The Weekly Benedict

Introduction

The Weekly Benedict is a compilation of documents, speeches, and other texts brought into an ebook format.

The Weekly Benedict was inspired by Catholic Apologist Jimmy Akin who came up with the idea to create a weekly link page to the words of the Holy Father.

All texts are © Copyright 2012 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Considering the increasing prevalence of electronic book readers and their ease in reading textual documents this provides an ideal format in making available the wonderful and insightful words of Pope Benedict XVI. This ebook compilation is provided as a public service with no associated fees.

Jeff Miller The Curt Jester blog

Catholic Apologist Jimmy Akin's blog can be found at JimmyAkin.org

While this ebook publication take it's cue from Jimmy Akin's weekly post with links, it is done without association and any copyright problems or formatting mistakes are entirely my own.

Index of Source Links

List of direct document links on Vatican.va used.

Regina Caeli

- 27 May 2012

General Audience

- 23 May 2012

Homilies

- 27 May 2012 - Eucharistic Celebration on the Solemnity of Pentecost Note 1

- 3 June 2012 - Eucharistic Celebration in Bresso Park

Messages

- 27 May 2012 - Message to His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV, Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East

Speeches

- 24 May 2012 - To the General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference

- 26 May 2012 - To Participants in the Meeting Sponsored by Renewal in the Holy Spirit

Notes

- Note 1: English translation linked on Vatican site is missing. Vatican Link

Regina Caeli

Solemnity of Pentecost - Regina Caeli, 27 May 2012, Benedict XVI

SOLEMNITY OF PENTECOST

BENEDICT XVI

REGINA CÆLI

St Peter's Square

Sunday, 27 May 2012

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today we celebrate the great Feast of Pentecost, which brings the Easter Season to a close, 50 days after the Sunday of the Resurrection. This Solemnity makes us remember and relive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and the other disciples gathered in prayer with the Virgin Mary in the Upper Room (cf. Acts 2:1-11). Jesus, risen and ascended into Heaven, sent his Spirit to the Church so that every Christian might participate in his own divine life and become his valid witness in the world. The Holy Spirit, breaking into history, defeats aridity, opens hearts to hope, stimulates and fosters in us an interior maturity in our relationship with God and with our neighbour.

The Spirit, who “has spoken through the prophets”, with the gifts of wisdom and knowledge continues to inspire women and men who engage in the pursuit of truth, offering original ways of understanding and of delving into the mystery of God, of man and of the world. In this context, I am delighted to announce that on 7 October, at the start of the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, I will proclaim St John of Avila and St Hildegard of Bingen Doctors of the universal Church. These two great witnesses of the faith lived in two very different historical periods and cultural environments. Hildegard was a Benedictine nun in the heart of medieval Germany, an authentic teacher of theology and a profound scholar of natural science and music. John, a diocesan priest in the years of the Spanish Renaissance, shared in the travail of the cultural and religious renewal of the Church and of all society at the dawn of modern times. But the sanctity of their life and the profundity of their doctrine render them perennially relevant: the grace of the Holy Spirit, in fact, projected them into the experience of penetrating understanding of divine revelation and intelligent dialogue with that world which constitutes the eternal horizon of the life and action of the Church.

Especially in light of the project for a new evangelization, to which the Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, mentioned above will be dedicated on the eve of the Year of Faith, these two Saints and Doctors are of considerable and timely importance. Even today, through their teaching, the Spirit of the Risen Lord continues to resonate his voice and illuminate the way which leads to the Truth that alone can set us free and give full meaning to our lives.

Praying the Regina Caeli together — for the last time this year — let us invoke the intercession of the Virgin Mary that the Church may be powerfully animated by the Holy Spirit, in order to witness to Christ’s Gospel with evangelical honesty and to open herself ever more to the fullness of truth.

After the Regina Caeli:

This morning in Vannes, France, Mère Saint-Louis was proclaimed Blessed. Born Louise-Élisabeth Molé, she was the Foundress of the Sisters of Charity of St Louis, and lived between the 18th and 19th centuries. Let us give thanks to God for this exemplary testimony of love for God and for her neighbour.

I remember as well that Friday, 1 June, I shall be going to Milan, where the Seventh World Meeting of Families will be held. I encourage everyone to follow this event and pray for its success.

To everyone I wish a good Feast, and a good Sunday. Happy Feastday!

© Copyright 2012 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Homilies

Eucharistic Celebration on the Solemnity of Pentecost

Dear brothers and sisters!

Today we celebrate the great feast of Pentecost, which concludes the Easter Season, 50 days after the Sunday of the Resurrection. By this solemnity we are reminded and we relive the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the other disciples, gathered together in prayer with the Virgin Mary in the cenacle (cf. Acts 2:1-11). Jesus, risen and ascended into heaven, sends his Spirit to the Church, that every Christian might participate in his own divine life and become his true witnesses in the world. The Holy Spirit, breaking into history, overcomes its dryness, opens up hearts to hope, stimulates and fosters in us interior growth in our relationship with God and neighbor.

The Spirit, who “spoke through the prophets,” with the gifts of wisdom and knowledge, continues to inspire women and men who commit themselves to the pursuit of truth, proposing original paths to known and understand the mystery of God, man and the world. In this context I am happy to announce that on October 7, at the beginning of the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, I will proclaim St. John of Avila and St. Hildegard of Bingen doctors of the universal Church. These 2 great witnesses of the faith lived in very different historical periods and cultural environments. Hildegard was a Benedictine nun in the heart of the German Middle Ages, an authentic teacher of theology and a profound student of the natural sciences and music. John, a diocesan priest during the years of the Spanish Renaissance, participated in the travail of the cultural and religious renewal of the Church and of the social order at the dawn of modernity. But the holiness of their lives and the profundity of their doctrine makes them perennial relevant: the grace of the Holy Spirit, in fact, cast them into that experience of the penetrating understanding of divine revelation and intelligent dialogue with the world that constitute the permanent horizon of the life and action of the Church. Above all in the light of the project of a new evangelization, to which the just-mentioned Assembly of the Synod of Bishops will be dedicated, and on the eve of the Year of Faith, these 2 figures of saints and doctors appear to have a relevant importance and actuality. Even in our days, through their teaching, the Spirit of the risen Lord continues to make his voice heard and to illumine the path that leads to that Truth that alone can set us free and give complete meaning to our life.

Praying now together the Regina Caeli, we invoke the intercession of the Virgin Mary, that she obtain for the Church to be powerfully animated by the Holy Spirit, to bear witness to Christ with evangelical boldness and to open herself more and more to the fullness of the truth.

[Following the Regina Caeli, the Holy Father addressed those present in various languages. In Italian he said:]

Dear brothers and sisters!

This morning in Vannes, France, Mère Saint-Louise, who was born Élisabeth Molé, was beatified. She was the foundress of the Sisters of Charity of St. Louis and lived between the 18th and 19th centuries. We thank God for this exemplary witness to love for God and neighbor.

I also note that next Friday, June 1, I will travel to Milan, where the 7th World Meeting of Families will take place. I invite everyone to follow this event and to pray for its success.

[In English he said:]

I offer a warm welcome to the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at this Regina Caeli on the Solemnity of Pentecost. Next Friday, I will go to Milan to be with families from all over the world celebrating the 7th World Meeting of Families. I ask you to join me in praying for the success of this important event, and that families may be filled with the Holy Spirit, rediscover the joy of their vocation in the Church and the world, and bear loving witness to the faith.  Upon all of you, I invoke God’s abundant blessings!

[Concluding in Italian, he said:]

I wish everyone a happy feast day and a good Sunday. Happy feast day!

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 12, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI gave today when he celebrated a Mass for the feast of Pentecost in St. Peter's Basilica.

* * *

Eucharistic Celebration in Bresso Park - Homily of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI - 3 June 2012

PASTORAL VISIT TO THE ARCHDIOCESE OF MILAN

AND 7th WORLD MEETING OF FAMILIES

(1-3 JUNE 2012)

EUCHARISTIC CELEBRATION

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI

Bresso Park

Sunday, 3 June 2012

Dear Brother Bishops,

Distinguished Authorities,

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It is a time of great joy and communion that we are experiencing this morning, as we celebrate the eucharistic Sacrifice: a great gathering, in union with the Successor of Peter, consisting of faithful who have come from many different nations. It is an eloquent image of the Church, one and universal, founded by Christ and fruit of the mission entrusted by Jesus to his Apostles, as we heard in today’s Gospel: to go and make disciples of all nations, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:18-19). With affection and gratitude I greet Cardinal Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan, and Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, the principal architects of this VII World Meeting of Families, together with their staff, the Auxiliary Bishops of Milan and all the other bishops. I am pleased to greet all the Authorities who are present today. And I extend a warm welcome especially to you, dear families! Thank you for your participation!

In today’s second reading, Saint Paul reminds us that in Baptism we received the Holy Spirit, who unites us to Christ as brothers and sisters and makes us children of the Father, so that we can cry out: “Abba, Father!” (cf. Rom 8:15,17). At that moment we were given a spark of new, divine life, which is destined to grow until it comes to its definitive fulfilment in the glory of heaven; we became members of the Church, God’s family, “sacrarium Trinitatis” as Saint Ambrose calls it, “a people made one by the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”, as the Second Vatican Council teaches (Lumen Gentium, 4). The liturgical Solemnity of the Holy Trinity that we are celebrating today invites us to contemplate this mystery, but it also urges us to commit ourselves to live our communion with God and with one another according to the model of Trinitarian communion.  We are called to receive and to pass on the truths of faith in a spirit of harmony, to live our love for each other and for everyone, sharing joys and sufferings, learning to seek and to grant forgiveness, valuing the different charisms under the leadership of the bishops. In a word, we have been given the task of building church communities that are more and more like families, able to reflect the beauty of the Trinity and to evangelize not only by word, but I would say by “radiation”, in the strength of living love.

It is not only the Church that is called to be the image of One God in Three Persons, but also the family, based on marriage between man and woman. In the beginning, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’” (Gen 1:27-28). God created us male and female, equal in dignity, but also with respective and complementary characteristics, so that the two might be a gift for each other, might value each other and might bring into being a community of love and life. It is love that makes the human person the authentic image of the Blessed Trinity, image of God.  Dear married couples, in living out your marriage you are not giving each other any particular thing or activity, but your whole lives. And your love is fruitful first and foremost for yourselves, because you desire and accomplish one another’s good, you experience the joy of receiving and giving. It is also fruitful in your generous and responsible procreation of children, in your attentive care for them, and in their vigilant and wise education. And lastly, it is fruitful for society, because family life is the first and irreplaceable school of social virtues, such as respect for persons, gratuitousness, trust, responsibility, solidarity, cooperation. Dear married couples, watch over your children and, in a world dominated by technology, transmit to them, with serenity and trust, reasons for living, the strength of faith, pointing them towards high goals and supporting them in their fragility. And let me add a word to the children here: be sure that you always maintain a relationship of deep affection and attentive care for your parents, and see that your relationships with your brothers and sisters are opportunities to grow in love.

God’s plan for the human couple finds its fullness in Jesus Christ, who raised marriage to the level of a sacrament. Dear married couples, by means of a special gift of the Holy Spirit, Christ gives you a share in his spousal love, making you a sign of his faithful and all-embracing love for the Church. If you can receive this gift, renewing your “yes” each day by faith, with the strength that comes from the grace of the sacrament, then your family will grow in God’s love according to the model of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Dear families, pray often for the help of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, that they may teach you to receive God’s love as they did. Your vocation is not easy to live, especially today, but the vocation to love is a wonderful thing, it is the only force that can truly transform the cosmos, the world.  You have before you the witness of so many families who point out the paths for growing in love: by maintaining a constant relationship with God and participating in the life of the Church, by cultivating dialogue, respecting the other’s point of view, by being ready for service and patient with the failings of others, by being able to forgive and to seek forgiveness, by overcoming with intelligence and humility any conflicts that may arise, by agreeing on principles of upbringing, and by being open to other families, attentive towards the poor, and responsible within civil society. These are all elements that build up the family. Live them with courage, and be sure that, insofar as you live your love for each other and for all with the help of God’s grace, you become a living Gospel, a true domestic Church (cf. Familiaris Consortio, 49). I should also like to address a word to the faithful who, even though they agree with the Church’s teachings on the family, have had painful experiences of breakdown and separation. I want you to know that the Pope and the Church support you in your struggle. I encourage you to remain united to your communities, and I earnestly hope that your dioceses are developing suitable initiatives to welcome and accompany you.

In the Book of Genesis, God entrusts his creation to the human couple for them to guard it, cultivate it, and direct it according to his plan (cf. 1:27-28; 2:15). In this indication of Sacred Scripture we may recognize the task of man and woman to collaborate with God in the process of transforming the world through work, science and technology. Man and woman are also the image of God in this important work, which they are to carry out with the Creator’s own love. In modern economic theories, there is often a utilitarian concept of work, production and the market. Yet God’s plan, as well as experience, show that the one-sided logic of sheer utility and maximum profit are not conducive to harmonious development, to the good of the family or to building a just society, because it brings in its wake ferocious competition, strong inequalities, degradation of the environment, the race for consumer goods, family tensions. Indeed, the utilitarian mentality tends to take its toll on personal and family relationships, reducing them to a fragile convergence of individual interests and undermining the solidity of the social fabric.

One final point: man, as the image of God, is also called to rest and to celebrate. The account of creation concludes with these words: “And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it” (Gen 2:2-3). For us Christians, the feast day is Sunday, the Lord’s day, the weekly Easter. It is the day of the Church, the assembly convened by the Lord around the table of the word and of the eucharistic Sacrifice, just as we are doing today, in order to feed on him, to enter into his love and to live by his love. It is the day of man and his values: conviviality, friendship, solidarity, culture, closeness to nature, play, sport. It is the day of the family, on which to experience together a sense of celebration, encounter, sharing, not least through taking part in Mass. Dear families, despite the relentless rhythms of the modern world, do not lose a sense of the Lord’s Day! It is like an oasis in which to pause, so as to taste the joy of encounter and to quench our thirst for God.

Family, work, celebration: three of God’s gifts, three dimensions of our lives that must be brought into a harmonious balance. Harmonizing work schedules with family demands, professional life with fatherhood and motherhood, work with celebration, is important for building up a society with a human face. In this regard, always give priority to the logic of being over that of having: the first builds up, the second ends up destroying. We must learn to believe first of all in the family, in authentic love, the kind that comes from God and unites us to him, the kind that therefore “makes us a ‘we’ which transcends our divisions and makes us one, until in the end God is ‘all in all’ (1 Cor 15:28)” (Deus Caritas Est, 18). Amen.

© Copyright 2012 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Messages

Message of the Holy Father to His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV, Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East

MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI

TO HIS HOLINESS MAR DINKHA IV,

CATHOLICOS PATRIARCH OF THE ASSYRIAN CHURCH OF THE EAST

The Golden Jubilee of the episcopal consecration of Your Holiness, which has culminated in your distinguished ministry as Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, offers me the opportunity to extend my congratulations and prayerful good wishes to you.

I thank the Lord for the many blessings he has bestowed on the Assyrian Church of the East through your ministry, and I am grateful for your commitment to promoting constructive dialogue, fruitful cooperation and growing friendship between our Churches. I recall your presence at the funeral of John Paul II and, previously, your 1994 visit to Rome to sign a Common Declaration on Christology. The subsequent Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East has borne many fruits. I renew the hope which I expressed during your visit to Rome in June 2007, that “the fruitful labour which the Commission has accomplished over the years can continue, while never losing sight of the ultimate goal of our common journey towards the re-establishment of full communion”.

I wish also to reiterate my solidarity with the Christian communities in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, praying that effective forms of common witness to the Gospel and pastoral collaboration in the service of peace, reconciliation and unity may be deepened between the Catholic and Assyrian faithful.

Your Holiness, on this significant anniversary, I pray that the love of God the Father may enfold you, the wisdom of the Son enlighten you and the fire of the Holy Spirit continue to inspire you.

With sentiments of respect, I extend to Your Holiness a fraternal embrace in Jesus Christ our Saviour.

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

© Copyright 2012 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Speeches

To the General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Benedict XVI, 24 May 2012

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

OF THE ITALIAN EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE

Synod Hall

Thursday, 24 May 2012

Venerable and Dear Brothers,

Your annual General Assembly is an event of grace in which you exchange your deep experience of discernment and sharing for your common progress, enlivened by the Spirit of the Risen Lord. It is a moment of grace that expresses the Church’s nature. I thank Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco for his cordial words of welcome interpreting your sentiments and I address to you, Your Eminence, my congratulations and good wishes on the renewal of your appointment as head of the Italian Episcopal Conference.

May the collegial affection that inspires you increasingly nourish your collaboration at the service of the ecclesial communion and of the common good of the Italian nation, in fruitful dialogue with its civil institutions. In this new quinquennium may you pursue together the ecclesial renewal entrusted to us by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council; and may the 50th anniversary of its opening that we shall be celebrating this autumn be a reason for deepening our knowledge of its texts, a condition for their dynamic and faithful reception. “The greatest concern of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously”, Bl. Pope John XXIII said in his opening Discourse. And it is worth reading and meditating on these words.

The Pope asked the Fathers to examine in depth and to present this perennial doctrine in continuity with the 1,000-year-old Tradition of the Church: “to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion”, but in a new way, according “to that work which our era demands of us” (Pope John XXIII’s Opening Speech to the Second Vatican Council, 11 October 1962). With this key to interpreting and applying it — not of course in the perspective of an unacceptable hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture but rather of a hermeneutic of continuity and reform — listening to the Council and making its authoritative instructions our own is the way to identify the modalities by which the Church can offer a meaningful response to the great social and cultural changes of our time which also have visible consequences on the religious dimension.

In fact not only do scientific rationality and the technological culture tend to homogenize the world but they also often exceed their respective specific spheres, claiming to outline the perimeter of the certainties of reason with the sole empirical criterion of their own breakthroughs. Thus the power of human skills ends by considering itself the yardstick for action, free from every moral norm.

In this very context, often in a confused way, a unique and growing demand for spirituality and for the supernatural does not fail to re-emerge. This is a sign of anxiety which dwells in the hearts of people who are not open to the transcendent horizon of God. This situation of secularism is particularly characteristic of societies with an ancient Christian tradition and has a wearing effect on the cultural fabric which, until a recent past, was a unifying reference that could embrace the whole of human existence and mark its most significant events, from birth to the transition to eternal life.

The profound value of the spiritual and moral patrimony in which the West has put down roots and which is its lifeblood, is no longer understood, to the point that people no longer grasp its authoritative truth. Even a fertile land thus risks becoming an inhospitable desert and the promising good seed is in danger of being crushed, trodden on and lost.

A sign of this is the dwindling of religious practice, visible in the participation in the Eucharistic liturgy and, especially, in the sacrament of Penance. So many of the baptized have lost their identity and belonging: the do not know the essential content of the faith or think they can cultivate it without the mediation of the Church. And while many look doubtfully at the truths taught by the Church others reduce the Kingdom of God to several great values which certainly have to do with the Gospel but do not yet concern the central nucleus of the Christian faith.

The Kingdom of God is a gift that transcends us. As Bl. John Paul II said, “The kingdom of God is not a concept, a doctrine, or a programme subject to free interpretation, but it is before all else a person with the face and name of Jesus of Nazareth, the image of the invisible God” (Encyclical Letter, Redemptoris Missio, 7 December 1990, n. 18).

Unfortunately it is God himself who is excluded from the horizon of so many people; and when the topic of God does not meet with indifference, closure or rejection, people wish in any case to relegate it to the subjective context, reducing it to an intimate and private factor, marginalized from public awareness. The heart of the crisis that is damaging Europe — a spiritual and moral crisis — can be identified in this neglect; this lack of openness to the Transcendent, since man claims to have a complete identity simply in himself.

In this context, how can we measure up to the responsibility that has been entrusted to us by the Lord? How can we sow the Word of God with trust so that everyone may find the truth about himself, his own authenticity and hope?

We know that new methods of Gospel proclamation or pastoral action do not suffice to ensure that the Christian proposal meet with wider acceptance and sharing. In the preparation for the Second Vatican Council the main question to which the Council meeting intended to answer was: “Church, what have you to say for yourself?”. Going deeply into this question the Council Fathers were so to speak led back to the heart of the answer: it was a matter of starting afresh from God, celebrated, professed and witnessed to. In fact, apparently by chance, but basically not by chance, the first Constitution to be approved was on the Sacred Liturgy: divine worship orients human beings towards the future City and restores to God his primacy, fashions the Church, ceaselessly convoked by the Word, and shows the world the fruitfulness of the encounter with God.

In our turn while we must cultivate a grateful look for the growth of good quality wheat even in a soil that is often dry, we realize that our situation demands a fresh outreach, that aims at what is essential in faith and in Christian life.

In a period in which for many God has become the great Unknown and Jesus merely an important figure of the past, missionary action will not be relaunched without the renewal of the quality of our faith and our prayer: we will not be able to offer appropriate answers without a new reception of the gift of Grace; we will not know how to win people over to the Gospel except by being the first to return to a profound experience of God.

Dear Brothers, our first true and unique task remains that of dedicating life to what is worthwhile and endures, to what is really reliable, necessary and final. Men and women live from God, from the One whom they are often seeking unconsciously or groping for to give full meaning to their life: it is our task to proclaim him, show him and guide them to the encounter with him.

However it is always important to remember that the first condition for speaking of God is speaking to God, becoming increasingly people of God, nourished by an intense life of prayer and shaped by his Grace.

St Augustine, after a journey of anxious but sincere seeking for the Truth at last succeeded in finding it in God. He then realized an unusual aspect which filled his heart with joy and amazement: he understood that throughout his journey it had been the Truth which was seeking him and had found him.

I would like to say to each one of you: let us allow ourselves to be found and grasped by God, to help every person we meet to be reached by the Truth. It is in the relationship with him that our communion is born and that the ecclesial community — which spans all epochs times and all places — is brought into being to constitute the one People of God.

For this reason I wished to proclaim a Year of Faith which will begin next 11 October, in order to rediscover and to receive once again this precious gift which is faith, in order to have a deeper knowledge of the truths that are our lifeblood, to lead the people of today, who are often distracted, to a renewed encounter with Jesus Christ, “the way, the life and the truth” .

In the midst of transformations that were affecting large categories of humanity, the Servant of God Paul VI clearly pointed out the task of the Church as that of affecting and as it were upsetting, “through the power of the Gospel, mankind's criteria of judgment, determining values, points of interest, lines of thought, sources of inspiration and models of life, which are in contrast with the Word of God and the plan of salvation” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi ,8 December 1975, n. 19).

Here I would like to mention that on the occasion of his first journey as Pope to the land of his birth, Bl. John Paul II visited an industrial district of Krakow known as a sort of “Godless city”. The stubbornness of the workers alone led to the erection first of a cross and then a church. It was in these symbols that the Pope recognized the beginning of what, for the first time, he described as the “new evangelization”. He explained that “The evangelization of the new millennium must refer to the Teaching of the Second Vatican Council. It must be, as that Council taught, a work shared by bishops, priests, religious and laity, by parents and young people”. and he concluded: “You have built the church; build your lives with the Gospel” (Homily, Mass at the Shrine of Holy Cross, Mogila, Poland, 9 June 1979).

Dear Brothers, the ancient and new mission which lies before us is that of introducing the men and women of our time to the relationship with God, helping them to open their minds and hearts to God who is seeking them and wants to become close to them, to lead them to the realization that doing his will does not curtail freedom but is being truly free, attaining the true good of life. God is the guarantor and not rival of our happiness and wherever the Gospel enters — hence Christ’s friendship — human beings experience that they are the subject of a love that purifies, warms and renews, it enables people to love and serve man with divine love.

As the main theme of your Assembly appropriately highlights, the new evangelization stands in need of adults who are “mature in faith and witnesses of humanity”. Attention to the adult world expresses your awareness of the crucial role of those who are called in the various milieus of life to take on educational responsibility for the new generations.

Be alert and strive to ensure that the Christian community can train adults in the faith because they have encountered Jesus Christ who has become the fundamental reference of their life; people who know him because they love him and love him because they have become acquainted with him; people who can give sound and credible reasons for life. In this formative process the Catechism of the Catholic Church — 20 years after its publication, is an especially important tool for a thorough and complete knowledge of the content of faith, that offers guidance to the encounter with Christ. Thanks too to this instrument may the assent to faith become a criterion of knowledge and action that involves the whole of life.

Since we are in the Novena of Pentecost, I would like to conclude these thoughts with a prayer to the Holy Spirit:

Spirit of Life, who was moving over the abyss, help human beings in our time to understand that the exclusion of God leads them to lose their way in the desert of the world, and that it is only where faith enters that dignity and freedom flourish and the whole of society is built in justice.

Spirit of Pentecost, who made the Church one Body, restore to us, the baptized, an authentic experience of communion; make us living signs of the Risen One’s presence in the world, a community of saints that lives in service to charity.

Holy Spirit, who equips us for the mission, grant that we may recognize that so many people in our time too are in quest of the truth about their life and about the world.

Make us work for their joy by proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ,

God’s grain of wheat that enriches the soil of life and ensures an abundant harvest.

Amen.

© Copyright 2012 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

To Participants in the Meeting Sponsored by Renewal in the Holy Spirit, Benedict XVI, 26 May 2012

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE MEETING

SPONSORED BY "RENEWAL IN THE HOLY SPIRIT"

St. Peter's Square

Saturday, 26 May 2012

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I welcome you with great joy on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the foundation of Renewal in the Holy Spirit in Italy, an expression of the broader movement of charismatic renewal which swept through the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. I greet you all with affection, starting with your National President whom I thank for his kind words to me, full of Spirit, on behalf of you all. I greet the Spiritual Counsellor, the Committee and Council members and the leaders and animators of all the Groups and Communities in Italy. On your pilgrimage, which gives you the opportunity to pause in prayer at the tomb of St Peter, may you invigorate your faith anew to grow in Christian witness, and guided by the Holy Spirit, fearlessly face the demanding tasks of the new evangelization.

I am pleased to meet you on the eve of Pentecost — a fundamental celebration for the Church and consequently important for your Movement — and I urge you to accept God’s love which is communicated to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the principal unifier of the Church. In the recent decades — 40 years — you have striven to make your specific contribution to spreading the Kingdom of God and to building up the Christian community, fostering communion with the Successor of Peter, with the Pastors and with the entire Church.

You have affirmed in various ways the primacy of God to whom our worship is always and supremely addressed. Further, you have sought to suggest this experience to the new generations, demonstrating the joy of new life in the Spirit through a far-reaching labour of formation and many activities linked to the new evangelization and to the missio ad gentes. Your apostolic work has thus contributed to the growth of spiritual life in Italy’s ecclesial and social fabric, through processes of conversion which have led many people to be deeply healed by God’s love and many families to overcome moments of crisis. In your groups there has been no shortage of young people who have generously responded to the vocation of special consecration to God in the priesthood or in the consecrated life. I thank you and the Lord for all these things!

Dear friends, continue to witness to the joy of faith in Christ, to the beauty of being disciples of Christ, to the power of love that his Gospel infuses into history, as well as to the incomparable grace that every believer can experience in the Church with the sanctifying practice of the sacraments and the humble and disinterested exercise of the gifts, which, as St Paul says, should always be used for the common good. Do not succumb to the temptation of mediocrity and habit! Cultivate in your mind lofty and generous aspirations! Make Jesus’ thoughts, sentiments and actions your own! Yes, the Lord calls each one of you to be a tireless collaborator of his plan of salvation which changes hearts. He also needs you to make your families, communities and cities places of love and hope.

In today’s society we are living in a situation that in some ways is precarious, marked by insecurity and the fragmentary nature of decisions. Valid reference points in which to find inspiration for one’s own life are frequently lacking. Thus it is becoming ever more important to build life and the complex of social relations on the firm rock of the Word of God, letting oneself be guided by the Magisterium of the Church. We understand ever better the crucial value of Jesus’ affirmation who says: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock” (Mt 7:24-25).

The Lord is with us, he acts with the power of his Spirit. He invites us to grow in trust and in abandonment to his will, in faithfulness to our vocation and in the commitment to become adults in faith, hope and charity. According to the Gospel an adult is not someone who is not subordinate to another and has no need of anyone. An adult, that is, a mature and responsible person, can only be someone who makes himself lowly, humble and a servant before God and does not merely follow the current trends. It is therefore necessary to form consciences in the light of the Word of God and thus give firmness and true maturity; the Word of God from which every ecclesial and human project draws meaning and an impetus, also for building the earthly city (cf. Ps 127[126]:1). The soul of institutions must be renewed and history must be made fertile with the seeds of new life.

Believers today are called to bear a convinced, sincere and credible witness of faith, adhering strictly to the commitment to charity. Indeed through charity, even people distant from or indifferent to the Gospel Message succeed in drawing closer to the truth and being converted to the merciful love of the heavenly Father. In this regard, I express my pleasure at all you are doing to spread a “culture of Pentecost” in social milieus, offering spiritual animation with initiatives for those who are suffering situations of hardship and marginalization.

I am thinking in particular of your work for the spiritual and material rebirth of prisoners and of former prisoners. I am thinking of the “Polo di Eccellenza della promozione umana e della solidarietà Mario and Luigi Sturzo” in Caltagirone; as well as of the “Centro Internazionale per la Famiglia” of Nazareth, whose foundation stone I had the joy of blessing. Pursue your commitment to the family, an indispensable place for an education in love and self-sacrifice.

Dear friends of Renewal in the Holy Spirit, do not grow weary of turning to Heaven: the world stands in need of prayer. It needs men and women who feel the attraction of Heaven in their life, who make praise to the Lord a new way of life. And may you be joyful Christians! I entrust you all to Mary Most Holy, present in the Upper Room at the event of Pentecost. Persevere with her in prayer, walk, guided by the light of the living Holy Spirit, proclaiming the Good News of Christ. May you be accompanied by the Apostolic Blessing which I impart to you with affection, extending it to all your members and your relatives. Many thanks!

© Copyright 2012 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

General Audiences

General Audience of Pope Benedict XVI, 23 May 2012

BENEDICT XVI

GENERAL AUDIENCE

Saint Peter's Square

Wednesday, 23 May 2012

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Last Wednesday I explained what St Paul says about the Holy Spirit being the great master of prayer who teaches us to address God with the affectionate words that children use, calling him: “Abba, Father”. This is what Jesus did; even in the most dramatic moment of his earthly life he never lost his trust in the Father and always called on him with the intimacy of the beloved Son. In Gethsemane, when he feels the anguish of his approaching death, his prayer is: “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mk 14:36).

Since the very first steps on her journey the Church has taken up this invocation and made it her own, especially in the prayer of the “Our Father”, in which we say every day: “Our Father… Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven! (Mt 6:9-10).

We find it twice in the Letters of St Paul. The Apostle, as we have just heard, addresses these words to the Galatians: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal 4:6). And, at the centre of that hymn to the Holy Spirit which is the eighth chapter of the Letter to the Romans, St Paul declares: “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry: ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself...” (Rom 8:15).

Christianity is not a religion of fear but of trust and of love for the Father who loves us. Both these crucial affirmations speak to us of the sending forth and reception of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Risen One which makes us sons in Christ, the Only-Begotten Son, and places us in a filial relationship with God, a relationship of deep trust, like that of children; a filial relationship like that of Jesus, even though its origin and quality are different. Jesus is the eternal Son of God who took flesh; we instead become sons in him, in time, through faith and through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. Thanks to these two sacraments we are immersed in the Paschal Mystery of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the precious and necessary gift that makes us children of God, that brings about that adoption as sons to which all human beings are called because, as the divine blessing in the Letter to the Ephesians explains, God, in Christ, “chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his [adopted] sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:4).

Perhaps people today fail to perceive the beauty, greatness and profound consolation contained in the word “father” with which we can turn to God in prayer because today the father figure is often not sufficiently present and all too often is not sufficiently positive in daily life. The father’s absence, the problem of a father who is not present in a child’s life, is a serious problem of our time. It therefore becomes difficult to understand what it means to say that God is really our Father. From Jesus himself, from his filial relationship with God, we can learn what “father” really means and what is the true nature of the Father who is in heaven.

Critics of religion have said that speaking of the “Father”, of God, is a projection of our ancestors in heaven. But the opposite is true: in the Gospel Christ shows us who is the father and as he is a true father we can understand true fatherhood and even learn true fatherhood. Let us think of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount where he says: “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Mt 5:44-45). It is the very love of Jesus, the Only-Begotten Son — who goes even to the point of giving himself on the Cross — that reveals to us the true nature of the Father: he is Love and in our prayers as children we too enter this circuit of love, the love of God that purifies our desires, our attitudes marked by closure, self-sufficiency, and the typical selfishness of the former man.

We could therefore say that God in being Father has two dimensions. First of all God is our Father because he is our Creator. Each one of us, each man and each woman, is a miracle of God, is wanted by him and is personally known by him. When it says in the Book of Genesis that the human being is created in the image of God (cf. 1:27), it tries to express this precise reality: God is our Father, for him we are not anonymous, impersonal beings but have a name. And a phrase in the Psalms always moves me when I pray. “Your hands have made and fashioned me”, says the Psalmist (Ps 119[118]:73). In this beautiful image each one of us can express his personal relationship with God. “Your hands have fashioned me. You thought of me and created and wanted me”.

Nonetheless this is still not enough. The Spirit of Christ opens us to a second dimension of God’s fatherhood, beyond creation, since Jesus is the “Son” in the full sense of “one in being with the Father”, as we profess in the Creed. Becoming a human being like us, with his Incarnation, death and Resurrection, Jesus in his turn accepts us in his humanity and even in his being Son, so that we too may enter into his specific belonging to God. Of course, our being children of God does not have the fullness of Jesus. We must increasingly become so throughout the journey of our Christian existence, developing in the following of Christ and in communion with him so as to enter ever more intimately into the relationship of love with God the Father which sustains our life.

It is this fundamental reality that is disclosed to us when we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit and he makes us turn to God saying “Abba!”, Father. We have truly preceded creation, entering into adoption with Jesus; united, we are really in God and are his children in a new way, in a new dimension.

Now I would like to return to St Paul’s two passages on this action of the Holy Spirit in our prayers on which we are reflecting. Here too are two passages that correspond with each other but contain a different nuance. In the Letter to the Galatians, in fact, the Apostle says that the Spirit cries: “Abba! Father!” in us. In the Letter to the Romans he says that it is we who cry: “Abba! Father!”. And St Paul wants to make us understand that Christian prayer is never one way, never happens in one direction from us to God, it is never merely “an action of ours” but, rather, is the expression of a reciprocal relationship in which God is the first to act; it is the Holy Spirit who cries in us and we are able to cry because the impetus comes from the Holy Spirit.

We would not be able to pray were the desire for God, for being children of God, not engraved in the depths of our heart. Since he came into existence homo sapiens has always been in search of God and endeavours to speak with God because God has engraved himself in our hearts. The first initiative therefore comes from God and with Baptism, once again God acts in us, the Holy Spirit acts in us; he is the prime initiator of prayer so that we may really converse with God and say “Abba” to God. Hence his presence opens our prayers and our lives, it opens on to the horizons of the Trinity and of the Church.

We realize in addition — this is the second point — that the prayer of the Spirit of Christ in us and ours in him is not solely an individual act but an act of the entire Church. In praying our heart is opened, not only do we enter into communion with God but actually with all the children of God, because we are one body. When we address the Father in our inner room in silence and in recollection we are never alone. Those who speak to God are not alone. We are within the great prayer of the Church, we are part of a great symphony that the Christian community in all the parts of the earth and in all epochs, raises to God. Naturally, the musicians and instruments differ — and this is an element of enrichment — but the melody of praise is one and in harmony. Every time, then, that we shout or say: “Abba! Father!” it is the Church, the whole communion of people in prayer that supports our invocation and our invocation is an invocation of the Church.

This is also reflected in the wealth of charisms and of the ministries and tasks that we carry out in the community. St Paul writes to the Christians of Corinth: “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in everyone” (1 Cor 12:4-6).

Prayer guided by the Holy Spirit, who makes us say: “Abba! Father!” with Christ and in Christ, inserts us into the great mosaic of the family of God in which each one has a place and an important role, in profound unity with the whole.

One last remark: we also learn to cry “Abba! Father!” with Mary, Mother of the Son of God. The consummation of the fullness of time, of which St Paul speaks in his Letter to the Galatians (cf. 4:4) is brought about at the moment when Mary said “yes”, the moment of her full adherence to God’s will: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38).

Dear brothers and sisters, let us learn to savour in our prayers the beauty of being friends, indeed children of God, of being able to call on him with the trust that a child has for the parents who love him. Let us open our prayers to the action of the Holy Spirit so that he may cry to God in us: “Abba! Father!”, and so that our prayers may transform and constantly convert our way of thinking and our action to bring us ever more closely into line with Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of God. Many thanks.

To special groups:

I am pleased to greet the ecumenical delegation from the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Sweden. I also welcome the group from the Pontifical University of Santo Tomas in Manila. I thank the choirs for their praise of God in song. Upon all the English-speaking visitors present at today’s Audience, including those from England, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, India, the Philippines, South Korea and the United States, I invoke the Holy Spirit’s gifts of wisdom, joy and peace.

Lastly, a special thought for the young people, the sick and the newlyweds. May the gift of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost always sustain and nourish the life of faith of the Christian community. Dear young people, put the search for God and love for him above all things; dear sick people, may the Holy Spirit be a help and comfort to you in times of greatest need; and may you, dear newlyweds, make your union sounder and deeper every day with the grace of the Holy Spirit.

© Copyright 2012 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Table of Contents

Introduction

Index of Source Links

Regina Caeli

Solemnity of Pentecost - Regina Caeli, 27 May 2012, Benedict XVI

Homilies

Eucharistic Celebration on the Solemnity of Pentecost

Eucharistic Celebration in Bresso Park - Homily of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI - 3 June 2012

Messages

Message of the Holy Father to His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV, Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East

Speeches

To the General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Benedict XVI, 24 May 2012

To Participants in the Meeting Sponsored by Renewal in the Holy Spirit, Benedict XVI, 26 May 2012

General Audiences

General Audience of Pope Benedict XVI, 23 May 2012