on the morning of June 28, 2016 was held a simple celebration in the Clementine hall in the Vatican. Pope Francis presided over a ceremony to celebrate the sixty-fifth anniversary of the priestly ordination of Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI emeritus. The Catholic Documentation publishes the wishes of Pope Francis and the acceptance speech of Benedict XVI. The latter received the Cardinal Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the book Insegnare imparare e l’amore di Dio , which is collected in 43 of Benedict XVI’s homilies on the priesthood.
the wishes of Pope Francis
Your holiness
today we celebrate the history of a call started there are sixty-five years when your priestly ordination, which took place in the Cathedral of Freising on June 29, 1951. But what is the base note which runs through this long history and which, since that first beginning until today, the still dominates more?
in one of the many beautiful pages you devote to the priesthood, you point out that, time of the final call of Simon, Jesus, looking at him, asks him basically one thing: “do you love me? “. As beautiful and true. Because that’s where we tell you, in that “Do you love me? “The Lord is suing to feed, because it is only if the love for the Lord is that He can graze through us,” Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you “( cf. Jn 21: 15-19). Such is the note that dominates an entire life spent in the priesthood and the service of theology, you have defined, and it is no accident, as “the search for the beloved”; this is what you have always testified and you still testify today that the decisive element of our day – sun or rain – the only thing that also includes everything else, is that the Lord is really now that we wanted, inwardly we are close to him, we loved him, we really believe deeply in him and, believing that we really liked. It is this love that fills our heart really is believing that makes us walk insured and quiet on the water, even in the midst of the storm, precisely as happened in St. Peter. This love and belief are what enables us to look to the future not with fear or nostalgia, but with joy, also a now advanced age of our lives.
And so, precisely by living and witnessing today ‘ hui a so intense and bright way of this unique really decisive thing – to have the eyes and heart turned to God – you continue, your Holiness, to serve the Church, you keep really contribute with vigor and wisdom to its growth ; and you do so since this small monastery Mater Ecclesiae at the Vatican, and that proves to be anything but a forgotten those little places where the culture of waste today tends to relegate people when, with age, the forces are lacking them. It’s quite the opposite. And let it be said forcefully by your successor who chose to call François! Because the spiritual path of St. Francis began in Saint-Damien, but the real place loved, the beating heart of the order, where he founded and where he went to the end his soul to God, was the Portiuncula, the “small portion”, the little place with the Mother of the Church; to Mary that, if because of its strong faith and his way of living so completely love and love of the Lord, all generations will call her blessed. Thus Providence has willed that you, dear colleague, arrive in a place as it specifically ‘Franciscan’, which emanates calmness, peace, strength, confidence, maturity, faith, devotion and fidelity make me so much and give me so much strength, and the entire Church. And I would also like to emphasize your healthy and joyful sense of humor.
The wish with which I conclude therefore wish is a wish I have for you, and also to all of us and the Church all full: your holiness can continue to feel the hand of the merciful God who supports you, you can experience and witness us from the love of God; that with Peter and Paul, you can continue to rejoice with great joy as you walk towards the goal of faith (cf. 1 Pt 1: 8-9; 2 Tim 4: 6-8)!
Thanks Benedict XVI
Holy Father, dear brothers,
There are sixty-five, a brother ordered me decided not to write a word in Greek on his memory-image of his first Mass, except the name and date: Eucharistòmen , convinced that this word, in its many senses, is already said all that we can say at this time. Eucharistòmen wants to express a human thank you, a thank you to all. Thank you especially to you, Holy Father! Your kindness, from the first moment of your election, every moment of my life here, hit me, me actually carries internally. More than the Vatican gardens, with their beauty, your kindness is the place where I live: I feel protected. also thank you for your words of thanks to all. And hope you can go ahead with all of us on this path of divine mercy, indicating the route of Jesus, to Jesus, to God.
Also thank you, Eminence [Cardinal Sodano] to your words that really touched my heart: Cor ad cor loquitur . You have done this as well the time of my priestly ordination, my visit in 2006 to Freising, where I relived it all. I can only say that thus, with these words, you interpreted the essence of my vision of priesthood, my action. I appreciate the bond of friendship which for so long, continues until now, roof to roof [Benedict XVI refers to units that are close to a straight]: it is almost tangible and present .
Thank you, Cardinal Müller, the work you do for the presentation of my texts on the priesthood, in which I try to also help our colleagues to always re-enter into the mystery which the Lord gives himself into our hands .
Eucharistòmen : right now our friend [Rupert] Berger wanted to evoke not only the dimension of human gratitude but of course the most profound word that hides, which appears in the liturgy, in Scripture, in the words gratias agents benedixit fregit deditque . Eucharistòmen refers us to this reality thanks to this new dimension that Christ has given. He turned in thanks, and so blessed: the cross, the suffering, all the evil in the world. And so he basically transubstantialisé life and the world and it has given us and it gives us daily bread of true life, which exceeds the world through the power of his love. In order to finish, we want to insert ourselves into this “thank you” from the Lord, and thus actually receive the newness of life and help transubstantialisation the world: it’s a world not of death but of life; a world in which love has conquered death.
Thank you all. May the Lord bless us all.
Thank you, Holy Father.
(*) French Version of the Press Office of the Holy See. As The DC .
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