Octava dies: Father Lombardi SJ on the Year of Faith
Pope Benedict XVI this week announced the upcoming Year of Faith, to be celebrated
from October 11, 2012 to November 24th, 2013. This initiative should be
considered characteristic of this pontificate. The letter motu proprio announcing
the Year of Faith itself recalls us to the morning after his election, when in his
first discourse as Pope, he affirmed “the need to rediscover the journey of faith
in order to emphasise more and more strongly the joy and renewed enthusiasm of the
encounter with Christ”. He also goes back to the central inspiration of all the speeches
during his last trip to Germany, and to the institution of the Dicastery for the Promotion
of the New Evangelisation.The Pope closely links the Year of faith to the 50th anniversary of the Vatican II. The Council continues to be the object of discussion and sometimes divisive debate. It is fitting, then, that the study of its rich legacy and its translation into practice by the whole People of God, should continue to be guided by the Pope: by Popes the Council was called, and Popes have guided the Church in the realisation of the Conciliar and post-Conciliar reforms. Their work has been received as a “compass” for the ongoing journey of the Church.
Pope Benedict XVI also recalls the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: a work of truly remarkable courage, decisively willed by John Paul II in faithfulness to the will of the Council fathers, to express the Faith of the Church in the most complete, organised and clearest way possible for today’s and tomorrow’s world. It is a valuable point of reference that Pope Benedict XVI knows very well, - having as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger played a crucial role in its realisation.
Above all, the Year of Faith will be a new stage of a living journey, that encompasses all of history, from the creation of the world, from Abraham and Moses, from David and the prophets, from that “great number of witnesses” spoken of in the Letter to the Hebrews (chapters 11-12), in whose wake came Mary, the apostles, the martyrs and the saints, and in which the Pope urges us too to follow, “keeping our eyes on Jesus, author and perfecter of the faith” (Hebrews 12,2). What can be more important for the pastor of the People of God to tell us on our journey?
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