Pope Benedict XVI summed up the meaning of his pontificate and the meaning of his new document on the Eucharist in Rome recently — when he remembered Pope Paul VI.
BY The Editors
March 25-31, 2007 Issue |
Posted 3/20/07 at 7:00 AM
Pope
Benedict XVI summed up the meaning of his pontificate and the meaning of his
new document on the Eucharist in Rome recently — when he remembered Pope Paul
VI.
“‘Christ, our principle,’ Paul VI
said with deep feeling, and I can still hear his voice,” remembered the Holy
Father. “‘Christ, our Way and our Guide! Christ, our hope and our destination.
… No other light shines out at this meeting except for Christ’s, Light of the
world; no other truth than the words of the Lord, our one Teacher, concerns our
hearts; no other aspiration guides us than the desire to be absolutely faithful
to him.’ And until he drew his last breath, his thought, his energy and his
action were for Christ and for the Church.”
What Pope Benedict points out about
Paul VI can also be said of Pope Benedict.
Paul didn’t have a complicated
agenda or serpentine motives that need to be studied and untangled. The truth
of Christ is multi-faceted and looks paradoxical to the world, but it’s simple
to those who love him, and Benedict knew that Paul was a passionate lover of
Jesus Christ.
It takes one to know one.
Pope Benedict, also, is simply and
deeply devoted to the person of Christ, in all of his clarity and depth.
When secular newspapers write about
Pope Benedict’s new post-synodal apostolic exhoratation Sacramentum
Caritatis (The Sacrament of Charity), they say things like “Pope
Refuses to Yield” or “Benedict Loves Latin” as if the Holy Father were merely
imposing his personal preferences on the Church.
But, from the very beginning,
Benedict has been telling us exactly what he would do, and why he would do it.
He started before the conclave that elected him, when he spoke about friendship
with Christ, a concept he has returned to several times.
Noting that Jesus defines friendship
as “the communion of wills,” he cited the old Roman definition of friendship — Idem
velle idem nolle (same desires, same dislikes) — as the model of our
friendship with Christ.
In his first message after becoming
pope, he applied that lesson to the Eucharist. “I ask everyone in the coming
months to intensify love and devotion for Jesus in the Eucharist,” he said,
“and to express courageously and clearly faith in the Real Presence of the
Lord, especially by the solemnity and the correctness of the celebrations.”
He wanted us to show our friendship
with Jesus in the Eucharist not just by good feelings, but by a communion of
wills — “by the solemnity and correctness” of our Masses.
This love for Jesus, which is both
practical and passionate — we should say practical because
it is passionate — is the key to Pope Benedict’s thinking. It is front and
center in is private works (such as “On the Way to Christ Jesus”), in his
official works before becoming Pope (Dominus Iesus — “The Lord
Jesus” — foremost among them), and in his first encyclical and latest document
on charity and the Eucharist.
This passionate, practical love
explains many aspects of the new document.
It’s the reason why Pope Benedict is
so poetic on the Eucharist. “What amazement must the Apostles have felt in
witnessing what the Lord did and said during that Supper!” he writes in the
introduction, “What wonder must the Eucharistic mystery also awaken in our own
hearts!”
It’s also the reason he is so
precise: “The Eucharistic celebration is enhanced,” he writes, “when priests
and liturgical leaders are committed to making known the current liturgical
texts and norms, making available the great riches found in the
General Instruction of the Roman Missal and the Order of
Readings for Mass” (No. 40).
Pope Benedict can be subtle: “It
should be kept in mind that nothing is lost when the sign of peace is marked by
a sobriety that preserves the proper spirit of the celebration, as, for
example, when it is restricted to one’s immediate neighbors.”
He can be blunt: “Given the
importance of the word of God, the quality of homilies needs to be improved.”
But the love of Christ pervades it
all.
There is much in this document that
needs to be brought to light. The Pope has specific words on everything from
Communion at funerals and weddings to the proper use of music (Webster Young,
on the previous page, would appreciate what he says). He says broadcast Masses
should follow the local bishop’s norms, and that tabernacles should be placed
in the center of most churches.
But it would be a mistake to look to
the document for a list of “winners” and “losers” and try to determine on what
issues Pope Benedict is a liturgical “conservative” and on which ones he is a
liturgical “liberal.”
Rather, the document is exactly what our front-page headline
declares it to be: a love letter to Christ, his friend and ours, the center of
the Mass, and our life.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Make a Donation now!
Insightful. Informative. Uncompromisingly faithful. The National Catholic Register is more than a newspaper. It’s a cause. Your support for the Register funds important journalism that helps to build a Culture of Life in our nation, and throughout the world. Help us promote the Church’s New Evangelization by donating to the National Catholic Register right now.
.
