Pope Benedict's Homily for Mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Cathedral December 1, 2006 Istanbul,
Turkey
Dear Brothers and Sisters, At the conclusion of my pastoral visit to Turkey, I
have the joy of meeting the Catholic community of Istanbul and celebrating the Eucharist
in thanksgiving to the Lord for all his gifts. I wish first to greet the Patriarch
of Constantinople, His Holiness Bartholomew I, and the Armenian Patriarch, His Beatitude
Mesrob II, my venerable brothers, who have graciously joined us for this celebration.
I express to them my deep gratitude for this fraternal gesture, which honours the
entire Catholic community. Dear brothers and sisters of the Catholic Church, Bishops,
priests and deacons, religious and lay men and women belonging to the different communities
of the city and the various rites of the Church: I greet all of you with joy in the
words of Saint Paul to the Galatians: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ!” (Gal 1:3). I thank the civil authorities present for
their gracious welcome, and particularly all who made it possible for my visit to
take place. Finally, I greet the representatives of the other ecclesial communities
and the other religions who are present. How can we fail to think of the various
events which took place here and forged our common history? At the same time I feel
obliged to recall with particular gratitude the many witnesses of the Gospel of Christ
who urge us to work together for the unity of all his disciples in truth and charity! In
this Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, I wish to thank God for all his works in human
history and to invoke upon everyone the gifts of the Spirit of holiness. As Saint
Paul has just reminded us, the Spirit is the enduring source of our faith and unity.
He awakens within us true knowledge of Jesus and he puts on our lips the words of
faith that enable us to acknowledge the Lord. Jesus had already said to Peter after
his confession of faith at Caesarea Philippi: “Blessed are you, Simon, Son of Jonah!
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (Mt 16:17).
We are indeed blessed when the Holy Spirit opens us to the joy of believing and makes
us enter the great family of Christians, his Church. For all her rich diversity,
in the variety of gifts, ministries and works, the Church is already one, since “it
is the same God who inspires them all in every one”. Paul adds that: “to each is
given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good”. To manifest the Spirit,
to live by the Spirit, is not to live for oneself alone, but to let oneself be conformed
to Christ Jesus by becoming, like him, the servant of his brothers and sisters. Here
is a very concrete teaching for each of us Bishops, called by the Lord to guide his
people by becoming servants like him; it is also true for all the Lord’s ministers
and for all the faithful: when we received the sacrament of Baptism, all of us were
immersed in the Lord’s death and resurrection, “we were given to drink of the one
Spirit” and Christ’s life became our own, that we might live like him, that we might
love our brothers and sisters as he has loved us (cf. Jn 13:34). Twenty-six years
ago, in this very Cathedral, my predecessor, the Servant of God John Paul II, expressed
his hope that the dawn of the new millennium would “rise upon a Church that has found
again her full unity, in order to bear witness better, amid the exacerbated tensions
of this world, to God’s transcendent love, manifested in his Son Jesus Christ” (Homily
in the Cathedral of Istanbul, 5). This hope has not yet been realized, but the Pope
still longs to see it fulfilled, and it impels us, as disciples of Christ advancing
with our hesitations and limitations along the path to unity, to act ceaselessly “for
the good of all”, putting ecumenism at the forefront of our ecclesial concerns, and
not committing our respective Churches and communities to decisions which could contradict
or harm it. Thus we will truly live by the Spirit of Jesus, at the service of the
common good. Gathered this morning in this house of prayer consecrated to the
Lord, how can we not evoke the other fine image that Saint Paul uses in speaking of
the Church, the image of the building whose stones are closely fitted together to
form a single structure, and whose cornerstone, on which everything else rests, is
Christ? He is the source of the new life given us by the Father in the Holy Spirit.
The Gospel of Saint John has just proclaimed it: “out of his heart shall flow rivers
of living water”. This gushing water, this living water which Jesus promised to the
Samaritan woman, was seen by the prophets Zechariah and Ezechiel issuing forth from
the side of the Temple, so that it could make fruitful the waters of the Dead Sea:
a marvellous image of the promise of life that God has always made to his people and
that Jesus came to fulfil. In a world where men are so loath to share the earth’s
goods and there is a dramatic shortage of water, this good so precious for the life
of the body, the Church discovers that she possesses an even greater treasure. As
the Body of Christ, she has been charged to proclaim his Gospel to the ends of the
earth (cf. Mt 28:19), transmitting to the men and women of our time the Good News
which not only illuminates but overturns their lives, even to the point of conquering
death itself. This Good News is not just a word, but a person, Christ himself, risen
and alive! By the grace of the sacraments, the water flowing from his open side on
the Cross has become an overflowing spring, “rivers of living water”, a flood that
no one can halt, a gift that restores life. How could Christians keep for themselves
alone what they have received? How could they hoard this treasure and bury this spring?
The Church’s mission is not to preserve power, or to gain wealth; her mission is to
offer Christ, to give a share in Christ’s own life, man’s most precious good, which
God himself gives us in his Son. Brothers and Sisters, your communities walk the
humble path of daily companionship with those who do not share our faith, yet “profess
to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us adore the one, merciful God” (Lumen
Gentium, 16). You know well that the Church wishes to impose nothing on anyone, and
that she merely asks to live in freedom, in order to reveal the One whom she cannot
hide, Christ Jesus, who loved us to the end on the Cross and who has given us his
Spirit, the living presence of God among us and deep within us. Be ever receptive
to the Spirit of Christ and so become attentive to those who thirst for justice, peace,
dignity and respect for themselves and for their brothers and sisters. Live in harmony,
in accordance with the words of the Lord: “By this everyone will know that you are
my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35). Brothers and sisters,
let us now hand over our desire to serve the Lord to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God
and Servant of the Lord. She prayed in company with the Apostles in the Upper Room,
in the days leading up to Pentecost. Together with her, let us pray to Christ her
Son: Send forth, O Lord, your Holy Spirit upon the whole Church, that he may dwell
in each of her members and make them heralds of your Gospel!