POPE BENEDICT XVI AT WORLD YOUTH DAY - 19 Aug 2011 Address to Young Women Religious Address
to the Young University Professors Way of the Cross with Young People
Dear Young Women Religious, As part of the World Youth Day which we are celebrating
in Madrid, I am delighted to have this opportunity to meet you who have consecrated
your youth to the Lord, and I thank you for the kind greeting you have given me.
I also thank the Archbishop of Madrid, who arranged for this meeting in the evocative
setting of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Its famous library preserves
important editions of the sacred Scriptures and the monastic rules of various religious
families, yet your own lives of fidelity to the calling you have received is itself
a precious means of preserving the word of the Lord, which resounds in your various
spiritual traditions.Dear Sisters, every charism is an evangelical word which the
Holy Spirit recalls to the Church’s memory (cf. Jn 14:26). It is not by accident
that consecrated life “is born from hearing the word of God and embracing the Gospel
as its rule of life. A life devoted to following Christ in his chastity, poverty
and obedience becomes a living ‘exegesis’ of God’s word… Every charism and every
rule springs from it and seeks to be an expression of it, thus opening up new pathways
of Christian living marked by the radicalism of the Gospel” (Verbum Domini,
83). This Gospel radicalism means being “rooted and built up in Christ, and firm
in the faith” (cf. Col 2:7). In the consecrated life, this means going to
the very root of the love of Jesus Christ with an undivided heart, putting nothing
ahead of this love (cf. SAINT BENEDICT, Rule, IV, 21) and being completely
devoted to him, the Bridegroom, as were the Saints, like Rose of Lima and Rafael Arnáiz,
the young patrons of this World Youth Day. Your lives must testify to the personal
encounter with Christ which has nourished your consecration, and to all the transforming
power of that encounter. This is all the more important today when “we see a certain
‘eclipse of God’ taking place, a kind of amnesia which, albeit not an outright rejection
of Christianity, is nonetheless a denial of the treasure of our faith, a denial that
could lead to the loss of our deepest identity” (Message for the 2011 World Youth
Day, 1). In a world of relativism and mediocrity, we need that radicalism to
which your consecration, as a way of belonging to the God who is loved above all things,
bears witness. This Gospel radicalism proper to the consecrated life finds expression
in filial communion with the Church, the home of the children of God, built by Christ:
communion with her Pastors who set forth in the Lord’s name the deposit of faith received
from the apostles, the ecclesial Magisterium and the Christian tradition; communion
with your own religious families as you gratefully preserve their authentic spiritual
patrimony while valuing other charisms; and communion with other members of the Church,
such as the laity, who are called to make their own specific calling a testimony to
the one Gospel of the Lord. Finally, Gospel radicalism finds expression in the
mission God has chosen to entrust to us: from the contemplative life, which welcomes
into its cloisters the word of God in eloquent silence and adores his beauty in the
solitude which he alone fills, to the different paths of the apostolic life, in whose
furrows the seed of the Gospel bears fruit in the education of children and young
people, the care of the sick and elderly, the pastoral care of families, commitment
to respect for life, witness to the truth and the proclamation of peace and charity,
mission work and the new evangelization, and so many other sectors of the Church’s
apostolate. Dear Sisters, this is the witness of holiness to which God is calling
you, as you follow Jesus Christ closely and unconditionally in consecration, communion
and mission. The Church needs your youthful fidelity, rooted and built up in Christ.
Thank you for your generous, total and perpetual “yes” to the call of the Loved One.
I pray that the Virgin Mary may sustain and accompany your consecrated youth, with
the lively desire that it will challenge, nourish and illumine all young people. With
these sentiments, I ask God to repay abundantly the generous contribution which consecrated
life has made to this World Youth Day. In his name, and with great gratitude, I give
you my affectionate blessing. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxAPOSTOLIC
JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI TO MADRID 26th
WORLD YOUTH DAY. Meeting with Young University Professors, Basilica of
the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial Address of the Holy Father
Friday, 19 August 2011Your Eminence, My Brother Bishops, Dear Augustinian
Fathers, Dear Professors, Distinguished Authorities, Dear Friends,I have looked forward
to this meeting with you, young professors in the universities of Spain. You provide
a splendid service in the spread of truth, in circumstances that are not always easy.
I greet you warmly and I thank you for your kind words of welcome and for the music
which has marvelously resounded in this magnificent monastery, for centuries an eloquent
witness to the life of prayer and study. In this highly symbolic place, reason and
faith have harmoniously blended in the austere stone to shape one of Spain’s most
renowned monuments. I also greet with particular affection those of you who took
part in the recent World Congress of Catholic Universities held in Avila on the theme:
“The Identity and Mission of the Catholic University”. Being here with you, I am
reminded of my own first steps as a professor at the University of Bonn. At the time,
the wounds of war were still deeply felt and we had many material needs; these were
compensated by our passion for an exciting activity, our interaction with colleagues
of different disciplines and our desire to respond to the deepest and most basic concerns
of our students. This experience of a “Universitas” of professors and students who
together seek the truth in all fields of knowledge, or as Alfonso X the Wise put it,
this “counsel of masters and students with the will and understanding needed to master
the various disciplines” (Siete Partidas, partida II, tit. XXXI), helps us
to see more clearly the importance, and even the definition, of the University. The
theme of the present World Youth Day – “Rooted and Built Up in Christ, and Firm in
the Faith” (cf. Col 2:7) can also shed light on your efforts to understand
more clearly your own identity and what you are called to do. As I wrote in my Message
to Young People in preparation for these days, the terms “rooted, built up and firm”
all point to solid foundations on which we can construct our lives (cf. No. 2). But
where will young people encounter those reference points in a society which is increasingly
confused and unstable? At times one has the idea that the mission of a university
professor nowadays is exclusively that of forming competent and efficient professionals
capable of satisfying the demand for labor at any given time. One also hears it said
that the only thing that matters at the present moment is pure technical ability.
This sort of utilitarian approach to education is in fact becoming more widespread,
even at the university level, promoted especially by sectors outside the University.
All the same, you who, like myself, have had an experience of the University, and
now are members of the teaching staff, surely are looking for something more lofty
and capable of embracing the full measure of what it is to be human. We know that
when mere utility and pure pragmatism become the principal criteria, much is lost
and the results can be tragic: from the abuses associated with a science which acknowledges
no limits beyond itself, to the political totalitarianism which easily arises when
one eliminates any higher reference than the mere calculus of power. The authentic
idea of the University, on the other hand, is precisely what saves us from this reductionist
and curtailed vision of humanity. In truth, the University has always been, and
is always called to be, the “house” where one seeks the truth proper to the human
person. Consequently it was not by accident that the Church promoted the universities,
for Christian faith speaks to us of Christ as the Word through whom all things were
made (cf. Jn 1:3) and of men and women as made in the image and likeness of
God. The Gospel message perceives a rationality inherent in creation and considers
man as a creature participating in, and capable of attaining to, an understanding
of this rationality. The University thus embodies an ideal which must not be attenuated
or compromised, whether by ideologies closed to reasoned dialogue or by truckling
to a purely utilitarian and economic conception which would view man solely as a consumer. Here
we see the vital importance of your own mission. You yourselves have the honour and
responsibility of transmitting the ideal of the University: an ideal which you have
received from your predecessors, many of whom were humble followers of the Gospel
and, as such, became spiritual giants. We should feel ourselves their successors,
in a time quite different from their own, yet one in which the essential human questions
continue to challenge and stimulate us. With them, we realize that we are a link
in that chain of men and women committed to teaching the faith and making it credible
to human reason. And we do this not simply by our teaching, but by the way we live
our faith and embody it, just as the Word took flesh and dwelt among us. Young people
need authentic teachers: persons open to the fullness of truth in the various branches
of knowledge, persons who listen to and experience in own hearts that interdisciplinary
dialogue; persons who, above all, are convinced of our human capacity to advance along
the path of truth. Youth is a privileged time for seeking and encountering truth.
As Plato said: “Seek truth while you are young, for if you do not, it will later escape
your grasp” (Parmenides, 135d). This lofty aspiration is the most precious
gift which you can give to your students, personally and by example. It is more important
than mere technical know-how, or cold and purely functional data. I urge you, then,
never to lose that sense of enthusiasm and concern for truth. Always remember that
teaching is not just about communicating content, but about forming young people.
You need to understand and love them, to awaken their innate thirst for truth and
their yearning for transcendence. Be for them a source of encouragement and strength. For
this to happen, we need to realize in the first place that the path to the fullness
of truth calls for complete commitment: it is a path of understanding and love, of
reason and faith. We cannot come to know something unless we are moved by love; or,
for that matter, love something which does not strike us as reasonable. “Understanding
and love are not in separate compartments: love is rich in understanding and understanding
is full of love” (Caritas in Veritate, 30). If truth and goodness go together,
so too do knowledge and love. This unity leads to consistency in life and thought,
that ability to inspire demanded of every good educator. In the second place, we
need to recognize that truth itself will always lie beyond our grasp. We can seek
it and draw near to it, but we cannot completely possess it; or put better, truth
possesses us and inspires us. In intellectual and educational activity the virtue
of humility is also indispensable, since it protects us from the pride which bars
the way to truth. We must not draw students to ourselves, but set them on the path
toward the truth which we seek together. The Lord will help you in this, for he asks
you to be plain and effective like salt, or like the lamp which quietly lights the
room (cf. Mt 5:13). All these things, finally, remind us to keep our gaze
fixed on Christ, whose face radiates the Truth which enlightens us. Christ is also
the Way which leads to lasting fulfillment; he walks constantly at our side and sustains
us with his love. Rooted in him, you will prove good guides to our young people.
With this confidence I invoke upon you the protection of the Virgin Mary, Seat of
Wisdom. May she help you to cooperate with her Son by living a life which is personally
satisfying and which brings forth rich fruits of knowledge and faith for your students. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxAPOSTOLIC
JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI TO MADRID 26th
WORLD YOUTH DAY. Way of the Cross with young people in the Plaza de Cibeles. Address
of the Holy Father Friday, 19 August 2011Dear Young People, We
have celebrated this Way of the Cross with fervour and devotion, following Christ
along the path of his passion and death. The commentaries of the Little Sisters of
the Cross, who serve the poor and most needy, have helped us enter into the mystery
of Christ’s glorious Cross, wherein is found God’s true wisdom which judges the world
and judges those who consider themselves wise (cf. 1 Cor 1:17-19). We have
also been assisted on this journey to Calvary by our contemplation of these wonderful
images from the religious patrimony of the Spanish dioceses. In these images, faith
and art combine so as to penetrate our heart and summon us to conversion. When faith’s
gaze is pure and authentic, beauty places itself at its service and is able to depict
the mysteries of our salvation in such a way as to move us profoundly and transform
our hearts, as Saint Teresa of Jesus herself experienced while contemplating an image
of the wounded Christ (cf. Autobiography, 9:1). As we were making our way
with Jesus towards the place of his sacrifice on Mount Calvary, the words of Saint
Paul came to mind: “Christ loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). In
the face of such disinterested love, we find ourselves asking, filled with wonder
and gratitude: What can we do for him? What response shall we give him? Saint John
puts it succinctly: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and
we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 Jn 3:16). Christ’s passion
urges us to take upon our own shoulders the sufferings of the world, in the certainty
that God is not distant or far removed from man and his troubles. On the contrary,
he became one of us “in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way — in
flesh and blood ... hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences
and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in
all suffering, the consolation of God's compassionate love — and so the star of hope
rises” (Spe Salvi, 39). Dear young friends, may Christ’s love for us increase
your joy and encourage you to go in search of those less fortunate. You are open
to the idea of sharing your lives with others, so be sure not to pass by on the other
side in the face of human suffering, for it is here that God expects you to give of
your very best: your capacity for love and compassion. The different forms of suffering
that have unfolded before our eyes in the course of this Way of the Cross are the
Lord’s way of summoning us to spend our lives following in his footsteps and becoming
signs of his consolation and salvation. “To suffer with the other and for others;
to suffer for the sake of truth and justice; to suffer out of love and in order to
become a person who truly loves — these are fundamental elements of humanity, and
to abandon them would destroy man himself” (ibid.). Let us eagerly welcome
these teachings and put them into practice. Let us look upon Christ, hanging on the
harsh wood of the Cross, and let us ask him to teach us this mysterious wisdom of
the Cross, by which man lives. The Cross was not a sign of failure, but an expression
of self-giving in love that extends even to the supreme sacrifice of one’s life.
The Father wanted to show his love for us through the embrace of his crucified Son:
crucified out of love. The Cross, by its shape and its meaning, represents this love
of both the Father and the Son for men. Here we recognize the icon of supreme love,
which teaches us to love what God loves and in the way that he loves: this is the
Good News that gives hope to the world. Let us turn our gaze now to the Virgin
Mary, who was given to us on Calvary to be our Mother, and let us ask her to sustain
us with her loving protection along the path of life, particularly when we pass through
the night of suffering, so that we may be able to remain steadfast, as she did, at
the foot of the Cross.