Dear Brothers and Sisters,
First, I would like to offer all of you an affectionate greeting. I am happy to be among you once again and to celebrate Holy Mass with you. I am also happy to revisit familiar places which had a decisive influence on my life, shaping my thoughts and feelings: places where I learned how to believe and how to live. This is a time to say thanks to all those -- living and deceased -- who guided and accompanied me along the way. I thank God for this beautiful country and for all the persons who have made it truly my homeland.
We have just listened to the three biblical readings which the Church's liturgy has chosen for this Sunday. All three develop a double theme which is ultimately one, bringing out -- as circumstances dictate -- one or another of its aspects. All three readings speak of God as the center of all reality and the center of our personal life.
"Here is your God!" exclaims the prophet Isaiah (35:4). In their own way, the Letter of James and the Gospel passage say the very same thing. They want to lead us to God, to set us on the right path. But to speak of "God" is also to speak of society: of our shared responsibility for the triumph of justice and love in the world. This is powerfully expressed in the second reading, in which James, a close relative of Jesus, speaks to us.
He is addressing a community beginning to be marked by pride, since it included affluent and distinguished persons, and consequently the risk of indifference to the rights of the poor. The words of James give us a glimpse of Jesus, of that God who became man. Though he was of Davidic, and thus royal, stock, he became a simple man in the midst of simple men and women. He did not sit on a throne, but died in the ultimate poverty of the cross.
Love of neighbor, which is primarily a commitment to justice, is the touchstone for faith and love of God. James calls it "the royal law" (cf. 2:8), echoing the words which Jesus used so often: the reign of God, God's kingship. This does not refer to just any kingdom, coming at any time; it means that God must become the force shaping our lives and actions.
This is what we ask for when we pray: "Thy Kingdom come!" We are not asking for something off in the distance, something we may not even want to experience. Rather, we pray that God's will may here and now determine our own will, and that in this way God can reign in the world. We pray that justice and love may become the decisive forces affecting our world. A prayer like this is surely addressed first to God, but it is also unsettling for us. Really, is this what we want? Is this the direction in which we want our lives to move?
For James, "the royal law," the law of God's kingship, is also "the law of freedom": If we follow God in all that we think and do, then we draw closer together, we gain freedom and thus true fraternity is born. When Isaiah, in the first reading, speaks about God, he goes on to speak about salvation for the suffering, and when James speaks of the social order as a necessary expression of our faith, he logically goes on to speak of God, whose children we are.
But now we must turn our attention to the Gospel, which speaks of Jesus' healing of a man born deaf and mute. Here too we encounter the two aspects of this one theme. Jesus is concerned for the suffering, for those pushed to the margins of society. He heals them and, by enabling them to live and work together, he brings them to equality and fraternity.
This obviously has something to say to all of us: Jesus points out the goal of all our activity. Yet the whole story has a deeper dimension, one which the fathers of the Church constantly brought out, one which particularly speaks to us today. The fathers were speaking to and about the men and women of their time. But their message also has new meaning for us modern men and women.
There is not only a physical deafness which largely cuts people off from social life; there is also a "hardness of hearing" where God is concerned, and this is something from which we particularly suffer in our own time. Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God -- there are too many different frequencies filling our ears. What is said about God strikes us as pre-scientific, no longer suited to our age.
Along with this hardness of hearing or outright deafness where God is concerned, we naturally lose our ability to speak with him and to him. And so we end up losing a decisive capacity for perception. We risk losing our inner senses. This weakening of our capacity for perception drastically and dangerously curtails the range of our relationship with reality. The horizon of our life is disturbingly foreshortened.
The Gospel tells us that Jesus put his fingers in the ears of the deaf-mute, touched the sick man's tongue with spittle and said "Ephphatha" -- "Be opened." The evangelist has preserved for us the original Aramaic word which Jesus spoke, and thus he brings us back to that very moment. What happened then was unique, but it does not belong to a distant past: Jesus continues to do the same thing anew, even today.
At our baptism he touched each of us and said "Ephphatha" -- "Be opened" -- thus enabling us to hear God's voice and to be able to talk to him. There is nothing magical about what takes place in the sacrament of baptism. Baptism opens up a path before us. It makes us part of the community of those who are able to hear and speak; it brings us into fellowship with Jesus himself, who alone has seen God and is thus able to speak of him (cf. John 1:18): Through faith, Jesus wants to share with us his seeing God, his hearing the Father and his conversation with him. The path upon which we set out at baptism is meant to be a process of increasing development, by which we grow in the life of communion with God, and acquire a different way of looking at man and creation.
The Gospel invites us to realize that we have a "deficit" in our capacity for perception -- initially, we do not notice this deficiency as such, since everything else seems so urgent and logical; since everything seems to proceed normally, even when we no longer have eyes and ears for God and we live without him. But it is true that everything goes on as usual when God no longer is a part of our lives and our world? Before raising any further questions, I would like to share some of my experience in meeting bishops from throughout the world.
The Catholic Church in Germany is outstanding for its social activities, for its readiness to help wherever help is needed. During their visits "ad limina," the bishops, most recently those of Africa, have always mentioned with gratitude the generosity of German Catholics and ask me to convey that gratitude. Just recently, the bishops of the Baltic countries told me about how German Catholics assisted them greatly in rebuilding their churches, which were badly in need of repair after decades of Communist rule.
Every now and then, however, some African bishop will say: "If I come to Germany and present social projects, suddenly every door opens. But if I come with a plan for evangelization, I meet with reservations." Clearly some people have the idea that social projects should be urgently undertaken, while anything dealing with God or even the Catholic faith is of limited and lesser importance.
Yet the experience of those bishops is that evangelization itself should be foremost, that the God of Jesus Christ must be known, believed in and loved, and that hearts must be converted if progress is to be made on social issues and reconciliation is to begin, and if -- for example -- AIDS is to be combated by realistically facing its deeper causes and the sick are to be given the loving care they need. Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable.
When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little. All too quickly the mechanisms of violence take over: The capacity to destroy and to kill becomes the dominant way to gain power -- a power which at some point should bring law, but which will never be able to do so.
Reconciliation, and a shared commitment to justice and love, recede into the distance. The criteria by which technology is placed at the service of law and love are no longer clear: Yet it is precisely on these criteria that everything depends: Criteria which are not only theories, but which enlighten the heart and thus set reason and action on the right path.
People in Africa and Asia admire our scientific and technical prowess, but at the same time they are frightened by a form of rationality which totally excludes God from man's vision, as if this were the highest form of reason, and one to be imposed on their cultures too. They do not see the real threat to their identity in the Christian faith, but in the contempt for God and the cynicism that considers mockery of the sacred to be an exercise of freedom and that holds up utility as the supreme moral criterion for the future of scientific research.
Dear friends, this cynicism is not the kind of tolerance and cultural openness that the world's peoples are looking for and that all of us want! The tolerance which we urgently need includes the fear of God -- respect for what others hold sacred. This respect for what others hold sacred demands that we ourselves learn once more the fear of God. This sense of respect can be reborn in the Western world only if faith in God is reborn, if God becomes once more present to us and in us.
We impose this faith upon no one. Such proselytism is contrary to Christianity. Faith can develop only in freedom. But we do appeal to the freedom of men and women to be open to God, to seek him, to hear his voice. As we gather here, let us here ask the Lord with all our hearts to speak anew his "Ephphatha," to heal our hardness of hearing for God's presence, activity and word, and to give us sight and hearing. Let us ask his help in rediscovering prayer, to which he invites us in the liturgy and whose essential formula he has given us in the Our Father.
The world needs God. We need God. But what God? In the first reading, the prophet tells a people suffering oppression that: "He will come with vengeance" (Isaiah 35:4). We can easily suppose how the people imagined that vengeance. But the prophet himself goes on to reveal what it really is: the healing goodness of God. The definitive explanation of the prophet's word is to be found in the one who died on the cross: in Jesus, the Son of God incarnate. His "vengeance" is the cross: a "no" to violence and a "love to the end." This is the God we need.
We do not fail to show respect for other religions and cultures, profound respect for their faith, when we proclaim clearly and uncompromisingly the God who counters violence with his own suffering; who in the face of the power of evil exalts his mercy, in order that evil may be limited and overcome. To him we now lift up our prayer, that he may remain with us and help us to be credible witnesses to himself. Amen!
[Translation issued by the Holy See; adapted]
© Copyright 2006 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
AFP/DDP/Joerg Koc
AP Photo: Bernd Weissbrod, Pool
Photo Source: REUTERS/Stephan Jansen/Pool (GERMANY)Photos:The German president welcomed the Pope, speaking glowingly of the first years of his Pontificate. Köhler, who is Protestant, recalled the “moving experience” of last year’s World Youth Day, held in Cologne. The president remarked at the “powerful presence” of the Catholic Church in Germany and spoke hopefully of the ongoing process of ecumenical dialogue.
Following Köhler’s words of welcome, the Pope reflected briefly on the purpose of his trip. “Conscious of how much I have received,” Benedict said, “I have come here above all to express my deep gratitude towards all those who helped shape me as a person.”
But, the Pope continued, “I also come here as the Successor of the Apostle Peter, to reaffirm and strengthen the deep bonds linking the See of Rome and the Church in our native land.”
Benedict reminded everyone of the tremendous history of the Catholic faith in Germany and particularly in Bavaria. A history, he said, which has been constantly nourished by firm adherence to Christian values.
He also noted that the faith history of the country “is witnessed to by famous monuments, majestic cathedrals, statues and paintings of great artistic value, literary works, cultural initiatives and above all, the many individual and community events which reflect the Christian beliefs of successive generations in this Land which is so dear to me.”
The Pontiff insisted that although society has changed, it is important to continue passing on the faith to younger generations.
“I think we are all united in the hope that new generations will remain faithful to the spiritual patrimony which has withstood all the crises of history. My visit to the land of my birth is meant to be an encouragement in this regard: Bavaria is a part of Germany; sharing in the ups and downs of Germany’s history, and has good reason to be proud of the traditions inherited from the past. My hope is that all my compatriots in Bavaria and throughout Germany will play an active part in the transmission of the fundamental values of the Christian faith to the citizens of tomorrow.”
The Pope concluded his remarks expressing his desire to someday visit other parts of Germany and thanking all those who have worked to prepare for his visit. He offered a greeting to all Germans, noting that he was not only thinking of Catholics, but Lutherans, Orthodox Christians, and members of other Churches and Ecclesial Communities as well as “all people of good will.”
“May the Lord bless the efforts of all those concerned to build a future of true well-being for the good of the whole nation,” the Pope said, entrusting his intentions to the Blessed Virgin Mary through a traditional Bavarian prayer. “Preserve, O Virgin and Patroness, your Bavarian people, their goods, their government, their land and their religion!”
The Pope then departed for downtown Munich, where he will offer a special prayer at the Marian statue in the city’s central square.
AP Photo/Markus Schreiber
Our Lord is hidden there, waiting for us to come and visit Him, and make our request to Him. See how good He is! He accommodates Himself to our weakness. In Heaven, where we shall be glorious and triumphant, we shall see him in all His glory. If He had presented Himself before us in that glory now, we should not have dared to approach Him; but He hides Himself, like a person in a prison, who might say to us, "You do not see me, but that is no matter; ask of me all you wish and I will grant it. " He is there in the Sacrament of His love, sighing and interceding incessantly with His Father for sinners. To what outrages does He not expose Himself, that He may remain in the midst of us! He is there to console us; and therefore we ought often to visit Him. How pleasing to Him is the short quarter of an hour that we steal from our occupations, from something of no use, to come and pray to Him, to visit Him, to console Him for all the outrages He receives! When He sees pure souls coming eagerly to Him, He smiles upon them. They come with that simplicity which pleases Him so much, to ask His pardon for all sinners, for the outrages of so many ungrateful men. What happiness do we not feel in the presence of God, when we find ourselves alone at His feet before the holy tabernacles! "Come, my soul, redouble thy fervour; thou art alone adoring thy God. His eyes rest upon thee alone. " This good Saviour is so full of love for us that He seeks us out everywhere.
The white and gold flag of the Vatican is everyone in Bavaria, Germany, as Pope Benedict XVI starts a 6 day-trip to his native homeland in Bavaria, Germany. Even the Catedral of Our Lady in Munich (photo above) is decorated with the Vatican's flag. About 7.2 million Catholics live in the state of Bavaria - a quarter of all of the Catholics in Germany.
