Entry 0329: Reflections on the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time
by Pope Benedict XVI
On six occasions
during his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI delivered reflections on the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time, on 12 February 2006, 11 February 2007,
15 February 2009, 14 February 2010, 13 February 2011, and 12 February 2012. Here are the texts of eight brief reflections
delivered on these occasions prior to the recitation of the Angelus.
Dear friends, let us turn in prayer to the Virgin Mary,
whom we celebrated yesterday commemorating her Apparitions in Lourdes
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
Saint
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 12 February 2006
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
Yesterday, 11 February,
the liturgical Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, we celebrated World Day of the Sick.
This year its most important events took place in Adelaide , Australia
Illness is a typical
feature of the human condition, to the point that it can become a realistic metaphor
of it, as St Augustine
expresses clearly in his prayer: “Have
mercy on me, Lord! See: I do not hide my
wounds from you. You are the doctor, I am the sick person; you are merciful, I am
wretched” (Conf. X, 39).
Christ is the true
“Doctor” of humanity whom the heavenly Father sent into the world to heal man, marked
in body and mind by sin and its consequences. On these very Sundays, Mark’s Gospel
presents Jesus to us at the beginning of his public ministry, totally involved with
preaching and healing the sick in the villages of Galilee .
The countless miraculous signs that he worked for the sick confirmed the “Good News”
of the Kingdom of
God
Today’s Gospel tells
of the healing of a leper and expresses most effectively the intensity of the relationship
between God and man, summed up in a wonderful dialogue: “If you will, you can make me clean”, the leper
says. “I do will it; be clean”, Jesus answers him, touching him with his hand and
healing him of leprosy (see Mk 1: 40-42).
We see here in a
concise form the entire history of salvation:
that gesture of Jesus who stretches out his hand and touches the body covered
with sores of the person who calls upon him, perfectly manifesting God’s desire
to heal his fallen creature, restoring to him “life in abundance” (see Jn
10: 10), eternal life, full and happy. Christ is “the hand” of God stretched out
to humanity, to rescue it from the quicksands of illness and death so that it can
stand on the firm rock of divine love (see Ps 39: 2-3).
Today, I would like
to entrust all the sick to Mary, “Salus infirmorum”, especially sick persons
in every part of the world who, in addition to the lack of health, are also suffering
loneliness, poverty and marginalization. I also address a special thought to those
in hospitals and every other health centre who care for the sick and spare no effort
for their recovery.
May the Blessed Virgin
help each one find comfort in body and spirit through satisfactory health-care assistance
and fraternal charity, expressed by means of practical and supportive attention.
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
St
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 11 February 2007
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
Today, the Church
recalls the first apparition of the Virgin Mary to St Bernadette, which took place
on 11 February 1858 in the grotto of Massabielle, near Lourdes . It was a miraculous event which made
that town, located in the French Pyrenees, a world centre of pilgrimages and intense
Marian spirituality.
In that place, now
almost 150 years ago, the Blessed Mother’s call to prayer and penance resounds strongly,
almost as a permanent echo of Jesus’ invitation which inaugurated his preaching
in Galilee: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and
believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1: 15).
Moreover, that Shrine
has become the goal of numerous sick pilgrims who are encouraged by listening to
Mary Most Holy to accept their sufferings and offer them for the world’s salvation,
uniting them to those of Christ Crucified.
Precisely because
of the bond that exists between Lourdes
and suffering humanity, 15 years ago our beloved John Paul II willed that, on the
occasion of the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, the World Day of the Sick would also
be celebrated.
This year the heart
of this celebration is in the city of Seoul , South Korea ,
where I sent as my representative Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, President of
the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care. I address a cordial greeting to
him and to all those gathered there. I would like to extend a greeting to the health-care
workers of the entire world, knowing well of their important service to the sick
persons in our society.
Above all, I would
like to express my spiritual closeness and affection to our sick brothers and sisters,
with a particular remembrance for those struck by graver illnesses and pain: to them, our attention is dedicated in a special
way on this Day.
It is necessary to
maintain the development of palliative care that offers an integral assistance and
furnishes the incurably ill with that human support and spiritual guide they greatly
need.
This afternoon, in
St Peter’s Basilica, many sick will gather around Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who will
preside at the Eucharistic celebration. At the end of Holy Mass, I will have the
joy, as last year, to spend some time with them, reliving the spiritual climate
that I experienced at the Grotto of Massabielle.
I would now like
to entrust to the maternal protection of the Immaculate Virgin, with the prayer
of the Angelus, the sick and suffering in body and spirit of the entire world.
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
Saint
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 15 February 2009
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
During these Sundays
the Evangelist Mark has offered for our reflection a sequence of various miraculous
cures. Today he presents to us a very special one, the healing of a leper (Mk 1:
40-45) who approached Jesus and, kneeling down begs him: “If you wish, you can make
me clean”. Jesus, moved with pity, stretched out his hand and touched him, and said
to him: “I do will it. Be made clean!” And the man was instantly healed. Jesus asked
him to say nothing about the event but to present himself to the priests to offer
the sacrifice prescribed by the Mosaic law. However, the leper who had been healed
was not able to keep quiet about it and instead proclaimed what had happened to
him to all so that the Evangelist recounts the sick flocked to Jesus in even greater
numbers, to the extent of forcing him to remain outside the towns to avoid being
besieged by people.
Jesus said to the
leper: “Be made clean!” According to the ancient Jewish law (see Lv 13-14), leprosy
was not only considered a disease but also the most serious form of ritual “impurity”.
It was the priests’ duty to diagnose it and to declare unclean the sick person who
had to be isolated from the community and live outside the populated area until
his eventual and well-certified recovery. Thus, leprosy constituted a kind of religious
and civil death, and its healing a kind of resurrection. It is possible to see leprosy
as a symbol of sin, which is the true impurity of heart that can distance us from
God. It is not in fact the physical disease of leprosy that separates us from God
as the ancient norms supposed but sin, spiritual and moral evil. This is why the
Psalmist exclaims: “Blessed is he whose fault is taken away, / whose sin is covered”,
and then says, addressing God: “I acknowledged my sin to you, / my guilt I covered
not. / I said, “I confess my faults to the Lord’ / and you took away the guilt of
my sin” (32[31]: 1, 5). The sins that we commit distance us from God and, if we
do not humbly confess them, trusting in divine mercy, they will finally bring about
the death of the soul. This miracle thus has a strong symbolic value. Jesus, as
Isaiah had prophesied, is the Servant of the Lord who “has borne our griefs / and
carried our sorrows” (Is 53: 4). In his Passion he will become as a leper, made
impure by our sins, separated from God: he will do all this out of love, to obtain
for us reconciliation, forgiveness and salvation. In the Sacrament of Penance, the
Crucified and Risen Christ purifies us through his ministers with his infinite mercy,
restores us to communion with the heavenly Father and with our brothers and makes
us a gift of his love, his joy and his peace.
Dear brothers and
sisters, let us invoke the Virgin Mary whom God preserved from every stain of sin
so that she may help us to avoid sin and to have frequent recourse to the Sacrament
of Confession, the sacrament of forgiveness, whose value and importance for our
Christian life must be rediscovered today.
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
St
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 14 February 2010
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
The liturgical year
is a great journey of faith made by the Church, always preceded by her Mother the
Virgin Mary. This year, during the Sundays in Ordinary Time, the path is marked
by readings from Luke’s Gospel. Today it brings us to “a level place” (Lk 6: 17),
where Jesus stops with the Twelve and where a crowd of other disciples and people
who had come from everywhere gather to listen to him. This is the setting for the
proclamation of the “Beatitudes” (Lk 6: 20-26; see Mt 5: 1-12). Jesus, lifting up
his eyes to his disciples, says: “Blessed are you poor.... Blessed are you that
hunger.... Blessed are you that weep.... Blessed are you when men hate you... when
they cast out your name” on account of me. Why does he proclaim them blessed? Because
God’s justice will ensure that they will be satisfied, gladdened, recompensed for
every false accusation in a word, because from this moment he will welcome them
into his Kingdom. The Beatitudes are based on the fact that a divine justice exists,
which exalts those who have been wrongly humbled and humbles those who have exalted
themselves (see Lk 14: 11). In fact, the Evangelist Luke, after repeating four times
“blessed are you”, adds four admonitions: “Woe to you that are rich.... Woe to you
that are full now.... Woe to you that laugh now” and: “Woe to you, when all men
speak well of you”, because as Jesus affirms, the circumstances will be reversed;
the last will be first, and the first will be last (see Lk 13: 30).
This justice and
this Beatitude are realized in the “Kingdom
of Heaven ”, or the “Kingdom of God
This year I dedicated
my Message for Lent which will begin this Wednesday, Ash Wednesday to the
theme of justice. Today I would therefore like to deliver it, in spirit, to all
of you, inviting you to read and meditate on it. Christ’s Gospel responds positively
to Man’s thirst for justice, but in an unexpected and surprising way. He does not
propose a social or political revolution but rather one of love, which he has already
brought about with his Cross and his Resurrection. It is on these that are founded
the Beatitudes which present a new horizon of justice, unveiled at Easter, thanks
to which we can become just and build a better world.
Dear friends, let
us turn now to the Virgin Mary. All the generations call her “blessed”, because
she believed the good news that the Lord proclaimed (see Lk 1: 45-48). Let us be
guided by her on our Lenten journey, to be freed from the illusion of self-sufficiency,
to recognize that we need God and his mercy, and thus to enter into his Kingdom
of justice, of love and of peace.
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
St
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 13 February 2011
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
In this Sunday’s
Liturgy we continue to read Jesus’ so-called “Sermon on the Mount”. It is contained
in chapters 5, 6 and 7 of Matthew’s Gospel. After the Beatitudes, which are the
programme of his life, Jesus proclaims the new Law, his Torah, as our Jewish
brothers and sisters call it. In fact, on his coming, the Messiah was also to bring
the definitive revelation of the Law and this is precisely what Jesus declares:
“Think not that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have come not
to abolish them but to fulfill them”.
And addressing his
disciples, he adds: “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees,
you will never enter the Kingdom
of Heaven
Jesus explains it
with a series of antitheses between the old commandments and his new way of propounding
them. He begins each time: “You have heard that it was said to the men of old…”,
and then he asserts: “but I say to you”…. For example, “You have heard that it was
said to the men of old, ‘you shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable
to judgment’. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall
be liable to judgment” (Mt 5:21-22).
And he does this
six times. This manner of speaking made a great impression on the people, who were
shocked, because those words: “I say to you” were equivalent to claiming the actual
authority of God, the source of the Law. The newness of Jesus consists essentially
in the fact that he himself “fulfils” the commandments with the love of God, with
the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within him. And we, through faith in Christ,
can open ourselves to the action of the Holy Spirit who makes us capable of living
divine love.
So it is that every
precept becomes true as a requirement of love, and all join in a single commandment:
love God with all your heart and love your neighbour as yourself. “Love is the fulfilling
of the Law”, St Paul
writes (Rom 13:10).
With regard to this
requirement, for example, the pitiful case of the four Rom children, who died last
week when their shack caught fire on the outskirts of this city, forces us to ask
ourselves whether a more supportive and fraternal society, more consistent in love,
in other words more Christian, might not have been able to prevent this tragic event.
And this question applies in the case of so many other grievous events, more or
less known, which occur daily in our cities and our towns.
Dear friends, perhaps
it is not by chance that Jesus’ first great preaching is called the “Sermon on the
Mount”! Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the
Law of God and bring it to the Chosen People. Jesus is the Son of God himself who
came down from Heaven to lead us to Heaven, to God’s height, on the way of love.
Indeed, he himself is this way; all we have to do in order to put into practice
God’s will and to enter his Kingdom, eternal life, is to follow him.
Only one creature
has already scaled the mountain peak: the Virgin Mary. Through her union with Jesus,
her righteousness was perfect: for this reason we invoke her as Speculum iustitiae.
Let us entrust ourselves to her so that she may guide our steps in fidelity
to Christ’s Law.
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
St.
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 12 February 2012
Dear
Brothers and Sisters,
Last
Sunday we saw that in his public life Jesus healed many sick people, revealing that
God wants life for human beings, life in its fullness. This Sunday’s Gospel (Mk
1:40-45) shows us Jesus in touch with a form of disease then considered the most
serious, so serious as to make the person infected with it “unclean” and to exclude
that person from social relations: we are speaking of leprosy. Special legislation
(see Lev 13-14) allocated to priests the task of declaring a person to be “leprous”,
that is, unclean; and it was likewise the priest’s task to note the person’s recovery
and to readmit him or her, when restored to health, to normal life.
While
Jesus was going about the villages of Galilee preaching,
a leper came up and besought him: “If you will, you can make me clean”. Jesus did
not shun contact with that man; on the contrary, impelled by deep participation
in his condition, he stretched out his hand and touched the man — overcoming the
legal prohibition — and said to him: “I will; be clean”.
That
gesture and those words of Christ contain the whole history of salvation, they embody
God’s will to heal us, to purify us from the illness that disfigures us and ruins
our relationships. In that contact between Jesus’ hand and the leper, every barrier
between God and human impurity, between the Sacred and its opposite, was pulled
down. This was not of course in order to deny evil and its negative power, but to
demonstrate that God’s love is stronger than all illness, even in its most contagious
and horrible form. Jesus took upon himself our infirmities, he made himself “a leper”
so that we might be cleansed.
A splendid
existential comment on this Gospel is the well known experience of St Francis of
Assisi , which he
sums up at the beginning of his Testament: “This is how the Lord gave me, Brother
Francis, the power to do penance. When I was in sin the sight of lepers was too
bitter for me. And the Lord himself led me among them, and I pitied and helped them.
And when I left them I discovered that what had seemed bitter to me was changed
into sweetness in my soul and body. And shortly afterward I rose and left the world”
(FF, 110).
In those
lepers whom Francis met when he was still “in sin” — as he says — Jesus was present;
and when Francis approached one of them, overcoming his own disgust, he embraced
him, Jesus healed him from his “leprosy”, namely, from his pride, and converted
him to love of God. This is Christ’s victory which is our profound healing and our
resurrection to new life!
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