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During yesterday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI concluded his brief examination of the priest’s exercise of the tria munera Christi—the three offices of Christ—by focusing on the pastor’s duty to govern the portion of the Christian flock entrusted to him.  Like many of the texts he composes, the Pope’s reflection is worth a slow and deliberate reading.  His remarks yesterday offer the Church yet another penetrating reflection on priestly life and ministry that cuts through contemporary controversy and sees clearly to the essence of Christ’s priestly grace and its exercise in the Church.  Step by step, the Holy Father carefully leads his reader to a proper understanding of the reason and purpose of the Church’s hierarchical structure, a mystery too often misunderstood today.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
May 26, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

The Year for Priests is coming to an end; that is why in the last catecheses I began to speak about the essential tasks of the priest, namely: to teach, to sanctify and to govern. I have already given two catecheses, one on the ministry of sanctification, above all the sacraments, and one on teaching. Hence, it remains for me today to speak about the mission of the priest to govern, to guide — with the authority of Christ, not his own — the portion of the people that God has entrusted to him.

In contemporary culture, how can such a dimension be understood, involving as it does the concept of authority and with its origin in the Lord’s own mandate to feed his flock? What is authority really for us Christians? The cultural, political and historical experiences of the recent past, above all the dictatorships in Eastern and Western Europe in the 20th century, made contemporary man suspicious in addressing this concept. A suspicion that, not rarely, is expressed in upholding as necessary an abandonment of all authority that does not come exclusively from men and is subject to them, controlled by them. But precisely a glance at the regimes that in the past century sowed terror and death, reminds us forcefully that authority, in every realm, if it is exercised without reference to the Transcendent, if it does away with the supreme Authority, which is God, ends inevitably by turning against man.

Hence, it is important to recognize that human authority is never an end, but always and only a means and that, necessarily and in every age, the end is always the person, created by God with his own intangible dignity and called to relationship with the Creator himself, in the earthly journey of existence and in eternal life. It is an authority exercised in responsibility before God, before the Creator. An authority thus understood, which has as its only objective to serve the true good of persons and to lucidity to the only Supreme Good that is God, not only is not foreign to men but, on the contrary, is a precious help in the journey toward full realization in Christ, toward salvation.

The Church is called and is committed to exercise this type of authority that is service, and she exercises it not in her own name, but in the name of Jesus Christ, who received from the Father all power in heaven and on earth (cf. Matthew 28:18). In fact, Christ feeds his flock through the pastors of the Church: It is he who guides it, protects it, corrects it, because he loves it profoundly.

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At yesterday’s General Audience in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on his recent pilgrimage to Portugal.  Below is the full text of his remarks and a small collection of images from his trip.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
May 19, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I wish to go over with you the various stages of the apostolic journey I undertook in recent days to Portugal, moved especially by a sentiment of gratitude to the Virgin Mary, who in Fatima transmitted to her visionaries and to pilgrims an intense love for the Successor of Peter. I thank God who gave me the possibility to pay homage to that people, to its long and glorious history of faith and Christian witness. Hence, as I requested you to accompany me on this pastoral visit with prayer, I now ask you to join me in thanking the Lord for its happy development and conclusion. I entrust to him the fruits that it has brought and will bring to the Portuguese ecclesial community and to the whole population.

I renew the expression of my gratitude to the president of the republic, Mr. Aníbal Cavaco Silva, and to the other authorities of the state, who received me with so much courtesy and planned everything so that all would unfold in the best way. With intense affection, I think of my brother bishops of the Portuguese dioceses, whom I had the joy to embrace in their land and I thank them fraternally for all that they did for the spiritual and organizational preparation of my visit, and for a notable profuse diligence in its fulfillment. I direct a particular thought to the patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal José da Cruz Policarpo, to the bishops of Leiria-Fatima, António Augusto dos Santos Marto, and of Porto, Manuel Macário do Nascimento Clemente, and to their respective collaborators, as well as to the various organizations of the episcopal conference led by Archbishop Jorge Ortiga.

Throughout the whole trip, which occurred on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the beatification of the little shepherds Jacinta and Francisco, I felt sustained spiritually by my beloved predecessor, the Venerable John Paul II, who went three times to Fatima, thanking that “invisible hand” that delivered him from death in the attack of the 13th of May, here in St. Peter’s Square.

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At Wednesday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the life and doctrine of St. Albert the Great, an early teacher of the Dominican Order who had the privilege of tutoring St. Thomas Aquinas.  As the Pope explains, it was St. Albert who inspired St. Thomas to dedicate his intellectual life to reconciling the truths of Aristotle’s philosophy with the divine truths revealed to us by Christ.  Thus in the 13th century, the Pope notes, were faith and reason brought together to develop one true theology, or as St. Albert called it, an “affective science.” Below is the full text of the Holy Father’s address.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
March 24, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

One of the greatest teachers of Medieval theology is St. Albert the Great. The title “great” (magnus) with which he has passed into history, indicates the vastness and depth of his doctrine, which he coupled with holiness of life. But already his contemporaries did not hesitate to attribute excellent titles to him; one of his disciples, Ulrich of Strasbourg, described him as “wonder and miracle of our age.”

Born in Germany at the beginning of the 13th century, he was still young when he went to Italy, to Padua, seat of one of the most famous universities of the Middle Ages. He dedicated himself to the study of the so-called liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, that is, of the general culture, manifesting that typical interest for the natural sciences, which would soon become the favorite field of his specialization. During his stay in Padua, he frequented the church of the Dominicans, whom he later joined with the profession of religious vows. The hagiographic sources lead one to understand that Albert matured this decision gradually. The intense relationship with God, the example of holiness of the Dominican Friars, the listening of sermons of Blessed Giordano of Saxony, successor of St. Dominic in the leadership of the Order of Preachers, were the decisive factors that helped him to overcome every doubt, overcoming also family resistance. Often, in the years of youth, God speaks to us and indicates the plan of our life. As for Albert, so for all of us, personal prayer nourished by the Word of the Lord, the frequenting of the sacraments and the spiritual guidance of enlightened men are the means to discover and follow the voice of God. He received the religious habit from Blessed Giordano of Saxony.

After his priestly ordination, the superiors sent him to teach in several centers of theological study adjacent to monasteries of the Dominican Fathers. His brilliant intellectual qualities enabled him to perfect the study of theology in the most famous university of the time, that of Paris. From then on St. Albert undertook that extraordinary activity of writer, which he would then follow for his whole life.

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At Wednesday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict continued his series on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages by comparing and contrasting the theological projects of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure. While teaching in Paris, the Angelic Doctor and the Seraphic Doctor often joined forces to argue a particular theological point, though their differing takes on the usefulness of Aristotle’s philosophy in Christian theology caused their overall projects to diverge. While some can exaggerate the resulting differences between the two, the Pope certainly evaluates them mildly when he says that Thomas and Bonaventure spoke with “different accents in an essentially shared vision.”

Below is the full text of Pope Benedict’s address.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
March 17, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

This morning, continuing last Wednesday’s reflection, I would like to reflect further with you on other aspects of the doctrine of St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. He is an eminent theologian, who merits being placed next to another very great thinker, his contemporary, St. Thomas Aquinas. Both scrutinized the mysteries of revelation, valuing the resources of human reason in the fruitful dialogue between faith and reason that characterized the Christian Middle Ages, making it a period of great intellectual liveliness, as well as of faith and of ecclesial renewal, often not sufficiently noted. Other similarities associate them: Both Bonaventure, a Franciscan, and Thomas, a Dominican, belonged to the Mendicant Orders that, with their spiritual freshness — as I mentioned in preceding catecheses — renewed the whole Church in the 13th century and attracted so many followers. Both served the Church with diligence, passion and love, to the point that they were invited to take part in the Ecumenical Council of Lyon in 1274, the same year in which they died: Thomas while he was going to Lyon; Bonaventure during the course of that same council. Also in St. Peter’s Square the statues of the two saints are parallel, placed in fact at the beginning of the Colonnade starting from the facade of the Vatican Basilica: one in the left wing and the other in the right wing. Despite all these aspects, we can see in these two great saints two different approaches to philosophical and theological research, which show each one’s originality and depth of thought. I would like to refer to some of these differences.

A first difference concerns the concept of theology. Both doctors asked themselves if theology is a practical or a theoretical, speculative science. St. Thomas reflects on two possible contrasting answers. The first says: theology is reflection on faith and the aim of faith is that man become good, that he live according to the will of God. Hence, the aim of theology should be to guide man on the just and good way; consequently it is, fundamentally, a practical science. The other position says: theology seeks to know God. We are the work of God; God is above our action. God operates just action in us. Hence it is essentially not of our doing, but of knowing God, not of our working. St. Thomas’ conclusion is: theology entails both aspects: it is theoretical, it seeks to know God ever more, and it is practical: it seeks to orient our life to the good. But there is a primacy of knowledge: we must above all know God, then follows action according to God (Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 1, art.4). This primacy of knowledge in comparison with practice is significant for St. Thomas’ essential orientation.

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Question: How much does Pope Benedict XVI like St. Bonaventure?

Answer: A lot.

Those familiar with the Holy Father’s theological interests will know that St. Bonaventure has long served as one of his intellectual guides.  Half a century ago, the young Father Raztinger wrote his habilitation paper (to become a university professor) on the thirteenth-century Franciscan’s understanding of history and revelation.  And throughout his many years of academic and pastoral service, Pope Benedict has repeatedly turned to this medieval Doctor of the Church for insights into faith and reason that, for him, illuminate contemporary problems.

Manifesting his affection for St. Bonaventure, the Holy Father dedicated the last two General Audience addresses to exploring the scholarly friar’s life and thought. Both talks are reproduced below.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
March 3, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I would like to speak about St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. I confide to you that on proposing this theme I feel a certain nostalgia because I remember the research that, as a young scholar, I carried out precisely on this author, whom I particularly esteem. His knowledge has been of no small influence in my formation. With great joy I went on pilgrimage a few months ago to his birthplace, Bagnoregio, a small Italian city, in Latium, which venerates his memory.

Born probably in 1217, he died in 1274; he lived in the 13th century, an age in which the Christian faith, profoundly permeating the culture and society of Europe, inspired immortal works in the field of literature, visual arts, philosophy and theology. Striking among the great Christian figures who contributed to the composition of this harmony between faith and culture is, precisely, Bonaventure, man of action and of contemplation, of profound piety and of prudence in governing.

He was called John of Fidanza. An incident that occurred when he was still a boy profoundly marked his life, as he himself relates. He had been affected by a serious illness and not even his father, who was a doctor, hoped to save him from death. His mother appealed then to the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi, canonized a short time earlier. And John was cured. The figure of the Poverello of Assisi became even more familiar a year later, when he was in Paris, where he had gone for his studies. He had obtained the diploma of Master of Arts, which we could compare to that of a prestigious secondary school of our time. At that point, as so many young people of the past and also of today, John asked himself a crucial question: “What must I do with my life?” Fascinated by the witness of fervor and evangelical radicalism of the Friars Minor, who had arrived in Paris in 1219, John knocked on the doors of the Franciscan monastery of that city, and asked to be received in the great family of the disciples of St. Francis.

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During his General Audience address on February 10, Pope Benedict reflected on the life and witness of one of the Church’s most popular saints, the thirteenth-century Franciscan Anthony of Padua.  Posted below are the Holy Father’s remarks.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
February 10, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

After presenting two weeks ago the figure of Francis of Assisi, this morning I would like to speak about another saint belonging to the first generation of Friars Minor: Anthony of Padua or, as he is also called, of Lisbon, referring to his native city. He is one of the most popular saints in the whole Catholic Church, venerated not only in Padua, where a splendid basilica was built, which houses his mortal remains, but in the whole world. Dear to the faithful are images and statues that represent him with the lily, symbol of purity, or with the Child Jesus in his arms, in memory of a miraculous apparition mentioned in some literary sources.

Anthony contributed in a significant way to the development of Franciscan spirituality, with his outstanding gifts of intelligence, balance, apostolic zeal and, mainly, mystical fervor.

He was born in Lisbon of a noble family around 1195 and was baptized with the name Fernando. He entered the canons who followed the monastic rule of St. Augustine, first in the monastery of St. Vincent in Lisbon, and subsequently in that of the Holy Cross in Coimbra, renown cultural center of Portugal. He dedicated himself with interest and solicitude to the study of the Bible and of the Fathers of the Church, acquiring that theological science that he made fructify in the activities of teaching and preaching.

The episode that marked a decisive change in his life took place in Coimbra: In 1220 the relics were exposed there of the first five Franciscan missionaries who had gone to Morocco, where they met with martyrdom. Their case aroused in young Fernando the desire to imitate them and to advance in the way of Christian perfection: He then asked to leave the Augustinian canons and become a Friar Minor. His request was accepted and, taking the name Anthony, he also left for Morocco, but Divine Providence willed otherwise. As the consequence of an illness, he was obliged to return to Italy and, in 1221, he took part in the famous “Chapter of the mats” in Assisi, where he also met St. Francis. Subsequently, he lived for a time totally hidden in a convent near Forli, in the north of Italy, where the Lord called him to another mission. Invited, by totally accidental circumstances, to preach on the occasion of a priestly ordination, he showed he was gifted with such learning and eloquence that the superiors destined him to preaching. Thus he began in Italy and France such an intense and effective apostolic activity that he induced not a few persons who had separated from the Church to retrace their steps. He was also among the first teachers of theology of the Friars Minor, if not even the first. He began his teaching in Bologna, with Francis’ blessing who, recognizing Anthony’s virtues, sent him a brief letter with these words: “I would like you to teach theology to the friars.” Anthony set the foundations of Franciscan theology that, cultivated by other famous figures of thinkers, came to its zenith with St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and Blessed Duns Scotus.

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During last Wednesday’s General Audience in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI continued his ongoing exposition of medieval Christian culture by remembering the life and witness of our Holy Father Dominic. He celebrated fact that, early in the thirteenth century, St. Dominic brought authentic renewal and reform to the Church by uniting in the life of his friar preacher-theologian (that’s the Pope’s term) the evangelical thirst for the salvation of souls and the assiduous study of sacred doctrine. As a result, the Holy Father observed, Dominican preaching, rooted as it is in contemplative study and prayer, offers the world a presentation of Gospel truth that is fully conscious of its power to turn minds, convert hearts, and hence build among members of the human family a Christian culture centered on the Word of God.

Below is the full text of the Holy Father’s catechesis.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
February 3, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

Last week I presented the luminous figure of Francis of Assisi; today I would like to speak to you of another saint who, in the same period, made an essential contribution to the renewal of the Church of his time. It is St. Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers, known also as the Dominican Friars.

His successor in the leadership of the order, Blessed Giordano di Saxony, gives a complete portrait of St. Dominic in the text of a famous prayer: “Inflamed by zeal for God and supernatural ardor, by your limitless charity and the fervor of a vehement spirit, you consecrated yourself wholly with the vow of perpetual poverty to apostolic observance and to evangelical preaching.” It is in fact this essential feature of Dominic’s witness that is underlined: He always spoke with God and about God. In the life of saints, love of the Lord and of neighbor, the seeking of God’s glory and the salvation of souls always go together.

Dominic was born in Spain, in Caleruega, around 1170. He belonged to a noble family of Old Castille and, supported by an uncle priest, he was educated in a famous school of Palencia. He was distinguished immediately for his interest in the study of sacred Scripture and for his love of the poor, to the point of selling books, which in his time constituted a good of great value, to help victims of famine with what he collected.

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At last Wednesday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict continued his reflection on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages by focusing on the life and virtues of St. Francis of Assisi.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
January 27, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

In a recent catechesis, I already illustrated the providential role that the Order of Friars Minor and the Order of Preachers, founded respectively by St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic Guzmán, had in the renewal of the Church of their time. Today I would like to present to you the figure of Francis, an authentic “giant” of holiness, who continues to fascinate very many people of every age and every religion.

“A son is born to the world.” With these words, in the Divine Comedy (Paradiso, Canto XI), the greatest Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, alludes to Francis’ birth, which occurred at the end of 1181 or the beginning of 1182, in Assisi. Belonging to a wealthy family — his father was a textile merchant — Francis enjoyed a carefree adolescence and youth, cultivating the chivalrous ideals of the time. When he was 20 he took part in a military campaign, and was taken prisoner. He became ill and was released. After his return to Assisi, a slow process of spiritual conversion began in him, which led him to abandon gradually the worldly lifestyle he had practiced until then.

Striking at this time are the famous episodes of the meeting with the leper — to whom Francis, getting off his horse, gave the kiss of peace; and the message of the Crucifix in the little church of San Damiano. Three times the crucified Christ came to life and said to him: “Go, Francis, and repair my Church in ruins.” This simple event of the Word of the Lord heard in the church of San Damiano hides a profound symbolism. Immediately, St. Francis is called to repair this little church, but the ruinous state of this building is a symbol of the tragic and disturbing situation of the Church itself at that time, with a superficial faith that does not form and transform life, with a clergy lacking in zeal, with the cooling off of love; an interior destruction of the Church that also implied a decomposition of unity, with the birth of heretical movements.

However, at the center of this Church in ruins is the Crucified and he speaks: he calls to renewal, he calls Francis to manual labor to repair concretely the little church of San Damiano, symbol of the more profound call to renew the Church of Christ itself, with his radical faith and his enthusiastic love for Christ.

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Tomorrow’s celebration of the Conversion of St. Paul ends the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  On Wednesday, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his General Audience address to reflecting on Christ’s desire for visible unity among his disciples, and the progress the Catholic Church has made over the last century in promoting fraternal relations with the Churches and ecclesial communities separated from her.  Just within the past few years, the Holy Father observed, these relations have born fruit.  Lately, a number of discernible steps have been taken toward real reconciliation with our separated brothers and sisters, including the Orthodox, the Lutherans, and the Anglicans.  The Pope concluded his remarks by asking the faithful to remember the Church’s ecumenical efforts in their prayers.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
January 20, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

We are in the middle of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, an ecumenical initiative, which has been in the making now for more than a century, and which every year attracts attention to a topic: that of the visible unity between Christians, which calls to consciences and stimulates to commitment for all those who believe in Christ. And it does so above all with the invitation to prayer, in imitation of Jesus himself, who prays to the Father for his disciples: “That they may all be one … so that the world may believe” (John 17:21).

The persistent call to prayer for full communion among the followers of the Lord manifests the most authentic and profound orientation of the whole ecumenical quest, because unity, before anything else, is a gift of God. In fact, as the Second Vatican Council affirms: “Human powers and capacities cannot achieve this holy objective — the reconciling of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ” (Unitatis Redintegratio, 24). Hence, what is necessary, beyond our effort to carry out fraternal relations and to promote dialogue to clarify and resolve the differences that separate the Churches and ecclesial communities, is confident and concordant invocation of the Lord.

The theme of this year is taken from the Gospel of St. Luke, from the last words of the Risen One to his disciples: “You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:48). The proposal of the theme was requested by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, in agreement with the Faith and Order Commission of the Ecumenical [World] Council of Churches, from an ecumenical group of Scotland. A century ago, the World Mission Conference for the consideration of problems in reference to the non-Christian world took place in fact in Edinburgh, in Scotland, June 13-24, 1910.

Among the problems discussed then was that of the objective difficulty of Christians divided among themselves credibly proposing the evangelical proclamation to the non-Christian world. If Christians present themselves disunited, moreover, often in opposition, will the proclamation of Christ as the only Savior of the world and our peace be credible to a world that does not know Christ or that has distanced itself from him, or that appears indifferent to the Gospel?

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At yesterday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI continued his study of Christian history by focusing on the contributions of the Mendicant Orders—the Dominicans and Franciscans—to the renewal of the Church and Christian society in the Middle Ages.  In his address, the Holy Father explained how the espousal of mendicant poverty and itineracy enabled the Friars Minor and the Preaching Friars to become the spiritual leaders par excellence of the medieval city.  No mere relic of the past, however, the mendicant quality of religious life continues to benefit the Church’s life, especially, as Pope Benedict notes, through the Dominican and Franciscan “third orders.”

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
January 13, 2010

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

At the beginning of the new year, we look at the history of Christianity, to see how a history develops and how it can be renewed. In it we can see that it is the saints, guided by the light of God, who are the genuine reformers of the life of the Church and of society. Teachers by their word and witnesses with their example, they know how to promote a stable and profound ecclesial renewal, because they themselves are profoundly renewed, they are in contact with the true novelty: the presence of God in the world.

Such a consoling reality — that in every generation saints are born and bear the creativity of renewal — constantly accompanies the history of the Church in the midst of the sorrows and the negative aspects of her journey. We also see come forth, century by century, the forces of reform and of renewal, because the novelty of God is inexorable and always gives new strength to go forward.

This was what happened in the 13th century, with the birth and the extraordinary development of the Mendicant Orders: a model of great renewal in a new historic period. They were called thus because of their characteristic of “begging,” namely, of going to the people humbly for economic support to live the vow of poverty and to carry out their evangelizing mission. Of the Mendicant Orders that arose in that period, the most notable and most important are the Friars Minor and the Preaching Friars, known as Franciscans and Dominicans. They have these names because of their founders, Francis of Assisi and Dominic de Guzmán, respectively. These two great saints had the capacity to wisely read “the signs of the times,” intuiting the challenges that the Church of their time had to face.

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On December 23, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his General Audience address to exploring the historical origin of the Solemnity of Christmas.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
December 23, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

With the Christmas novena that we are celebrating in these days, the Church invites us to live intensely and profoundly the preparation for the birth of the Savior, which is nearly upon us.

The desire that all of us have in our hearts is that, in the midst of the frenetic activity of our days, the coming feast of Christmas gives us serene and profound joy to enable us to touch the goodness of our God with our hands and to fill us with new energy.

To better understand the meaning of the birth of the Lord, I would like to briefly refer to the historical origin of this solemnity. In fact, the liturgical year of the Church did not initially develop beginning with the birth of Christ, but rather from faith in the Resurrection. Because of this the most ancient feast of Christianity is not Christmas, but Easter: The resurrection of Christ is at the base of Christian faith; it is at the base of the proclamation of the Gospel and gives birth to the Church. Therefore to be Christians means to live in the mode of Easter, connecting ourselves to the dynamic that comes from baptism, which brings death to sin to live with God (cf. Romans 6:4).

The first one to clearly affirm that Jesus was born on Dec. 25 was Hippolytus of Rome in his commentary on the Book of the prophet Daniel, written around 204. One exegete observes, moreover, that on this day was celebrated the Dedication of the Temple of Jerusalem, instituted by Judas Maccabeus in 164 B.C.. The concurrence of dates would come to mean that with Jesus, appearing as light of God in the night, advent of God to this earth, the consecration of the temple is truly fulfilled.

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Continuing his series on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his General Audience address today to the life and work of John of Salisbury, a twelfth-century scholar who served as secretary to the archbishops of Canterbury, including St. Thomas Becket, before his own election as Bishop of Chartres.  John’s scholarship reveals his high regard for the powers of human reason, especially its ability to discern the contours of the natural law in creation. As the Holy Father notes, appreciation of reason’s competence remains as vital as ever.   For example, within the political sphere, reason’s view of the natural law can act to safeguard human law from the “dictatorship of relativism.”

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
December 16, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today we will meet the figure of John of Salisbury, who belonged to one of the most important philosophical and theological schools of the Middle Ages, that of the cathedral of Chartres, in France. John, too, like the theologians about whom I’ve spoken over the past weeks, helps us to understand how faith, in harmony with the just aspirations of reason, pushes thought toward revealed truth, in which the true good of man is found.

John was born in England, in Salisbury, between the year 1100 and 1120. Reading his works, and above all, his rich epistles, we discover the most important events of his life. For 12 years, between 1136 and 1148, he dedicated himself to study, availing of the most qualified schools of the epoch, where he heard lectures from famous teachers.

He headed to Paris and then to Chartres, the environment that particularly marked his formation and from which he assimilated his great cultural openness, his interest for speculative problems, and his appreciation of literature. As often happened in that time, the most brilliant students were picked by prelates and sovereigns, to be their closest collaborators. This also happened to John of Salisbury, who was presented by a great friend of his, Bernard of Claraval, to Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury — the primary see of England — who happily took him in among his clergy.

For 11 years, from 1150 to 1161, John was the secretary and chaplain of the elderly archbishop. With tireless zeal, despite continuing his studies, he carried out an intense regimen of diplomatic activities, traveling 10 times to Italy with the specific objective of nourishing the relationship of the kingdom of England and the Church there with the Roman Pontiff.

Among other things, during those years, the Pope was Adrian IV, an Englishman who was a close friend of John of Salisbury. In the years following the 1159 death of Adrian IV, a situation of serious tension was created in England between the Church and the kingdom. The king, Henry II, aimed to wield authority over the internal life of the Church, limiting its liberty. This endeavor brought about a reaction from John of Salisbury, and above all, valiant resistance from Theobald’s successor in the episcopal see of Canterbury, St. Thomas Becket. St. Thomas went to exile in France because of this. John of Salisbury accompanied him and remained at his service, always working for reconciliation. In 1170, when both John and Thomas Becket had returned to England, Thomas was attacked and killed in the cathedral. He died as a martyr and was immediately venerated as such by the people.

John continued faithfully serving the successor of Thomas as well, until he was elected bishop of Chartres, where he stayed from 1176 to 1180, the year of his death.

I would like to point out two of John of Salisbury’s works, which are considered his masterpieces and which are elegantly named with the Greek titles of “Metalogicon” (In Defense of Logic) and “Policraticus” (The Man of Government).

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At last week’s General Audience, Pope Benedict continued his survey of medieval Christian culture by turning our attention to the twelfth-century theological school of the Augustinian Abbey of St. Victor in Paris.  As one of the academic forerunners of the University of Paris, St. Victor produced some of the greatest minds of the Middle Ages, including Peter Lombard, Hugh of St. Victor, and his disciple, Richard of St. Victor.  All three composed theological works of immense depth and skill.  Their writings on the Trinity and on the sacraments especially helped to prepare the stage for the great flourishing of theology in Paris in the thirteenth century, when figures such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure took center stage.  In Wednesday’s audience, the Holy Father focused on the work of Hugh and Richard specifically.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
November 25, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

During these Wednesday audiences, I have been presenting some exemplary figures of believers who have been determined to show the harmony between reason and faith, and to witness with their life the proclamation of the Gospel.

Today I would like to speak to you about Hugh and Richard of St. Victor. Both are among those notable philosophers and theologians known by the name of Victorines, because they lived in the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris, founded at the beginning of the 12th century by William of Champeaux. William himself was a renowned teacher, who was able to give his abbey a solid cultural identity. In fact, inaugurated in St. Victor was a school for the formation of monks, open also to outside students, where a happy synthesis was made between the two forms of doing theology, of which I have already spoken in previous catecheses: namely, monastic theology, mainly oriented to the contemplation of the mysteries of the faith in Scripture, and scholastic theology, which used reason to attempt to scrutinize these mysteries with innovative methods, to create a theological system.

We know little about the life of Hugh of St. Victor. The date and place of his birth are uncertain: perhaps in Saxony or in Flanders. It is known that he arrived in Paris — the European capital of culture at the time — and spent the rest of his years in the abbey of St. Victor, where he was first a disciple and then a teacher. Already before his death, which occurred in 1141, he achieved great notoriety and esteem, to the point of being called a “second St. Augustine”: Like Augustine, in fact, he meditated much on the relation between faith and reason, between profane sciences and theology.

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At yesterday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI continued to introduce the Church to his thoughts and aspirations for the Jubilee Year for Priests.

Building on the reflections he offered last week, the Holy Father described further the great connection existing between the identity of the priest and his mission.  If after the Council, the pope explained, more emphasis has been placed on the priest’s service than on his sacramental identity, then the time has come to reunite these two in the popular Catholic imagination, at least for the sake of appreciating the authentic fruitfulness of the priest’s service.  As in the life of Christ, identity and mission—word and sacrament—come together inextricably in the life of the priest, who is sacramentally configured to Christ to continue his presence and mission in the world.  As it was for Christ, so it is for the priest. Identity first, and from this flows mission.

The pope observed that we see here the primacy of the divine initiative.  God always acts first with his grace in the lives of Christians, and this is especially true in the lives of priests. Through the grace of ordination, priests are united personally to Christ the Head of the Church, and from this identity flows the priest’s explicitly supernatural mission—in word and sacrament—of reconciliation and sanctification. It must be noted, the pope explained, that the priest’s sacramental identity distinguishes his mission from all other forms of service, both in the Church and in the world.

The Holy Father concluded his remarks by recommending specific spiritual practices for the Jubilee Year for Priests, including Eucharistic adoration for the sanctification of priests and for priestly vocations.

General Audience Address
July 1, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters:

As you know, with the celebration of First Vespers for the solemnity of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, the Pauline Year has come to a close — the year that marked the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of the Apostle to the Gentiles. Let us give thanks to the Lord for the spiritual fruits that this important initiative has brought to so many Christian communities.

As a precious heritage of the Pauline Year, we can reap the Apostle’s invitation to go deeper into the knowledge of the mystery of Christ, so that he becomes the heart and center of our personal and social realities.

This is, in fact, the indispensable condition for a true spiritual and ecclesial renewal. As I already emphasized during the first Eucharistic celebration in the Sistine Chapel after my election as the Successor of the Apostle St. Peter, it is precisely from that full communion with Christ that “flows every other element of the Church’s life: first of all, communion among all the faithful, the commitment to proclaiming and witnessing to the Gospel, the ardor of love for all, especially the poorest and lowliest” (1st Message at the End of the Eucharistic Concelebration With the Members of the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, April 20, 2005).

This is true in the first place for priests. Because of this, I thank Divine Providence, which now offers us the possibility of celebrating the Year for Priests. It is my heartfelt wish that this will be an opportunity for interior renewal for every priest, and consequently, [a year of] firm reinvigoration in the commitment to his own mission.

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At yesterday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI shared with those present his hopes and expectations for the Jubilee Year for Priests he has called the Church to observe.

As we have come to expect from the Holy Father, his concerns are primarily theological and spiritual; only in a second moment does he turn to practical matters. In this context, he explains that, contrary to popular practice, priests and their people must first understand who and what the priest is before they can appreciate fully the value of what he does.  Here, the pope holds to the old Thomistic adage that a thing acts according to its being.  Applied to the lives of the ordained, the adage would have us say that priests act according to who they are.  Therefore, Pope Benedict explains, the entire Church—priests and laity alike—must recognize priests first and foremost as sacred persons set apart to offer the Eucharistic sacrifice, which requires of them a deep and unshakable interior union with Christ. This is key for understanding priestly ministry properly, the pope says, for it is out of the identity and interiority of the priest that the vast range of his service flows, including his preeminent task of proclaiming the Word.

In sum, Pope Benedict has set as a goal of the Jubillee Year for Priests the reconciliation of two seemingly divergent understandings of the priesthood—one based on the priest’s identity and the other on his service.  The two are not opposed, the Holy Father explains.  The ministry of the Word and the ministry of the Eucharist are not opposite and competing forms of service.  As we see in the Mass itself, the two are inextricably linked. So too in the life of the priest. The priest’s ministry of the Eucharist underlies, and at the same time is prepared for by, his ministry of the Word.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
June 24, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

Last Friday, June 19, the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the day traditionally dedicated to pray for the sanctification of priests, I had the joy of inaugurating the Year for Priests. The year was proclaimed on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the “birth into eternal life” of the Curé d’Ars, St. Jean-Baptiste Marie Vianney. Entering into the Vatican basilica for the celebration of vespers, almost as a first symbolic gesture, I paused in the Choir Chapel to venerate the relic of this saintly pastor of souls: his heart. Why a Year for Priests? Why particularly in memory of the holy Curé d’Ars, who apparently did nothing extraordinary?

Divine Providence has ordained that this personage would be placed beside that of St. Paul. As the Pauline Year is concluding, a year which was dedicated to the Apostle of the Gentiles, the epitome of an extraordinary evangelizer who made various mission trips to spread the Gospel, this new jubilee year invites us to gaze upon a poor farmer turned humble pastor, who carried out his pastoral service in a small town.

If the two saints are quite different insofar as the life experiences that marked them — one traveled from region to region to announce the Gospel; the other remained in his little parish, welcoming thousands and thousands of faithful — there is nevertheless something fundamental that unites them: It is their total identification with their ministry, their communion with Christ. This brought St. Paul to say: “Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). St. John Vianney liked to repeat: “If we had faith, we would see God hidden in the priest like a light behind glass, like wine mixed with water.”

The objective of this Year for Priests, as I wrote in the letter sent to priests for this occasion, is to support that struggle of every priest “toward spiritual perfection, on which the effectiveness of his ministry primarily depends.” It is to help priests first of all — and with them all of God’s people — to rediscover and reinvigorate their awareness of the extraordinary and indispensable gift of grace that the ordained ministry is for he who receives it, for the whole Church, and for the world, which would be lost without the real presence of Christ.

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At last Wednesday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI resumed his regular catechetical series, in which he is currently reviewing the lives and writings of early medieval saints.  He chose as his subject St. Theodore the Studite, a ninth-century Eastern monk and theologian.  As is evident from the photo below, he also had time to kiss a few babies.      

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
May 27, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters:

The saint that we find today, St. Theodore the Studite, brings us to a period that from the religious and political point of view was rather turbulent. St. Theodore was born in the year 759 to a noble and pious family. His mother, Teoctista, and an uncle, Plato, abbot of the monastery of Sakkudion in Bithynia, are venerated as saints. It was precisely his uncle who guided him toward the monastic life, which he embraced at the age of 22. He was ordained a priest by the patriarch Tarasios, but afterward he broke communion with him because of the weakness he showed in the case of the adulterous marriage of Emperor Constantine VI. The consequence was Theodore’s exile to Thessalonica in the year 796. Reconciliation with the imperial authority came about the next year under Empress Irene, whose benevolence brought Theodore and Plato to be transferred to the urban monastery of Studios, together with the majority of the community of the monks of Sakkudion, to avoid the invasions of the Saracens. In this way began the important “studite reform.”

The personal life of Theodore, nevertheless, continued to be very hectic. With his characteristic energy, he became the leader of the resistance to the iconoclasm of Leo V the Armenian, who opposed once again the existence of images and icons in the Church. The procession of icons, organized by the monks of Studios, brought about the reaction of the police. Between 815 and 821, Theodore was flogged, jailed and exiled in various parts of Asia Minor. In the end, he was able to return to Constantinople, but not to his monastery. Thus he established himself with his monks on the other side of the Bosphorus.

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At Wednesday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict paused his ordinary catechetical series to share several reflections on his recent apostolic journey to the Holy Land.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
MAY 20, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

I pause today to speak about the apostolic journey that I made May 8-15 to the Holy Land, for which I do not cease to give thanks to the Lord, because it has shown itself to be a great gift for the Successor of Peter and for the whole Church. I wish to again express my heartfelt gratitude to His Beatitude, Patriarch Fouad Twal, to the bishops of the various rites, the priests and the Franciscans of the Holy Land Custody. I thank the king and queen of Jordan, the president of Israel and the president of the Palestinian National Authority, with their respective governments, all the authorities, and those who have collaborated in various ways in the preparation and success of the visit. It was, above all, a pilgrimage, even more, a pilgrimage par excellence to the fount of the faith. At the same time, it was a pastoral visit to the Church that lives in the Holy Land: a community of singular importance, since it represents a living presence there, where [the Church] finds its origin.

The first stage, from May 8 to 11, was Jordan, in whose territory there are two principal holy sites: Mount Nebo, from where Moses contemplated the Promised Land and died without being able to enter, and then Bethany “beyond the Jordan,” where, according to the Fourth Gospel, St. John baptized at the beginning. The memorial to Moses on Mount Nebo is a place of strong symbolic significance: It speaks of our condition as pilgrims between the “already” and the “not yet,” between a promise so great and beautiful that it supports us along the way and a fulfillment that goes beyond us and beyond this world. The Church lives in herself this “eschatological character” and state as “pilgrim”: She is already united to Christ, her spouse, but has only begun to savor the wedding party, in expectation of his glorious return at the end of time (cf. “Lumen Gentium,” 48-50).

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Yesterday Pope Benedict XVI continued his meditation on the Iconoclast Controversy by studying the life and writings of St. John Damascene, the eighth-century Eastern monk and Doctor of the Church.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
May 6, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters:

I would like to speak today about John Damascene, a prominent personality in the history of Byzantine theology, a great doctor in the history of the universal Church. He is above all an eye witness of the passage from the Greek and Syriac culture, shared in the eastern part of the Byzantine Empire, to the culture of Islam, which took over space with its military conquests in the territory ordinarily recognized as the Middle or Near East.

John, born to a rich Christian family, took on while still young the post — perhaps also held by his father — as the economic head of the kingdom. Quite soon, however, unsatisfied with life at court, he fully developed a choice for the monastic life, entering the monastery of San Sabas, close to Jerusalem. It was around the year 700. Never leaving the monastery, he dedicated himself with all his strength to ascesis and literary activity, without spurning a certain pastoral activity, of which his numerous homilies give witness. His liturgical memorial is celebrated Dec. 4. Pope Leo XIII proclaimed him a doctor of the universal Church in 1890.

In the East, he is remembered above all for his three discourses against those who calumniate holy images, [discourses] which were condemned after his death by the iconoclast Council of Hieria (754). These discourses, however, were the principal motive for his reinstatement and canonization by the orthodox fathers gathered in the Second Council of Nicaea (787), the Seventh Ecumenical Council. In these texts it is possible to find the first important theological attempts to legitimize the veneration of sacred images, uniting to them the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

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At yesterday’s Wednesday Audience, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the life and work of St. Germanus, an eighth-century Patriarch of Constantinople who was a key figure in the infamous Iconoclast Controversy.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
April 29, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

The patriarch Germanus of Constantinople, of whom I would like to speak today, does not belong to the most characteristic figures of the Eastern Christian world, and yet, his name appears with a certain solemnity in the list of the great defenders of sacred images, compiled in the Second Council of Nicaea, the 7th ecumenical council (787).

The Greek Church celebrates his feast in the liturgy of May 12. He had a significant role in the complex history of the fight for images, during the so-called iconoclast crisis: He knew how to effectively resist pressure from an iconoclast emperor, that is, an adversary of icons, such as was Leo III.

During Germanus’ time as patriarch (715-730), Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, suffered a very dangerous besiegement from the Saracens. On that occasion (717-718), a solemn procession was organized in the city with the showing of the image of the Mother of God, the Theotokos, and a relic of the holy cross, to invoke from on high the defense of the city. In fact, Constantinople was liberated from the besiegement. The adversaries decided to permanently let go of the idea of establishing their capital in the city that was the symbol of the Christian empire, and the appreciation for divine help was extremely great among the people.

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At yesterday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI steered his catechetical series into the early Middle Ages by reflecting on the life and work of Ambrose Autpert, an eighth-century Benedictine moral theologian and Mariologist.

If you’ve never heard of Ambrose Autpert, you’re not alone.  Neither have I.  But as the Pope makes clear, Ambrose’s medieval wisdom can definitely find contemporary application.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
April 22, 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Church lives in people and whoever wants to get to know the Church, to understand its mystery, must consider the people who have lived and who continue to live its message, its mystery. It is for this reason that I have spoken in the Wednesday catecheses of people from whom we can learn what the Church is. We started with the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church and have slowly arrived to the eighth century, the period of Charlemagne. Today I would like to talk about Ambrose Autpert, a relatively unknown author: His works were in fact largely attributed to other better-known personalities, from St. Ambrose of Milan to St. Ildephonsus, not to mention those that the monks of Montecassino have held as coming from the pen of a certain one of their abates who lived almost a century later. Apart from some brief autobiographical references inserted in his great commentary on the book of Revelation, we have little definite information about [Autpert's] life. Careful reading of the works that critics gradually recognized as his authorship allows for the discovery in his teaching of a theological and spiritual treasure precious also for our times.

Born in Provenza, from a distinguished family, Ambrose Autpert — according to his biographer, John — was an official at the court of King Pepin the Short. He also played, in some way, the role of tutor to the future emperor Charlemagne. Probably as one following Pope Stephen II, who in 753-54 had gone to the court of the Franks, Autpert travelled to Italy and was able to visit the famous Benedictine abbey of St. Vincent, located at the source of the Volturno, in the Duchy of Benevento. Founded at the beginning of that century by the three Beneventan brothers Paldone, Riceman and Tasone, the abbey was known as a haven of classical and Christian culture. Shortly after his visit, Ambrose Autpert decided to embrace the religious life and entered the monastery, where he could train in an appropriate manner, especially in matters of theology and spirituality, according to the tradition of the Fathers. Around the year 761 he was ordained a priest and on October 4, 777, he was elected abbot with the support of the French monks and despite the opposition of some monks in favor of Lombard Potone.

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Pope Benedict XVI used the occasion of his General Audience address yesterday to offer his listeners and readers an extended meditation on the Easter Triduum, the Church’s sacred celebration of Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus.  One by one, the Holy Father walked through the Church’s solemn rites, highlighting their principal moments and the prayerful dispositions we should bring to each.  Pope Benedict closed his meditation by commending us to follow Mary over these next three days, whose spiritual companionship can help us enter perfectly into the Church’s Easter prayer.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
April 8, 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Holy Week, which for us Christians is the most important week of the year, offers us the opportunity to be immersed in the central events of Redemption, to relive the Paschal Mystery, the great mystery of the faith. Beginning tomorrow afternoon, with the Mass “In Coena Domini,” the solemn liturgical rites will help us to meditate in a more lively manner on the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord in the days of the Holy Paschal Triduum, fulcrum of the entire liturgical year.

May divine grace open our hearts to comprehend the inestimable gift that salvation is, obtained for us by Christ’s sacrifice. We find this immense gift wonderfully narrated in a famous hymn contained in the Letter to the Philippians (cf. 2:6-11), on which we meditated several times in Lent. The Apostle reviews, both in an essential and effective manner, the whole mystery of the history of salvation referring to Adam’s pride who, not being God, wanted to be like God. And he contrasts this pride of the first man, which all of us feel a bit in our being, with the humility of the true Son of God who, becoming man, did not hesitate to take upon himself all the weaknesses of the human being, except sin, and pushed himself to the profundity of death. This descent to the last profundity of the Passion and Death is then followed by his exaltation, the true glory, the glory of the love that went all the way to the end. And that is why it is right — as Paul says — that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!” (2:10-11). With these words, St. Paul refers to a prophecy of Isaiah where God says: I am the Lord, to me every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth (cf. Isaiah 45: 23). This — says Paul — is also true for Jesus Christ. He really is, in his humility, in the true greatness of his love, the Lord of the world and before him every knee truly bows.

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At yesterday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the week he spent recently in Cameroon and Angola.  In closing his remarks, the Holy Father commended the Church in Africa to our prayers, asking that we assist our brothers and sisters there to continue to bear the fruits of grace.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
April 1, 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As I announced last Sunday in the Angelus, I will reflect today on my recent apostolic journey to Africa, the first of my pontificate to that continent. It was limited to Cameroon and Angola, but ideally, with my visit I wished to embrace all the African people and bless them in the name of the Lord. I experienced the traditional warm African welcome, given to me everywhere, and I am pleased to take advantage of this occasion to express again my profound gratitude to the episcopates of both countries, to the heads of state, to all the authorities and to all those who in different ways contributed to the success of this pastoral visit of mine.

My stay in African land began on March 17 in Yaoundé, capital of Cameroon, where I found myself immediately in the heart of Africa, and not just geographically. This country, in fact, has many characteristics of that great continent, the first of them being its profound religious soul, which unites the very numerous ethnic groups that inhabit it. In Cameroon, more than a quarter of the population is Catholic, and they coexist peacefully with the other religious communities. This is why in 1995 my beloved Predecessor John Paul II chose precisely the capital of this nation to promulgate the apostolic exhortation “Ecclesia in Africa,” after the first synodal assembly dedicated precisely to the African continent. This time, the Pope returned to hand over the “instrumentum laboris” of the second Synodal Assembly for Africa, planned in Rome for next October, and whose theme will be: “The Church in Africa at the Service of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace: ‘You Are the Salt of the Earth …. You Are the Light of the World’ (Matthew 5:13-14).”

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At yesterday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict reflected on the life of Saint Boniface, an eighth-century English monk who when middle-aged exchanged his cell and books for the mission fields of Central Europe, where eventually he earned the martyr’s crown.

WEDNESDAY AUDIENCE ADDRESS
March 11, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters:

Today we pause to consider a great missionary of the 8th century, who spread Christianity in Central Europe, precisely in my homeland as well: St. Boniface, who has been recorded in history as the “apostle of the Germans.”

We have not a little information about his life, thanks to the diligence of his biographers: He was born to an Anglo Saxon family in Wessex around the year 675 and was baptized with the name Winfred. He joined the monastery very young, attracted by the monastic ideal. Possessing notable intellectual capacities, he seemed headed toward a tranquil and brilliant career as a scholar: He was a professor of Latin grammar, wrote a few treatises and also composed some poems in Latin.

Ordained a priest at close to 30 years of age, he felt called to the apostolate among the pagans of the continent. Great Britain, his land, evangelized just 100 years before by the Benedictines guided by St. Augustine, manifested a faith that was so solid and a charity that was so ardent that it sent missionaries to Central Europe to announce there the Gospel. In 716, Winfred, with some companions, headed to Friesland (in present day Holland), but he clashed with the opposition of the local leader and the attempt at evangelization failed.

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Continuing his series on the Church Fathers, Pope Benedict used his General Audience address yesterday to highlight the life and virtues of Venerable Bede, the early eighth-century English monk whose legacy includes not only a reputation for holiness but also a vast corpus of writings. His most notable work is a history of the Christian Church in England, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People.  

Pope Benedict’s appreciation of Bede is understandable.  Given what he has said about Christian monasticism’s giving birth to European culture, Bede stands out for him as a prime example of how dedication to Christ and deep contemplation of his Word, both alone and with others, has the positive effect of producing a real, human culture in which arts, letters, science, and fraternity are allowed to flourish.  For the Pope, this is the lasting theological and anthropological witness given by Benedictine monasticism—true cult blossoms into true culture.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
February 18, 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The saint on whom we reflect today is called Bede. He was born in Northeast England, in fact in Northumbria, in the year 672/673. He himself narrates that, when he was seven years old his parents entrusted him to the abbot of the neighboring Benedictine monastery, to be educated. “In this monastery,” he recalls, “I lived from then on, dedicating myself intensely to the study of Scripture, while observing the discipline of the Rule and the daily effort to sing in church, I always found it pleasant to learn, teach and write” (Ecclesiastical History of the English People, V, 24). In fact, Bede was one of the most illustrious figures of erudition of the High Middle Ages because he was able to make use of many precious manuscripts that his abbots, who went on frequent trips to the Continent and to Rome, were able to bring back to him. His teaching and the fame of his writings enabled him to have many friendships with the principal personalities of his time, who encouraged him to continue in his work, from which so many benefited. Falling ill, he did not cease to work, always having an interior joy that was expressed in prayer and song. He concluded his most important work, “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People,” with this invocation: “I pray, O good Jesus, who benevolently has allowed me to draw from the sweet words of your wisdom, that I may reach you one day, source of all wisdom, and to always be before your face.” Death came to him on May 26, 735: It was Ascension day.

Sacred Scriptures were the constant source of Bede’s theological reflection. Having made a careful critical study of the text (we have a copy of the monumental Codex Amiatinus of the Vulgate, on which Bede worked), he commented on the Bible, reading it in a Christological vein, namely, re-uniting two things: On one hand, he listened to what the text was saying exactly, he really wanted to listen and understand the text itself; on the other hand, he was convinced that the key to understanding sacred Scripture as the unique Word of God is Christ and with Christ, in his light, one understands the Old and the New Testament as “a” sacred Scripture.

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Having completed his long series on St. Paul, Pope Benedict returned on Wednesday to expounding the lives and doctrines of the Fathers of the Church.  He resumed his patristic series by focusing on St. John Climacus, the seventh-century Eastern doctor, whose mystical theology outlined the soul’s gradual ascent by grace from the sorrows of this life to the delights of the heavenly kingdom.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
February 11, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

After 20 catecheses dedicated to the Apostle Paul, I would like to take up again today the presentation of the great writers of the Church of East and West in the Middle Ages. And I propose the figure of John called Climacus, a Latin transliteration of the Greek term klímakos, which means ladder (klímax).

This is the title of his principal work [rendered in English “Climax,” or “Ladder to Perfection”, in which he describes the ascent of human life toward God.

He was born around 575. His life unfolded in the years in which Byzantium, capital of the Roman Empire of the East, experienced the greatest crisis of its history. Suddenly the geographical layout of the empire changed and the torrent of barbarian invasions brought all of its structures to crumble. Only the structure of the Church remained, which in these difficult times continued with its missionary, humanistic and socio-cultural activities, especially through the network of monasteries, in which operated great religious personalities, as was precisely John Climacus.

Among the mountain of Sinai, where Moses encountered God and Elias heard his voice, John lived and narrated his spiritual experiences. An account of him has been conserved in a brief biography (PG 88, 596-608), written by the monk Daniel of Raithu: At age 16, John, monk at Mt. Sinai, became a disciple of the abbot Martyrius, an “elder,” that is to say, “a wise one.” Toward age 20, he chose to live as a hermit in a cave at the foot of a mountain, in the region of Tola, eight kilometers from the feet of the current monastery of St. Catherine.

But solitude did not keep him from meeting people who desired a spiritual guide, or from visiting certain monasteries close to Alexandria. His hermitic withdrawal, in fact, far from being flight from the world and human reality, led him to an ardent love for others (Life, 5) and for God (Life, 7). After 40 years of hermitic life lived in the love of God and for others, years in which he cried, prayed and fought against the demons, he was named abbot of the great monastery of Mt. Sinai and thus returned to the cenobitic life in the monastery.

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Commenting yesterday on St. Paul’s Letters to Timothy and Titus allowed Pope Benedict to reflect on the life of the early Church, which his fans will know is one of his favorite subjects.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
January 28, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters:

The final letters of the Pauline collection, about which I would like to speak today, are called the pastoral letters, because they were sent to unique figures among the pastors of the Church: two to Timothy and one to Titus, close collaborators with St. Paul.

In Timothy, the Apostle saw almost an alter ego; in fact he entrusted him with important missions (in Macedonia: cf. Acts 19:22; in Thessalonica: cf. 1 Timothy 3:6-7; in Corinth: cf. 1 Corinthians 4:17; 16:10-11) and afterward he wrote flattering praise of him: “For I have no one comparable to him for genuine interest in whatever concerns you” (Philippians 2:20).

According to the 4th-century Church History of Eusebius of Caesarea, Timothy was later the first bishop of Ephesus (cf. 3,4).

Regarding Titus, he must have also been very beloved by the Apostle, who defined him explicitly as “full of zeal … my companion and collaborator” (2 Corinthians 8:17,23), and even more “my true son in the common faith” (Titus 1:4). He had been entrusted with a couple very delicate missions in the Church of Corinth, the results of which comforted Paul (cf. 2 Corinthians 7:6-7,13; 8:6). Straight away, from what we know, Titus caught up to Paul in Nicopolis of Epirus, in Greece (cf. Titus 3:12) and was later sent by him to Dalmatia (cf. 2 Timothy 4:10). According to the letter directed to him, he ended up being the bishop of Crete (cf. Titus 1:5).

The letters directed to these two pastors occupy an entirely unique spot in the New Testament. It seems to the majority of exegetes today that these letters wouldn’t have been written by Paul himself, and that their origin would be in the “Pauline school” and reflected his inheritance to a new generation, perhaps integrating some brief writing or word from the Apostle himself. For example, some words from the Second Letter to Timothy seem so authentic that they could only have come from the heart and lips of the Apostle.

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Halfway through the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope Benedict XVI used his weekly general audience address yesterday to remind of us that ecclesial union rooted in the words and sacraments of Christ remains a goal for which all Christian hearts must yearn. The Gospel itself commands this desire. As Christ revealed at the Last Supper, it is his will that our unity may the the great witness to the world of the truth and efficacy of his redemptive work: “May they all be one . . . so that the world may believe that you sent me” (Jn 17:21).

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
January 21, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters:

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began last Sunday and will conclude this Sunday, feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, the Apostle. This is a beautiful spiritual initiative, which is spreading more and more among Christians, in harmony, and we could say, in response to the pressing invocation that Jesus directed to the Father from the Upper Room: “That they may all be one, that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:21).

On four occasions during this priestly prayer, the Lord asks that his disciples be one, according to the image of the unity between the Father and the Son. This is a unity that can only grow in the example of the surrender of the Son to the Father, that is, going out of oneself and uniting oneself to Christ. Twice, moreover, in this prayer, Jesus adds as the objective of this union: That the world may believe. Full unity is connected, therefore with the life and the very mission of the Church in the world. [The Church] should live a unity that can only be derived from her unity with Christ, with its transcendence, as a sign that Christ is the truth.

This is our responsibility: That the gift of unity be visible for the world, in virtue of which our faith is made credible. For this, it is important that each Christian community become aware of the urgency of working in every way possible to reach this grand objective. Only going out of ourselves and toward Christ, only in this relationship with him can we come to be truly united among ourselves. This is the invitation that, with the present week [of prayer], is directed to believers in Christ of every Church and ecclesial community; to him, dear brothers and sisters, we should respond with generosity.

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At yesterday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict resumed his weekly treatment of the Pauline corpus by examining the mystery of Christ’s headship, which is a fundamental theme in at least two of Paul’s letters—Colossians and Ephesians.  

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
January 14, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters:

Among the letters of the Pauline collection, there are two, those directed to the Colossians and the Ephesians, that to a point could be considered twins. In fact, both have ways of speaking that are only found in those two, and it is calculated that more than a third of the Letter to the Colossians is found also in Ephesians.

For example, while in Colossians the invitation is read literally to “admonish one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God” (3:16), in Ephesians, it is similarly recommended to “address one another (in) psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and playing to the Lord in your hearts” (5:19).

We could meditate on these words: The heart should sing, and also the voice, with psalms and hymns, to enter into the tradition of the prayer of the whole Church of the Old and New Testament. We thus learn to be united among ourselves and with God. Moreover, in both letters is found a “domestic code,” missing in the other Pauline letters, that is, a series of recommendations directed to husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves (Cf. Colossians 3:18-4:1 and Ephesians 5:22-6:9).

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GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
December 17, 2008

Dear brothers and sisters:

Precisely today, we begin the days of Advent that immediately prepare us for the nativity of the Lord: We are in the Christmas novena, which in many Christian communities is celebrated with liturgies rich in biblical texts, all oriented toward nourishing hope for the birth of the Savior. The entire Church, in effect, turns its gaze of faith toward this approaching feast, readying itself, like each year, to unite to the joyful song of the angels, who in the heart of the night will announce to the shepherds the extraordinary event of the birth of the Redeemer, inviting them to draw close to the cave of Bethlehem. There lies Emanuel, the Creator made creature, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a poor manger (cf. Luke 2:13-14).

Because of the environment that characterizes it, Christmas is a universal feast. Even those who do not profess to be believers, in fact, can perceive in this annual Christian celebration something extraordinary and transcendent, something intimate that speaks to the heart. It is the feast that sings of the gift of life. The birth of a child moves us and causes tenderness. Christmas is the encounter with a newborn who cries in a miserable cave. Contemplating him in the manger, how can we not think of so many children who even today see the light from within a great poverty in many regions of the world? How can we not think of the newborns who are not welcomed and are rejected, of those who do not survive because of a lack of care and attention? How can we not think, too, of the families who desire the joy of a child and do not see this hope fulfilled?

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This past Wednesday Pope Benedict continued his catechesis on the life and preaching of St. Paul.  

If in the previous few weeks the Holy Father has returned the Preacher to the Gentiles to his rightful place in the Catholic pulpit, then this week he has reinstalled St. Paul behind the altar of sacrifice, where of course he has always belonged.

GENERAL AUDIENCE
December 10, 2008

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Following St. Paul, we saw two things in last Wednesday’s catechesis. The first is that our human history is contaminated from the beginning by the abuse of created freedom, which attempts to emancipate itself from the Divine Will. And true freedom is not found like this, but is opposed to truth and, consequently, falsifies our human realities. Above all it falsifies fundamental relationships: the relationship with God, the relationship between man and woman, and the relationship between man and the earth. We have said that this contamination of our history is spread throughout its fabric, and that this inherited defect has increased and is now visible everywhere. This is the first thing. The second is this: from St. Paul we have learned that there is a new beginning in history and of history in Jesus Christ, he who is man and God. With Jesus, who comes from God, a new history begins formed by his “yes” to the Father, and because of this, no longer founded on the pride of a false emancipation, but on love and truth.

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