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The Shadow Over Europe[2011-06-30][Engleză]Reflections on the Feast of Saints Peter and PaulWalking in Rome in recent days, I noticed on a newstand the cover of the Italian magazine Focus. It has a picture of a human face in two parts, half-normal and half-transformed into a futuristic being. The title says "Uomo 2.0" (Man Version 2.0) and the subtitle reads: "Siamo un'altra specie" ("We are a new species"). Is the claim far-fetched? Perhaps. But it represents a general sense in the world today that we are on the verge of epochal, unprecedented changes in human life. Perhaps even changes in human beings themselves. Now, as the Roman sun of early summer begins to beat down on this ancient city, on this holy feast day of the two patron saints of the Church of Rome, June 29, a period of frenetic activity in the Church is drawing to a close. The Vatican has just launched a new and rather comprehensive web site (www.news.va), prepared under the close supervision of Archbishop Claudio Celli, head of the Vatican's office of Social Communications (who seems poised to be promoted to a still more important post). The Pope himself launched the new site with a click from an iPad yesterday evening, the vigil of today's feast day. Here is a link to an interesting video of the Pope launching the new web site: http://www.youtube.com/vatican#p/a/u/2/tty87WDBukk Final preparations are right now underway to receive some 1 million young people in Madrid in August for World Youth Day. But the main news, the essential news, is that the questions facing the Pope, the Church, and mankind are becoming ever more basic, ever more essential, as the elites of our world attempt to pilot humanity into a new age, free from the "shackles" of traditional values and beliefs. The essential question is the question of man. I repeat: the essential question of our time is the anthropological question, the question of man. What is man? What is his nature, his meaning, his duty, his destiny? Scripture tells us that man is a being mysteriously, almost paradoxically, endowed with a double nature: one physical, and so transient, doomed to the vicissitudes of change and then to pass away; and one spiritual, immortal, destined for eternity. But the modern world has, for the most part, denied this definition or understanding of man. The modern world has, for the most part, embraced a reductionist view of man, viewing man as a physical being only, moved by chemical reactions and hormonal drives, condemned by the haphazardness of an essentially meaningless universe to create himself and his own meaning according to his own desires, without any transcendent reference of any type, not to mention the reality signified by the word "God," which only arouses polite snickers in elite circles. Pope Benedict has often made this point -- that our age suffers from the absence of God. By why should this be a cause of suffering? Isn't the absence of God rather a cause for rejoicing, as there is no limit, no bound, no restraint, to human aspiration? Cannot men simply become God, or their own gods? Isn't this an outsome devoutly to be wished, and pursued? Strangely, the answer is no. Because, oddly, it is of the essence of being a man, of being human, that man transcend himself. Unless man transcends himself, he is not man. This is the paradox at the heart of our being, the strangeness of our humanity. Without God, without the transcendent, without the holy, man is bereft of what is of its essence beyond man, of the divine, of the "above," of the sacred, of that which surpasses the purely digital, the purely numerical, and arrives at the personal, and so at the threshold of meaning -- of what the Greeks, and Christians, refer to as "logos." If man is bereft of the "logos" -- of meaning -- he is bereft of Christ, because Christ, as St. John told us, was essentially the logos. An "a-Christic" society (not anti-Christic, but simply a-Christic, uninterested in Christ, uninterested in meaning) is a logos-less society -- a meaning-less society. But it is meaning that man most craves, not pleasure, not wealth, not power, not sex, not procreation... Meaning. We were made essentially for meaning, for a personal meaning, to have a name, to be named, and to name, and, in the process, of being persons with names, persons able to love, and to sacrifice. All the problems humans face, whether in law, or in science, or in economics -- and I refer obliquely to the recent vote in favor of homosexual marriage in New York, and to the Fukushima nuclear reactor in Japan, and to the riots today in debt-suffocated Greece -- are only able to be truly analyzed and solved with logos, with reason, with meaning -- true meaning, not superficial meaning. This is the reason why Christians, why John Paul II in his time and Benedict now, are crying out to the world: "Return to meaning, return to reason, return to true science -- return, yes, to Christ, the true man, who is logos incarnate," in order to avoid tragedy, cruelty, bloodshed, and the hopelessness of life without logos, without meaning. This is the "new evangelization" the Pope is calling for, in our troubled "modern" age. This is the new witness he is calling on Christians to make in the face of a world anxious to create a "new species" out of the human genetic material... in the face of a world wishing to redefine men and women as ultimately interchangeable and indistiguishable... in the face of a world which claims to have science, but which is marred by a massive and devastating ignorance of the true processes of genetics and of life. The end of man is to become eternally blessed, inwardly transformed into the image and likeness of God, filled with the Spirit of God, and this end is far more desirable than to live 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 years, even if the years are dense with sybaritic pleasures, on this revolving asteroid we call earth. We must return to the logos, to reason, to meaning -- to Christ. In this will be our happiness, and fulfillment. Every other path leads to frustration and death. This is the message Benedict is preaching as he gracefully ages and approaches the end of his human journey. We should listen attentively to him as he preaches these things daily, with eloquence and power. ==================== Benedict's Homily Today The following is the text of Pope Benedict's homily at the Mass for the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul today. He spearks very familiarly and eloquently of what it meant to him to become a priest 60 years ago today -- of the "meaning" of his priesthood -- the "logos" of his priesthood. In his remarks, he touches on some of the points mentioned above: on the fact that human beings have names, that they are persons, that they are in relationships, that they are not just digital machines making very rapid calculations, but living souls. The Priest, called to be a Friend of Christ "Non iam dicam servos, sed amicos" "I no longer call you servants, but friends" (cf. Jn 15:15). By Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Rome, June 29, 2011 Dear Brothers and Sisters, "Non iam dicam servos, sed amicos" "I no longer call you servants, but friends" (cf. Jn 15:15). Sixty years on from the day of my priestly ordination, I hear once again deep within me these words of Jesus that were addressed to us new priests at the end of the ordination ceremony by the Archbishop, Cardinal Faulhaber, in his slightly frail yet firm voice. According to the liturgical practice of that time, these words conferred on the newly-ordained priests the authority to forgive sins. "No longer servants, but friends": at that moment I knew deep down that these words were no mere formality, nor were they simply a quotation from Scripture. I knew that, at that moment, the Lord himself was speaking to me in a very personal way. In baptism and confirmation he had already drawn us close to him, he had already received us into Gods family. But what was taking place now was something greater still. He calls me his friend. He welcomes me into the circle of those he had spoken to in the Upper Room, into the circle of those whom he knows in a very special way, and who thereby come to know him in a very special way. He grants me the almost frightening faculty to do what only he, the Son of God, can legitimately say and do: I forgive you your sins. He wants me with his authority to be able to speak, in his name ("I" forgive), words that are not merely words, but an action, changing something at the deepest level of being. I know that behind these words lies his suffering for us and on account of us. I know that forgiveness comes at a price: in his Passion he went deep down into the sordid darkness of our sins. He went down into the night of our guilt, for only thus can it be transformed. And by giving me authority to forgive sins, he lets me look down into the abyss of man, into the immensity of his suffering for us men, and this enables me to sense the immensity of his love. He confides in me: "No longer servants, but friends". He entrusts to me the words of consecration in the Eucharist. He trusts me to proclaim his word, to explain it aright and to bring it to the people of today. He entrusts himself to me. "You are no longer servants, but friends": these words bring great inner joy, but at the same time, they are so awe-inspiring that one can feel daunted as the decades go by amid so many experiences of ones own frailty and his inexhaustible goodness. "No longer servants, but friends": this saying contains within itself the entire programme of a priestly life. What is friendship? Idem velle, idem nolle wanting the same things, rejecting the same things: this was how it was expressed in antiquity. Friendship is a communion of thinking and willing. The Lord says the same thing to us most insistently: "I know my own and my own know me" (Jn 10:14). The Shepherd calls his own by name (cf. Jn 10:3). He knows me by name. I am not just some nameless being in the infinity of the universe. He knows me personally. Do I know him? The friendship that he bestows upon me can only mean that I too try to know him better; that in the Scriptures, in the Sacraments, in prayer, in the communion of saints, in the people who come to me, sent by him, I try to come to know the Lord himself more and more. Friendship is not just about knowing someone, it is above all a communion of the will. It means that my will grows into ever greater conformity with his will. For his will is not something external and foreign to me, something to which I more or less willingly submit or else refuse to submit. No, in friendship, my will grows together with his will, and his will becomes mine: this is how I become truly myself. Over and above communion of thinking and willing, the Lord mentions a third, new element: he gives his life for us (cf. Jn 15:13; 10:15). Lord, help me to come to know you more and more. Help me to be ever more at one with your will. Help me to live my life not for myself, but in union with you to live it for others. Help me to become ever more your friend. Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com Contor Accesări: 790, Ultimul acces: 2026-08-05 08:23:13
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