Entry 0328: Reflections on the Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
by Pope Benedict XVI
On seven
occasions during his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI delivered reflections on the Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, on 5 February 2006, 4 February 2007,
8 February 2009, 7 February 2010, 6 February 2011, 5 February 2012, and 10 February
2013. Here are the texts of eight brief
reflections prior to the recitation of the Angelus and one homily delivered
on these occasions.
Dear brothers and
sisters, may this Word of God revive in us and in our Christian communities courage,
confidence and enthusiasm in proclaiming and witnessing to the Gospel. Do not let
failures and difficulties lead to discouragement: it is our task to cast our nets
in faith — the Lord will do the rest. We must trust, too, in the intercession of
the Virgin Mary, the Queen of Apostles. Well aware of her own smallness, she answered
the Lord’s call with total confidence: “Here I am”. With her maternal help, let
us renew our willingness to follow Jesus, Master and Lord.
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
Saint
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 5 February 2006
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
Pro-Life Day is being
celebrated today throughout Italy
and is a precious opportunity for prayer and reflection on the themes of the defence
and promotion of human life, especially when it is found to be in difficult conditions.
Many of the lay faithful
who work in this area are present in St Peter’s Square, some of whom are involved
in the Pro-Life Movement. I address my cordial greeting to them, with a special
thought for Cardinal Camillo Ruini who has accompanied them, and I once again express
my appreciation for the work they do to ensure that life is always received as a
gift and accompanied with love.
As I invite you to
meditate on the Message of the Italian Bishops, which has as its theme “Respecting
life,” I think back to beloved
Pope John Paul II, who paid constant attention to these problems. I would like in
particular to recall the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, which he published
in 1995 and which represents an authentic milestone in the Church’s Magisterium
on a most timely and crucial issue.
Inserting the moral
aspects in a vast spiritual and cultural framework, my venerable Predecessor frequently
reasserted that human life has a value of paramount importance which demands recognition,
and the Gospel asks that it always be respected.
In the light of my
recent Encyclical Letter on Christian love, I would like to underline the importance
of the service of love for the support and promotion of human life. In this
regard, even before active initiatives, it is fundamental to foster a correct attitude
towards the other: the culture of life
is in fact based on attention to others without any forms of exclusion or discrimination.
Every human life, as such, deserves and demands always to be defended and
promoted.
We are well aware
that all too often this truth risks being opposed by the hedonism widespread in
the so-called society of well-being: life
is exalted as long as it is pleasurable, but there is a tendency to no longer respect
it as soon as it is sick or handicapped. Based on deep love for every person it
is possible instead to put into practice effective forms of service to life: to newborn life and to life marked by marginalization
or suffering, especially in its terminal phase.
The Virgin Mary received
with perfect love the Word of life, Jesus Christ, who came into the world so that
human beings might “have life... abundantly” (Jn 10: 10). Let us entrust
to her expectant mothers, families, health-care workers and volunteers who are committed
in so many ways to the service of life. Let us pray in particular for people in
the most difficult situations.
HOLY
MASS IN THE PARISH OF SAINT ANNE IN VATICAN
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Parish
of Saint Anne, Sunday, 5 February 2006
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
The Gospel [passage]
we have just listened to begins with a very nice, beautiful episode but is also
full of meaning. The Lord went to the house of Simon Peter and Andrew and found
Peter’s mother-in-law sick with a fever. He took her by the hand and raised her,
the fever left her, and she served them.
Jesus’ entire mission
is symbolically portrayed in this episode. Jesus, coming from the Father, visited
peoples’ homes on our earth and found a humanity that was sick, sick with fever,
the fever of ideologies, idolatry, forgetfulness of God. The Lord gives us his hand,
lifts us up and heals us.
And he does so in
all ages; he takes us by the hand with his Word, thereby dispelling the fog of ideologies
and forms of idolatry. He takes us by the hand in the sacraments, he heals us from
the fever of our passions and sins through absolution in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
He gives us the possibility to raise ourselves, to stand before God and before men
and women. And precisely with this content of the Sunday liturgy, the Lord comes
to meet us, he takes us by the hand, raises us and heals us ever anew with the gift
of his words, the gift of himself.
But the second part
of this episode is also important. This woman who has just been healed, the Gospel
says, begins to serve them. She sets to work immediately to be available to others,
and thus becomes a representative of so many good women, mothers, grandmothers,
women in various professions, who are available, who get up and serve and are the
soul of the family, the soul of the parish.
And here, on looking
at the painting above the altar, we see that they do not only perform external services;
St Anne is introducing her great daughter, Our Lady, to the Sacred Scriptures, to
the hope of Israel ,
for which she was precisely to be the place of its fulfilment.
Moreover, women were
the first messengers of the word of God in the Gospel, they were true evangelists.
And it seems to me that this Gospel, with this apparently very modest episode, is
offering us in this very Church of St Anne an opportunity to say a heartfelt “thank
you” to all the women who care for the parish, the women who serve in all its dimensions,
who help us to know the Word of God ever anew, not only with our minds but also
with our hearts.
Let us return to
the Gospel: Jesus slept at Peter’s house,
but he rose before dawn while it was still dark and went out to find a deserted
place to pray. And here the true centre of the mystery of Jesus appears.
Jesus was conversing
with the Father and raised his human spirit in communion with the Person of the
Son, so that the humanity of the Son, united to him, might speak in the Trinitarian
dialogue with the Father; and thus, he also made true prayer possible for us. In
the liturgy Jesus prays with us, we pray with Jesus, and so we enter into real contact
with God, we enter into the mystery of eternal love of the Most Holy Trinity.
Jesus speaks to the
Father: this is the source and centre of
all Jesus’ activities; we see his preaching, his cures, his miracles and lastly
the Passion, and they spring from this centre of his being with the Father.
And in this way this
Gospel teaches us that the centre of our faith and our lives is indeed the primacy
of God. Whenever God is not there, the human being is no longer respected either.
Only if God’s splendor shines on the human face, is the human image of God protected
by a dignity which subsequently no one must violate.
The primacy of God.
Let us see how the first three requests in the “Our Father” refer precisely to this
primacy of God: that God’s Name be sanctified,
that respect for the divine mystery be alive and enliven the whole of our lives;
that “may God’s Kingdom come” and “may [his] will be done” are two sides of the
same coin; where God’s will is done Heaven already exists, a little bit of Heaven
also begins on earth, and where God’s will is done the Kingdom of God is present.
Since the Kingdom of God
is not a series of things, the Kingdom
of God
The centre of his
proclamation is the Kingdom
of God
Moral destruction
and the destruction of human dignity are fundamental forms of destruction, and renewal
can only come from God’s return, that is, from recognition of God’s centrality.
A Bishop from the
Congo
on an ad limina visit in these days said to me: Europeans generously give us many things for development,
but there is a hesitation in helping us in pastoral ministry; it seems as though
they considered pastoral ministry useless, that only technological and material
development were important. But the contrary is true, he said; where the Word of
God does not exist, development fails to function and has no positive results. Only
if God’s Word is put first, only if man is reconciled with God, can material things
also go smoothly.
The continuation
of the Gospel itself powerfully confirms this. The Apostles said to Jesus: come back, everyone is looking for you. And he
said no, I must go on to the next towns that I may proclaim God and cast out demons,
the forces of evil; for that is why I came.
Jesus came - the
Greek text says, “I came out from the Father” - not to bring us the comforts of
life but to bring the fundamental condition of our dignity, to bring us the proclamation
of God, the presence of God, and thus to overcome the forces of evil. He indicated
this priority with great clarity: I did not
come to heal - I also do this, but as a sign -, I came to reconcile you with God.
God is our Creator, God has given us life, our dignity: and it is above all to him that we must turn.
And as Fr Gioele
has said, today, the Church in Italy
is celebrating Pro-Life Day. In their Message, the Italian Bishops have wanted to
recall the priority duty to “respect life”, since it is a “unavailable” good. Man
is not the master of life; rather, he is its custodian and steward, and under God’s
primacy, this priority of administrating and preserving human life, created by God,
comes automatically into being.
This truth that man
is the custodian and steward of life is a clearly defined point of natural law,
fully illumined by biblical revelation. It appears today as a “sign of contradiction”
in comparison with the prevalent mindset. Indeed, we note that although there is
broad convergence generally on the value of life, yet when this point is reached,
that is, the point of the “availability” or “unavailability” to life, the two mindsets
are irreconcilably opposed.
In simpler terms,
we might say: one of the two mindsets maintains
that human life is in human hands, whereas the other recognizes that it is in God’s
hands. Modern culture has legitimately emphasized the autonomy of the human person
and earthly realities, thereby developing a perspective dear to Christianity, the
Incarnation of God.
However, as the Second
Vatican Council clearly asserted, if this autonomy leads us to think that “material
being does not depend on God and that man can use it as if it had no relation to
its Creator”, a deep imbalance will result, for “without a Creator there can be
no creature” (Gaudium et Spes, no. 36).
It is significant
that in the passage cited, the conciliar Document states that this capacity to recognize
the voice and manifestation of God in the beauty of creation belongs to all believers,
regardless of their religion. From this we can conclude that full respect for life
is linked to a religious sense, to the inner attitude with which the human
being faces reality, as master or as custodian.
Moreover, the word
“respect” derives from the Latin word respicere, to look at, and means
a way of looking at things and people that leads to recognizing their substantial
character, not to appropriate them but rather to treat them with respect and to
take care of them.
In the final analysis,
if creatures are deprived of their reference to God as a transcendent basis, they
risk being at the mercy of the will of man who, as we see, can make an improper
use of it.
Dear brothers and
sisters, let us invoke together St Anne’s intercession for your parish community,
which I greet with affection.
I greet in particular
your Parish Priest, Fr Gioele, and I thank him for his words to me at the beginning.
I then greet the Augustinian confreres with their Prior General; I greet Archbishop
Angelo Comastri, my Vicar General for Vatican
City , Archbishop Rizzato, my Almoner, and everyone present,
especially the children, young people and all those who regularly use this church.
May St Anne, your
heavenly Patroness, watch over you all and obtain for each one the gift of being
a witness of the God of life and love.
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
St
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 4 February 2007
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
Today, Pro-Life
Day, organized by the Bishops’ Conference on the theme: “Love and desire life”,
is being celebrated in Italy .
I cordially greet all those who are gathered in St Peter’s Square to witness their
commitment in support of life, from its conception to its natural end. I join the
Italian Bishops in renewing the appeal made several times by my venerable Predecessors
to all men and women of good will to welcome the great and mysterious gift of life.
Life, which is a
work of God, should not be denied to anyone, even the tiniest and most defenseless
unborn child, and far less to a child with serious disabilities. At the same time,
echoing the Pastors of the Church in Italy , I advise you not to fall into
the deceptive trap of thinking that life can be disposed of, to the point of “legitimizing
its interruption with euthanasia, even if it is masked by a veil of human compassion”.
The “Week of life
and of the family” begins in our Diocese of Rome today. It is an important opportunity
to pray and reflect on the family, which is the “cradle” of life and of every vocation.
We are well aware that the family founded on marriage is the natural environment
in which to bear and raise children and thereby guarantee the future of all of humanity.
However, we also
know that marriage is going through a deep crisis and today must face numerous challenges.
It is consequently necessary to defend, help, safeguard and value it in its unrepeatable
uniqueness.
If this commitment
is in the first place the duty of spouses, it is also a priority duty of the Church
and of every public institution to support the family by means of pastoral and political
initiatives that take into account the real needs of married couples, of the elderly
and of the new generations.
A peaceful family
atmosphere, illumined by faith and the holy fear of God also nurtures the budding
and blossoming of vocations to the service of the Gospel. I am referring in particular
not only to those who are called to follow Christ on the path of the priesthood
but also to all men and women religious, the consecrated people we remembered last
Friday on the “World Day of Consecrated Life”.
Dear brothers and
sisters, let us pray that through a constant effort to promote life and the family
institution, our communities may be places of communion and hope in which, despite
the many difficulties, the great “yes” to authentic love and to the reality of the
human being and the family is renewed in accordance with God’s original plan. Let
us ask the Lord, through the intercession of Mary Most Holy, to grant that respect
for the sacredness of life will grow so that people will be ever more aware of the
real needs of families and that the number of those who help to build the civilization
of love in the world will increase.
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
Saint
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 8 February 2009
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
The Gospel today
(see Mk 1: 29-39) in close continuity with last Sunday’s presents to us Jesus who,
after preaching on the Sabbath in the synagogue of Capernaum, heals many sick people,
beginning with Simon’s mother-in-law. Upon entering Simon’s house, he finds her
lying in bed with a fever and, by taking her hand, immediately heals her and has
her get up. After sunset, he heals a multitude of people afflicted with ailments
of every kind. The experience of healing the sick occupied a large part of Christ’s
public mission and invites us once again to reflect on the meaning and value of
illness, in every human situation. This opportunity is also offered to us by the
World Day of the Sick which we shall be celebrating next Wednesday, 11 February,
the liturgical Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes .
Despite the fact
that illness is part of human experience, we do not succeed in becoming accustomed
to it, not only because it is sometimes truly burdensome and grave, but also essentially
because we are made for life, for a full life. Our “internal instinct” rightly makes
us think of God as fullness of life indeed, as eternal and perfect Life. When we
are tried by evil and our prayers seem to be in vain, then doubt besets us and we
ask ourselves in anguish: what is God’s will? We find the answer to this very question
in the Gospel. For example, in today’s passage we read that Jesus “healed many who
were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons” (Mk 1: 34); in another
passage from St Matthew it says that Jesus “went about all Galilee, teaching in
their synagogues and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and healing every disease
and every infirmity among the people” (Mt 4: 23). Jesus leaves no room for doubt:
God whose Face he himself revealed is the God of life, who frees us from every evil.
The signs of his power of love are the healings he performed. He thus shows that
the Kingdom of God Kingdom
of God
Thanks to the action
of the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ work is extended in the Church’s mission. Through the
sacraments it is Christ who communicates his life to multitudes of brothers and
sisters, while he heals and comforts innumerable sick people through the many activities
of health-care assistance that Christian communities promote with fraternal charity.
Thus they reveal the true Face of God, his love. It is true: very many Christians
around the world priests, religious and lay people - have lent and continue to lend
their hands, eyes and hearts to Christ, true physician of bodies and souls! Let
us pray for all sick people, especially those who are most seriously ill, who can
in no way provide for themselves but depend entirely on the care of others. May
each one of them experience, in the solicitude of those who are beside them, the
power and love of God and the richness of his saving grace. Mary, health of the
sick, pray for us!
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
St
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 7 February 2010
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
The Liturgy on this
Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time presents us with the subject of the divine call. In
a majestic vision Isaiah finds himself in the presence of the thrice-blessed Lord
and is overcome by great awe and a profound feeling of his unworthiness. But a seraph
purifies his lips with a burning coal and wipes away his sin. Feeling ready to respond
to God’s call, he exclaims: “Here I am, Lord. Command me!” (see Is 6:1-2; 3-8).
The same succession of sentiments is presented in the episode of the miraculous
catch of which today’s Gospel passage speaks. Asked by Jesus to cast their nets
although they had caught nothing during the night, trusting in his word, Simon Peter
and the other disciples obtain a superabundant catch. In the face of this miracle
Simon Peter does not throw his arms around Jesus to express his joy at the unexpected
catch. Rather, as the Evangelist Luke recounts, he falls to his knees saying, “Depart
from me, for I am a sinful man O Lord”. Jesus, therefore, reassures him: “Do not
be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men” (see Lk 5:10); and leaving everything,
he followed him.
Paul too, remembering
that he had been a persecutor of the Church, professed himself unworthy to be called
an apostle. Yet he recognized that the grace of God had worked wonders in him and,
despite his limitations, God had entrusted him with the task and honor of preaching
the Gospel (see 1 Cor 15:8-10). In these three experiences, we see how an authentic
encounter with God brings the human being to recognize his poverty and inadequacy,
his limitations and his sins. Yet in spite of this weakness the Lord, rich in mercy
and forgiveness, transforms the life of human beings and calls them to follow him.
The humility shown by Isaiah, Peter and Paul invites all who have received the gift
of a divine vocation not to focus on their own limitations but rather to keep their
gaze fixed on the Lord and on his amazing mercy so that their hearts may be converted
and that they may continue joyfully, “to leave everything” to him. Indeed, the Lord
does not look at what is important to human beings. “The Lord sees not as man sees;
man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sam 16:7)
and makes human beings who are poor and weak but have faith in him fearless apostles
and heralds of salvation.
In this Year for
Priests, let us pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send laborers into his harvest.
Let us also pray that all who hear the Lord’s invitation to follow him may be able
after due discernment to respond to him generously, not trusting in their own strength
but opening themselves to the action of his grace. I ask all priests in particular
to revive their generous availability to respond every day to the Lord’s call with
the same humility and faith as Isaiah, Peter and Paul.
Let us entrust all
vocations to the Blessed Virgin, especially vocations to the religious and priestly
life. May Mary inspire in each one the desire to pronounce his or her own “yes”
to the Lord with joy and total dedication.
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
St
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 6 February 2011
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
In this Sunday’s
Gospel the Lord Jesus tells his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth.... You
are the light of the world” (Mt 5:13, 14). With these richly evocative images he
wishes to pass on to them the meaning of their mission and their witness.
Salt, in the cultures
of the Middle East , calls to mind several values
such as the Covenant, solidarity, life and wisdom. Light is the first work of God
the Creator and is a source of life; the word of God is compared to light, as the
Psalmist proclaims: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps
119[118]:105).
And, again in today’s
Liturgy, the Prophet Isaiah says: “If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy
the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your
gloom be as the noonday” (58:10).
Wisdom sums up in
itself the beneficial effects of salt and light: in fact, disciples of the Lord
are called to give a new “taste” to the world and to keep it from corruption with
the wisdom of God, which shines out in its full splendor on the Face of the Son
because he is “the true light that enlightens every man” (Jn 1:9).
United to him, in
the darkness of indifference and selfishness, Christians can diffuse the light of
God’s love, true wisdom that gives meaning to human life and action.
Next 11 February,
the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, we shall celebrate the World Day of the Sick.
It is a favorable opportunity on which to reflect, to pray and to increase the sensitivity
that the ecclesial communities and civil society show to our sick brothers and sisters.
In the Message for
this Day, inspired by a sentence from the First Letter of Peter, “By his wounds
you have been healed” (1 Pt 2:24), I invite everyone to contemplate Jesus, the Son
of God, who suffered and died but is Risen.
God radically opposes
the overbearingness of evil. The Lord takes care of human beings in every situation,
he shares in their suffering and opens their hearts to hope. I therefore urge all
health-care workers to recognize in the sick person not only a body marked by frailty
but first and foremost a person, to whom they should give full solidarity and offer
appropriated and qualified help.
In this context I
also recall that today in Italy
is the “Day for Life”. I hope that everyone will make an effort to increase the
culture of life and to make the human being the centre in all circumstances. According
to both faith and reason, the dignity of the person cannot be reduced to his or
her faculties or visible capacity; thus human dignity is never lacking even when
the person is weak, sick or in need of help.
Dear brothers and
sisters, let us invoke the motherly intercession of the Virgin Mary so that parents,
grandparents, teachers, priests and all who are involved in education may inculcate
in the young generations wisdom of heart, to enable them to attain fullness of life.
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
St.
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 5 February 2012
Dear
Brothers and Sisters,
This
Sunday’s Gospel presents to us Jesus who heals the sick: first Simon Peter’s mother-in-law
who was in bed with a fever and Jesus, taking her by the hand, healed her and helped
her to her feet; then all the sick in Capernaum, tried in body, mind and spirit,
and he “healed many… and cast out many demons” (Mk 1:34). The four Evangelists agree
in testifying that this liberation from illness and infirmity of every kind was
— together with preaching — Jesus’ main activity in his public ministry.
Illness
is in fact a sign of the action of Evil in the world and in people, whereas healing
shows that the Kingdom
of God
Jesus
said one day: “those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are
sick” (Mk 2:17). On that occasion he was referring to sinners, whom he came to call
and to save. It is nonetheless true that illness is a typically human condition
in which we feel strongly that we are not self-sufficient but need others. In this
regard we might say paradoxically that illness can be a salutary moment in which
to experience the attention of others and to pay attention to others!
However
illness is also always a trial that can even become long and difficult. When healing
does not happen and suffering is prolonged, we can be as it were overwhelmed, isolated,
and then our life is depressed and dehumanized. How should we react to this attack
of Evil? With the appropriate treatment, certainly — medicine in these decades has
taken giant strides and we are grateful for it — but the Word of God teaches us
that there is a crucial basic attitude with which to face illness and it is that
of faith in God, in his goodness. Jesus always repeats this to the people he heals:
your faith has made you well (see Mk 5:34, 36).
Even
in the face of death, faith can make possible what is humanly impossible. But faith
in what? In the love of God. This is the real answer which radically defeats Evil.
Just as Jesus confronted the Evil One with the power of the love that came to him
from the Father, so we too can confront and live through the trial of illness, keeping
our heart immersed in God’s love.
We all
know people who were able to bear terrible suffering because God gave them profound
serenity. I am thinking of the recent example of Bl. Chiara Badano, cut off in the
flower of her youth by a disease from which there was no escape: all those who went
to visit her received light and confidence from her! Nonetheless, in sickness we
all need human warmth: to comfort a sick person what counts more than words is serene
and sincere closeness.
Dear
friends, next Saturday, 11 February, the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, is the
World Day of the Sick. Let us too do as people did in Jesus’ day: let us present
to him spiritually all the sick, confident that he wants to and can heal them. And
let us invoke the intercession of Our Lady, especially for the situations of greater
suffering and neglect. Mary, Health of the Sick, pray for us!
BENEDICT
XVI
ANGELUS
Saint
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 10 February 2013
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
In today’s liturgy,
the Gospel according to Luke presents the story of the call of the first disciples,
with an original version that differs from that of the other two Synoptic Gospels,
Matthew and Mark (see Mt 4: 18-22; Mk 1:16-20) . The call, in fact, was preceded
by the teaching of Jesus to the crowd and a miraculous catch of fish, carried out
by the will of the Lord (Lk 5:1-6). In fact, while the crowd rushes to the shore of Lake
The image of the
fish refers to the Church’s mission. St
Augustine says in this regard, “Twice the disciples went
out to fish at the Lord’s command: once before the Passion and the other time after
the Resurrection. In the two scenes of fishing, the entire Church is depicted: the
Church as it is now and as it will be after the resurrection of the dead. Now it
gathers together a multitude, impossible to number, comprising the good and the
bad; after the resurrection, it will include only the good” (Homily 248.1).
The experience of Peter, certainly unique, is nonetheless representative of the
call of every apostle of the Gospel, who must never be discouraged in proclaiming
Christ to all men, even to the ends of the world. However, today’s text is a reflection
on the vocation to the priesthood and the consecrated life. It is the work of God.
The human person is not the author of his own vocation but responds to the divine
call. Human weakness should not be afraid if God calls. It is necessary to have
confidence in his strength, which acts in our poverty; we must rely more and more
on the power of his mercy, which transforms and renews.
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