Pope says Jesus is relevant even today

(February 10, 2012) The issue of Jesus of Nazareth, in whose name even today many believers in various countries of the world face suffering and persecutions, cannot remain confined to a distant past but is crucial for our faith even today. Pope Benedict XVI made the remark in a message sent to a 2-day international conference on “Jesus Our Contemporary” that began on Thursday in Rome. The Feb. 9-11 conference is being sponsored by the Italian Catholic Bishops Conference. “Jesus entered human history and continues to live in it with his beauty and power, in that fragile body which is always in need of purification, but which is also infinitely brimming with divine love, which is the Church,” the Pope wrote in his message which was read at the conference on Thursday. “His contemporaneity,” the Pope explained, “is revealed in a very special way in the Eucharist.” This is what makes the Church a contemporary of every man, with the capacity to embrace all people and all ages because it is led by the by the Holy Spirit to carry out the work of Jesus in history. “In fact, many signs reveal how the name and the message of Jesus of Nazareth, even in times so distracted and confusing, are frequently found interesting and greatly attractive, even by those who do not adhere to his words of salvation,” the Pope added.