Benedict in England, Day 3

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Benedict in England, Day 3

[2010-09-19]

[Engleză]

On the third day of 4-day trip to England and Scotland -- Yom Kippur in the Jewish calendar, the Day of Atonement -- Benedict, unexpectedly, spent more than half an hour with several victims of sexual abuse. He also delivered moving talks on the Eucharist, and on Blessed John Henry Newman. The trip seems to be going much better than nearly everyone anticipated...

By Robert Moynihan

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The Pope in England, September 18, 2010

Day #3 of the Visit to Scotland and England

(Photo, the Pope celebrating Mass this morning at Westminster Cathedral, with his Master of Ceremonies, Monsignor Guido Marini, behind him)

The Pope's visit to England is well past its halfway point, looking now toward the beatification tomorrow in Birmingham of John Henry Cardinal Newman, and it seems to be going much better than almost anyone anticipated.

There are several pieces of evidence.

First, the crowds protesting the visit have been smaller than predicted, no more than 20,000 in total, while the prayer service this evening in Hyde Park attracted at least 80,000 people.

Second, despite months of tensions between Rome and Canterbury, there were yesterday evening very respectful remarks made toward the Pope by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England.

Third, the Pope today -- on the Feast of Atonement on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur -- held a dramatic, unscheduled meeting with several victims of clerical sexual abuse, making clear his sorrow that such crimes have occurred, and his commitment to see that everything possible is done so that they do not occur in the future.

In this way, the Pope has acted to de-fuse the allegations, amplified by the media, that he has not done enough to prevent or punish sexually abusive clerics.

Moreover, throughout the trip, the Pope's quiet remarks have been both eloquent and profound, and have moved many who have listened to him.

For these reasons, the papal visit is turning into much more of a quiet success than most media pundits predicted.

The trip has not been physically disrupted, the Pope has been treated respectfully, and his fundamental message of Christian faith in a fallen world seems to be falling on open ears.

Here below are the main texts of yesterday evening and today, prefaced by brief introductory comments on the key passages.

All the texts are well worth reading in their entirety, but if the sheer amount of material seems too great, try to read at least the brief summaries to get the central points the Pope is making.

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Friday Vespers (Yesterday): The Archbishop and the Pope of Rome

Williams speaks about 'the Servant of the Servants of God'

Yesterday evening, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England, Dr. Rowan Williams, gave a dramatic reflection on the meaning the Pope's role and mission in the universal Church.

(Photo: the Pope with Dr. Williams yesterday evening)

Some who listened thought the Archbishop was extending an olive branch to the Pope, after months in which there have been public tensions between Rome and Canterbury.

The key passage in Dr Rowan's remarks was this:

'Christians have very diverse views about the nature of the vocation that belongs to the See of Rome. Yet, as Your Holiness’s great predecessor [Pope John Paul II] reminded us all in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint, we must learn to reflect together on how the historic ministry of the Roman Church and its chief pastor may speak to the Church catholic—East and West, global north and global south—of the authority of Christ and his apostles to build up the Body in love; how it may be realized as a ministry of patience and reverence towards all, a ministry of creative love and self-giving that leads us all into the same path of seeking not our own comfort or profit but the good of the entire human community and the glory of God the creator and redeemer.'

Of course, Williams is not saying here that he and his fellow Anglicans will recognize without qualification Bishop of Rome's ministry as the head of the Christian Church.

But, when Williams says that 'we must learn to reflect together how the historic ministry of the Roman church and its chief pastor... may be realized as a ministry of patience and reverence towards all,' he is clearly linking the two concepts of 'the Roman church and its chief pastor' (that is, the Pope) and 'a ministry... towards all' (that is, a universal ministry).

The implicit suggestion is that, for Williams, there is, in fact, a mission 'towards all' which must be carried out by 'the Roman church and its chief pastor.'

For some, this moment in the papal visit was the most remarkable thus far.

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Pope Benedict's Reflections at Vespers

ADDRESS OF POPE BENEDICT XVI
EVENSONG
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
LONDON
17 SEPTEMBER 2010

Dear friends in Christ,

I thank the Lord for this opportunity to join you, the representatives of the Christian confessions present in Great Britain, in this magnificent Abbey Church dedicated to Saint Peter, whose architecture and history speak so eloquently of our common heritage of faith. Here we cannot help but be reminded of how greatly the Christian faith shaped the unity and culture of Europe and the heart and spirit of the English people.

Here too, we are forcibly reminded that what we share, in Christ, is greater than what continues to divide us.

I am grateful to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury for his kind greeting, and to the Dean and Chapter of this venerable Abbey for their cordial welcome.

I thank the Lord for allowing me, as the Successor of Saint Peter in the See of Rome, to make this pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Edward the Confessor. Edward, King of England, remains a model of Christian witness and an example of that true grandeur to which the Lord summons his disciples in the Scriptures we have just heard: the grandeur of a humility and obedience grounded in Christ’s own example (cf. Phil 2:6-8), the grandeur of a fidelity which does not hesitate to embrace the mystery of the Cross out of undying love for the divine Master and unfailing hope in his promises (cf. Mk 10:43-44).

This year, as we know, marks the hundredth anniversary of the modern ecumenical movement, which began with the Edinburgh Conference’s appeal for Christian unity as the prerequisite for a credible and convincing witness to the Gospel in our time. In commemorating this anniversary, we must give thanks for the remarkable progress made towards this noble goal through the efforts of committed Christians of every denomination.

At the same time, however, we remain conscious of how much yet remains to be done. In a world marked by growing interdependence and solidarity, we are challenged to proclaim with renewed conviction the reality of our reconciliation and liberation in Christ, and to propose the truth of the Gospel as the key to an authentic and integral human development.

In a society which has become increasingly indifferent or even hostile to the Christian message, we are all the more compelled to give a joyful and convincing account of the hope that is within us (cf. 1 Pet 3:15), and to present the Risen Lord as the response to the deepest questions and spiritual aspirations of the men and women of our time.

As we processed to the chancel at the beginning of this service, the choir sang that Christ is our “sure foundation”. He is the Eternal Son of God, of one substance with the Father, who took flesh, as the Creed states, “for us men and for our salvation”. He alone has the words of everlasting life. In him, as the Apostle teaches, “all things hold together” … “for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col 1:17,19).

Our commitment to Christian unity is born of nothing less than our faith in Christ, in this Christ, risen from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father, who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

It is the reality of Christ’s person, his saving work and above all the historical fact of his resurrection, which is the content of the apostolic kerygma and those credal formulas which, beginning in the New Testament itself, have guaranteed the integrity of its transmission.

The Church’s unity, in a word, can never be other than a unity in the apostolic faith, in the faith entrusted to each new member of the Body of Christ during the rite of Baptism.

It is this faith which unites us to the Lord, makes us sharers in his Holy Spirit, and thus, even now, sharers in the life of the Blessed Trinity, the model of the Church’s koinonia here below.

Dear friends, we are all aware of the challenges, the blessings, the disappointments and the signs of hope which have marked our ecumenical journey. Tonight we entrust all of these to the Lord, confident in his providence and the power of his grace. We know that the friendships we have forged, the dialogue which we have begun and the hope which guides us will provide strength and direction as we persevere on our common journey.

At the same time, with evangelical realism, we must also recognize the challenges which confront us, not only along the path of Christian unity, but also in our task of proclaiming Christ in our day. Fidelity to the word of God, precisely because it is a true word, demands of us an obedience which leads us together to a deeper understanding of the Lord’s will, an obedience which must be free of intellectual conformism or facile accommodation to the spirit of the age.

This is the word of encouragement which I wish to leave with you this evening, and I do so in fidelity to my ministry as the Bishop of Rome and the Successor of Saint Peter, charged with a particular care for the unity of Christ’s flock.

Gathered in this ancient monastic church, we can recall the example of a great Englishman and churchman whom we honour in common: Saint Bede the Venerable. At the dawn of a new age in the life of society and of the Church, Bede understood both the importance of fidelity to the word of God as transmitted by the apostolic tradition, and the need for creative openness to new developments and to the demands of a sound implantation of the Gospel in contemporary language and culture.

This nation, and the Europe which Bede and his contemporaries helped to build, once again stands at the threshold of a new age. May Saint Bede’s example inspire the Christians of these lands to rediscover their shared legacy, to strengthen what they have in common, and to continue their efforts to grow in friendship.

May the Risen Lord strengthen our efforts to mend the ruptures of the past and to meet the challenges of the present with hope in the future which, in his providence, he holds out to us and to our world. Amen.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury's Reflections at Vespers

Here, the responding talk given by the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams (photo below).

Papal Visit 2010: Archbishop of Canterbury’s Evening Prayer Address
Friday, 17 September 2010

Your Holiness, Members of the Collegiate Body, distinguished guests, brothers and sisters in Christ,

Christians in Britain, especially in England, look back with the most fervent gratitude to the events of 597, when Augustine landed on these shores to preach the gospel to the Anglo-Saxons at the behest of Pope St Gregory the Great.

For Christians of all traditions and confessions, St Gregory is a figure of compelling attractiveness and spiritual authority – pastor and leader, scholar and exegete and spiritual guide.

The fact that the first preaching of the Gospel to the English peoples in the sixth and seventh centuries has its origins in his vision creates a special connection for us with the See of the Apostles Peter and Paul; and Gregory’s witness and legacy remain an immensely fruitful source of inspiration for our own mission in these dramatically different times.

Two dimensions of that vision may be of special importance as we reflect today on the significance of Your Holiness’s visit to us.

St Gregory was the first to spell out for the faithful something of the magnitude of the gift given to Christ’s Church through the life of St Benedict – to whom you, Your Holiness, have signalled your devotion in the choice of your name as Pope.

In St Gregory’s Dialogues, we can trace the impact of St Benedict – an extraordinary man who, through a relatively brief Rule of life, opened up for the whole civilisation of Europe since the sixth century the possibility of living in joy and mutual service, in simplicity and self-denial, in a balanced pattern of labour and prayer in which every moment spoke of human dignity fully realised in surrender to a loving God. The Benedictine life proved a sure foundation not only for generations of monks and nuns, but for an entire culture in which productive work and contemplative silence and receptivity—human dignity and human freedom—were both honoured.

Our own culture, a culture in which so often it seems that 'love has grown cold,' is one in which we can see the dehumanising effects of losing sight of Benedict’s vision. Work is so often an anxious and obsessive matter, as if our whole value as human beings depended upon it; and so, consequently, unemployment, still a scourge and a threat in these uncertain financial times, comes to seem like a loss of dignity and meaning in life. We live in an age where there is a desperate need to recover the sense of the dignity of both labour and leisure and the necessity of a silent openness to God that allows our true character to grow and flourish by participating in an eternal love.

In a series of profound and eloquent encyclicals, you have explored these themes for our day, grounding everything in the eternal love of the Holy Trinity, challenging us to hope both for this world and the next, and analysing the ways in which our economic habits have trapped us in a reductive and unworthy style of human living.

In this building with its long Benedictine legacy, we acknowledge with gratitude your contribution to a Benedictine vision for our days, and pray that your time with us in Britain may help us all towards a renewal of the hope and energy we need as Christians to witness to our conviction that in their relation to God men and women may grow into the fullest freedom and beauty of spirit.

And in this, we are recalled also to the importance among the titles of the Bishops of Rome of St Gregory’s own self-designation as 'servant of the servants of God' – surely the one title that points most directly to the example of the Lord who has called us.

There is, we know, no authority in the Church that is not the authority of service: that is, of building up the people of God to full maturity. Christ’s service is simply the way in which we meet his almighty power: the power to remake the world he has created, pouring out into our lives, individually and together, what we truly need in order to become fully what we are made to be – the image of the divine life. It is that image which the pastor in the Church seeks to serve, bowing down in reverence before each human person in the knowledge of the glory for which he or she was made.

Christians have very diverse views about the nature of the vocation that belongs to the See of Rome. Yet, as Your Holiness’s great predecessor reminded us all in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint, we must learn to reflect together on how the historic ministry of the Roman Church and its chief pastor may speak to the Church catholic—East and West, global north and global south—of the authority of Christ and his apostles to build up the Body in love; how it may be realized as a ministry of patience and reverence towards all, a ministry of creative love and self-giving that leads us all into the same path of seeking not our own comfort or profit but the good of the entire human community and the glory of God the creator and redeemer.

We pray that your time with us will be a further step for all of us into the mystery of the cross and the resurrection, so that growing together we may become more effective channels for God’s purpose to heal the wounds of humankind, and to restore once again both in our societies and our environment the likeness of his glory as revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.

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Today: Mass at the Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood, Westminster

'Christ is still in agony'

The Pope this morning delivered the following homily in the Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood, Westminster.

The key passage is where the Pope speaks of the Eucharistic meaning of the present, and continuing, sufferings of the members of the Church:

'The Eucharistic sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ embraces in turn the mystery of our Lord’s continuing passion in the members of his Mystical Body, the Church in every age... We are caught up in his eternal oblation, completing, as Saint Paul says, in our flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, the Church (cf. Col 1:24). In the life of the Church, in her trials and tribulations, Christ continues, in the stark phrase of Pascal, to be in agony until the end of the world (Pensées, 553, éd. Brunschvicg).'

Here is the complete, remarkable text:

HOMILY OF POPE BENEDICT XVI
CATHEDRAL OF THE MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD
WESTMINSTER
18 SEPTEMBER 2010

Dear Friends in Christ,

I greet all of you with joy in the Lord and I thank you for your warm reception. I am grateful to Archbishop Nichols for his words of welcome on your behalf. Truly, in this meeting of the Successor of Peter and the faithful of Britain, 'heart speaks unto heart' as we rejoice in the love of Christ and in our common profession of the Catholic faith which comes to us from the Apostles. I am especially happy that our meeting takes place in this Cathedral dedicated to the Most Precious Blood, which is the sign of God’s redemptive mercy poured out upon the world through the passion, death and resurrection of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. In a particular way I greet the Archbishop of Canterbury, who honours us by his presence.

The visitor to this Cathedral cannot fail to be struck by the great crucifix dominating the nave, which portrays Christ’s body, crushed by suffering, overwhelmed by sorrow, the innocent victim whose death has reconciled us with the Father and given us a share in the very life of God. The Lord’s outstretched arms seem to embrace this entire church, lifting up to the Father all the ranks of the faithful who gather around the altar of the Eucharistic sacrifice and share in its fruits. The crucified Lord stands above and before us as the source of our life and salvation, 'the high priest of the good things to come', as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews calls him in today’s first reading (Heb 9:11).

It is in the shadow, so to speak, of this striking image, that I would like to consider the word of God which has been proclaimed in our midst and reflect on the mystery of the Precious Blood. For that mystery leads us to see the unity between Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, the Eucharistic sacrifice which he has given to his Church, and his eternal priesthood, whereby, seated at the right hand of the Father, he makes unceasing intercession for us, the members of his mystical body.

Let us begin with the sacrifice of the Cross. The outpouring of Christ’s blood is the source of the Church’s life. Saint John, as we know, sees in the water and blood which flowed from our Lord’s body the wellspring of that divine life which is bestowed by the Holy Spirit and communicated to us in the sacraments (Jn 19:34; cf. 1 Jn 1:7; 5:6-7). The Letter to the Hebrews draws out, we might say, the liturgical implications of this mystery. Jesus, by his suffering and death, his self-oblation in the eternal Spirit, has become our high priest and 'the mediator of a new covenant' (Heb 9:15). These words echo our Lord’s own words at the Last Supper, when he instituted the Eucharist as the sacrament of his body, given up for us, and his blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant shed for the forgiveness of sins (cf. Mk 14:24; Mt 26:28; Lk 22:20).

Faithful to Christ’s command to 'do this in memory of me' (Lk 22:19), the Church in every time and place celebrates the Eucharist until the Lord returns in glory, rejoicing in his sacramental presence and drawing upon the power of his saving sacrifice for the redemption of the world. The reality of the Eucharistic sacrifice has always been at the heart of Catholic faith; called into question in the sixteenth century, it was solemnly reaffirmed at the Council of Trent against the backdrop of our justification in Christ. Here in England, as we know, there were many who staunchly defended the Mass, often at great cost, giving rise to that devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist which has been a hallmark of Catholicism in these lands.

The Eucharistic sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ embraces in turn the mystery of our Lord’s continuing passion in the members of his Mystical Body, the Church in every age. Here the great crucifix which towers above us serves as a reminder that Christ, our eternal high priest, daily unites our own sacrifices, our own sufferings, our own needs, hopes and aspirations, to the infinite merits of his sacrifice. Through him, with him, and in him, we lift up our own bodies as a sacrifice holy and acceptable to God (cf. Rom 12:1). In this sense we are caught up in his eternal oblation, completing, as Saint Paul says, in our flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, the Church (cf. Col 1:24). In the life of the Church, in her trials and tribulations, Christ continues, in the stark phrase of Pascal, to be in agony until the end of the world (Pensées, 553, éd. Brunschvicg).

We see this aspect of the mystery of Christ’s precious blood represented, most eloquently, by the martyrs of every age, who drank from the cup which Christ himself drank, and whose own blood, shed in union with his sacrifice, gives new life to the Church. It is also reflected in our brothers and sisters throughout the world who even now are suffering discrimination and persecution for their Christian faith. Yet it is also present, often hidden in the suffering of all those individual Christians who daily unite their sacrifices to those of the Lord for the sanctification of the Church and the redemption of the world. My thoughts go in a special way to all those who are spiritually united with this Eucharistic celebration, and in particular the sick, the elderly, the handicapped and those who suffer mentally and spiritually.

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

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