(May 5, 2010) Every week on Wednesday, the Pope holds a public meeting, called the
general audience, during which pilgrims and tourists who come to Rome have a chance
of seeing and hearing him speak. The Holy Father delivers a spiritual reflection
and greets various groups in their languages, including in English. The general
audience of May 5, was held in the open in St. Peter’s Square. Pope Benedict spoke
about his visit to Turin, Italy, last Sunday, to venerate the Holy Shroud, believed
to be the burial cloth of Christ. Listen:
Dear
Brothers and Sisters, During my recent visit to Turin, I prayed before the
sacred Shroud, which invites us to contemplate the face of Christ and to ponder the
mystery of his death and resurrection. As members of Christ’s Body, the Church, all
the baptized are called to share in his saving work. In these final days of the Year
for Priests, however, I would like to return to the specific ministry of the priest
and, today, to his ministry of sanctification. Holiness, as we know, is proper to
God, who is himself absolute truth, goodness, love and beauty. As ministers of Christ,
priests bring us into life-giving contact with the mystery of God’s holiness. Thanks
to the priest’s preaching of the Gospel and his celebration of the sacraments, we
are enabled to approach God and to be transformed gradually into the divine image.
In the celebration of the sacraments, and in particular the Eucharist and the Sacrament
of Reconciliation, Christ’s sanctifying work is constantly made present and effective.
In their devout celebration of the sacraments, priests sanctify the faithful and are
themselves sanctified and configured ever more closely to Christ. I ask all of you
to pray for priests and their ministry of sanctification, that they may be true shepherds
according to God’s heart. I offer a cordial welcome to the English-speaking
visitors and pilgrims present at today’s Audience. My warm greetings go to the teachers
and students of the Institute of Saint Joseph in Copenhagen. Upon all of you, including
those from England, Scotland, Canada, Indonesia and the United States of America,
I invoke Almighty God’s blessings of joy and peace! I send cordial greetings
to all who will be taking part in the Congress on the Family in Jönköping, Sweden,
later this month. Your message to the world is truly a message of joy, because God’s
gift to us of marriage and family life enables us to experience something of the infinite
love that unites the three divine persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Human beings,
made in the image and likeness of God, are made for love – indeed at the core of our
being, we long to love and to be loved in return. Only God’s love can fully satisfy
our deepest needs, and yet through the love of husband and wife, the love of parents
and children, the love of siblings for one another, we are offered a foretaste of
the boundless love that awaits us in the life to come. Marriage is truly an instrument
of salvation, not only for married people but for the whole of society. Like any
truly worthwhile goal, it places demands upon us, it challenges us, it calls us to
be prepared to sacrifice our own interests for the good of the other. It requires
us to exercise tolerance and to offer forgiveness. It invites us to nurture and protect
the gift of new life. Those of us fortunate enough to be born into a stable family
discover there the first and most fundamental school for virtuous living and the qualities
of good citizenship. I encourage all of you in your efforts to promote a proper understanding
and appreciation of the inestimable good that marriage and family life offer to human
society. May God bless all of you.
At the end of the general audience,
Pope Benedict made an appeal urging the world’s nations to help eliminate nuclear
weapons completely. Referring to the current Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
conference in session May 3–28 at the United Nations in New York, the Pope said the
move towards a safe and concerted nuclear disarmament is closely linked with the full
and prompt fulfilment of related international commitments. Speaking in Italian,
he said, “Peace, in fact, rests on trust and respect of its obligations, and not only
on the balance of forces.” In that spirit, the Pope encouraged “initiatives which
pursue a progressive disarmament and the establishment of zones, free from nuclear
weapons, with the purpose of eliminating them completely from the planet. The Pontiff
urged all participants in the New York meeting York to overcome the constraints of
history and patiently weave the fabric of political and economic peace, in order to
help integral human development and the genuine aspirations of peoples. Wednesday’s
General Audience concluded with the Pope’s blessing..