the meaning of Jesus’ words, it is useful to remember that the Gospels recount for
us three different situations in which the Lord, each time in a special way, transmits
to Peter his future task. The task is always the same, but what the Lord was and
is concerned with becomes clearer to us from the diversity of the situations and
images used.
In the Gospel
according to St Matthew that we have just heard, Peter makes his own confession
to Jesus, recognizing him as the Messiah and Son of God. On the basis of this, his
special task is conferred upon him though three images: the rock that becomes the
foundation or cornerstone, the keys, and the image of binding and loosing.
I do not intend here
to interpret once again these three images that the Church down the ages has explained
over and over again; rather, I would like to call attention to the geographical
place and chronological context of these words.
The promise is made
at the sources of the Jordan ,
on the boundary of the Judaic Land, on the frontiers of the pagan world. The moment
of the promise marks a crucial turning-point in Jesus’ journey: the Lord now sets
out for Jerusalem and for the first time, he tells the disciples that this journey
to the Holy City is the journey to the Cross: “From that time Jesus began to show
his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders
and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Mt
16: 21).
Both these things
go together and determine the inner place of the Primacy, indeed, of the Church
in general: the Lord is continuously on his way towards the Cross, towards the lowliness
of the servant of God, suffering and killed, but at the same time he is also on
the way to the immensity of the world in which he precedes us as the Risen One,
so that the light of his words and the presence of his love may shine forth in the
world; he is on the way so that through him, the Crucified and Risen Christ, God
himself, may arrive in the world.
In this regard, Peter
describes himself in his First Letter as “a witness of the sufferings of Christ
as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed” (I Pt 5: 1). For the
Church, Good Friday and Easter have always existed together; she is always both
the mustard seed and the tree in whose boughs the birds of the air make their nests.
The Church - and
in her, Christ - still suffers today. In her, Christ is again and again taunted
and slapped; again and again an effort is made to reject him from the world. Again
and again the little barque of the Church is ripped apart by the winds of ideologies,
whose waters seep into her and seem to condemn her to sink. Yet, precisely in the
suffering Church, Christ is victorious.
In spite of all,
faith in him recovers ever new strength. The Lord also commands the waters today
and shows that he is the Lord of the elements. He stays in his barque, in the little
boat of the Church.
Thus, on the one
hand, the weakness proper to human beings is revealed in Peter’s ministry, but at
the same time, also God’s power: in the weakness of human beings itself the Lord
shows his strength; he demonstrates that it is through frail human beings that he
himself builds his Church.
Let us now turn to
the Gospel according to St Luke, which tells us that during the Last Supper,
the Lord once again confers a special task upon Peter (see Lk 22: 31-33). This time,
the Lord’s words addressed to Simon are found immediately after the Institution
of the Most Blessed Eucharist. The Lord has just given himself to his followers
under the species of bread and wine. We can see the Institution of the Eucharist
as the true and proper founding act of the Church.
Through the Eucharist,
the Lord not only gives himself to his own but also gives them the reality of a
new communion among themselves which is extended in time, “until he comes” (see
I Cor 11: 26).
Through the Eucharist,
the disciples become his living dwelling place which, as history unfolds, grows
like the new and living temple
of God
And then he addresses
Peter. He says that Satan has demanded to have him so that he may sift him like
wheat. This calls to mind the passage in the Book of Job, where Satan asks
God for the power to afflict Job. The devil - the slanderer of God and men - thereby
wants to prove that no true religious feeling exists, but that in man every aim
is always solely utilitarian.
In the case of Job,
God grants Satan the asked-for freedom precisely to be able by so doing to defend
his creature - man - and himself. And this also happens with Jesus’ disciples. God
gives a certain liberty to Satan in all times.
To us it oftentimes
seems that God allows Satan too much freedom, that he grants him the power to distress
us too terribly; and that this gets the better of our forces and oppresses us too
heavily. Again and again we cry out to God: “Alas, look at the misery of your disciples!
Ah, protect us!”. In fact, Jesus continues: “I have prayed for you that your faith
may not fail” (Lk 22: 32).
Jesus’ prayer is
the limit set upon the power of the devil. Jesus’ prayer is the protection of the
Church. We can seek refuge under this protection, cling on to it and be safe. But
- as he says in the Gospel - Jesus prays in a particular way for Peter: “...that
your faith may not fail”.
Jesus’ prayer is
at the same time a promise and a duty. Jesus’ prayer safeguards Peter’s faith, that
faith which he confessed at Caesarea Philippi: “You are the Christ, the Son of the
living God” (Mt 16: 16). And so, never let this faith be silenced; strengthen it
over and over again, even in the face of the cross and all the world’s contradictions:
this is Peter’s task.
Therefore, the point
is that the Lord does not only pray for Peter’s personal faith, but for his faith
as a service to others. This is exactly what he means with the words: “When you
have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Lk 22: 32).
“When you have turned
again”: these words are at the same time a prophecy and a promise. They prophesy
the weakness of Simon, who was to deny to a maid and a servant that he knew Christ.
Through this fall, Peter - and with him the Church of all times - has to learn that
one’s own strength alone does not suffice to build and guide the Lord’s Church.
No one succeeds on his or her own. However capable and clever Peter may seem - already
at the first moment of trial he fails.
“When you have turned
again”: the Lord, who predicted his fall, also promises him conversion: “And the
Lord turned and looked at Peter...” (Lk 22: 61). Jesus’ look works the transformation
and becomes Peter’s salvation: “he went out and wept bitterly” (Lk 22: 62).
Let us implore ever
anew this saving gaze of Jesus: for all those who have responsibility in the Church;
for all who suffer the bewilderment of these times; for the great and for the small:
Lord, look at us ever anew, pick us up every time we fall and take us in your good
hands.
It is through the
promise of his prayer that the Lord entrusts to Peter the task for the brethren.
Peter’s responsibility is anchored in Jesus’ prayer. It is this that gives him the
certainty that he will persevere through all human miseries.
And the Lord entrusts
this task to him in the context of the Supper, in connection with the gift of the
Most Holy Eucharist. The Church, established in the institution of the Eucharist,
in her inmost self is a Eucharistic community, hence, communion in the Body of the
Lord. Peter’s task is to preside over this universal communion; to keep it present
in the world also as visible, incarnate unity. He, together with the whole Church
of Rome - as St Ignatius of Antioch said -, must preside in charity: preside over
the community with that love which comes from Christ and ever anew surpasses the
limitations of the private sphere to bring God’s love to the ends of the earth.
The third reference
to the Primacy is found in the Gospel according to St John (21: 15-19). The
Lord is risen, and as the Risen One he entrusts his flock to Peter. Here too, the
Cross and the Resurrection are interconnected. Jesus predicts to Peter that he is
to take the way of the Cross. In this Basilica built over the tomb of Peter - a
tomb of the poor - we see that in this very way the Lord, through the Cross, is
always victorious. His power is not a power according to the ways of this world.
It is the power of goodness: of truth and of love, which is stronger than death.
Yes, his promise
is true: the powers of death, the gates of hell, will not prevail against the Church
which he built on Peter (see Mt 16: 18) and which he, in this very way, continues
to build personally.
On this Solemnity
of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, I address you especially, dear Metropolitans,
who have come from many countries of the world to receive the Pallium from the Successor
of Peter. I offer you a cordial greeting, together with all those who have accompanied
you.
I also greet with
special joy the delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, led by His Eminence Ioannis
Zizioulas, Metropolitan of Pergamon and President of the Joint International Commission
for Theological Dialogue between the Catholics and the Orthodox. I am grateful to
Patriarch Bartholomew I and to the Holy Synod for this sign of brotherhood that
demonstrates the desire and the commitment to progress more swiftly on the path
of full unity that Christ invoked for all his disciples. We feel we share the ardent
desire, once expressed by Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI, to drink together
from the same Cup and to eat together the Bread which is the Lord himself. Let us
implore once again on this occasion that this gift may soon be granted to us.
And let us thank
the Lord that we are united in the confession Peter made on behalf of all the disciples
at Caesarea Philippi: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Let us together
bring this confession to the contemporary world.
May the Lord help
us at this very moment in our history to be true witnesses of the sufferings of
Christ as well as partakers in the glory that is to be revealed (see I Pt 5: 1).
Amen.
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
Saint
Peter’s Square, Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul
Friday,
29 June 2007
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
The Eucharistic celebration
in the Vatican Basilica has just ended - I am a little late, I am sorry - in honor
of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, Patrons of Rome and “pillars” of the universal
Church.
As they do every
year for this solemn occasion, the Metropolitan Archbishops whom I appointed during
the past year and upon whom I have conferred the Pallium, a liturgical symbol which
expresses the bond of communion that binds them to the Successor of Peter, have
gathered in Rome .
I renew my most cordial
greeting to my beloved Brothers, Metropolitans, as I ask everyone to pray for them
and for the Communities entrusted to their pastoral care.
Moreover, on the
occasion of today’s Solemnity, the Church of Rome and her Bishop have the joy of
offering hospitality again this year to the Delegation sent by the Ecumenical Patriarchate
of Constantinople. I renew to the venerable Brothers who make up the Delegation
my most cordial greeting, which I also address through them with affection to His
Holiness Bartholomew I.
The Feast of the
Apostles Peter and Paul is a very special invitation to us to pray intensely and
act with conviction for the cause of the unity of all Christ’s disciples. The Christian
East and West are very close to each other and can already count on a communion
that is almost full, a beacon, as the Second Vatican Council said, to guide our
steps on the ecumenical journey.
Our meetings, our
visits to each other and our continuing dialogue are not mere gestures of courtesy
or attempts to achieve compromises, but signs of a common desire to do our utmost
to achieve as soon as possible that full communion implored by Christ in his prayer
to the Father after the Last Supper: “ut unum sint”.
These initiatives
also include the “Pauline Year” which I desired to announce yesterday evening
at the Basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls, near the Apostle Paul’s actual tomb.
It is a Jubilee Year dedicated to him that will run from 28 June 2008 to 29 June
2009, to coincide with the 2,000th anniversary of his birth.
I hope that the various
events organized will help to renew our missionary enthusiasm and deepen our relations
with our Eastern brethren and with other Christians who, like us, venerate the Apostle
to the Gentiles.
Let us now address
the Virgin Mary, Queen of the Apostles. Through her motherly intercession may the
Lord grant that the Church in Rome
and throughout the world be ever faithful to the Gospel, to whose service Sts Peter
and Paul dedicated their lives.
CELEBRATION
OF FIRST VESPERS
OF THE
SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Basilica
of St Paul Outside-the-Walls, Thursday, 28 June 2007
Your Eminences,
Venerable Brothers
in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
At this First Vespers
of the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul, let us commemorate with gratitude these
two Apostles whose blood with that of so many other Gospel witnesses made the Church
of Rome fruitful.
On their memorial,
I am glad to greet you all, dear brothers and sisters, starting with the Cardinal
Archpriest and the other Cardinals and Bishops present, Father Abbot and the Benedictine
Community to which this Basilica is entrusted, the clerics, the women and men religious
and lay faithful gathered here.
I address a special
greeting to the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which
is reciprocating the presence of the Holy See’s Delegation in Istanbul for the Feast of St Andrew.
As I had an opportunity
to say a few days ago, these meetings and initiatives are not merely an exchange
of courtesies between Churches but are intended to express the common commitment
to do everything possible to hasten the time of full communion between the Christian
East and West.
I address with these
sentiments Metropolitan Emmanuel and Metropolitan Gennadios, sent by my beloved
Brother Bartholomew I, to whom I express a grateful and cordial thought.
This Basilica, which
has hosted profoundly significant ecumenical events, reminds us how important it
is to pray together to implore the gift of unity, that unity for which St Peter
and St Paul spent their lives, to the point of making the supreme sacrifice of their
blood.
A very ancient tradition
which dates back to apostolic times claims that their last meeting before their
martyrdom actually took place not far from here: the two are supposed to have embraced
and blessed each other. And on the main portal of this Basilica they are depicted
together, with scenes of both martyrdoms.
Thus, from the outset,
Christian tradition has considered Peter and Paul to have been inseparable, even
if each had a different mission to accomplish.
Peter professed his
faith in Christ first; Paul obtained as a gift the ability to deepen its riches.
Peter founded the first community of Christians who came from the Chosen People;
Paul became the Apostle to the Gentiles. With different charisms they worked for
one and the same cause: the building of Christ’s Church.
In the Office of
Readings, the liturgy offers us for meditation this well-known text of St Augustine : “One day is assigned
for the celebration of the martyrdom of the two Apostles. But those two were one.
Although their martyrdom occurred on different days, they were one. Peter went first,
Paul followed. We celebrate this feast day which is made sacred for us by the blood
of these Apostles” (Sermon 295, 7, 8).
And St Leo the Great
comments: “About their merits and virtues, which surpass all power of speech, we
must not make distinctions, because they were equal in their election, alike in
their toils, undivided in their death” (In natali apostol., 69, 7).
In Rome , since the earliest centuries,
the bond that unites Peter and Paul in their mission has acquired a very specific
significance. Like Romulus
and Remus, the two mythical brothers who are said to have given birth to the City,
so Peter and Paul were held to be the founders of the Church of Rome.
Speaking to the City
on this topic, St Leo the Great said: “These are your holy Fathers and true shepherds,
who gave you claims to be numbered among the heavenly kingdoms, and built you under
much better and happier auspices than they, by whose zeal the first foundations
of your walls were laid” (Sermon 82, 7).
However humanly different
they may have been from each other and despite the tensions that existed in their
relationship, Peter and Paul appear as the founders of a new City , the expression of a new and authentic
way of being brothers which was made possible by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
For this reason,
it can be said that the Church of Rome is celebrating her birthday today, since
it was these two Apostles who laid her foundations.
Furthermore, Rome in our day perceives with
greater awareness both her mission and her greatness. St John Chrysostom wrote:
“Not so bright is the heaven, when the sun sends forth his rays, as is the City
of Rome , sending
out these two lights (Peter and Paul) into all parts of the world... Therefore,
I admire the City... for these pillars of the Church” (Homily on St Paul’s Epistle
to the Romans, 32, 24).
We will commemorate
St Peter specifically tomorrow, celebrating the Divine Sacrifice in the Vatican
Basilica, built on the site of his martyrdom. This evening we turn our gaze to St Paul , whose relics are preserved
with deep veneration in this Basilica.
At the beginning
of the Letter to the Romans, as we have just heard, St
Paul greeted the community of Rome ,
introducing himself as “a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle” (1:
1). He uses the term “servant”, in Greek, doulos, to indicate a relationship
of total and unconditional belonging to the Lord Jesus; moreover, it is a translation
of the Hebrew, ‘ebed, thus alluding to the great servants whom God chose
and called for an important and specific mission.
Paul knew he was
“called to be an apostle”, that is, that he had not presented himself as a candidate,
nor was his a human appointment, but solely by a divine call and election.
The Apostle to the
Gentiles repeats several times in his Letters that his whole life is a fruit of
God’s freely given and merciful grace (see I Cor 15: 9-10; II Cor 4: 1; Gal 1: 15).
He was chosen to proclaim “the Gospel of God” (Rom 1: 1), to disseminate the announcement
of divine Grace which in Christ reconciles man with God, himself and others.
From his Letters,
we know that Paul was far from being a good speaker; on the contrary, he shared
with Moses and Jeremiah a lack of oratory skill. “His bodily presence is weak, and
his speech of no account” (II Cor 10: 10), his adversaries said of him.
The extraordinary
apostolic results that he was able to achieve cannot, therefore, be attributed to
brilliant rhetoric or refined apologetic and missionary strategies.
The success of his
apostolate depended above all on his personal involvement in proclaiming the Gospel
with total dedication to Christ; a dedication that feared neither risk, difficulty
nor persecution.
“Neither death, nor
life”, he wrote to the Romans, “nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”
(8: 38-39).
From this we can
draw a particularly important lesson for every Christian. The Church’s action is
credible and effective only to the extent to which those who belong to her are prepared
to pay in person for their fidelity to Christ in every circumstance. When this readiness
is lacking, the crucial argument of truth on which the Church herself depends is
also absent.
Dear brothers and
sisters, as in early times, today too Christ needs apostles ready to sacrifice themselves.
He needs witnesses and martyrs like St
Paul . Paul, a former violent persecutor of Christians,
when he fell to the ground dazzled by the divine light on the road to Damascus , did not hesitate
to change sides to the Crucified One and followed him without second thoughts. He
lived and worked for Christ, for him he suffered and died. How timely his example
is today!
And for this very
reason I am pleased to announce officially that we shall be dedicating a special
Jubilee Year to the Apostle Paul from 28 June 2008 to 29 June 2009, on the occasion
of the bimillennium of his birth, which historians have placed between the years
7 and 10 A.D.
It will be possible
to celebrate this “Pauline Year” in a privileged way in Rome where the sarcophagus which, by the unanimous
opinion of experts and an undisputed tradition, preserves the remains of the Apostle
Paul, has been preserved beneath the Papal Altar of this Basilica for 20 centuries.
It will thus be possible
to have a series of liturgical, cultural and ecumenical events taking place at the
Papal Basilica and at the adjacent Benedictine Abbey, as well as various pastoral
and social initiatives, all inspired by Pauline spirituality.
In addition, special
attention will be given to penitential pilgrimages that will be organized to the
Apostle’s tomb to find in it spiritual benefit. Study conventions and special publications
on Pauline texts will also be promoted in order to make ever more widely known the
immense wealth of the teaching they contain, a true patrimony of humanity redeemed
by Christ.
Furthermore, in every
part of the world, similar initiatives will be implemented in the dioceses, shrines
and places of worship, by Religious and by the educational institutions and social-assistance
centres which are named after St Paul
or inspired by him and his teaching.
Lastly, there is
one particular aspect to which special attention must be paid during the celebration
of the various moments of the 2,000th Pauline anniversary: I am referring to the
ecumenical dimension. The Apostle to the Gentiles, who was especially committed
to taking the Good News to all peoples, left no stones unturned for unity and harmony
among all Christians.
May he deign to guide
and protect us in this bimillenial celebration, helping us to progress in the humble
and sincere search for the full unity of all the members of Christ’s Mystical Body.
Amen.
EUCHARISTIC
CONCELEBRATION
ON THE
SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
Yesterday afternoon,
I went to the Basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls, where I celebrated First Vespers
for today’s Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Beside the sepulcher
of the Apostle to the Gentiles I paid homage to his memory and announced the Pauline
Year which, on the occasion of the bimillennium of his birth, will be celebrated
from 28 June 2008 until 29 June 2009.
This morning we have
gathered round the sepulcher of St Peter in accordance with tradition. Present here
to receive the Pallium are the Metropolitan Archbishops appointed during the past
year, to whom I extend my special greeting. Also present, sent by the Ecumenical
Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, is an eminent Delegation; I welcome
it with cordial gratitude, thinking back to last 30 November when I was in Istanbul-Constantinople
for the Feast of St Andrew.
I greet the Greek
Orthodox Metropolitan Emmanuel of France, Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima and
the Deacon Andreas. Welcome, dear Brothers! The visits we pay each other every year
are a sign that the search for full communion is always present and desired by the
Ecumenical Patriarch and the Bishop of Rome.
Today’s Feast offers
me the opportunity to meditate once again on Peter’s confession, the decisive moment
in the journey of the disciples with Jesus. The Synoptic Gospels have it take place
in the district of Caesarea Philippi (see Mt 16: 13-20; Mk 8: 27-30; Lk 9: 18-22).
John, for his part,
keeps for us another important confession by Peter, after the miracle of the multiplication
of the loaves and Jesus’ Address in the Synagogue of Capernaum (see Jn 6: 66-70).
Matthew, in the text just proclaimed, recalls Jesus’ attribution of the nickname
Cephas, “Rock”, to Simon. Jesus said that he desired to build his Church
“on this rock” and with this in view, conferred on Peter the power of the keys (see
Mt 16: 17-19). It clearly emerges from these accounts that Peter’s confession is
inseparable from his pastoral duty to Christ’s flock which was entrusted to him.
According to all
the Evangelists, Simon’s confession takes place at a crucial moment in Jesus’ life
when, after preaching in Galilee, he resolutely set out for Jerusalem in order to
bring his saving mission to completion with his death on the Cross and his Resurrection.
The disciples were
involved in this decision: Jesus invited them to make a choice that would bring
them to distinguish themselves from the crowd so as to become the community of those
who believed in him, his “family”, the beginning of the Church.
In fact, there are
two ways of “seeing” and “knowing” Jesus: one - that of the crowd - is more superficial;
the other - that of the disciples - more penetrating and genuine. With his twofold
question: “What do the people say?” and “who do you say that I am?” Jesus invited
the disciples to become aware of this different perspective.
The people thought
that Jesus was a prophet. This was not wrong, but it does not suffice; it is inadequate.
In fact, it was a matter of delving deep, of recognizing the uniqueness of the person
of Jesus of Nazareth and his newness.
This is how it still
is today: many people draw near to Jesus, as it were, from the outside. Great scholars
recognize his spiritual and moral stature and his influence on human history, comparing
him to Buddha, Confucius, Socrates and other wise and important historical figures.
Yet they do not manage
to recognize him in his uniqueness. What Jesus said to Philip at the Last Supper
springs to mind: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip?”
(Jn 14: 9).
Jesus is often also
considered as one of the great founders of a religion from which everyone may take
something in order to form his or her own conviction. Today too, “people” have different
opinions about Jesus, just as they did then. And as he did then, Jesus also repeats
his question to us, his disciples today: “And who do you say that I am?”
Let us make Peter’s
answer our own. According to the Gospel of Mark he said: “You are the Christ” (8:
29); in Luke, the affirmation is: “The Christ of God” (Lk 9: 20); in Matthew resounds,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (16: 16); finally, in John: “You
are the Holy One of God”. These are all correct answers which are also right for
us.
Let us reflect on
Matthew’s text in particular, quoted by today’s liturgy.
According to certain
experts, the formula which appears there presupposes the post-Resurrection context
and might even be connected with a personal appearance of the Risen Jesus to Peter,
an appearance similar to that which Paul experienced on the road to Damascus .
In fact, the responsibility
conferred on Peter by the Lord was rooted in the personal relationship which the
Jesus of history had with Simon the fisherman, from his first meeting with him when
he said to him ““So you are Simon.... You shall be called Cephas’ (which means Peter)”
(Jn 1: 42). The Evangelist John emphasizes it, he who was also a fisherman and an
associate, together with his brother James, of the two brothers, Simon and Andrew.
The Jesus who called Saul after the Resurrection is the same Jesus who - still immersed
in history - after his baptism in the Jordan approached the four brother fishermen
who were then disciples of the Baptist (see Jn 1: 35-42).
He sought them out
on the shores of Lake
Galilee
The parallel between
Peter and Paul cannot diminish the importance of Simon’s historical journey with
his Master and Lord, who from the outset attributed to him the characteristic of
the “rock” on which he intended to build his new community, the Church.
In the Synoptic Gospels
Peter’s confession is always followed by Jesus’ announcement of his imminent Passion.
Peter reacted to this announcement because he was not yet able to understand. Nonetheless,
this was a fundamental element on which Jesus strongly insisted. Indeed, the titles
attributed to him by Peter - you are “the Christ”, “the Christ of God”, “the Son
of the living God” - can only be properly understood in light of the mystery of
his death and Resurrection.
And the opposite
is also true: the event of the Cross reveals its full meaning only if “this man”
who suffered and died on the Cross “truly was the Son of God”, to use the words
uttered by the centurion as he stood before the Crucified Christ (see Mk 15: 39).
These texts clearly say that the integrity of the Christian faith stems from the
confession of Peter, illumined by the teaching of Jesus on his “way” toward glory,
that is, on his absolutely unique way, being the Messiah and the Son of God.
It was a narrow “way”,
a shocking “manner” for the disciples of every age, who are inevitably led to think
according to men rather than according to God (see Mt 16: 23).
Today too, as in
Jesus’ day, it does not suffice to possess the proper confession of faith: it is
always necessary to learn anew from the Lord the actual way in which he is Savior
and the path on which we must follow him. Indeed, we have to recognize that even
for believers, the Cross is always hard to accept.
Instinct impels one
to avoid it and the tempter leads one to believe that it is wiser to be concerned
with saving oneself rather than losing one’s life through faithfulness to love,
faithfulness to the Son of God made man. Who do you say I am? What was it that the
people to whom Jesus was speaking found hard to accept? What continues to be hard
for many people also in our time?
It is difficult to
accept that he claimed not only to be one of the prophets but the Son of God, and
that he claimed God’s own authority for himself.
Listening to him
preaching, seeing him heal the sick, evangelize the lowly and the poor and reconcile
sinners, little by little the disciples came to realize that he was the Messiah
in the most exalted sense of the word, that is, not only a man sent by God, but
God himself made man.
Clearly, all this
was far beyond them, it exceeded their capacity for understanding. They were able
to express their faith with the titles of the Judaic tradition: “Christ”, “Son of
God”, “Lord”. However, to adhere truly to reality, these titles had in some way
to be rediscovered in their most profound truth: Jesus himself revealed their true
meaning with his life, ever surprising, even paradoxical considering the customary
concepts.
And the faith of
the disciples itself had to progressively adapt. It presents itself as a pilgrimage
which begins in the experience of the historical Jesus, finds its foundation in
the Paschal Mystery, but must then advance further thanks to the working of the
Holy Spirit.
This was also the
faith of the Church in the course of history, this is also our faith as Christians
of today. Firmly resting on the “rock” of Peter, it is a pilgrimage toward the fullness
of that truth which the Fisherman of Galilee professed with passionate conviction:
“You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Mt 16: 16).
In Peter’s profession
of faith, dear brothers and sisters, we can feel that we are all one, despite the
divisions that have wounded the Church’s unity down the centuries and whose consequences
are still being felt.
Today, in the name
of Sts Peter and Paul, let us renew, together with our Brothers who have come from
Constantinople - whom I thank once again for their
presence at our celebration - our commitment to accept to the very end the desire
of Christ, who wants us to be fully united. With the concelebrating Archbishops,
let us accept the gift and responsibility of communion between the See of Peter
and the Metropolitan
Churches
May the Holy Mother
of God always guide us and accompany us with her intercession: may her unswerving
faith, which sustained the faith of Peter and of the other Apostles, continue to
sustain that of the Christian generations, our own faith: Queen of Apostles,
pray for us! Amen.
CELEBRATION
OF FIRST VESPERS
OF THE
SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
FOR THE
OPENING OF THE PAULINE YEAR
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Basilica
of Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls, Saturday, 28 June 2008
Your Holiness
and Fraternal Delegates,
Your Eminences,
Venerable Brothers
in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
We have gathered
near the tomb of St Paul , who was born 2,000 years
ago at Tarsus in Cilicia, in present-day Turkey .
Who was St Paul ?
In the temple of Jerusalem ,
faced with the frenzied crowd that wanted to kill him, he presented himself with
these words: “I am a Jew, born at Tarsus in Cilicia,
but brought up in this city [Jerusalem ]
at the feet of Gamaliel, educated according to the strict manner of the law of our
fathers, being zealous for God...” (Acts 22: 3). At the end of his journey he was
to say of himself: “For this I was appointed a preacher and apostle... a teacher
of the Gentiles in faith and truth” (1 Tm 2: 7; see 2 Tm 1: 11). A teacher of the
Gentiles, an apostle and a herald of Jesus Christ, this is how he described himself,
looking back over the path of his life. But this glance does not look only to the
past. “A teacher of the Gentiles” - these words open to the future, to all peoples
and all generations. For us Paul is not a figure of the past whom we remember with
veneration. He is also our teacher, an Apostle and herald of Jesus Christ for us
too.
Thus we are not gathered
to reflect on past history, irrevocably behind us. Paul wants to speak to us - today.
That is why I chose to establish this special “Pauline Year”: in order to listen
to him and learn today from him, as our teacher, “the faith and the truth” in which
the reasons for unity among Christ’s disciples are rooted. In this perspective,
for this 2000th anniversary of the Apostle’s birth I wished to light a special “Pauline
Flame” that will remain lit throughout the year in a special brazier placed in the
Basilica’s four-sided portico. To solemnize this event I have also inaugurated the
so-called “Pauline Door”, through which I entered the Basilica, accompanied by the
Patriarch of Constantinople, by the Cardinal Archpriest and by other religious Authorities.
It is a cause of deep joy to me that the opening of the Pauline Year has acquired
a special ecumenical character through the presence of numerous delegates and representatives
of other Churches and Ecclesial Communities, whom I welcome with an open heart.
I greet first of all His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew I and the members of the
Delegation that accompany him, as well as the large group of lay people who have
come to Rome from various parts of the world to experience with him and with all
of us these moments of prayer and reflection. I greet the Fraternal Delegates of
the Churches which have special ties with the Apostle Paul - Jerusalem ,
Antioch , Cyprus ,
Greece - and which form the geographical
environment of the Apostle’s life before his arrival in Rome . I cordially greet the Brethren of the various
Churches and Ecclesial Communities of the East and the West, together with all of
you who have desired to take part in this solemn initiation of the “Year” dedicated
to the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Thus, we are gathered
here to question ourselves on the great Apostle to the Gentiles. Let us not ask
ourselves only: who was Paul? Let us ask ourselves above all:
who is Paul? What does he say to me? At this moment, at the beginning of
the “Pauline Year” that we are inaugurating, I would like to choose from the rich
testimony of the New Testament, three texts in which his inner features, his specific
character appear. In the Letter to the Galatians, St Paul gives a very personal
profession of faith in which he opens his heart to readers of all times and reveals
what was the most intimate drive of his life. “I live by faith in the Son of God
who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2: 20). All Paul’s actions begin from
this centre. His faith is the experience of being loved by Jesus Christ in a very
personal way. It is awareness of the fact that Christ did not face death for something
anonymous but rather for love of him - of Paul - and that, as the Risen One, he
still loves him; in other words, Christ gave himself for him. Paul’s faith is being
struck by the love of Jesus Christ, a love that overwhelms him to his depths and
transforms him. His faith is not a theory, an opinion about God and the world. His
faith is the impact of God’s love in his heart. Thus, this same faith was love for
Jesus Christ.
Paul is presented
by many as a pugnacious man who was well able to wield the sword of his words. Indeed,
there was no lack of disputes on his journey as an Apostle. He did not seek a superficial
harmony. In the First of his Letters, addressed to the Thessalonians, he himself
says: “We had courage... to proclaim to you the Gospel of God in the face of great
opposition... In fact, we never spoke words of adulation, as you know” (1 Thes 2:
2, 5). The truth was too great for him to be willing to sacrifice it with a view
to external success. For him, the truth that he experienced in his encounter with
the Risen One was well worth the fight, persecution and suffering. But what most
deeply motivated him was being loved by Jesus Christ and the desire to communicate
this love to others. Paul was a man capable of loving and all of his actions and
suffering can only be explained on the basis of this core sentiment. It is only
on this basis that we can understand the concepts on which his proclamation was
founded. Let us take another key word of his: freedom. The experience of being loved
to the very end by Christ had opened his eyes to the truth and to the way of human
existence. It was an experience that embraced everything. Paul was free as a man
loved by God, who, by virtue of God, was able to love together with him. This love
then became the “law” of his life and in this very way, the freedom of his life.
He speaks and acts motivated by the responsibility of love. Here freedom and responsibility
are indivisibly united. Since Paul lives in the responsibility of love, he is free;
since he is one who loves, he lives his life totally in the responsibility of this
love and does not take freedom as a pretext to act arbitrarily and egoistically.
In the same spirit Augustine formulated the phrase that later became famous: Dilige
et quod vis fac (Tract. in 1 Jo 7, 7-8) - love and do what you please.
The one who loves Christ as Paul loved him can truly do as he pleases because his
love is united to Christ’s will and thus with God’s will; because his will is anchored
to the truth and because his will is no longer merely his own, arbitrary to the
autonomous self, but is integrated into God’s freedom from which he receives the
path to take.
In the search for
the inner features of St Paul I would like, secondly,
to recall the words that the Risen Christ addressed to him on the road to Damascus . First the Lord asked
him: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” To the question: “Who are you, Lord?”
Saul is given the answer: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9: 4f.).
In persecuting the Church, Paul was persecuting Jesus himself. “You persecute me”.
Jesus identifies with the Church in a single subject. This exclamation of the Risen
One, which transformed Saul’s life, in summary already contains the entire doctrine
on the Church as the Body of Christ. Christ did not withdraw himself into Heaven,
leaving ranks of followers to carry out “his cause” on earth. The Church is not
an association that desires to promote a specific cause. In her there is no question
of a cause. In her it is a matter of the person of Jesus Christ, who, also as the
Risen One, remained “flesh”. He has “flesh and bones” (Lk 24: 39), the Risen One
says, in Luke’s Gospel, to the disciples who thought he was a ghost. He has a Body.
He is personally present in his Church, “Head and Body” form one being, Augustine
would come to say. “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” Paul
wrote to the Corinthians (1 Cor 6: 15). And he added: just as, according to the
book of Genesis, man and woman become one flesh, thus Christ and his followers become
one spirit, that is, one in the new world of the Resurrection (see 1 Cor 6: 16ff.).
In all of this the Eucharistic mystery appears, in which Christ continually gives
his Body and makes of us his Body: “The bread that we break, is it not a participation
in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body,
for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10: 16f). With these words, at this
moment, not only Paul addresses us but also the Lord himself: how could you pierce
my body? Before the Face of Christ, these words become at the same time an urgent
plea: Bring us together from all our divisions. Grant that this may once again become
reality today: there is one bread, therefore we, although we are many, are one body.
For Paul, the words about the Church as the body of Christ are not just any comparison.
They go far beyond a comparison. “Why do you persecute me?” Christ ceaselessly
draws us into his body, building his Body from the Eucharistic centre that for Paul
is the centre of Christian existence by virtue of which everyone, as also every
individual, can experience in a totally personal way: he has loved me and
given himself for me.
I would like to conclude
with words St Paul
spoke near the end of his life. It is an exhortation to Timothy from prison while
he was facing death, “with the strength that comes from God bear your share of hardship
which the Gospel entails”, the Apostle said to his disciple (2 Tm 1: 8). These words,
which mark the end of the Apostle’s life as a testament, refer back to the beginning
of his mission. When, after his encounter with the Risen One, while Paul lay blind
in his dwelling at Damascus ,
Ananias was charged to visit the feared persecutor and to lay his hands upon him
so that he might regain his sight. Ananias’ objection that this Saul was a dangerous
persecutor of Christians, was met with the response: this man must carry my name
before the Gentiles and kings: “I will show him how much he must suffer for the
sake of my name” (Acts 9: 15f.). The task of proclamation and the call to suffer
for Christ’s sake are inseparable. The call to become the teacher of the Gentiles
is, at the same time and intrinsically, a call to suffering in communion with Christ
who redeemed us through his Passion. In a world in which falsehood is powerful,
the truth is paid for with suffering. The one who desires to avoid suffering, to
keep it at bay, keeps life itself and its greatness at bay; he cannot be a servant
of truth and thus a servant of faith. There is no love without suffering - without
the suffering of renouncing oneself, of the transformation and purification of self
for true freedom. Where there is nothing worth suffering for, even life loses its
value. The Eucharist - the centre of our Christian being - is founded on Jesus’
sacrifice for us; it is born from the suffering of love which culminated in the
Cross. We live by this love that gives itself. It gives us the courage and strength
to suffer with Christ and for him in this world, knowing that in this very way our
life becomes great and mature and true. In the light of all St Paul ’s Letters, we see how the prophecy made
to Ananias at the time of Paul’s call came true in the process of teaching the Gentiles:
“I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name”. His suffering
made him credible as a teacher of truth who did not seek his own advantage, his
own glory or his personal satisfaction but applied himself for the sake of the One
who loved us and has given himself for us all.
Let us now thank
the Lord for having called Paul, making him the light to the Gentiles and the teacher
of us all, and let us pray to him: “Give us even today witnesses of the Resurrection,
struck by the impact of your love and able to bring the light of the Gospel in our
time. St Paul , pray
for us! Amen.
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
Solemnity
of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, Sunday, 29 June 2008
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
This year the Feast
of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul occurs on a Sunday, so that the whole Church,
and not only the Church of Rome, is celebrating it with solemnity. This coincidence
is also conducive to giving greater emphasis to an extraordinary event: the Pauline
Year, which I opened officially yesterday evening at the tomb of the Apostle to
the Gentiles and which will continue until 29 June 2009. Indeed, historians date
the birth of Saul, who later became Paul, back to between the years 7 and 10 A.D.
Consequently, since approximately 2,000 years have now passed, I wished to establish
this special Jubilee which will naturally have Rome as its centre and, in particular, the Basilica
of St Paul Outside-the-Walls and the Tre Fontane [Three Fountains], the place of
his martyrdom. However, it will involve the entire Church, beginning with Tarsus,
the town of Saul’s birth, and with the other Pauline sites which are pilgrimage
destinations in present-day Turkey, as well as in the Holy Land and on the Island
of Malta where the Apostle landed after being shipwrecked and scattered the fertile
seed of the Gospel. In fact, the horizon of the Pauline Year can only be universal
because St Paul was par excellence the Apostle to those who compared with the Jews,
were “far-off”, and had been “brought near”, through “the Blood of Christ” (see
Eph 2: 13). For this reason, today too, in a world which has become “smaller”, but
in which a great many people have still not yet encountered the Lord Jesus, the
Jubilee of St Paul invites all Christians to be Gospel missionaries.
This missionary dimension
must always be accompanied by the dimension of unity, represented by St Peter, the
“rock” upon which Jesus Christ built his Church. As the liturgy emphasizes, the
charisms of the two great Apostles are complementary for building the one People
of God, and Christians cannot bear an effective witness to Christ unless they are
united among themselves. The theme of unity is highlighted today by the traditional
rite of the Pallium, which, during Holy Mass, I imposed upon the Metropolitan
Archbishops appointed during this past year. There are 40 of them and two others
will receive the pallium in their own archdioceses. To them too I once again
extend my cordial greeting. Moreover, on today’s Solemnity it is a cause of special
joy to the Bishop of Rome to welcome the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
in the beloved person of His Holiness Bartholomew I, to whom I renew my fraternal
greeting which I extend to the entire Delegation of the Orthodox Church that he
has led here.
The Pauline Year,
evangelization, communion in the Church and the full unity of all Christians: let us now pray for these great intentions, entrusting
them to the heavenly intercession of Mary Most Holy, Mother of the Church and Queen
of Apostles.
HOLY MASS FOR THE IMPOSITION OF THE PALLIUM
ON METROPOLITAN ARCHBISHOPS
ON THE SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE
BENEDICT XVI
Your
Holiness and Fraternal Delegates,
Your
Eminences,
Venerable
Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Dear
Brothers and Sisters,
Since the
most ancient times the Church of Rome has celebrated the Solemnity of the Great
Apostles Peter and Paul as a single Feast on the same day, 29 June. It was through
their martyrdom, that they became brothers; together they founded the new Christian
Rome. As such they are praised in the hymn for Second Vespers that dates back to
Paulinus of Aquileia ([c. 750-]806): “O Roma felix - fortunate Rome, consecrated
by the glorious blood of the two Princes of the Apostles; dyed red in their blood,
you shine more resplendently than all the glory of the world, not by your merit,
but by the merits of the saints that you have killed, drawing blood with the sword”.
The blood of martyrs does not invoke revenge but reconciliation. It is not presented
as an accusation but rather as the “fairer light”, in the words of the hymn for
First Vespers: it is presented as the force of love that overcomes hatred and violence,
thus founding a new city ,
a new community. Through their martyrdom they - Peter and Paul - now belong to Rome : through their martyrdom,
Peter also became a Roman citizen for ever. Through their martyrdom, through their
faith and love, both Apostles point to where true hope lies; they are founders of
a new sort of city that must be constantly rebuilt in the midst of the old human
city that is threatened by the opposing forces of human sin and selfishness.
By virtue
of their martyrdom, Peter and Paul are in a reciprocal relationship for ever. A
favorite image in Christian iconography shows the embrace of the two Apostles on
their way to martyrdom. We can say: their martyrdom itself is the realization of
a fraternal embrace in the deepest sense. They died for the one Christ and in their
witness for which they gave their lives, they are one. In the New Testament writings
we can, so to speak, follow the development of their embrace, this creation of unity
in witness and mission. Everything begins when Paul, three years after his conversion,
goes to Jerusalem
“to visit Cephas” (Gal 1: 18). Fourteen years later he went up to Jerusalem again
to lay “before those who were of repute” the Gospel he was preaching in order to
avoid the risk of “running or [having] run in vain” (Gal 2: 1f.). At the end of
this encounter, James, Cephas and John shake hands with him, thus confirming the
communion that links them in the one Gospel of Jesus Christ (see Gal 2: 9). I find
the fact that the collaborators mentioned at the end of the First Letter of Peter
- Silvanus and Mark - were likewise close collaborators of St Paul is a beautiful sign of the growth of this
inner embrace which developed despite the diversity of their temperaments and tasks.
The communion of the one Church, is clearly demonstrated by the embrace of the great
Apostles, in their cooperation.
Peter and
Paul met in Jerusalem at least twice; the paths of
both were ultimately to converge in Rome .
Why? Might this be something more than pure chance? Might this contain a lasting
message? Paul arrived in Rome as a prisoner but,
at the same time, as a Roman citizen who, precisely as such, after his arrest in
Jerusalem had appealed
to the Emperor to whose tribunal he was taken. However, in a deeper sense Paul came
to Rome of his own
free will. Through some of his most important Letters he had already become inwardly
close to this city: he had addressed to the Church in Rome the writing that sums up the whole of his
proclamation and his faith better than any other. In the initial greeting of this
Letter he says that the faith of the Christians of Rome is being talked about in
all the world and is, therefore, reputed everywhere to be exemplary (see Rm 1: 8).
He then writes: “I want you to know, brethren, that I have often intended to come
to you (but thus far have been prevented)” (1: 13). At the end of the Letter he
returns to this topic now speaking of his project of a journey to Spain .
“I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be sped on my journey there
by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a little” (15: 24). “And I know that
when I come to you I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ” (15:
29). These are two things that become obvious: for Paul, Rome
was a stopping place on the way to Spain , in other words - according to
his conception of the world - on his way to the extreme edge of the earth. He considers
his mission to be the fulfilment of the task assigned to him by Christ, to take
the Gospel to the very ends of the world. Rome
lay on his route. Whereas Paul usually went to places where the Gospel had not yet
been proclaimed, Rome
was an exception. He found there a Church whose faith was being talked about across
the world. Going to Rome
was part of the universality of his mission as an envoy to all peoples. The way
that led to Rome ,
which already prior to his external voyage he had traveled inwardly with his Letter,
was an integral part of his duty to take the Gospel to all the peoples - to found
the catholic or universal Church. For him, going to Rome was an expression of the catholicity of his
mission. Rome had
to make the faith visible to the whole world, it had to be the meeting place of
the one faith.
But why
did Peter go to Rome ?
The New Testament says nothing about this directly. Yet it gives us some hints.
The Gospel according to St Mark, which we may consider a reflection of St Peter’s
preaching, focuses closely on the moment when the Roman centurion, who, in the light
of Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross, said: “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
(15: 39). By the Cross the mystery of Jesus Christ was revealed. Beneath the Cross
the Church of the peoples was born: the centurion of the Roman platoon in charge
of his execution recognized Christ as the Son of God.
The Acts
of the Apostles describe the episode of Cornelius, a centurion of the Italic cohort,
as a crucial stage for the entry of the Gospel into the Gentile world. On a command
from God, Cornelius sent someone to fetch Peter and Peter, also following a divine
command, went to the centurion’s house and preached there. While he was speaking
the Holy Spirit descended on the domestic community that had gathered and Peter
said: “Can any one forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the
Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10: 47). Thus at the Council of the Jerusalem , Peter became the
intercessor for the Church of the Gentiles who had no need of the Law because God
had “cleansed their hearts by faith” (Acts 15: 9). Of course, in the Letter to the
Galatians Paul says God empowered Peter for the apostolic ministry among the circumcised,
and instead empowered him, Paul, for the ministry to the Gentiles (2: 8). This assignment
however could only be in force while Peter remained with the Twelve in Jerusalem in the hope that all Israel would adhere to Christ. As they
faced the further development, the Twelve recognized when it was time for them too
to set out for the whole world to proclaim the Gospel. Peter who, complying with
God’s order, had been the first to open the door to pagans, now left the leadership
of the Christian-Jewish Church to James the Lesser in order to dedicate himself
to his true mission: the ministry for the unity of the one Church of God St
Paul ’s desire to go to Rome
places emphasis - as we have seen - on the word “catholic”. St Peter’s
journey to Rome ,
as representative of the world’s peoples, comes especially under the word “one”:
his task was to create the unity of the catholica, the Church formed
by Jews and pagans, the Church of all the peoples. And this is Peter’s ongoing mission:
to ensure that the Church is never identified with a single nation, with a single
culture or with a single State but is always the Church of all; to ensure that she
reunites humanity over and above every boundary and, in the midst of the divisions
of this world, makes God’s peace present, the reconciling power of his love. Thanks
to technology that is the same everywhere, thanks to the world information network
and also thanks to the connection of common interests, in the world today new forms
of unity exist; yet they spark new disputes and give a new impetus to the old ones.
In the midst of this external unity, based on material things, our need for the
inner unity which comes from God’s peace is all the greater - the unity of all those
who have become brothers and sisters through Jesus Christ. This is Peter’s permanent
mission and also the specific task entrusted to the Church of Rome.
Dear Brothers
in the Episcopate, I would now like to address you who have come to Rome to receive the pallium
as a symbol of your dignity and responsibility as Archbishops in the Church of Jesus
Christ. The pallium is woven with wool from sheep that the Bishop of Rome blesses
every year on the Feast of the Chair of Peter, setting them aside as it were, so
that they may become a symbol of the flock of Christ over which you preside. When
we place the pallium on our shoulders, our gesture reminds us of the Shepherd who
takes upon his shoulders the lost sheep that cannot find its way home alone and
brings it back to the fold. The Fathers of the Church saw this little lost lamb
as the image of all humanity, of the whole of human nature which strays and can
no longer find the way home. The Shepherd who brings it back home can only be the
Logos, the eternal Word of God himself. In the Incarnation he took all of
us - “human” sheep - on his shoulders. He, the eternal word, the true Shepherd of
humanity carries us; in his humanity he carries each one of us on his shoulders.
On the way of the Cross he took us home, he takes us home. But he also wants to
have men to “carry” it with him. Being a Pastor of Christ’s Church means participating
in this task which is commemorated by the pallium. When we wear it, he asks us,
“Are you too helping me to carry me those who belong to me? Are you bringing them
to me, to Jesus Christ?” And then we recall the account of the sending of Peter
by the Risen One. The Risen Christ connects the order: “Tend my sheep” inseparably
with the question: “Do you love me, do you love me more than these?” Every time
we put on the pallium, as a Pastor of Christ’s flock we must listen to this question:
“Do you love me?”, and ourselves be questioned about the extra love that he expects
from the Pastor.
Thus the
Pallium becomes the symbol of our love for Christ the Good Shepherd and of our loving
together with him - it becomes the symbol of the vocation to love people as he does,
together with him; those who are seeking, those who have questions, those who are
sure of themselves and the humble, the simple and the great; he becomes a symbol
of the call to love all of them with the power of Christ and in view of Christ,
so that they may find him and in him find themselves. However, the pallium, which
you received “from the” tomb of St Peter has another, second meaning, inseparably
connected to the first. In order to understand it, some words from the First Letter
of St Peter may be a help to us. In his exhortation to priests to tend the flock
properly he - St Peter - describes himself as a synpresbyteros - fellow elder
(5: 1). This formula contains implicitly an affirmation of the principle of Apostolic
Succession: Pastors who succeed one another are Pastors like him, they are together
with him, they belong to the common ministry of the Pastors of the Church of Jesus Christ Church
of Jesus Christ
Lastly,
this brings me back once again to St Paul
and his mission. He expressed the essential of his mission as well as the deepest
reason for his desire to go to Rome
in chapter 15 of the Letter to the Romans in an extraordinarily beautiful sentence.
He knows he is called “to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly
service of the Gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable,
sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (15: 16). In this verse alone does Paul use the word
“hierourgein” - to administer as a priest - together with “leitourgos”
- liturgy: he speaks of the cosmic liturgy in which the human world itself must
become worship of God, an oblation in the Holy Spirit. When the world in all its
parts has become a liturgy of God, when, in its reality, it has become adoration,
then it will have reached its goal and will be safe and sound. This is the ultimate
goal of St Paul ’s
apostolic mission as well as of our own mission. The Lord calls us to this ministry.
Let us pray at this time that he may help us to carry it out properly, to become
true liturgists of Jesus Christ. Amen.
SOLEMNITY
OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
St
Peter’s Square, Monday, 29 June 2009
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
Today we are solemnly
celebrating the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, special Patrons of the Church of Rome:
Peter, the fisherman from Galilee, who was the first to confess the faith: “our
leader” who “raised up the Church from the faithful flock of Israel”; Paul, the
former persecutor of Christians who “brought your call to the nations and became
the teacher of the world” (see Preface of today’s Mass). In one of his Homilies
to the community of Rome ,
Pope St Leo the Great said: “These are your Holy Fathers and true Shepherds, who
gave you claims to be numbered among the heavenly Kingdom” (Sermo I, in
Nat. App Petri et Pauli, c I, PL 54, 422). On the occasion of this feast,
I would like to address a warm and special welcome, together with fervent good wishes,
to the diocesan Community of Rome which divine Providence has entrusted to my care as Successor
of the Apostle Peter. It is a greeting that I willingly extend to all the inhabitants
of our metropolis and to the pilgrims and tourists who in these days are visiting
it, coinciding also with the closure of the Pauline Year.
Dear brothers and
sisters, may the Lord bless and protect you through the intercession of Sts Peter
and Paul! As your Pastor, I urge you to stay faithful to the Christian vocation
and not to conform to the mindset of this world as the Apostle to the Gentiles
wrote precisely to the Christians of Rome but always to let yourselves be
transformed and renewed by the Gospel, to follow, what is truly good and
pleasing to God (cf. Rm 12: 2). For this reason I pray constantly that Rome may
keep alive her Christian vocation not only preserving unaltered her immense spiritual
and cultural heritage, but also in order that its inhabitants may express the beauty
of the faith received in practical ways of thinking and acting, and thus offer to
all those who for various reasons come to this city, an atmosphere full of humanity
and Gospel values. Therefore with the words of St Peter I invite you, dear brothers
and sisters, disciples of Christ, to be “living stones”, set firmly around him who
is “that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious” (see
1 Pt 2: 4).
Today’s Solemnity
also has a universal character: it expresses the unity and catholicity of the Church.
This is why every year, on this date, the new Metropolitan Archbishops come to Rome to receive the pallium,
a symbol of communion with the Successor of Peter. I therefore renew my greeting
to my Brothers in the Episcopate for whom I have performed this act this morning
in the Basilica and to the faithful who have accompanied them. I likewise greet
with warm cordiality the Delegation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople which,
as it does every year, has come to Rome
for the celebration of Sts Peter and Paul. May the joint veneration of these Martyrs
be an ever fuller and more deeply felt pledge of communion among Christians in every
part of the world. Let us invoke for this the maternal intercession of Mary, Mother
of the one Church
of Christ
SOLEMNITY
OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
CELEBRATION
OF FIRST VESPERS
ON
THE OCCASION OF THE CLOSING OF THE PAULINE YEAR
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Basilica
of Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls, Sunday,
28 June 2009
Your Eminences,
Venerable Brothers
in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Distinguished
Members of the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
I address my cordial
greeting to each one of you. In particular, I greet the Cardinal Archpriest of this
Basilica and his collaborators, I greet the Abbot and the Benedictine monastic community;
I also greet the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The
commemorative year for the birth of St
Paul ends this evening. We have gathered at the tomb of
the Apostle whose sarcophagus, preserved beneath the papal altar, was recently the
object of a careful scientific analysis. A tiny hole was drilled in the sarcophagus,
which in so many centuries had never been opened, in order to insert a special probe
which revealed traces of a precious purple-colored linen fabric, with a design in
gold leaf, and a blue fabric with linen threads. Grains of red incense and protein
and chalk substances were also found. In addition, minute fragments of bone were
sent for carbon-14 testing by experts unaware of their provenance. The fragments
proved to belong to someone who had lived between the first and second centuries.
This would seem to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition which claims that
these are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul. All this fills our hearts with
profound emotion. In recent months, many people have followed the paths of the Apostle
the exterior and especially the interior paths on which he traveled in his lifetime:
the road to Damascus towards his encounter with the Risen One; the routes of the
Mediterranean world which he crossed with the torch of the Gospel, encountering
contradiction and adherence until his martyrdom, through which he belongs for ever
to the Church of Rome. It was to her that he also addressed his most important Letter.
The Pauline Year is drawing to a close but what will remain a part of Christian
existence is the journey with Paul with him and thanks to him getting to know Jesus,
and, like the Apostle, being enlightened and transformed by the Gospel. And always,
going beyond the circle of believers, he remains the “teacher of the Gentiles”,
who seeks to bring the message of the Risen One to them all, because Christ has
known and loved each one; he has died and risen for them all. Therefore let us too
listen to him at this time when we are solemnly beginning the Feast of the two Apostles
who were bound to one another by a close bond.
It is part of the
structure of Paul’s Letters always in reference to the particular place and situation
that they first of all explain the mystery of Christ, they teach faith. The second
part treats their application to our lives: what ensues from this faith? How does
it shape our existence, day by day? In the Letter to the Romans, this second
part begins in chapter 12, in which the Apostle briefly sums up the essential nucleus
of Christian existence in the first two verses. What does St Paul say to us in that passage? First of all
he affirms, as a fundamental thing, that a new way of venerating God began with
Christ a new form of worship. It consists in the fact that the living person himself
becomes adoration, “sacrifice”, even in his own body. It is no longer things that
are offered to God. It is our very existence that must become praise of God. But
how does this happen? In the second verse we are given the answer: “Do not be conformed
to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove
what is the will of God...” (12: 2). The two decisive words of this verse are “transformed”
and “renewal”. We must become new people, transformed into a new mode of existence.
The world is always in search of novelty because, rightly, it is always dissatisfied
with concrete reality. Paul tells us: the world cannot be renewed without new people.
Only if there are new people will there also be a new world, a renewed and better
world. In the beginning is the renewal of the human being. This subsequently applies
to every individual. Only if we ourselves become new does the world become new.
This also means that it is not enough to adapt to the current situation. The Apostle
exhorts us to non-conformism. In our Letter he says: we should not submit to the
logic of our time. We shall return to this point, reflecting on the second text
on which I wish to meditate with you this evening. The Apostle’s “no” is clear and
also convincing for anyone who observes the “logic” of our world. But to become
new how can this be done? Are we really capable of it? With his words on becoming
new, Paul alludes to his own conversion: to his encounter with the Risen Christ,
an encounter of which, in the Second Letter to the Corinthians he says: “if
anyone is in Christ, he is in a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the
new has come” (5: 17). This encounter with Christ was so overwhelming for him that
he said of it: “I... died...” (Gal 2: 19; see Rm 6). He became new, another,
because he no longer lived for himself and by virtue of himself, but for Christ
and in him. In the course of the years, however, he also saw that this process of
renewal and transformation continues throughout life. We become new if we let ourselves
be grasped and shaped by the new Man, Jesus Christ. He is the new Man par excellence.
In him the new human existence became reality and we can truly become new if we
deliver ourselves into his hands and let ourselves be molded by him.
Paul makes this process
of “recasting” even clearer by saying that we become new if we transform our way
of thinking. What has been introduced here with “way of thinking” is the Greek term
“nous”. It is a complex word. It may be translated as “spirit”, “sentiments”,
“reason”, and precisely, also by “way of thinking”. Thus our reason must become
new. This surprises us. We might have expected instead that this would have concerned
some attitude: what we should change in our behavior. But no: renewal must go to
the very core. Our way of looking at the world, of understanding reality all our
thought must change from its foundations. The reasoning of the former person, the
common way of thinking is usually directed to possession, well-being, influence,
success, fame and so forth. Yet in this way its scope is too limited. Thus, in the
final analysis, one’s “self” remains the centre of the world. We must learn to think
more profoundly. St Paul
tells us what this means in the second part of the sentence: it is necessary to
learn to understand God’s will, so that it may shape our own will. This is in order
that we ourselves may desire what God desires, because we recognize that what God
wants is the beautiful and the good. It is therefore a question of a turning point
in our fundamental spiritual orientation. God must enter into the horizon of our
thought: what he wants and the way in which he conceived of the world and of me.
We must learn to share in the thinking and the will of Jesus Christ. It is then
that we will be new people in whom a new world emerges.
Paul illustrates
the same idea of a necessary renewal of our way of being human in two passages of
his Letter to the Ephesians; let us therefore reflect on them briefly. In
the Letter’s fourth chapter, the Apostle tells us that with Christ we must attain
adulthood, a mature faith. We can no longer be “children, tossed to and fro and
carried about with every wind of doctrine...” (4: 14). Paul wants Christians to
have a “responsible” and “adult faith”. The words “adult faith” in recent decades
have formed a widespread slogan. It is often meant in the sense of the attitude
of those who no longer listen to the Church and her Pastors but autonomously choose
what they want to believe and not to believe hence a do-it-yourself faith. And it
is presented as a “courageous” form of self-expression against the Magisterium of
the Church. In fact, however, no courage is needed for this because one may always
be certain of public applause. Rather, courage is needed to adhere to the Church’s
faith, even if this contradicts the “logic” of the contemporary world. This is the
non-conformism of faith which Paul calls an “adult faith”. It is the faith that
he desires. On the other hand, he describes chasing the winds and trends of the
time as infantile. Thus, being committed to the inviolability of human life from
its first instant, thereby radically opposing the principle of violence also precisely
in the defence of the most defenseless human creatures is part of an adult faith.
It is part of an adult faith to recognize marriage between a man and a woman for
the whole of life as the Creator’s ordering, newly re-established by Christ. Adult
faith does not let itself be carried about here and there by any trend. It opposes
the winds of fashion. It knows that these winds are not the breath of the Holy Spirit;
it knows that the Spirit of God is expressed and manifested in communion with Jesus
Christ. However, here too Paul does not stop at saying “no”, but rather leads us
to the great “yes”. He describes the mature, truly adult faith positively with the
words: “speaking the truth in love” (see Eph 4: 15). The new way of thinking, given
to us by faith, is first and foremost a turning towards the truth. The power of
evil is falsehood. The power of faith, the power of God, is the truth. The truth
about the world and about ourselves becomes visible when we look to God. And God
makes himself visible to us in the Face of Jesus Christ. In looking at Christ, we
recognize something else: truth and love are inseparable. In God both are inseparably
one; it is precisely this that is the essence of God. For Christians, therefore,
truth and love go together. Love is the test of truth. We should always measure
ourselves anew against this criterion, so that truth may become love and love may
make us truthful.
Another important
thought appears in this verse of St Paul .
The Apostle tells us that by acting in accordance with truth in love, we help to
ensure that all things (ta pánta) the universe may grow, striving for Christ.
On the basis of his faith, Paul is not only concerned in our personal rectitude
nor with the growth of the Church alone. He is interested in the universe: ta
pánta. The ultimate purpose of Christ’s work is the universe the transformation
of the universe, of the whole human world, of all creation. Those who serve the
truth in love together with Christ contribute to the true progress of the world.
Yes, here it is quite clear that Paul is acquainted with the idea of progress. Christ
his life, his suffering and his rising was the great leap ahead in the progress
of humanity, of the world. Now, however, the universe must grow in accordance with
him. Where the presence of Christ increases, therein lies the true progress of the
world. There, mankind becomes new and thus the world is made new.
Paul makes the same
thing clear from yet another different perspective. In chapter three of the Letter
to the Ephesians he speaks to us of the need to be “strengthened... in the inner
man” (3: 16). With this he takes up a subject that earlier, in a troubled situation,
he had addressed in the Second Letter to the Corinthians. “Though our outer
nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day” (4: 16). The
inner person must be strengthened this is a very appropriate imperative for our
time, in which people all too often remain inwardly empty and must therefore cling
to promises and drugs, which then result in a further growth of the sense of emptiness
in their hearts. This interior void the weakness of the inner person is one of the
great problems of our time. Interiority must be reinforced the perceptiveness of
the heart; the capacity to see and to understand the world and the person from within,
with one’s heart. We are in need of reason illuminated by the heart in order to
learn to act in accordance with truth in love. However, this is not realized without
an intimate relationship with God, without the life of prayer. We need the encounter
with God that is given to us in the sacraments. And we cannot speak to God in prayer
unless we let him speak first, unless we listen to him in the words that he has
given us. In this regard Paul says to us: “Christ may dwell in your hearts through
faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend
with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to
know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3: 17ff.). With these words
Paul tells us that love sees beyond simple reason. And he also tells us that only
in communion with all the saints, that is, in the great community of all believers
and not against or without it can we know the immensity of Christ’s mystery. He
circumscribes this immensity with words meant to express the dimensions of the cosmos:
breadth, length and height and depth. The mystery of Christ has a cosmic vastness;
he did not belong only to a specific group. The Crucified Christ embraces the entire
universe in all its dimensions. He takes the world in his hands and lifts it up
towards God. Starting with St Irenaeus of Lyons
thus from the second century the Fathers have seen in these words on the breadth,
length and height and depth of Christ’s love an allusion to the Cross. In the Cross,
Christ’s love embraced the lowest depths the night of death as well as the supreme
heights, the loftiness of God himself. And he took into his arms the breadth and
the vastness of humanity and of the world in all their distances. He always embraces
the universe all of us.
Let us pray the Lord
to help us to recognize something of the immensity of his love. Let us pray him
that his love and his truth may touch our hearts. Let us ask that Christ dwell in
our hearts and make us new men and women who act according to truth in love. Amen!
SOLEMNITY
OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
HOLY
MASS FOR THE IMPOSITION OF THE SACRED PALLIUM
ON
METROPOLITAN ARCHBISHOPS
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI
Your Eminences,
Venerable Brothers
in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
I address my cordial
greeting to you all with the words of the Apostle by whose tomb we stand: “May grace
and peace be multiplied to you” (1 Pt 1: 2). I greet in particular the Members of
the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the numerous
Metropolitans who will receive the pallium today. In the opening prayer of this
solemn day we ask the Lord that the Church may always follow the teaching of the
Apostles from whom she first received the announcement of the faith. The request
we address to God at the same time calls us into question: are we following the
teaching of the great founder Apostles? Do we really know them? In the Pauline Year
that ended yesterday, we endeavored to listen anew to him, the “teacher of the Gentiles”,
hence to learn anew the alphabet of faith. We endeavored to recognize Christ with
Paul and through Paul, and thus to find the way to an upright Christian life. In
the Canon of the New Testament, in addition to the Letters of St Paul, there are
also two other Letters under the name of St Peter. The first ends with an explicit
greeting from Rome , which, however, appears under
the apocalyptic pseudonym of Babylon : “She who is
at Babylon , who
is likewise chosen, sends you greetings” (1 Pt 5: 13). By calling the Church of
Rome “likewise chosen”, he sets her within the great community of all the local
Churches in the community of all those whom God has gathered, so that in the “Babylon”
of this world’s time they might build up his People and introduce God into history.
St Peter’s First Letter is a greeting addressed from Rome to the Christendom of all epochs. It invites
us to listen to “the teaching of the Apostles”, which shows us the way to life.
This Letter is a
very rich text that wells up from the heart and touches the heart. Its centre is
and how could it be otherwise? the figure of Christ who is illustrated as the One
who suffers and loves, as Crucified and Risen: “When he was reviled, he did not
revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten.... By his wounds you have
been healed” (1 Pt 2: 23f.). Then starting from the centre that is Christ,
the Letter is also an introduction to the fundamental Christian Sacraments of Baptism
and the Eucharist and a discourse addressed to priests in which Peter describes
himself as a fellow priest with them. He speaks to Pastors of all generations as
one who was personally made responsible by the Lord for tending his sheep and has
thus received a specific priestly mandate. So what does St Peter tell us precisely
in the Year for Priests about the priest’s task? First of all he understands the
priestly ministry as being based totally on Christ. He calls Christ the “Shepherd
and Guardian of... souls” (2: 25). Where the Italian [and the English] translation
speak of “Guardian”, the Greek text uses the word episcopos (bishop). A little
further on, Christ is described as the chief Shepherd: archipoimen (5: 4).
It is surprising that Peter should call Christ himself a Bishop, Bishop of souls.
What did he mean by this? The Greek term “episcopos” contains the verb “to
see”; for this reason it is translated as “guardian”, in other words “supervisor”.
Yet external supervision, as might befit a prison guard, is certainly not what is
meant here. Rather it means watching over, from above seeing from the lofty position
of God. Seeing from God’s perspective is seeing with love that wants to serve the
other, wants to help him to become truly himself. Christ is the “Bishop of souls”,
Peter tells us. This means: he sees us from the perspective of God. In seeing from
God’s viewpoint, one has an overall vision, one sees the dangers as well as the
hopes and possibilities. From God’s perspective one sees the essential, one sees
the inner man. If Christ is the Bishop of souls, the objective is to prevent the
human soul from becoming impoverished and to ensure that the human being does not
lose his essence, the capacity for truth and love; to ensure that he becomes acquainted
with God; that he does not get lost in blind alleys; that he does not end in loneliness
but remains altogether open. Jesus, the “Bishop of souls”, is the prototype of every
episcopal and presbyteral ministry. To be a Bishop, to be a priest, means in this
perspective to assume the position of Christ. It means thinking, seeing and acting
from his exalted vantage point. It means starting from Christ in order to be available
to human beings so that they find life.
Thus the word “Bishop”
is very close to the term “Shepherd”; indeed the two concepts become interchangeable.
It is the shepherd’s task to feed and tend his flock and take it to the right pastures.
Grazing the flock means taking care that the sheep find the right nourishment, that
their hunger is satisfied and their thirst quenched. The metaphor apart, this means:
the word of God is the nourishment that the human being needs. Making God’s word
ever present and new and thereby giving nourishment to people is the task of the
righteous Pastor. And he must also know how to resist the enemies, the wolves. He
must go first, point out the way, preserve the unity of the flock. Peter, in his
discourse to priests, highlights another very important thing. It is not enough
to speak. Pastors must make themselves “examples to the flock”. (5: 3). When it
is lived, the word of God is brought from the past into the present. It is marvelous
to see how in saints the word of God becomes a word addressed to our time. In such
figures as Francis and then again, as Padre Pio and many others, Christ truly became
a contemporary of their generation, he emerged from the past to enter the present.
This is what being a Pastor means a model for the flock: living the word now, in
the great community of holy Church.
Very briefly, I would
like to call your attention further to two other affirmations in the First Letter
of St Peter which concern us in a special way in our time. There is first of
all the sentence, today discovered anew, on the basis of which medieval theologians
understood their task, the task of the theologian: “in your hearts reverence Christ
as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who calls you to account
for the hope that is in you”. (3: 15). Christian faith is hope. It paves the way
to the future. And it is a hope that possesses reasonableness, a hope whose reason
we can and must explain. Faith comes from the eternal Reason that entered our world
and showed us the true God. Faith surpasses the capacity of our reason, just as
love sees more than mere intelligence. But faith speaks to reason and in the dialectic
confrontation can be a match for reason. It does not contradict it but keeps up
with it and goes beyond it to introduce us into the greater Reason of God. As Pastors
of our time it is our task to be the first to understand the reason of faith. It
is our task not to let it remain merely a tradition but to recognize it as a response
to our questions. Faith demands our rational participation, which is deepened and
purified in a sharing of love. It is one of our duties as Pastors to penetrate faith
with thought, to be able to show the reason for our hope within the debates of our
time. Yet although it is so necessary thought alone does not suffice. Just as speaking
alone does not suffice. In his baptismal and Eucharistic catechesis in chapter 2
of his Letter, Peter alludes to the Psalm used by the ancient Church in the context
of communion, that is, to the verse which says: “O taste and see that the Lord is
good!” (Ps 34[33]: 8; 1 Pt 2: 3). Tasting alone leads to seeing. Let us think of
the disciples of Emmaus: it was only in convivial communion with Jesus, only in
the breaking of the bread that their eyes were opened. Only in truly experienced
communion with the Lord were they able to see. This applies to us all; over and
above thinking and speaking, we need the experience of faith, the vital relationship
with Jesus Christ. Faith must not remain theory: it must be life. If we encounter
the Lord in the Sacrament, if we speak to him in prayer, if in the decisions of
daily life we adhere to Christ then “we see” more and more how good he is; then
we experience how good it is to be with him. Moreover the capacity to communicate
faith to others in a credible way stems from this certainty lived. The Curé d’Ars
was not a great thinker; but he “tasted” the Lord. He lived with him even in the
details of daily life, as well as in the great demands of his pastoral ministry.
In this way he became “one who sees”. He had tasted so he knew that the Lord is
good. Let us pray the Lord that he may grant us this ability to taste, and that
we may thus become credible witnesses of the hope that is in us.
Lastly, I would like
to point out another small but important statement of St Peter. Right at the beginning
of his Letter he tells us that the goal of our faith is the salvation of souls (see
1: 9). In the world of language and thought of the Christianity of today this is
a strange, and for some, perhaps even shocking assertion. The word “soul” had fallen
into discredit. It is said that this could lead to a division of man into spiritual
and physical, body and soul, whereas in reality he would be an indivisible unit.
In addition, “the salvation of souls” as a goal of faith seems to indicate an individualistic
Christianity, a loss of responsibility for the world overall, in its corporeity
and in its materiality. Yet none of this is found in St Peter’s Letter. Zeal for
the witness in favor of hope and responsibility for others characterizes the entire
text. To understand what he says on the salvation of souls as a destination of faith,
we must start from another angle. It remains true that the lack of care for souls,
the impoverishment of the inner man, not only destroys the individual but threatens
the destiny of humanity overall. Without the healing of souls, without the healing
of man from within there can be no salvation for humanity. To our surprise, St Peter
describes the true ailment of souls as ignorance, that is, not knowing God. Those
who are not acquainted with God, or at least do not seek him sincerely, are left
outside true life (see 1 Pt 1: 14). Yet another word from the Letter could be useful
to understand better the formula “salvation of souls”. “Purify your souls by obedience
to the truth” (see 1: 22). It is obedience to the truth that purifies the soul and
it is coexistence with falsehood that pollutes it. Obedience to the truth begins
with the small truths of daily life that can often be demanding and painful. This
obedience then extends to obedience without reservations before the Truth itself
that is Christ. This obedience not only purifies us but above all also frees us
for service to Christ and thus for the salvation of the world, which nevertheless
always begins with the obedient purification of one’s own soul through the truth.
We may point out the way towards the truth only if by obedience and patience we
let ourselves be purified by the truth.
And now I address
you, dear Brothers in the Episcopate, who will shortly receive the pallium from
my hands. It was woven from the wool of lambs which the Pope blesses on the Feast
of St Agnes. In this way it also recalls the lambs and sheep of Christ, which the
Risen Lord entrusted to Peter with the task of tending them (see Jn 21: 15-18).
The pallium recalls the flock of Jesus Christ which you, dear Brothers, must tend
in communion with Peter. It reminds us of Christ himself, who, as the Good Shepherd,
took the lost sheep, humanity, on his shoulders to bring it home. It reminds us
that he, the supreme Pastor, wanted to make himself the Lamb, to take upon himself
from within the destiny of us all; to carry us and to heal us from within. Let us
pray the Lord that he will grant us to be just Pastors following in his footsteps,
“not under compulsion but willingly, as God would have you do it... eagerly... examples
to the flock” (1 Pt 5: 2f). Amen.
SOLEMNITY
OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
St
Peter’s Square, Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
Today the Church
of Rome is celebrating her holy roots. She is celebrating the Apostles Peter and
Paul whose relics are preserved in the two Basilicas dedicated to them that adorn
the entire City, dear to Christians, residents and pilgrims. The Solemnity began
yesterday evening with the prayer of First Vespers in the Ostian Basilica. The Liturgy
of the day presents anew Peter’s profession of faith to Jesus: “You are the Christ,
the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). This declaration is not the product of reason
but a revelation of the Father to the humble fisherman of Galilee ,
as Jesus himself confirms, saying: “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you”
(Mt 16:17). Simon Peter is so close to the Lord that he himself becomes a rock of
faith and love on which Jesus has built his Church and, as St John Chrysostom observes,
“he has made her stronger than heaven itself” (Hom. in Matthum 54, 2: PG
58, 535). Indeed the Lord concludes by saying: “whatever you bind on earth shall
be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt
16:19).
May the example of
the Apostles Peter and Paul illumine minds and kindle in the hearts of believers
the holy desire to do God’s will, so that the pilgrim Church on this earth may always
be faithful to her Lord. Let us turn with trust to the Virgin Mary, Queen of Apostles,
who from Heaven guides and sustains the Christian People on its journey. I wish
everyone a happy feast day of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.
PAPAL MASS ON THE
SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
HOLY MASS FOR THE IMPOSITION OF THE SACRED PALLIUM
ON METROPOLITAN ARCHBISHOPS
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
In their great wealth,
the biblical texts of this Eucharistic Liturgy on the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles
Peter and Paul highlight a theme that could be summed up in these words: God is
close to his faithful servants and delivers them from all evil and delivers the
Church from negative powers. It is the theme of the Church’s freedom, that presents
an historical aspect and another that is more profoundly spiritual.
This theme runs through
the whole of today’s Liturgy of the Word. The First and Second Readings speak respectively
of St Peter and St Paul ,
stressing God’s liberating action in their regard.
The text of the Acts
of the Apostles especially describes with an abundance of detail the intervention
of the Angel of the Lord who sets Peter free from his chains and leads him out of
the prison of Jerusalem in which Herod the King had had him locked up and placed
under strict surveillance (see Acts 12:1-11). Paul, on the other hand, in writing
to Timothy when he felt he was approaching the end of his earthly life, makes a
concise summary of it from which emerges the fact that the Lord has always been
close to him, has delivered him from many dangers and will free him again, introducing
him into his eternal Kingdom (see 2 Tim 4:6-8, 17-18). The theme is reinforced by
the Responsorial Psalm (Ps 34[33]), and is also given a special development in the
Gospel passage of Peter’s profession where Christ promises that the powers of death
shall not prevail over the Church (see Mt 16:18).
A close look at this
theme reveals a certain progression. In the First Reading a specific episode is
recounted that shows the Lord’s intervention to release Peter from prison. In the
Second Reading Paul, on the basis of his extraordinary apostolic experience, says
that he is convinced that the Lord, who has already rescued him “from the lion’s
mouth”, will rescue him “from every evil”, opening the gates of Heaven to him; on
the other hand, in the Gospel nothing further is said of the individual Apostles
but it speaks rather of the Church as a whole and of her indemnity from the forces
of evil, meant in the full and profound sense. Thus we see that Jesus’ promise “the
powers of death shall not prevail against” the Church does indeed include the historical
experiences of persecution that Peter and Paul and other Gospel witnesses suffered,
but goes beyond them, with the intention of assuring protection, especially from
threats of a spiritual kind; in accordance with what Paul himself writes in his
Letter to the Ephesians: “for we are not contending against flesh and blood, but
against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this
present world of darkness, against the evil spirits in the heavens” (see Eph 6:12).
Indeed if we think
of the two millenniums of the Church’s history, we may note as the Lord Jesus had
foretold (see Mt 10:16-33) that trials for Christians have never been lacking and
in certain periods and places have assumed the character of true and proper persecution.
Yet, despite the suffering they cause, they do not constitute the gravest danger
for the Church. Indeed she is subjected to the greatest danger by what pollutes
the faith and Christian life of her members and communities, corroding the integrity
of the Mystical Body, weakening her capacity for prophecy and witness, and marring
the beauty of her face. The Pauline Letters already testified to this reality. The
First Letter to the Corinthians, for example, responds precisely to certain problems
of division, inconsistence and infidelity to the Gospel that seriously threaten
the Church. However, the Second Letter to Timothy a passage to which we listened
also speaks of the perils of the “last days”, identifying them with negative attitudes
that belong to the world and can contaminate the Christian community: selfishness,
vanity, pride, the attachment to money, etc. (see 3:1-5). The Apostle’s conclusion
is reassuring: men who do evil, he writes, “will not get very far, for their folly
will be plain to all” (3:9). Therefore a guarantee exists of the freedom that God
assures the Church, freedom both from material ties that seek to prevent or to coerce
her mission and from spiritual and moral evils that can tarnish her authenticity
and credibility.
The subject of the
Church’s freedom, which Christ guaranteed to Peter, is also specifically relevant
to the rite of the conferral of the Pallium, which today we renew for 38 Metropolitan Archbishops, to whom I address my
most cordial greeting, which I extend with affection to all who have wished to accompany
them on this pilgrimage. Communion with Peter and with his Successors is in fact
a guarantee of freedom for the Church’s Pastors and for the Communities entrusted
to them. It has been highlighted at both levels in the previous reflections. At
the historical level, union with the Apostolic See guarantees the particular Churches
and the Bishops’ Conferences freedom from local, national or supranational powers
that in some cases can hinder the Church’s mission. In addition, and more essentially,
the Petrine ministry is a guarantee of freedom in the sense of full adherence to
the truth, to the authentic tradition, so that the People of God may be preserved
from errors concerning faith and morals. Therefore the fact that new Metropolitans come to Rome every year to receive the Pallium from the
Pope’s hands as a gesture of communion should be understood in its true sense, and
the subject of the Church’s freedom gives us a particularly important key to its
interpretation. This appears obvious in the case of Churches marked by persecution
or subjected to political interference or other harsh trials. However, this is equally
important in the case of Communities that suffer the influence of misleading doctrines
or ideological trends and practices contrary to the Gospel. In this sense, therefore,
the Pallium becomes a pledge of freedom, comparable to the “yoke” of Jesus which
he invites each person to take upon his or her shoulders (see Mt 11:29-30). Just
as Christ’s commandment although exacting is “easy and light” and, instead of weighing
on those who carry it uplifts them, so the bond with the Apostolic See although
demanding sustains the Pastor and the portion of the Church entrusted to his care,
making them freer and stronger.
I would like to draw
one last instruction from the word of God, and in particular from Christ’s promise
that the powers of death will not prevail over his Church. These words can also
have an ecumenical meaning since, as I mentioned just now, one of the typical effects
of the action of the Evil One is, precisely, the internal division of the ecclesial
Community. Ruptures are in fact symptoms of the power of sin that continues to act
in members of the Church even after the redemption. However, Christ’s word is clear:
“Non praevalebunt they shall not prevail” (Mt 16:18). The unity of the Church
is rooted in her union with Christ and the cause of full Christian unity that must
ever be sought and renewed, from generation to generation is also sustained by his
prayer and his promise. In the struggle against the spirit of evil, God gave us
in Jesus, the “Advocate” defender, and after his Pasch, “another Counselor” (see
Jn 14:16), the Holy Spirit, who stays with us always and leads the Church towards
the fullness of the truth (see Jn 14:16; 16:13) that is also the fullness of love
and of unity. With these sentiments of trusting hope, I am glad to greet the Delegation
of the Patriarchate of Constantinople which, in accordance with the beautiful custom
of reciprocal visits, is taking part in the celebrations for the Holy Patrons of
Rome. Let us thank God together for the progress in ecumenical relations between
Catholic and Orthodox, and let us renew our commitment to respond generously to
God’s grace that is leading us to full communion.
Dear friends, I cordially
greet each one of you, Your Eminences, my Brothers in the Episcopate, the Ambassadors
and the Civil Authorities and, in particular, the Mayor of Rome, the priests, religious
and lay faithful. Thank you for coming. May the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul obtain
that you increase in love for the Holy
Church
PAPAL MASS ON THE
SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
FIRST VESPERS
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Basilica
of Saint Paul
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
With the celebration
of First Vespers we enter the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul. We have the grace
to do so gathered in prayer by the tomb of the Apostle to the Gentiles, in the Papal
Basilica named after him. For this reason I wish to focus my brief reflection on
the perspective of the Church’s missionary vocation. The third Antiphon of the Psalter
which we have prayed in addition to the biblical Reading is oriented in this direction. The first
two Antiphons are dedicated to St Peter and the third to St
Paul , and it says: “You are the chosen instrument of God, St Paul , Apostle, the preacher
of truth in all the world”. And in the brief Reading , taken from the opening address of the
Letter to the Romans, Paul introduces himself as “apostle by God’s call, set apart
for the service of the Gospel” (see Rom 1:1). The figure of Paul his person and
his ministry, the whole of his life and his hard work for the Kingdom of God
When, during the
Second Vatican Council, the Servant of God Giovanni Battista Montini was elected
Successor of Peter he chose to take the name of the Apostle to the Gentiles. Paul
VI included in his programme for the implementation of the Council the convocation,
in 1974, of the Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the theme of evangelization
in the modern world. About a year later, he published the Apostolic Exhortation
Evangelii Nuntiandi, which begins with these words: “There is no doubt that
the effort to proclaim the Gospel to the people of today, who are buoyed up by hope
but at the same time often oppressed by fear and distress, is a service rendered
to the Christian community and also to the whole of humanity” (no. 1). The timeliness
of these words is striking. Paul VI’s special missionary sensitivity can be perceived
in them and, through his voice, the Council’s deep yearning for the evangelization
of the contemporary world. This yearning culminates in the Decree Ad Gentes but
runs through all the documents of the Second Vatican Council and, even earlier,
inspired the thoughts and work of the Council Fathers, convoked to represent, in
an unprecedented, tangible way, the dissemination throughout the world achieved
by the Church.
Words are useless
to explain how Venerable John Paul II, in his long Pontificate, developed this missionary
outreach that it should always be remembered corresponded with the very nature of
the Church which, with St Paul, can and must always repeat: “If I preach the Gospel,
that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if
I do not preach the Gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). Pope John Paul II represented the Church’s
missionary nature “in the flesh” with his Apostolic Journeys and with the insistence
of his Magisterium on the urgent need for a “new evangelization”: “new” not in its
content but in its inner thrust, open to the grace of the Holy Spirit which constitutes
the force of the new law of the Gospel that always renews the Church; “new” in ways
that correspond with the power of the Holy Spirit and which are suited to the times
and situations; “new” because of being necessary even in countries that have already
received the proclamation of the Gospel. It is evident to all that my Predecessor
gave the Church’s mission an extraordinary impetus, not only I repeat because of
the distances he covered but above all because of the genuine missionary spirit
that motivated him and that he left as a legacy at the dawn of the third millennium.
In receiving this
legacy, I was able to state, at the beginning of my Petrine ministry, that the Church
is young and open to the future. And I repeat this today, close to the tomb of St Paul . The Church is an immense
force for renewal in the world. This is not, of course, because of her own strength
but because of the power of the Gospel in which the Holy Spirit of God breathes,
God Creator and Redeemer of the world. The challenges of the present time, the historical
and social and, especially, the spiritual challenges, are certainly beyond the human
capacity. It sometimes seems to us Pastors of the Church that we are reliving the
experience of the Apostles when thousands of needy people followed Jesus and he
asked them: what can we do for all these people? They were then aware of their powerlessness.
Yet Jesus himself had shown them that with faith in God nothing is impossible and
that a few loaves and fish, blessed and shared, could satisfy the hunger of all.
However, there was not and there is not hunger solely for material food: there is
a deeper hunger that only God can satisfy. Human beings of the third millennium
want an authentic, full life; they need truth, profound freedom, love freely given.
Even in the deserts of the secularized world, man’s soul thirsts for God, for the
living God. It was for this reason that John Paul II wrote: “The mission of Christ
the Redeemer, which is entrusted to the Church, is still very far from completion”,
and he added: “an overall view of the human race shows that this mission is still
only beginning and that we must commit ourselves wholeheartedly to its service”
(Encyclical Redemptoris Missio, no. 1). There are regions of the world that
are still awaiting a first evangelization; others that have received it, but need
a deeper intervention; yet others in which the Gospel put down roots a long time
ago, giving rise to a true Christian tradition but in which, in recent centuries
with complex dynamics the secularization process has produced a serious crisis of
the meaning of the Christian faith and of belonging to the Church.
From this perspective,
I have decided to create a new body, in the form of a “Pontifical Council”, whose
principal task will be to promote a renewed evangelization in the countries where
the first proclamation of the faith has already resonated and where Churches with
an ancient foundation exist but are experiencing the progressive secularization
of society and a sort of “eclipse of the sense of God”, which pose a challenge to
finding appropriate to propose anew the perennial truth of Christ’s Gospel.
Dear Brothers and
Sisters, the challenge of the new evangelization calls into question the universal
Church and asks us to continue with commitment our search for full Christian unity.
An eloquent sign of hope in this regard is the custom of reciprocal visits between
the Church of Rome and that of Constantinople for
the Feast day of their respective Holy Patrons. Today, therefore, we welcome with
renewed joy and gratitude the Delegation sent by Patriarch Bartholomaios I, to whom
we address our most cordial greeting. May the intercession of Sts Peter and Paul
obtain for the entire Church ardent faith and apostolic courage, to proclaim to
the world the truth we all need, the truth that is God, the beginning and end of
the universe and of history, the merciful and faithful Father, hope of eternal life.
Amen.
SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
BENEDICT XVI
ANGELUS
St Peter’s Square, Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Dear
Brothers and Sisters,
Forgive
me for the long delay. The Mass in honor of Sts Peter and Paul was long and beautiful.
And we also thought of the beautiful hymn of the Church of Rome which begins: “O
Roma felix!”
Today, on
the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul, Patrons of this city, let us sing in: “Happy
Rome, for you are stained purple by the precious blood of such great Princes. Not
for your praise, but because of their merits you exceed all beauty!”
As the hymns
of the Eastern tradition sing, the two great Apostles are the “wings” of the knowledge
of God who walked across the earth to its very end and were lifted up to Heaven;
they are the “hands” of the Gospel of grace, the “feet of wisdom, the “arms” of
the Cross (see MHN, t. 5 1899, p. 385).
May the
witness of the love and faithfulness of Sts Peter and Paul illumine pastors of the
Church, to lead people to the truth, instilling in them faith in Christ. St Peter,
in particular, represents the unity of the Apostolic College
The Church
is founded on the faith professed by Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the
living God”, we read in Matthew’s Gospel (16:16). Peter’s primacy is a divine predilection,
as his priestly vocation also is: “For flesh or blood has not revealed this to you,
but my Father who is in Heaven” (Mt 16:17).
This is
what happens to those who decide to respond to God’s call with the totality of their
life. I remember it willingly today, which is the 60th anniversary of my priestly
ordination. Thank you for your presence, and for your prayers! I am grateful to
you, I am grateful above all to the Lord for his call and for the ministry he entrusted
to me, and I thank those who, in this circumstance have expressed to me their closeness
and their support of my mission with prayer, which every ecclesial community raises
ceaselessly to God (see Acts 12:5), expressed in adoration of Christ in the Eucharist
to increase the strength and freedom of Gospel proclamation.
In this
atmosphere, I am glad to greet cordially the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
of Constantinople, present in Rome
today, in accordance with the important custom, to venerate Sts Peter and Paul,
and to share with me the hope of Christian unity which the Lord desired. Let us
invoke with trust the Virgin Mary, Queen of Apostles, so that every baptized person
may become more and more a “living stone” in the construction of the Kingdom of God
FEAST OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL
HOLY
MASS FOR THE IMPOSITION OF THE SACRED PALLIUM
ON
METROPOLITAN ARCHBISHOPS
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
“Non iam dicam
servos, sed amicos” - “I no longer call you servants, but friends” (see Jn
15:15).
Sixty years on from
the day of my priestly ordination, I hear once again deep within me these words
of Jesus that were addressed to us new priests at the end of the ordination ceremony
by the Archbishop, Cardinal Faulhaber, in his slightly frail yet firm voice. According
to the liturgical practice of that time, these words conferred on the newly-ordained
priests the authority to forgive sins. “No longer servants, but friends”: at that
moment I knew deep down that these words were no mere formality, nor were they simply
a quotation from Scripture. I knew that, at that moment, the Lord himself was speaking
to me in a very personal way. In baptism and confirmation he had already drawn us
close to him, he had already received us into God’s family. But what was taking
place now was something greater still. He calls me his friend. He welcomes me into
the circle of those he had spoken to in the Upper Room, into the circle of those
whom he knows in a very special way, and who thereby come to know him in a very
special way. He grants me the almost frightening faculty to do what only he, the
Son of God, can legitimately say and do: I forgive you your sins. He wants me –
with his authority – to be able to speak, in his name (“I” forgive), words
that are not merely words, but an action, changing something at the deepest level
of being. I know that behind these words lies his suffering for us and on account
of us. I know that forgiveness comes at a price: in his Passion he went deep down
into the sordid darkness of our sins. He went down into the night of our guilt,
for only thus can it be transformed. And by giving me authority to forgive sins,
he lets me look down into the abyss of man, into the immensity of his suffering
for us men, and this enables me to sense the immensity of his love. He confides
in me: “No longer servants, but friends”. He entrusts to me the words of consecration
in the Eucharist. He trusts me to proclaim his word, to explain it aright and to
bring it to the people of today. He entrusts himself to me. “You are no longer servants,
but friends”: these words bring great inner joy, but at the same time, they are
so awe-inspiring that one can feel daunted as the decades go by amid so many experiences
of one’s own frailty and his inexhaustible goodness.
“No longer servants,
but friends”: this saying contains within itself the entire programme of a priestly
life. What is friendship? Idem velle, idem nolle – wanting the same things,
rejecting the same things: this was how it was expressed in antiquity. Friendship
is a communion of thinking and willing. The Lord says the same thing to us most
insistently: “I know my own and my own know me” (Jn 10:14). The Shepherd
calls his own by name (see Jn 10:3). He knows me by name. I am not just some
nameless being in the infinity of the universe. He knows me personally. Do I know
him? The friendship that he bestows upon me can only mean that I too try to know
him better; that in the Scriptures, in the Sacraments, in prayer, in the communion
of saints, in the people who come to me, sent by him, I try to come to know the
Lord himself more and more. Friendship is not just about knowing someone, it is
above all a communion of the will. It means that my will grows into ever greater
conformity with his will. For his will is not something external and foreign to
me, something to which I more or less willingly submit or else refuse to submit.
No, in friendship, my will grows together with his will, and his will becomes mine:
this is how I become truly myself. Over and above communion of thinking and willing,
the Lord mentions a third, new element: he gives his life for us (see Jn
15:13; 10:15). Lord, help me to come to know you more and more. Help me to be ever
more at one with your will. Help me to live my life not for myself, but in union
with you to live it for others. Help me to become ever more your friend.
Jesus’ words on friendship
should be seen in the context of the discourse on the vine. The Lord associates
the image of the vine with a commission to the disciples: “I appointed you that
you should go out and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide” (Jn 15:16).
The first commission to the disciples, to his friends, is that of setting out –
appointed to go out -, stepping outside oneself and towards others. Here we hear
an echo of the words of the risen Lord to his disciples at the end of Matthew’s
Gospel: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations ...” (see Mt 28:19f.)
The Lord challenges us to move beyond the boundaries of our own world and to bring
the Gospel to the world of others, so that it pervades everything and hence the
world is opened up for God’s kingdom. We are reminded that even God stepped outside
himself, he set his glory aside in order to seek us, in order to bring us his light
and his love. We want to follow the God who sets out in this way, we want to move
beyond the inertia of self-centeredness, so that he himself can enter our world.
After the reference
to setting out, Jesus continues: bear fruit, fruit that abides. What fruit does
he expect from us? What is this fruit that abides? Now, the fruit of the vine is
the grape, and it is from the grape that wine is made. Let us reflect for a moment
on this image. For good grapes to ripen, sun is needed, but so too is rain, day
and night. For noble wine to mature, the grapes need to be pressed, patience is
needed while the juice ferments, watchful care is needed to assist the processes
of maturation. Noble wine is marked not only by sweetness, but by rich and subtle
flavors, the manifold aroma that develops during the processes of maturation and
fermentation. Is this not already an image of human life, and especially of our
lives as priests? We need both sun and rain, festivity and adversity, times of purification
and testing, as well as times of joyful journeying with the Gospel. In hindsight
we can thank God for both: for the challenges and the joys, for the dark times and
the glad times. In both, we can recognize the constant presence of his love, which
unfailingly supports and sustains us.
Yet now we must ask:
what sort of fruit does the Lord expect from us? Wine is an image of love: this
is the true fruit that abides, the fruit that God wants from us. But let us not
forget that in the Old Testament the wine expected from noble grapes is above all
an image of justice, which arises from a life lived in accordance with God’s law.
And this is not to be dismissed as an Old Testament view that has been surpassed
– no, it still remains true. The true content of the Law, its summa, is love
for God and for one’s neighbour. But this twofold love is not simply saccharine.
It bears within itself the precious cargo of patience, humility, and growth in the
conforming of our will to God’s will, to the will of Jesus Christ, our friend. Only
in this way, as the whole of our being takes on the qualities of truth and righteousness,
is love also true, only thus is it ripe fruit. Its inner demand – faithfulness to
Christ and to his Church – seeks a fulfilment that always includes suffering. This
is the way that true joy grows. At a deep level, the essence of love, the essence
of genuine fruit, coincides with the idea of setting out, going towards: it means
self-abandonment, self-giving, it bears within itself the sign of the cross. Gregory
the Great once said in this regard: if you are striving for God, take care not to
go to him by yourselves alone – a saying that we priests need to keep before us
every day (H Ev 1:6:6 PL 76, 1097f.).
Dear friends, perhaps
I have dwelt for too long on my inner recollections of sixty years of priestly ministry.
Now it is time to turn our attention to the particular task that is to be performed
today.
On the feast of Saints
Peter and Paul my most cordial greeting goes first of all to the Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomaios I and to the Delegation he has sent, to whom I express sincere thanks
for their most welcome visit on the happy occasion of this feast of the holy Apostles
who are Rome’s patrons. I also greet the Cardinals, my brother bishops, the ambassadors
and civil authorities as well as the priests, the confrères of my first Mass, religious
and lay faithful. I thank all of you for your presence and your prayers.
The metropolitan
archbishops appointed since the feast of Saints Peter and Paul last year are now
going to receive the pallium. What does this mean? It may remind us in the first
instance of Christ’s easy yoke that is laid upon us (see Mt 11:29f.). Christ’s
yoke is identical with his friendship. It is a yoke of friendship and therefore
“a sweet yoke”, but as such it is also a demanding yoke, one that forms us. It is
the yoke of his will, which is a will of truth and love. For us, then, it is first
and foremost the yoke of leading others to friendship with Christ and being available
to others, caring for them as shepherds. This brings us to a further meaning of
the pallium: it is woven from the wool of lambs blessed on the feast of Saint Agnes.
Thus it reminds us of the Shepherd who himself became a lamb, out of love for us.
It reminds us of Christ, who set out through the mountains and the deserts, in which
his lamb, humanity, had strayed. It reminds us of him who took the lamb – humanity
– me – upon his shoulders, in order to carry me home. It thus reminds us that we
too, as shepherds in his service, are to carry others with us, taking them as it
were upon our shoulders and bringing them to Christ. It reminds us that we are called
to be shepherds of his flock, which always remains his and does not become ours.
Finally the pallium also means quite concretely the communion of the shepherds of
the Church with Peter and with his successors – it means that we must be shepherds
for unity and in unity, and that it is only in the unity represented by Peter that
we truly lead people to Christ.
Sixty years of priestly
ministry – dear friends, perhaps I have spoken for too long about this. But I felt
prompted at this moment to look back upon the things that have left their mark on
the last six decades. I felt prompted to address to you, to all priests and bishops
and to the faithful of the Church, a word of hope and encouragement; a word that
has matured in long experience of how good the Lord is. Above all, though, it is
a time of thanksgiving: thanks to the Lord for the friendship that he has bestowed
upon me and that he wishes to bestow upon us all. Thanks to the people who have
formed and accompanied me. And all this includes the prayer that the Lord will one
day welcome us in his goodness and invite us to contemplate his joy.
SOLEMNITY
OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
St.
Peter’s Square, Friday, 29 June 2012
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
We are celebrating
with joy the liturgical Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, a Feast that
accompanies the 2,000-year-old history of the Christian people. They are called
the pillars of the nascent Church. Outstanding witnesses of the faith who spread
the Kingdom of God St Augustine says: “Only one day is consecrated
to the Feast of the two Apostles. But they too are only one. Although they were
martyred on different days they were one. Peter came first and Paul followed” (Disc.
295, 8: PL 38, 1352).
The Vatican Basilica
and this square, so important to Christianity, are an eloquent sign of Peter’s sacrifice.
Significant traces even remain in our City of the martyrdom of Paul, especially
the Basilica dedicated to him on the Ostian
Way . Rome has engraved
in its history signs of the glorious life and death of the humble Fisherman from
Galilee and the Apostle to the Gentiles, who have
been rightly chosen as Protectors. In recalling their luminous testimony, we remember
the venerable beginnings of the Church which believes, prays and announces Christ
the Redeemer in Rome .
But Sts Peter and Paul shine not only in the sky of Rome but also in the hearts
of all believers who, illuminated by their teaching and their example, walk in every
part of the world on the path of faith, hope and love.
On this path of salvation,
the Christian community, supported by the presence of the Spirit of the living God,
feels encouraged to move forward with strength and serenity on the road of fidelity
to Christ and the proclamation of the Gospel to men and women in every era. On this
fruitful route, spiritual and missionary, we situate the conferral of the Pallium
on the Metropolitan Archbishops, which I performed this morning in the Basilica.
An ever eloquent rite which highlights the intimate communion of Pastors with the
Successor of Peter and the deep bond that links us to the Apostolic Tradition. It
is a double treasure of holiness where unity and the catholicity of the Church are
fused together: a precious treasure to rediscover and to live with renewed enthusiasm
and constant commitment.
Dear pilgrims, come
here from every part of the world! On this Feast day, we pray with the phrases from
the Eastern Liturgy: “Praise to Peter and Paul, two great lights of the Church;
may they shine in the firmament of the faith”. In this climate, I would like to
address a special thought to the Delegation from the Patriarchate of Constantinople
which, as every year, has come to take part in our traditional celebrations. May
the Holy Virgin lead all believers in Christ to the goal of full unity!
FEAST OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL
HOLY MASS FOR THE IMPOSITION OF THE SACRED PALLIUM
ON METROPOLITAN ARCHBISHOPS
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Your
Eminences,
Brother
Bishops and Priests,
Dear
Brothers and Sisters,
We are gathered
around the altar for our solemn celebration of Saints Peter and Paul, the principal
Patrons of the Church of Rome. Present with us today are the Metropolitan Archbishops
appointed during the past year, who have just received the Pallium, and to them
I extend a particular and affectionate greeting. Also present is an eminent Delegation
from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, sent by His Holiness Bartholomaios
I, and I welcome them with fraternal and heartfelt gratitude. In an ecumenical spirit,
I am also pleased to greet and to thank the Choir of Westminster Abbey, who are
providing the music for this liturgy alongside the Cappella Sistina. I also
greet the Ambassadors and civil Authorities present. I am grateful to all of you
for your presence and your prayers.
In front
of Saint Peter’s Basilica, as is well known, there are two imposing statues of Saint
Peter and Saint Paul ,
easily recognizable by their respective attributes: the keys in the hand of Peter
and the sword held by Paul. Likewise, at the main entrance to the Basilica of Saint
Paul Outside the Walls, there are depictions of scenes from the life and the martyrdom
of these two pillars of the Church. Christian tradition has always considered Saint
Peter and Saint Paul
to be inseparable: indeed, together, they represent the whole Gospel of Christ.
In Rome , their bond
as brothers in the faith came to acquire a particular significance. Indeed, the
Christian community of this City considered them a kind of counterbalance to the
mythical Romulus and Remus, the two brothers held
to be the founders of Rome .
A further parallel comes to mind, still on the theme of brothers: whereas the first
biblical pair of brothers demonstrate the effects of sin, as Cain kills Abel, yet
Peter and Paul, much as they differ from one another in human terms and notwithstanding
the conflicts that arose in their relationship, illustrate a new way of being brothers,
lived according to the Gospel, an authentic way made possible by the grace of Christ’s
Gospel working within them. Only by following Jesus does one arrive at this new
brotherhood: this is the first and fundamental message that today’s solemnity presents
to each one of us, the importance of which is mirrored in the pursuit of full communion,
so earnestly desired by the ecumenical Patriarch and the Bishop of Rome, as indeed
by all Christians.
In the passage
from Saint Matthew’s Gospel that we have just heard, Peter makes his own confession
of faith in Jesus, acknowledging him as Messiah and Son of God. He does so in the
name of the other Apostles too. In reply, the Lord reveals to him the mission that
he intends to assign to him, that of being the “rock”, the visible foundation on
which the entire spiritual edifice of the Church is built (see Mt 16:16-19).
But in what sense is Peter the rock? How is he to exercise this prerogative, which
naturally he did not receive for his own sake? The account given by the evangelist
Matthew tells us first of all that the acknowledgment of Jesus’ identity made by
Simon in the name of the Twelve did not come “through flesh and blood”, that is,
through his human capacities, but through a particular revelation from God the Father.
By contrast, immediately afterwards, as Jesus foretells his passion, death and resurrection,
Simon Peter reacts on the basis of “flesh and blood”: he “began to rebuke him, saying,
this shall never happen to you” (16:22). And Jesus in turn replied: “Get behind
me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me ...” (16:23). The disciple who, through God’s
gift, was able to become a solid rock, here shows himself for what he is in his
human weakness: a stone along the path, a stone on which men can stumble – in Greek,
skandalon. Here we see the tension that exists between the gift that comes
from the Lord and human capacities; and in this scene between Jesus and Simon Peter
we see anticipated in some sense the drama of the history of the papacy itself,
characterized by the joint presence of these two elements: on the one hand, because
of the light and the strength that come from on high, the papacy constitutes the
foundation of the Church during its pilgrimage through history; on the other hand,
across the centuries, human weakness is also evident, which can only be transformed
through openness to God’s action.
And in today’s
Gospel there emerges powerfully the clear promise made by Jesus: “the gates of the
underworld”, that is, the forces of evil, will not prevail, “non praevalebunt”.
One is reminded of the account of the call of the prophet Jeremiah, to whom the
Lord said, when entrusting him with his mission: “Behold, I make you this day a
fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against
the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. They will
fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you - non praevalebunt
-, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you!” (Jer 1:18-19).
In truth, the promise that Jesus makes to Peter is even greater than those made
to the prophets of old: they, indeed, were threatened only by human enemies, whereas
Peter will have to be defended from the “gates of the underworld”, from the destructive
power of evil. Jeremiah receives a promise that affects him as a person and his
prophetic ministry; Peter receives assurances concerning the future of the Church,
the new community founded by Jesus Christ, which extends to all of history, far
beyond the personal existence of Peter himself.
Let us move
on now to the symbol of the keys, which we heard about in the Gospel. It echoes
the oracle of the prophet Isaiah concerning the steward Eliakim, of whom it was
said: “And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall
open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open” (Is 22:22).
The key represents authority over the house of David. And in the Gospel there is
another saying of Jesus addressed to the scribes and the Pharisees, whom the Lord
reproaches for shutting off the kingdom of heaven from people (see Mt 23:13).
This saying also helps us to understand the promise made to Peter: to him, inasmuch
as he is the faithful steward of Christ’s message, it belongs to open the gate of
the Kingdom of Heaven
In Chapter
18 of Matthew’s Gospel, dedicated to the life of the ecclesial community, we find
another saying of Jesus addressed to the disciples: “Truly I say to you, whatever
you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall
be loosed in heaven” (Mt 18:18). Saint
John , in his account of the appearance of the risen Christ
in the midst of the Apostles on Easter evening, recounts these words of the Lord:
“Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven: if
you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn 20:22-23). In the light
of these parallels, it appears clearly that the authority of loosing and binding
consists in the power to remit sins. And this grace, which defuses the powers of
chaos and evil, is at the heart of the Church’s mystery and ministry. The Church
is not a community of the perfect, but a community of sinners, obliged to recognize
their need for God’s love, their need to be purified through the Cross of Jesus
Christ. Jesus’ sayings concerning the authority of Peter and the Apostles make it
clear that God’s power is love, the love that shines forth from Calvary . Hence we can also understand why, in the Gospel account,
Peter’s confession of faith is immediately followed by the first prediction of the
Passion: through his death, Jesus conquered the powers of the underworld, with his
blood he poured out over the world an immense flood of mercy, which cleanses the
whole of humanity in its healing waters.
Dear brothers
and sisters, as I mentioned at the beginning, the iconographic tradition represents
Saint Paul with
a sword, and we know that this was the instrument with which he was killed. Yet
as we read the writings of the Apostle of the Gentiles, we discover that the image
of the sword refers to his entire mission of evangelization. For example, when he
felt death approaching, he wrote to Timothy: “I have fought the good fight” (2
Tim 4:7). This was certainly not the battle of a military commander but that
of a herald of the Word of God, faithful to Christ and to his Church, to which he
gave himself completely. And that is why the Lord gave him the crown of glory and
placed him, together with Peter, as a pillar in the spiritual edifice of the Church.
© Copyright 2014 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Book by Orestes J. González