Text Ecumenical Vespers, Regensburg Cathedral 12 September, 2006
Address of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI at the Celebration of Evening Prayer (Tuesday,
12 September 2006, 18.30, Regensburg Cathedral)
Dear Brothers and Sisters
in Christ!
We are gathered here – Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Protestants
– to sing together the evening praise of God. At the heart of this liturgy are the
Psalms, in which the Old and the New Covenant come together and our prayer is joined
to the Israel which believes and lives in hope. This is an hour of gratitude for
the fact that we can pray together in this way and, by turning to the Lord, at the
same time grow in unity among ourselves.
Among those gathered for this evening’s
Vespers, I would like first to greet warmly the representatives of the Orthodox Church.
I have always considered it a special gift of God’s Providence that, as a professor
at Bonn, I was able to come to know and to love the Orthodox Church, personally as
it were, through two young Archimandrites, Stylianos Harkianakis and Damaskinos Papandreou,
both of whom later became Metropolitans. At Regensburg, thanks to the initiative
of Bishop Graber, further meetings occurred: during the symposia on the “Spindlhof”
and with scholarship students who had studied here. I am happy indeed to recognize
some familiar faces and to renew earlier friendships. In a few days time, at Belgrade,
the theological dialogue will resume on the fundamental theme of koinonia in the two
aspects which the First Letter of John indicates to us at the very beginning of its
first chapter. Our koinonia is above all communion with the Father and with his Son
Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit; it is communion with the triune God, made possible
by the Lord through his incarnation and the outpouring of the Spirit. This communion
with God creates in turn koinonia among people, as a participation in the faith of
the Apostles, and therefore as a communion in faith – a communion which is “embodied”
in the Eucharist and, transcending all boundaries, builds up the one Church (cf. 1
Jn 1:3). I hope and pray that these discussions will be fruitful and that the communion
with the living God which unites us, like our own communion in the faith transmitted
by the Apostles, will grow in depth and maturity towards that full unity, whereby
the world can recognise that Jesus Christ is truly the One sent from God, the Son
of God, the Saviour of the world (cf. Jn 17:21). “So that the world may believe”,
we must become one: the seriousness of this commitment must spur on our dialogue.
I
also extend warm greetings to our friends of the various traditions stemming from
the Reformation. Here too many memories arise in my heart: memories of friends in
the Jäger-Stählin circle, who have already passed away, and these memories are mixed
with gratitude for our present meetings. Obviously, I think in particular of the demanding
efforts to reach a consensus on justification. I recall all the stages of that process
up, to the memorable meeting with the late Bishop Hanselmann here in Regensburg –
a meeting that contributed decisively to the achievement of the conclusion. I am
pleased to see that in the meantime the World Methodist Council has adhered to the
Declaration. The agreement on justification remains an important task, one not yet
fully complete: in theology justification is an essential theme, but in the life of
the faithful today – it seems to me – it is only dimly present. Because of the dramatic
events of our time, the theme of mutual forgiveness is felt with increased urgency,
yet there is little perception of our fundamental need of God’s forgiveness, of our
justification by him. Our modern consciousness in general is no longer aware of the
fact that we stand as debtors before God and that sin is a reality which can be overcome
only by God’s initiative. Behind this weakening of the theme of justification and
of the forgiveness of sins is ultimately a weakening of our relation with God. In
this sense, our first task will perhaps be to rediscover in a new way the living God
present in our lives.
Let us now hear what Saint John was saying to us a moment
ago in the biblical reading. I wish to stress three statements present in this complex
and rich text. The central theme of the whole letter appears in verse 15: “Whoever
confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God”. Once again
John spells out, as he had done before in verses 2 and3 of chapter 4, the profession
of faith, the confessio, that ultimately distinguishes us as Christians: faith in
the fact that Jesus is the Son of God who has come in the flesh. “No one has ever
seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known”;
so we read at the end of the prologue of the Fourth Gospel (Jn 1:18). We know who
God is through Jesus Christ, the only one who is God. It is through him that we come
into contact with God. In this time of interreligious encounters we are easily tempted
to attenuate somewhat this central confession or indeed even to hide it. But by doing
this we do not do a service to encounter or dialogue. We only make God less accessible
to others and to ourselves. It is important that we bring to the conversation not
fragments, but the whole image of God. To be able to do so, our personal communion
with Christ and our love of him must grow and deepen. In this common confession,
and in this common task, there is no division between us. And we pray that this shared
foundation will grow ever stronger.
And so we have arrived at the second point
which I would like to consider. This is found in verse 14, where we read: “And we
have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world”.
The central word in this sentence is μαρτυρουˆ μν – we bear witness, we are witnesses.
The Profession of Faith must become witness. The root word μάρτυς brings to mind
the fact that a witness of Jesus Christ must affirm by his whole existence, in life
and death, the testimony he gives. The author of the Letter says of himself: “We
have seen” (cf. 1:1). Because he has seen, he can be a witness. This presupposes
that we also – succeeding generations – are capable of seeing, and can bear witness
as people who have seen. Let us pray to the Lord that we may see! Let us help one
another to develop this capacity, so that we can assist the people of our time to
see, so that they in turn, through the world fashioned by themselves, will discover
God! Across all the historical barriers may they perceive Jesus anew, the Son sent
by God, in whom we see the Father. In verse 9 it is written that God has sent his
Son into the world so that we might have life. Is it not the case today that only
through an encounter with Jesus Christ can life become really life? To be a witness
of Jesus Christ means above all to bear witness to a certain way of living. In a
world full of confusion we must again bear witness to the standards that make life
truly life. This important task, common to all Christians, must be faced with determination.
It is the responsibility of Christians, now, to make visible the standards that indicate
a just life, which have been clarified for us in Jesus Christ. He has taken up into
his life all the words of Scripture: “Listen to him” (Mk 9:7).
And so we come
to the third word, of our text (1 Jn 4:9), which I wish to stress: agape – love.
This is the key-word of the whole letter and particularly of the passage which we
have heard. Agape does not mean something sentimental or something grandiose; it
is something totally sober and realistic. I attempted to explain something of this
in my Encyclical Deus Caritas Est. Agape (love) is really the synthesis of the Law
and the Prophets. In love everything is “fulfilled”; but this everything must daily
be “filled out”. In verse 16 of our text we find the marvellous phrase: “We know
and believe the love God has for us”. Yes, man can believe in love. Let us bear
witness to our faith in such a way that it shines forth as the power of love, “so
that the world may believe” (Jn 17:21). Amen!