PAPAL GEMS

Anyone who has heard his homilies or read his books knows that Pope Benedict's words are so clear, powerful, and stunning that they force people to sit up and pay attention to him and often to reconsider their view of things. But because he packs so much thought in his comments, the media complain it is hard to select just a sentence or two to relate his messages.

This thread provides a chance to share some of Benedict's words that have seized your attention or have especially moved you. Please limit quotes to 2 or 3 sentences and indicate which of Benedict's works you are quoting. Feel free to comment about what you felt was so special in how he expressed himself or what effect his words had on you.

This is my favourite word :

"Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life."

Sunday, 24 April 2005
MASS, IMPOSITION OF THE PALLIUM
AND CONFERRAL OF THE FISHERMAN'S RING
FOR THE BEGINNING OF THE PETRINE MINISTRY
OF THE BISHOP OF ROME

FROM HIS MEDITATIONS ON THE WAY OF THE CROSS

Last spring, Cardinal Ratzinger was asked to lead the meditations on the Way of the Cross in Rome in place of John Paul II who was too ill to take part. There was a huge crowd present for this event and it was televised. This was for many people their first glimpse of Joseph Ratzinger. I didn't see the TV coverage but read his comments later and the words struck me like a laser beam. I was absolutely stunned by their beauty, honesty, and clarity and their call to redeem our lives and our church. Here are two quotes I found especially insightful.

"What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words! How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him!"

"The quiet voice of conscience is drowned out by the cries of the crowd. Evil draws its power from indecision and concern for what other people think."

AND ON A MORE POSITIVE NOTE

From World Youth Day, aboard the Poller Rheinwiesen:

"...the happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist."

"Open wide your hearts to God! Let yourself be surprised by Christ!"

MY FAVORITE

This quote has been used as a signature line by some of our members. It is from Papa's installation Mass.

"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."


Also, from the same Mass.

"Those who believe are never alone--neither in life nor in death."

He is just so good at this!

This thought is one that particularly resonated with me:

[FONT]Arial[=FONT]"We are moving a dictatorship of relativism . . . that recognizes nothing definite and leaves only one's own ego and one's own desires as the final measure."

I have felt for quite a while now that our society is circling the drain. When you, for example, have teenagers killing homeless people for fun as happened in Spain and the United States recently, something has to be wrong. Where is this moral collapse coming from? Could it be that our children are raised by the entertainment industry with all the violence and depravity that is depicted???

"Our redemption is brought about in this communion of wills: being friends of Jesus, to become friends with God. The more we love Jesus, the more we know Him, the more our true freedom develops and our joy in being redeemed flourishes. Thank you, Jesus, for your friendship!"

From the homily For Electing the Supreme Pontiff on April 18, 2005

Peace "is not merely the silence of arms," the Holy Father said. "One cannot speak of peace in situations where human beings are lacking even the basic necessities for living with dignity."

"My thoughts turn to the limitless multitudes who are suffering from starvation," the Pontiff told the representatives of countries that have diplomatic relations with the Holy See. "They cannot be said to be living in peace, even though they are not in a state of war; indeed they are defenseless victims of war."

Benedict XVI referred to the "distressing images of huge camps throughout the world of displaced persons and refugees, who are living in makeshift conditions in order to escape a worse fate, yet are still in dire need."

"Are these human beings not our brothers and sisters?" he asked. "Do their children not come into the world with the same legitimate expectations of happiness as other children?"

( From the discurs to the Diplomatic Corpss,01/09/06)

FROM THE MASS AT MARIENFELD

The Eucharist "is like inducing nuclear fission in the very heart of being--the victory of love over hatred, the victory of love over death. Only this intimate explosion of good conquering evil can then trigger off the series of transformations that little by little will change the world."


"...religion sought on a 'do-it-yourself' basis cannot ultimately help us."


FROM THE VIGIL AT MARIENFELD

"He invites us to that inner pilgrimage which is called adoration."


"It is not ideologies that save the world, but only a return to the living God....True revolution consists in simply turning to God who is the measure of what is right and who at the same time is everlasting love."

From the Pope's extemporaneous homily, Mass of the Baptism of Jesus, 1/8/06:

"...The face of God is expressed in the Ten Commandments, which are not a set of prohibitions, of 'don’ts', but present in fact a grand vision of life. They constitute a Yes to a God who gives sense to living (the first 3 commandments); Yes to the family (4th commandment); Yes to life (5th commandment); Yes to responsible love (6th commandment); Yes to solidarity, to social responsibiity and justice (7th commandment); yes to truth (8th commandment); Yes to respect for our neighbor and for what is due him (9th and 10th commandments)."

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From the Opening Mass of the Synod of Bishops


"The tolerance that admits God as it were as a private opinion but refuses him the pubic domain, the reality of the world and of our lives, is not tolerance but hypocrisy."



"GOD DOES NOT FAIL. IN THE END HE WINS, LOVE WINS."

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In the wealth of thoughts one can and must take away from the encyclical, it is not easy to pick out the equivalent of a 'sound bite' because Benedict's thought truly flows. But I was struck at first reading by this passage, which no one has picked up so far in all the analyses and commentary, being a 'side' issue, maybe. I think we may all have been guilty at one time or other of "presuming to judge God" - especially after devastating catastrophes, or in the face of chronic human misery.

"Clearly, the Christian who prays does not claim to be able to change God's plans or correct what he has foreseen. Rather, he seeks an encounter with the Father of Jesus Christ, asking God to be present with the consolation of the Spirit... An authentically religious attitude prevents man from presuming to judge God, accusing him of allowing poverty and failing to have compassion for his creatures. When people claim to build a case against God in defence of man, on whom can they depend when human activity proves powerless?"

Yes, this has also struck me -very forcibly, especially because I have just finished watching the 6-part series by the BBC called "The Nazis", as well as BBC's "Auschwitz". One couldn't help sharing the question of so many Jews and even Christian theologians: "Where was God" in Auschwitz ( and other concentration camps). How could he allow something like that to happen? One does perhaps judge God sometimes.

"The core of faith rests upon being loved by God, and therefore to believe is to say 'Yes', not only to him, but to creation, to creatures, above all to men, to try and see the image of God in each person and thereby become a lover."

Pope Benedict XVI

My favorite quote is from "Salt of the Earth" - the final question from the interviewer: "What does God really want from us?" "That we become loving persons, for then we are hisimages. For he is, as St John tells us, love itself, and he wants there to be creatures who are similar to him and who thus, out of the freedom of their own loving, become like him and belong in his company and thus, as it were, spread the radiance that is his."
Clear, beautiful and true. ... Aloha, from Hawaii

This comes from that unforgettable homily preached on the 18 April 2005 (Missa pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice):

All people desire to leave a lasting mark. But what endures? Money does not. Even buildings do not, nor books. After a certain time, longer or shorter, all these things disappear. The only thing that lasts for ever is the human soul, the human person created by God for eternity.
The fruit that endures is therefore all that we have sown in human souls: love, knowledge, a gesture capable of touching hearts, words that open the soul to joy in the Lord. ... Only in this way will the earth be changed from a valley of tears to a garden of God.

Sybella

From the Pope's homily at Vespers on Pentecost Eve, 6/3/06:

"To be free, in this view [he is speaking about the Prodigal Son], is to do as one pleases – not to have to accept any criteria other than from oneself, to follow only my desire and my will. Who lives that way will soon encounter someone else who wishes to live the same way. The necessary consequence of such a selfish view of freedom is violence, the reciprocal destruction of both liberty and life.

"…The principle is always valid: freedom and responsibility go together. True freedom is demonstrated through responsibility, in a manner of behavior that takes co-responsibility for the world, for oneself and for others."

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Synchronicity perhaps. The passages above struck me particularly because I have had occasion lately to comment more than once that freedom should be exercised with responsibility.

I am sorry that we have somehow neglected this thread (it usually happens when a thread gets pushed off Page 1 of the Display Board for ths section, as this was).

But Caterina has just started a thread in the main forum freeforumzone.leonardo.it/viewmessaggi.aspx?f=65482&idd=3897

in which she attaches a brief statement from the Pope to a picture - in Italian, she calls the thread "The Pope's words in capsule form' - and I thought it might be a worthwhile 'exercise' for those in the Forum who have advanced graphics skills, if you want to do something similar, especially since we already have the thread for it. And those of us who are less skilled can just continue posting textual quotations.



I like the way Caterina used this familiar photo, for instance, to illustrate something Pope Benedict XVI said in his interview with Polish TV on October 17, 2005:

"The beloved John Paul II left us 14 encyclicals, so many pastoral letters and other documents -
a rich patrimony that the church has not yet fully assimilated. I consider it a personal and essential mission to see to it that these documents are assimilated because they are very precious (as) the authentic interpretation of Vatican-II.

"Pope John Paul II is always near to me in these texts. I know the origin of many of these texts,
I remember the dialogs we had about them. I know I can always (continue to) dialog with him in prayer and through our common ministry."


P.S. Ooops, I didn't realize that the preceding 'capsule' was in the same image until the post displayed! In any case, the top panel is a picture taken from the Pope's interview for German TV in August 2006, and Caterina picked out the quote saying -

"I am not a man to whom jokes come easily. But to know how to see the amusing aspects of life and its joyous dimension, and not to take everything so tragically - that is very important, and
I would say, even necessary for my ministry."

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