Remarks of Abbot Heim, OCist on Ratzinger Prize

Below is an English translation (with transcription of his Latin remarks) of Prof. Maximilian Heim's speech on receiving the Ratzinger Prize.

Abbot Maximilian Heim's Acceptance Speech for the Ratzinger-Prize

Held in Rome on June 30^th, 2011.

The Theologian as cooperator veritatis

Sanctissime Pater!
Vobis – non meo tantum nomine, sed his quoque duobus theologis, qui una mecum praemii palmam tulerunt, annuentibus – tota mente ac animo sincero gratias ago maximas ac plurimas pro illo honore, quo commodule brabeo hoc theologico Ratzingeriano exornati sumus.
Liceat mihi inter laureatos natu minimo et Vobis, Sanctissime Pater, pro benevolentia Vestra et Vobis, eminentissime domine, pro verbis honorificis prolatis necnon toti coetui festivo gratias referre.
Aperte mihi confitendum est me in conspectu illius stupendi operis theologici, quod ambo alii praemii consortes effecerunt, humilitate sincera esse locuturum.
Illud, quod Vobis, Sanctissime Pater, carum est et grave, praeceptum Sancti patris Benedicti, qui in regulae libello admonuit, ut omnes ad consilium vocarentur, „quia saepe iuniori dominus revelat, quod melius est“, mihi solacio est et animum confirmat.
Sanctissime Pater, muneribus sive professoris theologiae sive episcopi sive supremi ecclesiae universalis pastoris - quod munus nunc exercetis - fungentes nos triumvirales brabeo Ratzingeriano, quod dicitur, quasi laureatos modo tam diverso quam singulari et commovistis et formastis et quodammodo cudistis.
Mihi nunc propositum est iis, quae sequuntur, verbis animum in ea intendere, quae magistri theologiam profitentis sunt.

Christianity has a specifically „intellectual“ accent. When Jesus sends the apostles as missionaries, he uses the phrase „euntes ergo docete omnes gentes“. The risen Lord sends us into the world in order to teach others: He seeks to be discovered – He seeks to be known and loved.

His strategy is by no means self-evident. We are surprised at being permitted to enter into an individual, even personal, relationship with God, who is truth. Yet despite the fact of that friendship, we must nonetheless often remind ourselves that our faith's claim to truth cannot be relegated to the realm of subjective perception.

Holy Father, you are a teacher who forms his students, in some cases over the course of six decades. With an alert eye and a profound sense of the thought of our time, you perceive the the issues confronting us and resist the all too smooth solutions offered by passing intellectual trends. You yourself have been formed by the Church Fathers and the great scholastic thinkers, especially St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure, and contemporary theologians such as Gottlieb Söhngen.

Teachers such as Augustine and Bonaventure guide their student's eye, but the actual instruction comes from the truth itself. Put allegorically: the teacher opens the window through which the truth's light comes streaming in. He animates his students and urges them to carry on courageously. The truth reveals itself through the teacher's service. Yet the actual teacher is truth, that is Christ himself. The student succeeds in glimpsing the same Lord upon whom the teacher's sights are set. It is therefore the teacher's responsibility to love truth, to seek it ever more deeply, and permit himself to be formed by it. A teacher must always remain a recipient.

A theological teacher is therefore one who seeks to bring his students to an encounter with God. Naturally, he seeks God's proximity in his own work and that allows him to teach with joy, a joy nourished by his love for the people entrusted to his care. This joy and love, writes St. Augustine, give the teacher the strength to persevere in his vocation despite occasional disappointments from others or inner fatigue.

Teaching and proclaiming the truth combine love of God and neighbour, friendship with Christ and the imitation of Christ, contemplation and apostolic works. Teaching is twofold, as St. Thomas Aquinas notes: doceo aliquem aliquid. One must love God, about whom one is speaking, as well as the people to whom one is speaking.

The second great teacher who influenced you, Holy Father, especially in your approach to theology, is St. Bonaventure. His work presents us with a remarkable combination of scholarly method, spiritual ardor, a struggle for comprehension, and pastoral zeal. According to St. Bonaventure, the theologian has the marvellous yet demanding obligation to place his writing in the service of expressing the Word of God – thus committing him to objectivity, clarity, and beauty. You are an excellent example for us as a theological writer, Holy Father. Your texts continually attain linguistic clarity and rhetorical beauty, giving your readers and listeners a new appreciation of God and his Church. At the same time, as a theologian of the Church you are committed to protecting the „simple“ faith of the little ones (cf. Mt 11:25) by withstanding fashionable trends in contemporary discourse with prophetic resistance.

St. Bonaventure defended the Church's apostolic faith in his time. He did not see a conflict between the Church as an institution and the quest for sanctity. He fulfilled his duty to lead in the Church by being a theologian who „thinks and prays“. In his scholarly method, theological inquiry is understood as scientia secundum pietatem, „as a science devoted to the perfection of the entire human being in perception, will, and emotion.“

Academic theology should serve to strengthen others' faith and deepen the happiness they experience in their relationship to God. Consequently, theological studies are a path to sanctity. It is a matter of lifting our hearts to God, the „sursum corda“ imperative, the movement toward God. Therein lies a specific and perpetual duty.

Each one of us knows from experience that the doctoral advisor is an influential person for every young scholar. That is why the theologian and philosopher Gottlieb Söhngen must be mentioned here. His greatness lay in his vast range of inquiry, as Joseph Ratzinger said during the Requiem for his teacher. Söhngen's life shows us that faith has nothing to fear from scientific inquiry, as long as the person seeking theological truth has radical faith. It must be a faith that has experienced God personally and is convinced that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. It must be a faith that was preceded by a decisive commitment to God.

This is where, in my opinion, we must grasp a truly great opportunity available to us now. As theologians we are free to seek truth in a fearless manner, since it is not the theologian who forms truth – truth forms the theologian. We would not be able to inquire into the nature of truth if we had not already experienced it to some degree. It is this experience that allows us to have hope and pass our faith on to others. The great theologians of Church History are indispensable companions along the way. Premiere among them are the Church Fathers and Doctors. The Fathers are „the true stars, shining from afar“. They stand immersed in Holy Scripture, close to Christ; they are the teachers of the Church united. Theologians should find solid grounding ad fontes, in their studies as well as in their teaching. We seek to be instructed by the saints, people who knew that is only God who matters, people who have understood traditions, people who are rooted in the Word of God.

This form of existential Theology is what we find in your work, Holy Father. For you, „theology and ecclesiastical life have joined together in a particularly strong manner.“ You have attained what St. Thomas Aquinas put so concisely in his commentary on Ephesians: „The Apostle speaks of shepherds: Persons who carry responsibilityyyyy for the Lord's sheep; and he continues: and of teachers, in order to show that an essential part of the shepherd's duty is to teach (proprium officium pastorum ecclesiae est docere) faith and morals.“

We seek to understand theology as Speaking of God, which comes from a vibrant encounter with Him, about whom we are privileged to speak – an encounter given to us in the Church as a gift. And we seek to understand theology as preaching that in turn leads to a personal encounter – in prayer.

As theologians, we want to be Cooperatores veritatis in union with you, humble yet confident open for scholarly debate with the „Universitas scientiarum“ because we do not see an opposition between fides and ratio. Using reason, we seek God, who is truth, the foundation and fulfilment of human existence. Doing so „in concert with the tradition of Christian faith has been undisputed in the history of the University.“

In gratitude for this award and for your service to the Church and to the whole world, we pray that God may bless you copiously on your Diamond Jubilee as a priest. May the splendourrr of truth shine on: ad multos annos felixissimos!

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