Recent reflections of Pope Benedict - some summer reading for priests and parishioners

on learning patience and humility after an accident link...

on the Eucharist & the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes link...

on Promoting Gospel values through sport link...

on Priesthood & St Paul link...

on the Pastoral Care of Vocations link...

on Priests as voices of The Word link...

"Pope sees broke wrist as part of God's plan"
...to teach him greater patience and humility 29 July 2009

Benedict XVI bid farewell to the Italian Alps and those who helped him to make his holiday a pleasant one, but not before taking a light-hearted jab at his Guardian Angel for not keeping his vacation injury-free.

During the meeting held today at the Salesian house, the Pope addressed the members of the various security teams and firefighters, who during the last two weeks have guaranteed the Pontiff peace of mind during his stay in Les Combes in the Aosta Valley.

"Dear friends," the Pontiff said, "at the end of these weeks of vacation, I can only say from the bottom of my heart 'thank you' for your competent, discreet and efficient service."

"You have been like the angels," the Holy Father added. "Angels are invisible, but at the same time efficient. For me, you were invisible, but always efficient."

"Unfortunately," he added, "my Guardian Angel did not prevent my accident," referring to an incident July 17 when he slipped and broke his right wrist.

Viewing the event in the light of faith, however, Benedict XVI added that his angel was "certainly following 'superior orders."'

He suggested that maybe it was part of God's plan "to teach me greater patience and humility." On the bright side, the Pope noted, the incident he gave him "more time for prayer and meditation." He had planned to do a bit of writing during his holiday.

The Pontiff said the he spent his holidays in a "heavenly peace" -- a silence interrupted by the "sounds of the Creator" such as birds and falling rain.

"What is this for so many?"
Reflection of Pope Benedict on priesthood and the miracle of the loaves and fishes

Priests, with their human weaknesses, become instruments of salvation by putting themselves into the hands of Christ, says Benedict XVI. The Pope reflected on the priesthood and the multiplication of the loaves today when he prayed the midday Angelus with faithful who gathered in his vacation spot of Les Combes, in northern Italy.

"Today, on this splendid Sunday on which the Lord shows us all the beauty of his creation, the liturgy provides the beginning of Chapter Six of the Gospel of John as the Gospel passage. Here we have the miracle of the loaves -- when Jesus feeds thousands of persons with only five loaves and two fish; then the other prodigy of the Lord walking on the waters of the stormy lake; and finally the sermon in which he reveals himself as 'the bread of life.'"

Benedict XVI noted how the verb used by the Evangelist for the prayer of thanksgiving with which Christ blesses the loaves, "points directly to the account of the Last Supper, in which, in effect, John does not treat the institution of the Eucharist but rather the washing of the feet. Here the Eucharist is anticipated as the great sign of the bread of life."

He went on to draw another reflection from the passage, applying specifically to priests in this Year for Priests.

He said that priests can identify with the apostles who asked where to find bread for the multitude.

"And," the Pontiff continued, "reading about that anonymous boy who has five loaves and two fish, we too spontaneously say: But what is this for such a multitude? In other words: What am I? How can I, with my limitations, help Jesus in his mission?"

But it is the Lord who gives the answer, Benedict XVI affirmed: "Precisely by putting into his 'holy and venerable' hands the little that they are, priests become instruments of salvation for many, for all!"

 

Moral values in sports
Reflection of Pope Benedict to mark the Tour de France events in Northern Italy

Benedict XVI is prompting a new reflection about values in sports, in particular regarding young athletes, says Mr Edio Constantini (president of the John Paul II Foundation for Sports). Last Tuesday, the Pontiff sent a message of greeting to the Tour de France cyclists and spectators who passed close to the Alpine village in northern Italy where he is vacationing.

He expressed the hope that "involvement in sport may contribute to the integral development of the person, and that it may never be separated from respect for moral and educational values."

These words, Mr Constantini noted, "encourage the search for a new athletic humanism."

The message should "bring the whole sports world to reflect and rethink today, not tomorrow, about how to promote sports that are not fleeting, that are not an end in themselves," Costantini added.

The Vatican sports foundation is run under the auspices of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, and works to promote Gospel values through sports.

The president warned against a "crisis of values" in athletics, referencing cases of drug use among athletes, especially young people, both in professional and amateur sports.

He continued, "Now the ethical and moral crisis in a good part of professional sports runs the risk of conditioning the entire sporting movement, particularly the behavior of new generations."

For this reason, Costantini expressed the desire that the Holy Father's words would not only be a motivation for believing athletes, but also that it would be welcomed by civil society in order to build a solid foundation for sports in the future.

He affirmed that it is "urgent" for all "directors, coaches, parents, doctors, journalists, educators" to make a "serious examination of conscience about the relationship between sports and the ethical and moral education of our youth, about the role of sports clubs as educational places."

 

Priesthood & Saint Paul

"St. Paul is an example of a priest who was completely identified with his ministry, conscious of possessing a priceless treasure, that is, the message of salvation, but in an 'earthen vessel."

"He is at the same time strong and humble, intimately persuaded that everything is God’s doing, everything is grace."

" The priest must belong totally to Christ and totally to the Church; to the latter he is called to dedicate himself with an undivided love, like a faithful husband to his bride."

 

The Pastoral Care of Vocations
European Congress at Vatican 04 July 2009

At the heart of your labours is the Gospel Parable of the Sower. The Lord scatters the seed of the word of God freely and with abundance but knowing that it may fall on poor soil, which will not allow a seed to mature because of dryness, or that its vital force may be extinguished, choked by thorn bushes. Yet the sower does not lose heart, for he knows that part of this seed is destined to find "good soil", namely, ardent hearts capable of receiving the word with willingness to help it mature through perseverance and yield fruit generously for the benefit of many.

The image of the soil can evoke the reality of the family, on the whole good; the sometimes arid and harsh environment of work; the days of suffering and tears. The earth is above all the heart of every person, especially of youth, to whom you address your service of listening and guidance: a heart that is often confused and disoriented, yet capable of containing unimaginable powers of generosity. It is like a bud ready to open to a life spent for the love of Jesus, able to follow him with the totality and the certainty that comes from having found the greatest treasure that exists. It is always and only the Lord who sows in human hearts. Only after the abundant and generous sowing of the word of God can one progress further along the paths of companionship and education, of formation and discernment. All this is linked to that tiny seed, the mysterious gift of divine Providence which releases from within an extraordinary force. In fact, it is the Word of God who brings about in himself what he says and desires.

There is another saying of Jesus' which uses the image of the seed, and which can accompany the Parable of the Sower: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (Jn 12: 24). Here the Lord insists on the connection between the death of the seed and the "much fruit" that it will yield. The grain of wheat is he, Jesus. The fruit is having "life abundantly" (Jn 10: 10), which he acquired for us through his Cross. This is also the logic and the true fruitfulness of every vocations ministry in the Church. Like Christ, the priest and the animator must be a "grain of wheat" who sacrifices itself to do the Father's will; who lives hidden from the clamour and the noise; who renounces the search for that visibility and grandiose image which today often become the criteria and even goals of life in a large part of our culture and which attract many young people.

Priests as voices of The Word of the Father
General Audience 24 June

For the Christian, preaching does not proclaim "words", but the Word, and the proclamation coincides with the very Person of Christ, ontologically open to the relationship with the Father and obedient to his will. Thus, an authentic service to the Word requires of the priest that he strive for deeper self-denial, to the point that he can say, with the Apostle, "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me". The priest cannot consider himself "master" of the Word, but its servant. He is not the Word but, as John the Baptist, whose birth we are celebrating precisely today, proclaimed, he is the "voice" of the Word: "the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight" (Mk 1: 3).

For the priest, then, being the "voice" of the Word is not merely a functional aspect. On the contrary, it implies a substantial "losing of himself" in Christ, participating with his whole being in the mystery of Christ's death and Resurrection: his understanding, his freedom, his will and the offering of his body as a living sacrifice (cf. Rm 12: 1-2). Only participation in Christ's sacrifice, in his kenosis, makes preaching authentic! And this is the way he must take with Christ to reach the point of being able to say to the Father, together with Christ: let "not what I will, but what you will" be done (Mk 14: 36). Proclamation, therefore, always involves self-sacrifice, a prerequisite for its authenticity and efficacy.

As an alter Christus, the priest is profoundly united to the Word of the Father who, in becoming incarnate took the form of a servant, he became a servant (Phil 2: 5-11). The priest is a servant of Christ, in the sense that his existence, configured to Christ ontologically, acquires an essentially relational character: he is in Christ, for Christ and with Christ, at the service of humankind. Because he belongs to Christ, the priest is radically at the service of all people: he is the minister of their salvation, their happiness and their authentic liberation, developing, in this gradual assumption of Christ's will, in prayer, in "being heart to heart" with him. Therefore this is the indispensable condition for every proclamation, which entails participation in the sacramental offering of the Eucharist and docile obedience to the Church.

The saintly Curé d'Ars would often say with tears in his eyes: "How dreadful it is to be a priest!". And he would add: "How a priest who celebrates Mass like an ordinary event is to be pitied! How unfortunate is a priest with no inner life!". May the Year for Priests lead all priests to identify totally with the Crucified and Risen Jesus so that, in imitation of St John the Baptist, they may be prepared to "shrink" that Christ may grow and that, in following the example of the Curé d'Ars, they feel constantly and profoundly the responsibility of their mission, which is the sign and presence of God's infinite mercy. Let us entrust to Our Lady, Mother of the Church, the Year for Priests which has just begun and all the priests of the world.

(texts from Zenit.org)