01-01-2013 - Traces, n. 1

BENEDict XVI

TO SEE THINGS
WITH GOD’S EYES

Excerpts from the Pope’s speeches dedicated to the Year of Faith

True “conversion”
as a “change of mentality”

At the beginning of his Letter to the Christians of Ephesus (cf. 1:3-14), the Apostle Paul raised a prayer of blessing to God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which leads us to experience the Season of  Advent, in the context of the Year of Faith. The theme of this hymn of praise is God’s plan for man, described in terms full of joy, wonder, and thanksgiving, according to His “benevolent purpose” (cf. v. 9), of mercy and love.
Why does the Apostle raise this blessing to God from the depths of his heart? It is because he sees God’s action in the perspective of salvation which culminated in the Incarnation, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, and contemplates how the heavenly Father chose us even before the world’s creation, to be His adoptive sons, in His Only-Begotten Son, Jesus Christ (cf. Rom 8:14f. Gal 4:4f). We had always existed in God’s mind in a great plan that God cherished within Him and decided to implement and to reveal in “the fullness of time” (cf. Eph 1:10). St. Paul makes us understand, therefore, how the whole of creation and, in particular, men and women, are not the result of chance but are part of a benevolent purpose of the eternal reason of God who brings the world into being with the creative and redemptive power of His word. This first affirmation reminds us that our vocation is not merely to exist in the world, to be inserted into a history, nor is it solely to be creatures of God. It is something more: it is being chosen by God, even before the world’s creation, in the Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore in Him we have existed, so to speak, forever. God contemplates us in Christ, as His adoptive sons. God’s “purpose” which the Apostle also describes as a plan “of love” (Eph 1:5) is described as “the mystery” of His divine will (v. 9), hidden and now revealed in the Person of Christ and in His work. The divine initiative comes before every human response: it is a freely given gift of His love that envelops and transforms us.
But what is the ultimate purpose of this mysterious design? What is the essence of God’s will? It is, St. Paul tells us, “to unite all things in Him [Christ], the Head” (v. 10). In these words we find one of the central formulas of the New Testament that makes us understand the plan of God, His design of love for the whole of humanity. However, the Apostle speaks more precisely of the recapitulation of the universe in Christ. This means that in the great plan of creation and of history, Christ stands as the focus of the entire journey of the world, as the structural support of all things, and attracts to Himself the entire reality in order to overcome dispersion and limitation and lead all things to the fullness desired by God (cf. Eph 1:23).
This “benevolent purpose” was not, so to speak, left in the silence of God, in His heavenly heights. Rather, God made it known by entering into a relationship with human beings to whom He did not reveal just something, but indeed Himself. He did not merely communicate an array of truths, but communicated Himself to us, even to the point of becoming one of us, of taking flesh. The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council says in the Dogmatic Constitution ”Dei Verbum: “It pleased God, in His goodness and wisdom, to reveal Himself [not only something of Himself but Himself] and to make known the mystery of His will. His will was that men should have access to the Father, through Christ, the Word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit, and thus become sharers in the divine nature” (n. 2). God does not only say something, but communicates Himself, draws us into His divine nature so that we may be integrated into it or divinized. God reveals His great plan of love by entering into a relationship with man, by coming so close to Him that He makes Himself man. The Council continues: “[T]he invisible God, from the fullness of His love, addresses men as His friends (cf. Ex 33:11; Jn 15:14-15), and moves among them (cf. Bar 3:38), in order to invite and receive them into His own company” (Ibid.). With their own intelligence and abilities alone, human beings would not have been able to achieve this most enlightening revelation of God’s love; it is God who has opened His heaven and lowered Himself in order to guide men and women in His ineffable love.
St. Paul writes further to the Christians of Corinth: “‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him,’ God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God” (1 Cor 2:9-10). And St. John Chrysostom, in a famous passage commenting on the beginning of the Letter to the Ephesians, with these words asks that the faithful enjoy the full beauty of this “loving plan” of God revealed in Christ: “What do you lack yet? You are made immortal, you are made free, you are made a son, you are made righteous, you are made a brother, you are made a fellow-heir, you reign with Christ, you are glorified with Christ; all things are freely given you,” and, as it is written, “[W]ill He not also give us all things with Him?’ (Rom 8:32). Your First-fruit (cf. 1 Cor 15:20, 23) is adored by Angels.... What do you lack yet?” (PG 62, 11).
This communion in Christ through the action of the Holy Spirit, offered by God to all men and women with the light of Revelation, is not something that is superimposed on our humanity; it is the fulfillment of our deepest aspirations, of that longing for the infinite and for fullness, which dwells in the depths of the human being and opens him or her to a happiness that is not fleeting or limited but eternal.
Therefore, in this perspective, what is the act of faith? It is man’s answer to God’s Revelation that is made known and expresses His plan of love; to use an Augustinian expression it is letting oneself be grasped by the Truth that is God, a Truth that is Love. St. Paul stresses that since God has revealed His mystery we owe Him “the obedience of faith” (Rom 16:26; cf. 1:5; 2 Cor 10:5-6), by which attitude “man freely commits his entire self to God, making ‘the full submission of his intellect and will to God who reveals,’ and willingly assenting to the Revelation given by Him” (Dei Verbum, n. 5). All this leads to a fundamental change in the way of relating to reality as a whole; everything appears in a new light so it is a true “conversion;” faith is a “change of mentality.” This is because God revealed Himself in Christ and made His plan of love known. He takes hold of us, He draws us to Him, He becomes the meaning that sustains life, the rock on which to find stability. In the Old Testament, we find a concentrated saying on faith which God entrusted to the Prophet Isaiah so that he might communicate it to Ahaz, King of Judah. God says, “If you will not believe”–that is, if you are not faithful to God–“surely you shall not be established” (Is 7:9b). Thus, there is a connection between being and understanding which clearly expresses that faith is welcoming in life God’s view of reality; it is letting God guide us with His words and sacraments in understanding what we should do, what journey we should make, how we should live. Yet, at the same time, it is, precisely, understanding according to God and seeing with His eyes what makes life sure, what enables us to “stand” rather than fall.
General Audience
Paul VI Audience Hall,  December 5, 2012

The steps of revelation needed to enter into a  loving dialogue
St. Mark the Evangelist records the very start of Jesus’ preaching in clear and concise words: “[T]he time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mk 1:15). What illuminates and gives full meaning to the history of the world and of man begins to shine out in the Bethlehem Grotto; it is the Mystery which, in a little while, we shall be contemplating at Christmas: salvation, brought about in Jesus Christ. In Jesus of Nazareth, God shows His face and asks man to choose to recognize and follow Him. God’s revelation of Himself in history in order to enter into a relationship of loving dialogue with man, gives new meaning to the whole human journey. History is not a mere succession of centuries, years, or days, but the time span of a presence that gives full meaning and opens it to sound hope.
Where can we read the stages of this Revelation of God? Sacred Scripture is the best place for discovering the steps of this process, and, I would like–once again–to invite everyone, in this Year of Faith, to open the Bible more often, to hold, read, and meditate on it and to pay greater attention to the Readings of Sunday Mass; all this is precious nourishment for our faith. In reading the Old Testament, we can see how God intervenes in the history of the chosen people, the people with whom He made a covenant: these are not fleeting events that fade into oblivion. Rather, they become a “memory;” taken together they constitute the “history of salvation,” kept alive in the consciousness of the People of Israel through the celebration of the salvific events. Thus, in the Book of Exodus, the Lord instructs Moses to celebrate the Jewish Passover, the great event of the liberation from slavery in Egypt, with these words: “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance forever” (12:14).
Commemorating what God has brought about becomes a sort of constant imperative for the whole People of Israel, so that the passing of time may be marked by the living memory of past events which, in this way, day after day, form history and live on.
In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses addresses the people, saying: “Only take heed, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children” (4:9).
Consequently, he also tells us: “be careful not to forget the things that God has done for us.” Faith is nourished by the discovery and memory of the ever faithful God who guides history and constitutes the sound and permanent foundation on which to build our life. For Israel, the Exodus is the central historical event in which God reveals His powerful action. God sets the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt so that they may return to the Promised Land and worship Him as the one true Lord. Israel does not set out to be a people like others–so that it might have national independence–but also to serve God in worship and in life, to create a place for God where men and women are obedient to Him, where God is present and worshipped in the world–and, of course, not only among the Israelites–but to witness to Him also among the other peoples.
So it was that God revealed Himself not only in the primordial act of the Creation, but also by entering our history, the history of a small people which was neither the largest nor the strongest. And this self-revelation of God, which develops through history, culminates in Jesus Christ: God, the Logos, the creative Word who is the origin of the world, took on flesh in Jesus and in Him showed the true face of God.
In Jesus, every promise is fulfilled; the history of God with humanity culminates in Him. When we read the account of the two disciples on their way to Emmaus which St. Luke has written down for us, we become clearly aware of the fact that the Person of Christ illuminates the Old Testament, the whole history of salvation, and shows the great unitive design of the two Testaments; it shows the path to His oneness. Jesus, in fact, explains to the two bewildered and disappointed wayfarers that He is the fulfillment of every promise: “[A]nd beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (24:27). The Evangelist records the exclamation of the two disciples after they had recognized that their travelling companion was the Lord: “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures?” (v. 32).
I have reflected on remembering God’s action in human history to show the stages of this great plan of love, witnessed in the Old and New Testaments. It is a single plan of salvation, addressed to the whole of humanity, gradually revealed and realized through the power of God, in which God always reacts to man’s responses and finds the new beginnings of a covenant when man strays.
This is fundamental in the journey of faith. And we too, with our faith, our hope, and our charity, are called every day to perceive this presence and to witness to it in the world that is often superficial and distracted, and to make the light that illuminated the Grotto of Bethlehem shine out.
General Audience
Paul VI Audience Hall,  December 12, 2012

MARY’S JOURNEY’S OF FAITH IS THE
SAME AS THAT OF EACH OF US

Today, I wish to ponder briefly with you Mary’s faith, starting from the great mystery of the Annunciation. “Chaîre kecharitomene, ho Kyrios meta sou,” “Hail, [rejoice] full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28). These are the words–recorded by Luke the Evangelist–with which the Archangel Gabriel addresses Mary. At first sight, the term chaire, “rejoice,”seems an ordinary greeting, typical in the Greek world, but if this word is interpreted against the background of the biblical tradition, it acquires a far deeper meaning. The same term occurs four times in the Greek version of the Old Testament and always as a proclamation of joy in the coming of the Messiah (cf. Zeph 3:14, Joel 2:21; Zech 9:9; Lam 4:21).
The Angel’s greeting to Mary is therefore an invitation to joy, deep joy. It announces an end to the sadness that exists in the world because of life’s limitations, suffering, death, wickedness, in all that seems to block out the light of the divine goodness. It is a greeting that marks the beginning of the Gospel, the Good News.
But why is Mary invited to rejoice in this way? The answer is to be found in the second part of the greeting: “The Lord is with you.”
In the greeting of the Angel, Mary is called “full of grace.” In Greek, the term “grace,” charis, has the same linguistic root as the word “joy.” In this term, too, the source of Mary’s exultation is further clarified: her joy comes from grace, that is, from being in communion with God, from having such a vital connection with Him, from being the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, totally fashioned by God’s action. Mary is the creature who opened the door to her Creator in a special way, placing herself in His hands without reserve. She lived entirely from and in her relationship with the Lord; she was disposed to listen, alert to recognizing the signs of God in the journey of His people; she was integrated into a history of faith and hope in God’s promises with which the fabric of her life was woven. And she submitted freely to the word received, to the divine will in the obedience of faith.
I would like to emphasize another important point: the opening of the soul to God and to His action in faith also includes an element of obscurity. The relationship of human beings with God does not delete the distance between Creator and creature; it does not eliminate what the Apostle Paul said before the depth of God’s wisdom: “How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!” (Rom 11:33).
Yet those who–like Mary–open themselves totally to God, come to accept the divine will, even though it is mysterious, although it often does not correspond with their own wishes, and is a sword that pierces their soul, as the elderly Simeon would say prophetically to Mary when Jesus was presented in the Temple (cf. Lk 2:35). Abraham’s journey of faith included the moment of joy in the gift of his son Isaac, but also the period of darkness, when he had to climb Mount Moriah to execute a paradoxical order: God was asking him to sacrifice the son He had just given him. On the mountain, the Angel told him: “Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me” (Gen 22:12). Abraham’s full trust in the God who is faithful to His promises did not fail, even when His word was mysterious and difficult, almost impossible to accept. So it is with Mary. Her faith experienced the joy of the Annunciation, but also passed through the gloom of the crucifixion of the Son to be able to reach the light of the Resurrection.
It is exactly the same on the journey of faith of each one of us: we encounter patches of light, but we also encounter stretches in which God seems absent, when His silence weighs on our hearts and His will does not correspond with ours, with our inclination to do as we like. However, the more we open ourselves to God, welcome the gift of faith, and put our whole trust in Him–like Abraham, like Mary–the more capable He will make us, with His presence, of living every situation of life in peace and assured of His faithfulness and His love. However, this means coming out of ourselves and our own projects so that the word of God may be the lamp that guides our thoughts and actions.
Confronting all this, we may ask ourselves: How was Mary able to journey on beside her Son with such a strong faith, even in darkness, without losing her full trust in the action of God? Mary assumes a fundamental approach in facing what happens in her life. At the Annunciation, on hearing the Angel’s words, she is distressed–it is the fear a person feels when moved by God’s closeness–but it is not the attitude of someone who is afraid of what God might ask. Mary reflects, she ponders on the meaning of this greeting (cf. Lk 1:29).
This means that Mary enters into a deep conversation with the Word of God that has been announced to her; she does not consider it superficially but meditates on it, lets it sink into her mind and her heart so as to understand what the Lord wants of her, the meaning of the announcement.
We find another hint of Mary’s inner attitude to God’s action–again in the Gospel according to St. Luke–at the time of Jesus’ birth, after the adoration of the shepherds. Luke affirms that Mary “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19). In Greek, the term is symballon–we could say that she “kept together,” “pieced together” in her heart all the events that were happening to her; she placed every individual element, every word, every event, within the whole, and confronted it, cherished it, recognizing that it all came from the will of God.
Mary does not stop at a first superficial understanding of what is happening in her life, but can look in depth. She lets herself be called into question by events, digests them, discerns them, and attains the understanding that only faith can provide. It is the profound humility of the obedient faith of Mary, who welcomes within her even what she does not understand in God’s action, leaving it to God to open her mind and heart. The glory of God is not expressed in the triumph and power of a king, it does not shine out in a famous city or a sumptuous palace, but makes its abode in a virgin’s womb and is revealed in the poverty of a child. In our lives, too, the almightiness of God acts with the force–often in silence–of truth and love. Thus, faith tells us that, in the end, the defenseless power of that Child triumphs over the clamor of worldly powers.
General Audience
Paul VI Audience Hall,  December 19,  2012