Selections from Benedict XVI
Daily martyrdom for the truth
Christians of this time, you can not descend into compromises with love for Christ, for His Word, for the Truth. Truth is truth, not compromises. The Christian life requires, as it were, the "martyrdom" of daily fidelity to the Gospel, the courage to let Christ grow in us and it is Christ who directs our thinking and our actions. But this can happen in our lives only if the relationship with God is solid. -Benedict XVI, 8/29/2012
The gaze of faith
"It is necessary to sit at table with the Lord, to share the banquet with him, so that his humble presence in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood may restore to us the gaze of faith, in order to see everything and everyone with God’s eyes, in the light of his love. Staying with Jesus who has stayed with us, assimilating his lifestyle, choosing with him the logic of communion with each other, of solidarity and of sharing. The Eucharist is the maximum expression of the gift which Jesus makes of himself and is a constant invitation to live our lives in the Eucharistic logic, as a gift to God and to others." (Pope Benedict XVI, May 8, 2011, homily).
He gives us everything in the Son
"He [God] who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?" (Rom 8:32).
If God gives himself in the Son, he gives us everything. And Paul insists on the power of Christ’s redeeming sacrifice against every other force that can threaten our life.
He wonders: "Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us?" (vv. 33-34).
We are in God’s heart, this is our great trust. This creates love and in love we go towards God. If God has given his own Son for all of us, no one can accuse us, no one can condemn us, no one can separate us from his immense love. Precisely the supreme sacrifice of love on the Cross, which the Son of God accepted and chose willingly, becomes the source of our justification, of our salvation. Just think that this act of the Lord’s endures in the Blessed Eucharist, and in his heart, for eternity, and this act of love attracts us, unites us with him.
-II Sunday Lent 2012
Faithful in the Hour
Lord Jesus, You invite us to follow you also in this extreme hour. Your hour is the test of our life… It is the hour of darkness, when the foundations of the earth are shaken when the multiform masks of deceit mock the truth and the flattery of success suffocates the intimate call of honesty -Benedict XVI
Today the word ecclesia militans is somewhat out of fashion, but in reality we can understand ever better that it is true, that it bears truth in itself. We see how evil wishes to dominate the world and that it is necessary to enter into battle with evil. We see how it does so in so many ways, bloody, with the different forms of violence, but also masked with goodness and precisely this way destroying the moral foundations of society.
Saint Augustine said that the whole of history is a struggle between two loves: love of oneself to contempt of God; love of God to contempt of self, in martyrdom. We are in this struggle and in this struggle it is very important to have friends. -Benedict XVI, May 22, 2012:
Holiness
Holiness, the fullness of Christian life does not consist of realizing extraordinary enterprises, but in union with Christ, in living his mysteries, in making our own his attitudes, his thoughts, his conduct. The measure of holiness is given by the height of holiness that Christ attains in us, of how much, with the strength of the Holy Spirit, we mold all our life to his. It is our conforming ourselves to Jesus, as St. Paul affirms: "For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son" (Romans 8:29). And St. Augustine exclaimed: "My life will be alive full of You" April 13, 2011, Full text
Relativism and fundamentalism
Having a clear faith, according to the credo of the Church, is often labeled as fundamentalism. Yet, relativism, that is, letting oneself be tossed and ‘swept along by every wind of teaching’, appears the sole attitude acceptable to today’s standards. —Cardinal Ratzinger, pre-conclave Homily, April 18th, 2005
We do not possess the truth, the truth possesses us: Christ, who is the truth, has taken us by the hand, and we know that his hand is holding us securely on the path of our quest for knowledge. Being inwardly held by the hand of Christ makes us free and keeps us safe: free – because if we are held by him, we can enter openly and fearlessly into any dialogue; safe – because he does not let go of us, unless we cut ourselves off from him. At one with him, we stand in the light of truth. Dec 21, 2012
Pray for priests
"The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest" (Lk 10:2).
... God alone can send out labourers to the field of his harvest. Yet he wants to send them through the door of our prayers. We can cooperate for the coming of labourers but we can only do so by cooperating with God. -Homily, Feb, 2011 at ordination of bishops
Lord Jesus,
You invite us to follow you also in this extreme hour.
Your hour is the test of our life…
It is the hour of darkness, when the foundations of the earth are shaken
when the multiform masks of deceit mock the truth and the flattery of success suffocates the intimate call of honesty
-Benedict XVI
King of the poor, peace, universal
