Here is the full translation in English of Pope Benedict's homily at the Mass
for the Epiphany of our Lord celebrated in St Peter's Basilica on Friday January 6th:
"Dear Brothers and Sisters! The Epiphany is a feast of light.
“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you”
(Is 60:1). With these words of the prophet Isaiah, the Church describes the content
of the feast. He who is the true light, and by whom we too are made to be light,
has indeed come into the world. He gives us the power to become children of God (cf.
Jn 1:9,12). The journey of the wise men from the East is, for the liturgy, just the
beginning of a great procession that continues throughout history. With the Magi,
humanity’s pilgrimage to Jesus Christ begins – to the God who was born in a stable,
who died on the Cross and who, having risen from the dead, remains with us always,
until the consummation of the world (cf. Mt 28:20). The Church reads this account
from Matthew’s Gospel alongside the vision of the prophet Isaiah that we heard in
the first reading: the journey of these men is just the beginning. Before them came
the shepherds – simple souls, who dwelt closer to the God who became a child, and
could more easily “go over” to him (Lk 2:15) and recognize him as Lord. But now the
wise of this world are also coming. Great and small, kings and slaves, men of all
cultures and all peoples are coming. The men from the East are the first, followed
by many more throughout the centuries. After the great vision of Isaiah, the reading
from the Letter to the Ephesians expresses the same idea in rather sober and simple
terms: the Gentiles share the same heritage (cf. Eph 3:6). Psalm 2 puts it like this:
“I shall bequeath you the nations, put the ends of the earth in your possession” (v.
8). The wise men from the East lead the way. They open up the path of the Gentiles
to Christ. During this holy Mass, I will ordain two priests to the episcopate, I
will consecrate them as shepherds of God’s people. According to the words of Jesus,
part of a shepherd’s task is to go ahead of the flock (cf. Jn 10:4). So, allowing
for all the differences in vocation and mission, we may well look to these figures,
the first Gentiles to find the pathway to Christ, for indications concerning the task
of bishops. What kind of people were they? The experts tell us that they belonged
to the great astronomical tradition that had developed in Mesopotamia over the centuries
and continued to flourish. But this information of itself is not enough. No doubt
there were many astronomers in ancient Babylon, but only these few set off to follow
the star that they recognized as the star of the promise, pointing them along the
path towards the true King and Saviour. They were, as we might say, men of science,
but not simply in the sense that they were searching for a wide range of knowledge:
they wanted something more. They wanted to understand what being human is all about.
They had doubtless heard of the prophecy of the Gentile prophet Balaam: “A star shall
come forth out of Jacob and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel” (Num 24:17). They
explored this promise. They were men with restless hearts, not satisfied with the
superficial and the ordinary. They were men in search of the promise, in search of
God. And they were watchful men, capable of reading God’s signs, his soft and penetrating
language. But they were also courageous, yet humble: we can imagine them having to
endure a certain amount of mockery for setting off to find the King of the Jews, at
the cost of so much effort. For them it mattered little what this or that person,
what even influential and clever people thought and said about them. For them it
was a question of truth itself, not human opinion. Hence they took upon themselves
the sacrifices and the effort of a long and uncertain journey. Their humble courage
was what enabled them to bend down before the child of poor people and to recognize
in him the promised King, the one they had set out, on both their outward and their
inward journey, to seek and to know. Dear friends, how can we fail to recognize
in all this certain essential elements of episcopal ministry? The bishop too must
be a man of restless heart, not satisfied with the ordinary things of this world,
but inwardly driven by his heart’s unrest to draw ever closer to God, to seek his
face, to recognize him more and more, to be able to love him more and more. The bishop
too must be a man of watchful heart, who recognizes the gentle language of God and
understands how to distinguish truth from mere appearance. The bishop too must be
filled with the courage of humility, not asking what prevailing opinion says about
him, but following the criterion of God’s truth and taking his stand accordingly –
“opportune – importune”. He must be able to go ahead and mark out the path. He must
go ahead, in the footsteps of him who went ahead of us all because he is the true
shepherd, the true star of the promise: Jesus Christ. And he must have the humility
to bend down before the God who made himself so tangible and so simple that he contradicts
our foolish pride in its reluctance to see God so close and so small. He must devote
his life to adoration of the incarnate Son of God, which constantly points him towards
the path. The liturgy of episcopal ordination interprets the essential features
of this ministry in eight questions addressed to the candidates, each beginning with
the word “Vultis? – Do you want?” These questions direct the will and mark out the
path to be followed. Here I shall briefly cite just a few of the most important words
of this presentation, where we find explicit mention of the elements we have just
considered in connection with the wise men of today’s feast. The bishops’ task is
praedicare Evangelium Christi, it is custodire et dirigere, it is pauperibus se misericordes
praebere, it is indesinenter orare. Preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, going ahead
and leading, guarding the sacred heritage of our faith, showing mercy and charity
to the needy and the poor, thus mirroring God’s merciful love for us, and finally,
praying without ceasing: these are the fundamental features of the episcopal ministry.
Praying without ceasing means: never losing contact with God, letting ourselves be
constantly touched by him in the depths of our hearts and, in this way, being penetrated
by his light. Only someone who actually knows God can lead others to God. Only someone
who leads people to God leads them along the path of life. The restless heart of
which we spoke earlier, echoing Saint Augustine, is the heart that is ultimately satisfied
with nothing less than God, and in this way becomes a loving heart. Our heart is
restless for God and remains so, even if every effort is made today, by means of most
effective anaesthetizing methods, to deliver people from this unrest. But not only
are we restless for God: God’s heart is restless for us. God is waiting for us.
He is looking for us. He knows no rest either, until he finds us. God’s heart is
restless, and that is why he set out on the path towards us – to Bethlehem, to Calvary,
from Jerusalem to Galilee and on to the very ends of the earth. God is restless for
us, he looks out for people willing to “catch” his unrest, his passion for us, people
who carry within them the searching of their own hearts and at the same time open
themselves to be touched by God’s search for us. Dear friends, this was the task
of the Apostles: to receive God’s unrest for man and then to bring God himself to
man. And this is your task as successors of the Apostles: let yourselves be touched
by God’s unrest, so that God’s longing for man may be fulfilled. The wise men followed
the star. Through the language of creation, they discovered the God of history.
To be sure – the language of creation alone is not enough. Only God’s word, which
we encounter in sacred Scripture, was able to mark out their path definitively. Creation
and Scripture, reason and faith, must come together, so as to lead us forward to the
living God. There has been much discussion over what kind of star it was that the
wise men were following. Some suggest a planetary constellation, or a supernova,
that is to say one of those stars that is initially quite weak, in which an inner
explosion releases a brilliant light for a certain time, or a comet, etc. This debate
we may leave to the experts. The great star, the true supernova that leads us on,
is Christ himself. He is as it were the explosion of God’s love, which causes the
great white light of his heart to shine upon the world. And we may add: the wise
men from the East, who feature in today’s Gospel, like all the saints, have themselves
gradually become constellations of God that mark out the path. In all these people,
being touched by God’s word has, as it were, released an explosion of light, through
which God’s radiance shines upon our world and shows us the path. The saints are
stars of God, by whom we let ourselves be led to him for whom our whole being longs.
Dear friends: you followed the star Jesus Christ when you said “yes” to the priesthood
and to the episcopacy. And no doubt smaller stars have enlightened and helped you
not to lose your way. In the litany of saints we call upon all these stars of God,
that they may continue to shine upon you and show you the path. As you are ordained
bishops, you too are called to be stars of God for men, leading them along the path
towards the true light, towards Christ. So let us pray to all the saints at this
hour, asking them that you may always live up to this mission you have received, to
show God’s light to mankind."