Pope at Milan's La Scala: we seek the God who is near
On Friday evening, Pope Benedict XVI attended a concert in his honor at Milan’s renowned
La Scala opera house, where he heard Beethoven’s 9th Symphony performed
by the La Scala orchestra with music director Daniel Barenboim conducting. Listen:
Following
the concert, the Holy Father praised both the work and its performance in remarks
that touched on technical aspects of the music as a way into a profound theological
reflection occasioned by it.
The 9th symphony is famous for its
final movement, often called the “Ode to Joy” after the poem by the late 18th
century German playwright, poet and philosopher, Friedrich Schiller, the words of
which provide the texts for the four solo voices and chorus that have parts in the
symphony’s culminating section.
“At this concert,” said Pope Benedict, “which
was to be a joyous celebration on the occasion of this meeting of people from almost
all nations of the world, there is the shadow of the quake that has brought great
suffering of many inhabitants of our country.” He continued, “The words of Schiller’s
Ode to Joy sound empty to us – indeed, they do not seem real. We do not feel the divine
sparks of Elysium at all. We are not drunk with fire, but paralyzed by grief and so
much and such incomprehensible destruction that has cost so many human lives, that
took away house and home from so many others.” The Pope went on to say, “Even the
assumption that above the starry sky there must live a good Father, seems questionable.”
“Is the father is just above the starry sky?” asked Pope Benedict. “Does not
His goodness reach us down here? We seek a God who does not stand at a distance, but
comes into our lives and our suffering.”
The Holy Father continued, saying,
“We do not need unreal talk of a distant God and an easy brotherhood that requires
nothing of us. We are in search of God who is near. We are looking for a fraternity
that, in the midst of suffering, sustains its fellows and thus helps to go forward.”
Pope Benedict concluded, noting that after this concert, many would go to Eucharistic
adoration – to adore the God, who “has introduced His very self into our suffering
and continues to do so: the God who suffers with us and for us, and so has made men
and women capable of sharing the suffering of others and of turning that suffering
into love.”
“This,” said Pope Benedict, “is precisely what we feel called by
this concert to do.”