(31 Aug 10 – RV) On Monday Pope Benedict received in audience Archbishop Kurt Koch,
president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who participated
the traditional summer meeting of the Pope’s former students, the so-called Ratzinger
Schülerkreis. The meeting ended Sunday with a Mass presided by the Pope at Castel
Gandolfo Mariapolis Center: the theme of the seminar, which began last Friday, was
that of the interpretation of Vatican II. The homily was delivered by Cardinal Christoph
Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, also a former student of Professor. Ratzinger.
At
the end of the Mass, the Pope greeted the participants at the seminar, referring to
the Sunday Gospel, with Jesus' exhortation to humility and love:
"Liebe Freunde,
am Ende des heutigen Evangeliums ... Dear friends, in today's Gospel, the Lord
points out that in fact we continue to live like pagans inviting only those who can
reciprocate the invitation, we give only to those who can return the favour in kind.
But God’s style is different: we experience this in the Holy Eucharist. He invites
us to his table, we who before him are lame, blind and deaf, he invites us, we have
nothing to give Him”.
Especially during the Mass - continued the Pope - we
are called to allow ourselves to be touched with gratitude for the fact that although
we have nothing to give to God and, indeed, we are full of sins, He invites us to
his table and wants to be at the table with us:
"Aber wir wollen doch auch
uns davon lassen berühren ... But we also want to learn to feel guilty because
we emerge so little from the pagan style, because we live so little the novelty, the
style of God. And this is why we begin the Holy Mass asking for forgiveness, a forgiveness
that changes us, that makes us more like God, in His image and likeness".
In
his homily, Cardinal Schönborn returned to the theme of humility, remembering that
Jesus entrusted the Kingdom of the Father to the Apostles, but so that this great
vocation does not make them arrogant he has placed them, especially the first of the
Apostles, in the last place. He then went on to explain what is the attitude of Christians
before humiliation and insults: though despised, they give blessings...
Die
Demut wendet diese Beschimpfungen in Segen. ... Humility transforms insults into
grace! Thank you, Holy Father, because you embody for us the attitude of Christ who
is meek and humble of heart. Is this not a wonderful thing in the Christian faith
and Christian experience? Joy over the fact that the parameters of Heaven are so different
from ours”.
Forty priests, professors, religious and laity, all former students
of Pope Benedict, participated in the summer school which was first held for former
students when Joseph Ratzinger became Archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977. This
year's meeting, ran from Aug. 27-30.
Pope Benedict chose the theme of the four-day
seminar as well as the main speaker, Archbishop Kurt Koch, who was recently appointed
to replace Cardinal Walter Kasper as president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity.
Archbishop Koch's intervention examined "The Second Vatican
Council between tradition and innovation" and "Sacrosanctum concilium and the
post-Conciliar reform of the liturgy."