Openness to transcendence is an indispensable guarantee of human dignity

Address of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
to Catholic Parliamentarians
September 21, 2007

In effect, when human rights are violated, the dignity of the human person suffers; when justice is compromised, peace itself is jeopardized. On the other hand, justice is truly human only when the ethical and moral vision grounding it is centred on the human person and his inalienable dignity. . . .

There are those who maintain that human reason is incapable of grasping the truth, and therefore of pursuing the good that corresponds to personal dignity. There are some who believe that it is legitimate to destroy human life in its earliest or final stages.

Equally troubling is the growing crisis of the family, which is the fundamental nucleus of society based on the indissoluble bond of marriage between a man and a woman. Experience has shown that when the truth about man is subverted or the foundation of the family undermined, peace itself is threatened and the rule of law is compromised, leading inevitably to forms of injustice and violence.

Another cause highly esteemed by all of you is the defence of religious liberty, which is a fundamental, irrepressible, inalienable and inviolable right rooted in the dignity of every human being and acknowledged by various international documents, especially the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The exercise of this freedom also includes the right to change religion, which should be guaranteed not only legally, but also in daily practice. In fact, religious liberty corresponds to the human person’s innate openness to God, who is the fullness of truth and the supreme good.

An appreciation for religious freedom is a fundamental expression of respect for human reason and its capacity to know the truth. Openness to transcendence is an indispensable guarantee of human dignity since within every human heart there are needs and desires which find their fulfilment in God alone.

For this reason, God can never be excluded from the horizon of man and world history! That is why all authentically religious traditions must be allowed to manifest their own identity publicly, free from any pressure to hide or disguise it.

Moreover, due respect for religion helps to counter the charge that society has forgotten God: an accusation shamelessly exploited by some terrorist networks in an attempt to justify their threats against global security.

Terrorism is a serious problem whose perpetrators often claim to act in God’s name and harbour an inexcusable contempt for human life. Society naturally has a right to defend itself, but this right must be exercised with complete respect for moral and legal norms, including the choice of ends and means. In democratic systems, the use of force in a manner contrary to the principles of a constitutional State can never be justified. Indeed, how can we claim to protect democracy if we threaten its very foundations? Consequently, it is necessary both to keep careful watch over the security of civil society and its citizens while at the same time safeguarding the inalienable rights of all.

Terrorism needs to be fought with determination and effectiveness, mindful that if the mystery of evil is widespread today, the solidarity of mankind in goodness is an even more pervasive mystery. In this regard, the social teaching of the Catholic Church offers some points for reflection on how to promote security and justice both at the national and international levels. This teaching is based on reason, natural law and the Gospel: that is, principles that both accord with and transcend the nature of every human being.

The Church knows that it is not her specific task to see to the political implementation of this teaching: her objective is to help form consciences in political life, to raise awareness of the authentic requirements of justice, and to foster a greater readiness to act accordingly, even when this might involve conflict with situations of personal interest (cf. Deus Caritas Est, 28). In this her mission, the Church is moved only by love for humanity and the desire to work together with all people of goodwill to build a world in which the dignity and inalienable rights of all persons will be safeguarded.

For those of you who share a faith in Christ, the Church asks you to bear witness to that faith today with even greater courage and generosity. The integrity of Christians in political life is indeed more necessary than ever so that the "salt" of apostolic zeal does not lose its "flavor," and so that the "lamp" of Gospel values enlightening the daily work of Christians is not obscured by pragmatism or utilitarianism, suspicion or hate.

Why I Believe, or, How I Know that God Exists

I believe in Truth, in Reason, and in Love. I believe that there is truth, not only physical truth, transcendent moral truth -– right and wrong, good and evil -– and that this morality is not relative, otherwise, it would not be truth. In a world without God, any evil thing is possible. But in a world with God, love and salvation and freedom are possible; life is possible.

Indeed, Christ has already saved the world in a very tangible way. He has redeemed the world. Without Christian love and forgiveness and reconciliation, the world would have destroyed itself long ago. One wrong would lead to retaliation, which would lead only to retaliation for that act, in never-ending cycles of wars of vengeance, on both a personal and national level. We only need to look at some non-Christian cultures in the world today to see that they differ from Christian values and morality.

Yet, although I believe, I am also a sinner. My sins are great and many, and I am greatly in need of a savior to pay my debts, to ransom me. Maybe others believe that they can live well without Christ, and that they can have eternal life without Him. Maybe they don’t need Him. But I do need Him. I do need, not only His forgiveness, but His grace –- the power to do things that I could never do or accomplish on my own, things like love and forgiveness and perseverance and peace of heart and hope.

If it were just me, I’d probably want to nuke the entire Muslim world as payback for the bastards that do things like fly planes into buildings and set off car bombs and suicide bombs, killing thousands of innocent people. But Christ commands me to love my enemies, and He gives me the grace to do the impossible -- to let go of hate, to let go of the thirst for vengeance. He gives me the grace to do things like love and forgive such people.

Yes, He gives me the grace to be able, when we hopefully have peace, to live together with them as children of God. Left to myself, I would not want to accomplish any of these things, and I could not do any of these things myself. It is only because God does exist, that such things are possible. We do not have peace now, and because peace requires both sides to set aside their arms, it may still be necessary to implement the tragic tools of war, but we should do so, not out of hate and vengeance, but only in order to gain that peace.

So, pray for true peace. Pray for our enemy, that God grant them grace and wisdom to choose peace. Pray for us, that, as we must necessarily destroy that enemy to obtain the peace, that God grant us grace and strength to not hate those He commands us to love, that we kill not for vengeance, but to end the violence and the capacity and will of the enemy to make war on us, until the day we again may live in peace with these children of God.

Eternal and Merciful God, at times of tragedy our intellects seek understanding, our hearts seek healing, and our souls turn to You: our source of hope and solace. Heal our troubled nation as our nation turns its eyes to You and comfort those whose lives are changed forever: those who have perished, those who have lost family, friends or loved ones, and those who now live in the aftermath of these acts of terror. May God bless our national leadership, may God bless our servicepersons, and may God bless America. Amen

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, let thy protection be upon all those who are in the service of our country; guard them from all harm and danger of body and soul; sustain and comfort those at home, especially in their hours of loneliness, anxiety, and sorrow; prepare the dying for death and the living for your service; give success to our arms on land and sea and in the air; and grant unto us and all nations a speedy, just and lasting peace. Amen.

News From the Morning Paper

The Morning Washington Post
September 11, 2001

Afghan Rebel Leader Is Victim of Bombing; Some Reports Say Attack Killed Commander Who Led Charge Against Taliban

Ahmed Shah Massoud, the guerrilla commander most responsible for preventing the radical Islamic Taliban movement from taking control of all of Afghanistan, was seriously wounded in a suicide bombing Sunday, and conflicting reports today indicated he might be dead. Two assassins posing as Arab journalists reportedly detonated a bomb during an interview with Massoud at his field headquarters in northern Afghanistan, the last corner of the nation that remains outside Taliban control, according to spokesmen for the Afghan commander. . . .

Many of Massoud's associates blamed the attack on reputed terrorist Osama bin Laden, a close ally of the Taliban who lives in Afghanistan under its protection. . . . Many sources close to Massoud said the attack was commissioned by bin Laden, a Saudi dissident who is wanted by U.S. authorities on charges of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.

“Show us Jesus!”

Homily of His Holiness Benedict XVI
Solemn Eucharistic Celebration
Mariazell, Saturday, 8 September 2007

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

With our great pilgrimage to Mariazell, we are celebrating the patronal feast of this Shrine, the feast of Our Lady’s Birthday. For 850 years pilgrims have been travelling here from different peoples and nations . . . Today we join in this great centuries-old pilgrimage. We rest awhile with the Mother of the Lord, and we pray to her: Show us Jesus. Show to us pilgrims the one who is both the way and the destination: the truth and the life.

The Gospel passage we have just heard (Mt 1:1-16, 18-23) broadens our view. It presents the history of Israel from Abraham onwards as a pilgrimage, which, with its ups and downs, its paths and detours, leads us finally to Christ. The genealogy with its light and dark figures, its successes and failures, shows us that God writes straight even on the crooked lines of our human history.

God allows us our freedom, and yet in our failures He can always find new paths for His love. God does not fail. Hence this genealogy is a guarantee of God’s faithfulness; a guarantee that God does not allow us to fall, and an invitation to direct our lives ever anew towards Him, to walk ever anew towards Jesus Christ.

Making a pilgrimage means setting out in a particular direction, travelling towards a destination. This gives a beauty of its own even to the journey and to the effort involved. Among the pilgrims of Jesus’s genealogy there were many who forgot the goal and wanted to make themselves the goal. Again and again, though, the Lord called forth people whose longing for the goal drove them forward, people who directed their whole lives towards it.
The awakening of the Christian faith, the dawning of the Church of Jesus Christ was made possible, because there were people in Israel whose hearts were searching –- people who did not rest content with custom, but who looked further ahead, in search of something greater: Zechariah, Elizabeth, Simeon, Anna, Mary and Joseph, the Twelve and many others. Because their hearts were expectant, they were able to recognize in Jesus the one whom God had sent, and thus they could become the beginning of His worldwide family.

The Church of the Gentiles was made possible, because both in the Mediterranean area and in those parts of Asia to which the messengers of Jesus Christ travelled, there were expectant people who were not satisfied by what everyone around them was doing and thinking, but who were seeking the star which could show them the way towards Truth itself, towards the living God.

We too need an open and restless heart like theirs. This is what pilgrimage is all about. Today as in the past, it is not enough to be more or less like everyone else and to think like everyone else. Our lives have a deeper purpose. We need God, the God who has shown us His face and opened His heart to us: Jesus Christ.

Saint John rightly says of Him that only He is God and rests close to the Father’s heart (cf. Jn 1:18); thus only He, from deep within God himself, could reveal God to us -– reveal to us who we are, from where we come and where we are going.

Certainly, there are many great figures in history who have had beautiful and moving experiences of God. Yet these are still human experiences, and therefore finite. Only He is God and therefore only He is the bridge that brings God and man together. So if we call Him the one universal Mediator of salvation, valid for everyone and, ultimately, needed by everyone, this does not mean that we despise other religions, nor are we arrogantly absolutizing our own ideas; on the contrary, it means that we are gripped by Him who has touched our hearts and lavished gifts upon us, so that we, in turn, can offer gifts to others.

In fact, our faith is decisively opposed to the attitude of resignation that considers man incapable of truth –- as if this were more than he could cope with. This attitude of resignation with regard to truth lies at the heart of the crisis of the West, the crisis of Europe.

If truth does not exist for man, then neither can he ultimately distinguish between good and evil. And then the great and wonderful discoveries of science become double-edged: they can open up significant possibilities for good, for the benefit of mankind, but also, as we see only too clearly, they can pose a terrible threat, involving the destruction of man and the world.

We need truth. Yet admittedly, in the light of our history we are fearful that faith in the truth might entail intolerance. If we are gripped by this fear, which is historically well grounded, then it is time to look towards Jesus as we see Him in the shrine at Mariazell.

We see Him here in two images: as the child in His Mother’s arms, and above the high altar of the Basilica as the Crucified. These two images in the Basilica tell us this: truth prevails not through external force, but it is humble and it yields itself to man only via the inner force of its veracity.

Truth proves itself in love. It is never our property, never our product, just as love can never be produced, but only received and handed on as a gift. We need this inner force of truth. As Christians we trust this force of truth. We are its witnesses. We must hand it on as a gift in the same way we have received it.

“To gaze upon Christ” is the motto of this day. For one who is searching, this summons repeatedly turns into a spontaneous plea, a plea addressed especially to Mary, who has given us Christ as her Son: “Show us Jesus!” Let us make this prayer today with our whole heart; let us make this prayer above and beyond the present moment, as we inwardly seek the Face of the Redeemer. “Show us Jesus!”

Mary responds, showing Him to us in the first instance as a child. God has made Himself small for us. God comes not with external force, but He comes in the powerlessness of His love, which is where His true strength lies. He places Himself in our hands. He asks for our love. He invites us to become small ourselves, to come down from our high thrones and to learn to be childlike before God. He speaks to us informally. He asks us to trust Him and thus to learn how to live in truth and love.

The child Jesus naturally reminds us also of all the children in the world, in whom He wishes to come to us. Children who live in poverty; who are exploited as soldiers; who have never been able to experience the love of parents; sick and suffering children, but also those who are joyful and healthy.

Europe has become child-poor: we want everything for ourselves, and place little trust in the future. Yet the earth will be deprived of a future only when the forces of the human heart and of reason illuminated by the heart are extinguished -– when the face of God no longer shines upon the earth. Where God is, there is the future.

“To gaze upon Christ”: let us look briefly now at the Crucified One above the high altar. God saved the world not by the sword, but by the Cross. In dying, Jesus extends His arms. This, in the first place, is the posture of the Passion, in which He lets himself be nailed to the Cross for us, in order to give us His life.

Yet outstretched arms are also the posture of one who prays, the stance assumed by the priest when he extends his arms in prayer: Jesus transformed the Passion, His suffering and His death, into prayer, into an act of love for God and for humanity.

That, finally, is why outstretched arms are also a gesture of embracing, by which He wishes to draw us to Himself, to enfold us in His loving hands. In this way He is the image of the living God, He is God Himself, and we may entrust ourselves to Him.

“To gaze upon Christ!” If we do this, we realize that Christianity is more than and different from a moral code, from a series of requirements and laws. It is the gift of a friendship that lasts through life and death: “No longer do I call you servants, but friends” (Jn 15:15), the Lord says to His disciples. We entrust ourselves to this friendship. Yet precisely because Christianity is more than a moral system, because it is the gift of friendship, for this reason it also contains within itself great moral strength, which is so urgently needed today on account of the challenges of our time.

If with Jesus Christ and His Church we constantly re-read the Ten Commandments of Sinai, entering into their full depth, then a great teaching unfolds before us: It is first and foremost a “yes” to God, to a God who loves us and leads us, who carries us and yet allows us our freedom: indeed, it is He who makes our freedom real (the first three commandments). It is a “yes” to the family (fourth commandment), a “yes” to life (fifth commandment), a “yes” to responsible love (sixth commandment), a “yes” to solidarity, to social responsibility and to justice (seventh commandment), a “yes” to truth (eighth commandment) and a “yes” to respect for other people and for what is theirs (ninth and tenth commandments). By the strength of our friendship with the living God we live this manifold “yes” and at the same time we carry it as a signpost into our world.

“Show us Jesus!” It was with this plea to the Mother of the Lord that we set off on our journey here. This same plea will accompany us in our daily lives. And we know that Mary hears our prayer: yes, whenever we look towards Mary, she shows us Jesus. Thus we can find the right path, we can follow it step by step, filled with joyful confidence that the path leads into the light -– into the joy of eternal Love.

Amen.

We must Create a Society Where Children are Again Seen as a Gift for All, Rather than a Burden or Illness

Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI
Meeting with Austrian Authorities and the Diplomatic Corps
Vienna, Hofburg
Friday, 7 September 2007

The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself. This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right -– it is the very opposite. It is “a deep wound in society,” as the late Cardinal Franz König never tired of repeating.

In stating this, we are not expressing a specifically ecclesial concern. Rather, we are acting as advocates for a profoundly human need, speaking out on behalf of those unborn children who have no voice. I do not close my eyes to the difficulties and the conflicts which many women are experiencing, and I realize that the credibility of what we say also depends on what the Church herself is doing to help women in trouble.

I appeal, then, to political leaders not to allow children to be considered as a form of illness, nor to abolish in practice your legal system’s acknowledgment that abortion is wrong. I say this out of a concern for humanity. But that is only one side of this disturbing problem.

The other is the need to do everything possible to make European countries once again open to welcoming children. Encourage young married couple to establish new families and to become mothers and fathers! You will not only assist them, but you will benefit society as a whole. We also decisively support you in your political efforts to favour conditions enabling young couples to raise children. Yet all this will be pointless, unless we can succeed in creating once again in our countries a climate of joy and confidence in life, a climate in which children are not seen as a burden, but rather as a gift for all.

Another great concern of mine is the debate on what has been termed “actively assisted death.” It is to be feared that at some point the gravely ill or elderly will be subjected to tacit or even explicit pressure to request death or to administer it to themselves. The proper response to end-of-life suffering is loving care and accompaniment on the journey towards death –- especially with the help of palliative care –- and not “actively assisted death.”

But if humane accompaniment on the journey towards death is to prevail, urgent structural reforms are needed in every area of the social and healthcare system, as well as organized structures of palliative care. Concrete steps would also have to be taken: in the psychological and pastoral accompaniment of the seriously ill and dying, their family members, and physicians and healthcare personnel. In this field the hospice movement has done wonders.

The totality of these tasks, however, cannot be delegated to it alone. Many other people need to be prepared or encouraged in their willingness to spare neither time nor expense in loving care for the gravely ill and dying.

Finally, another part of the European heritage is a tradition of thought which considers as essential a substantial correspondence between faith, truth and reason. Here the issue is clearly whether or not reason stands at the beginning and foundation of all things. The issue is whether reality originates by chance and necessity, and thus whether reason is merely a chance by-product of the irrational and, in an ocean of irrationality, it too, in the end, is meaningless, or whether instead the underlying conviction of Christian faith remains true: In principio erat Verbum – in the beginning was the Word; at the origin of everything is the creative reason of God who decided to make himself known to us human beings. . . .

Upon you and all the people of Austria, especially the elderly and infirm, as well as the young whose lives lie ahead of them, I invoke hope, confidence, joy and God’s blessings!

In the Cross, there is Hope

Peruvians weep at church statues that survive quake

PISCO, Peru (Reuters) - Peruvian earthquake survivors on Saturday wept and hugged statues of Jesus Christ and Catholic saints dug out intact from the rubble of a church where at least 150 people died three days earlier.

Rescue workers placed the life-sized statues in the main square in Pisco, the Pacific coast town that was among the hardest hit by a 8.0 magnitude earthquake on Wednesday that killed more than 500 people in Peru. The Church of San Clemente, where most of the Pisco victims died, was crushed during a funeral mass.

Desperate and ragged residents, most of them hungry people who haven't slept under a roof since the quake, thronged around the Christ statue in amazement as it was carried in procession into the square by half a dozen men in hard hats and masks. The survival of the religious figures gave people hope and something to celebrate in their desolation in this predominantly Catholic country.

"The Lord is present here with us, along with the saints, it's a miracle they weren't destroyed," said Amelia Ugaz de Aria, 69, whose home was flattened by the earthquake. . . .

Lourdes Girau, 42, sobbed as she kneeled before Jesus and with a rag dusted off the wooden cross he was staked to. "The fact that he's here, shows Jesus continues to live to fight so much tragedy," Girau said.

Townspeople rushed to hold the hands of San Clemente or caress the face of Jesus, their fingers tracing the painted blood stains streaming down his skin.

The Lord Dwells in Mary, Body and Soul

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Homily of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Parish Church of St Thomas of Villanova, Castel Gandolfo
Tuesday, 15 August 2006

* * * We do not praise God sufficiently by keeping silent about his saints, especially Mary, "the Holy One" who became his dwelling place on earth. The simple and multiform light of God appears to us exactly in its variety and richness only in the countenance of the saints, who are the true mirrors of his light. And it is precisely by looking at Mary's face that we can see more clearly than in any other way the beauty, goodness and mercy of God. In her face we can truly perceive the divine light.

"All generations will call me blessed". We can praise Mary, we can venerate Mary for she is "blessed", she is blessed for ever. And this is the subject of this Feast. She is blessed because she is united to God, she lives with God and in God.

On the eve of his Passion, taking leave of his disciples, the Lord said: "In my Father's house are many rooms... I go to prepare a place for you".

By saying, "I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word", Mary prepared God's dwelling here on earth; with her body and soul, she became his dwelling place and thereby opened the earth to heaven.

In the Gospel we have just heard, St Luke, with various allusions, makes us understand that Mary is the true Ark of the Covenant, that the mystery of the Temple - God's dwelling place here on earth - is fulfilled in Mary. God, who became present here on earth, truly dwells in Mary. Mary becomes his tent. What all the cultures desire - that God dwell among us - is brought about here.

St Augustine says: "Before conceiving the Lord in her body she had already conceived him in her soul". She had made room for the Lord in her soul and thus really became the true Temple where God made himself incarnate, where he became present on this earth.

Thus, being God's dwelling place on earth, in her the eternal dwelling place has already been prepared, it has already been prepared for ever. And this constitutes the whole content of the Dogma of the Assumption of Mary, body and soul, into heavenly glory, expressed here in these words. Mary is "blessed" because - totally, in body and soul and for ever - she became the Lord's dwelling place. If this is true, Mary does not merely invite our admiration and veneration, but she guides us, shows us the way of life, shows us how we can become blessed, how to find the path of happiness.

Let us listen once again to Elizabeth's words fulfilled in Mary's Magnificat: "Blessed is she who believed". The first and fundamental act in order to become a dwelling place of God and thus find definitive happiness is to believe: it is faith, faith in God, in that God who showed himself in Jesus Christ and makes himself heard in the divine Word of Holy Scripture.

Believing is not adding one opinion to others. And the conviction, the belief, that God exists is not information like any other. Regarding most information, it makes no difference to us whether it is true or false; it does not change our lives. But if God does not exist, life is empty, the future is empty. And if God exists, everything changes, life is light, our future is light and we have guidance for how to live. Therefore, believing constitutes the fundamental orientation of our life. To believe, to say: "Yes, I believe that you are God, I believe that you are present among us in the Incarnate Son", gives my life a direction, impels me to be attached to God, to unite with God and so to find my dwelling place, and the way to live.

To believe is not only a way of thinking or an idea; as has already been mentioned, it is a way of acting, a manner of living. To believe means to follow the trail indicated to us by the Word of God. * * *

"All generations will call you blessed": this means that the future, what is to come, belongs to God, it is in God's hands, that it is God who conquers.

Nor does he conquer the mighty dragon of which today's First Reading speaks, the dragon that represents all the powers of violence in the world. They seem invincible but Mary tells us that they are not invincible.

The Woman - as the First Reading and the Gospel show us - is stronger, because God is stronger. Of course, in comparison with the dragon, so heavily armed, this Woman who is Mary, who is the Church, seems vulnerable or defenceless. And truly God is vulnerable in the world, because he is Love and love is vulnerable. Yet he holds the future in his hands: it is love, not hatred, that triumphs; it is peace that is victorious in the end.

This is the great consolation contained in the Dogma of Mary's Assumption body and soul into heavenly glory. Let us thank the Lord for this consolation but let us also see it as a commitment for us to take the side of good and peace. And let us pray to Mary, Queen of Peace, to help peace to be victorious today: "Queen of Peace, pray for us!" Amen!
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The Church Reflects the Light of the Lord

Why I am a Catholic
By Joseph Ratzinger, c. 1971

We can think of the Catholic Church by comparing it to the moon, [which] does not have its own light. It receives light from the sun, without which it would be in total darkness. The moon shines, but its light is not its own. Lunar probes and astronauts have seen that the moon is nothing but a rocky and desert-like wasteland. They saw rock and sand, the reality quite different from the image we held about it from antiquity. The moon is by and of itself nothing but rock and sand, but it does reflect light.

Is this not an exact image of the Church? Whoever explores it and digs into it with a probe will discover, as in the moon, nothing but desert, sand and rock – the weaknesses of mankind seen as dust, stones, waste. But the decisive fact is that even if she is nothing but sand and stones, she is also Light, by virtue of the Lord.

I am a Catholic because I believe that now as in the past, and independent of us, the Lord stands behind the Church, and we cannot be near Him without staying within His Church. I belong to the Catholic Church because despite everything, I believe that it is His Church, not “ours.”

It is the Church which, despite all the human weaknesses present in her, brings us to Jesus Christ. Only through the Church can I receive Him as a living and powerful reality, here and now. Without the Church, the image of Christ would evaporate, it would crumble, it would disappear. And what would become of mankind deprived of Christ?

I am in the Church for the same reasons that I am a Christian. Because one cannot believe in isolation. Faith is possible in communion with other believers. Faith by its very nature is a force that binds. And this faith must be ecclesial, or it is not faith at all. And just as one does not believe in isolation, but only in communion with others, neither can one have faith out of one’s own initiative or invention.

I remain in the Church because I believe that faith, realizable only in the Church and not against her, is a true necessity for the human being and for the world.

I remain in the Church because only the faith the Church professes can save man. The great ideal of our generation is a society free of tyranny, suffering and injustice. In this world, suffering does not come only from inequalities in material wealth and power. There are those who would have us believe that we can realize our humanity without mastery of self, without the patience of surrender and the effort to overcome difficulties; that it is not necessary to make any sacrifice to keep compromises which we accept, nor to bear with patience the constant tension between what should be and what actually is.

In reality, man can only be saved through the Cross and the acceptance of one’s own suffering as well as those of the world, which find their resolution in the Passion of the Lord. Only thus can man become free. All the other “offers at a better price” can only end in failure.

Love is not simply aesthetic and uncritical. The only possibility to change man in a positive sense is to love him truly by transforming him gradually from who he is to who he can be. That is what the Church can do.

It is Important to Help Youth Discover God and True Love

Question-and-Answer Session with Priests of the Dioceses of Belluno-Feltre and Treviso
Church of St. Justina Martyr
Auronzo di Cadore
July 25, 2007

Number 6 -- I'm Don Alberto. Holy Father, the youth are our future and our hope, but many now see in life not an opportunity but difficulty; not a gift to them and to others, but something to consume right away; not a project to build, but to wander about without a direction. Today's mentality imposes on the young the obligation to be always happy, always 'perfect', so that every small failure, every difficulty, is no longer seen as an opportunity for growth but as a defeat. All this sometimes leads to irreparable gestures like suicide, which breaks the hearts of those who love them and burdens society itself. What could you tell us educators who often feel helpless, with hands bound and without answers? Thank you.


Pope Benedict -- I think you have given a precise description of a life in which God does not appear. At first glance, it seems like the world today does not have any need of God, and even that, without God, we would all be more free and the world would be a wider place.

But after some time, even among our new generations, they see what happens when God disappears. Nietzsche said, "The great light has been extinguished, the sun has gone out." Life then becomes something casual, a “thing,” and one seeks to make the most of this thing and use life as a thing to gain happiness which is immediate, tangible and realizable.

But the great problem is that if there is no God, and there is no Creator of my life, then life becomes nothing but a part of evolution and has no sense in and of itself. Instead, I should seek to make sense of this piece of being.

Today I see in Germany, and even in the United States, a rather dogged debate between so-called creationism and evolutionism, presented as though they were alternatives which are mutually exclusive. This opposition is an absurdity, because on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs in favor of evolution that seem to be a reality that we must look at, and which can enrich our knowledge of life and of being.

But the doctrine of evolution does not answer all the questions, and above all, does not answer the great philosophical question: Where does everything come from? And how did everything converge into a path that finally arrived at man?

I think it is very important -- and this is what I wanted to convey in my lecture at Regensburg -- that reason opens up increasingly, that it should see all this knowledge, but that it also sees that it is not enough to explain all reality. It is not enough -- and our reason can be widened to see that even our own reason is not something irrational, not the product of irrationality, but that reason precedes everything, Creative Reason does -- and that we are the reflections of that Creative Reason.

We are all preconceived and willed -- there is an idea that preceded my being, a sense that came before me, and which I should discover and follow because it ultimately gives significance to my life.

So that should be the first point: to truly discover that my being is rational, it was thought, it has a sense, and my great mission is to discover this sense, live it, and that way, add a new element to the great cosmic harmony planned by the Creator.

If that is so, then even the elements of difficulty will become moments of maturation, of process, of progress in my being, which has a sense from the moment of conception up to the last moment of life. And we can know this reality of the sense that preceded us all, just as we can rediscover the sense of suffering and pain.

Of course, there is one pain that we should avoid and which we should eliminate from the world: all the many useless sufferings provoked by dictatorships, by mistaken systems, by hate and by violence. But even pain has a profound sense, and our life can only mature when we can give sense to our pain and suffering.

I would even say that love is not possible without some pain, because love always implies renouncing something in me, leaving something of myself, accepting the other in his or her otherness, and therefore implies giving myself, going out of myself. All this can be painful, but in this suffering of losing myself for the other, for the loved one and therefore for God, I become something more. And my life finds sense in that love.

So even this inseparability of love and pain, of love and God, are elements that should enter into the modern consciousness and help modern man to live.

In this sense, therefore, it is important to help the youth discover God, make them discover true love that becomes greater in renunciation, make them discover the interior value of suffering that can make one more free, a bigger person.

And to make young people discover these elements, they will always need companions and providers, be it Catholic Action or a movement. Together with their contemporaries, the new generations will find it easier to discover this wide dimension of being.

"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses "

Message of the Holy Father Benedict XVI to the Young People of the World on the Occasion of World Youth Day 2008

My dear young friends!

1. The XXIII World Youth Day

I always remember with great joy the various occasions we spent together in Cologne in August 2005. At the end of that unforgettable manifestation of faith and enthusiasm that remains engraved on my spirit and on my heart, I made an appointment with you for the next gathering that will be held in Sydney in 2008. This will be the XXIII World Youth Day and the theme will be: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses" (Acts 1:8).
The underlying theme of the spiritual preparation for our meeting in Sydney is the Holy Spirit and mission. In 2006 we focused our attention on the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth. Now in 2007 we are seeking a deeper understanding of the Spirit of Love. We will continue our journey towards World Youth Day 2008 by reflecting on the Spirit of Fortitude and Witness that gives us the courage to live according to the Gospel and to proclaim it boldly. Therefore it is very important that each one of you young people -- in your communities, and together with those responsible for your education -- should be able to reflect on this Principal Agent of salvation history, namely the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Jesus. In this way you will be able to achieve the following lofty goals: to recognize the Spirit's true identity, principally by listening to the Word of God in the Revelation of the Bible; to become clearly aware of his continuous, active presence in the life of the Church, especially as you rediscover that the Holy Spirit is the "soul", the vital breath of Christian life itself, through the sacraments of Christian initiation -- Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist; to grow thereby in an understanding of Jesus that becomes ever deeper and more joyful and, at the same time, to put the Gospel into practice at the dawn of the third millennium.

In this message I gladly offer you an outline for meditation that you can explore during this year of preparation. In this way you can test the quality of your faith in the Holy Spirit, rediscover it if it is lost, strengthen it if it has become weak, savour it as fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, brought about by the indispensable working of the Holy Spirit. Never forget that the Church, in fact humanity itself, all the people around you now and those who await you in the future, expect much from you young people, because you have within you the supreme gift of the Father, the Spirit of Jesus.

2. The promise of the Holy Spirit in the Bible

Attentive listening to the Word of God concerning the mystery and action of the Holy Spirit opens us up to great and inspiring insights that I shall summarize in the following points.

Shortly before his Ascension, Jesus said to his disciples: "And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you" (Luke 24:49). This took place on the day of Pentecost when they were together in prayer in the Upper Room with the Virgin Mary. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the nascent Church was the fulfilment of a promise made much earlier by God, announced and prepared throughout the Old Testament.

In fact, right from its opening pages, the Bible presents the spirit of God as the wind that "was moving over the face of the waters" (cf. Genesis 1:2). It says that God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life (cf. Genesis 2:7), thereby infusing him with life itself. After original sin, the life-giving spirit of God is seen several times in the history of humankind, calling forth prophets to exhort the chosen people to return to God and to observe his commandments faithfully. In the well-known vision of the prophet Ezekiel, God, with his spirit, restores to life the people of Israel, represented by the "dry bones" (cf. 37:1-14). Joel prophesied an "outpouring of the spirit" over all the people, excluding no one. The sacred author wrote: "And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh ... Even upon the menservants and maidservants, in those days, I will pour out my spirit" (3:1-2).

In "the fullness of time" (cf. Galatians 4:4), the angel of the Lord announced to the Virgin of Nazareth that the Holy Spirit, "the power of the Most High", would come upon her and overshadow her. The child to be born would be holy and would be called Son of God (cf. Luke 1:35). In the words of the prophet Isaiah, the Messiah would be the one on whom the Spirit of the Lord would rest (cf. 11:1-2; 42:1). This is the prophecy that Jesus took up again at the start of his public ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth. To the amazement of those present, he said: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour" (Luke 4:18-19; cf. Is 61:1-2). Addressing those present, he referred those prophetic words to himself by saying: "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:21). Again, before his death on the Cross, he would tell his disciples several times about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the "Counselor" whose mission would be to bear witness to him and to assist believers by teaching them and guiding them to the fullness of Truth (cf. John 14:16-17,25-26; 15:26; 16:13).

3. Pentecost, the point of departure for the Church's mission

On the evening of the day of resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples, "he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'" (John 20:22). With even greater power the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles on the day of Pentecost. We read in the Acts of the Apostles: "And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them" (2:2-3).

The Holy Spirit renewed the Apostles from within, filling them with a power that would give them courage to go out and boldly proclaim that "Christ has died and is risen!" Freed from all fear, they began to speak openly with self-confidence (cf. Acts 2:29; 4:13; 4:29,31). These frightened fishermen had become courageous heralds of the Gospel. Even their enemies could not understand how "uneducated and ordinary men" (cf. Acts 4:13) could show such courage and endure difficulties, suffering and persecution with joy. Nothing could stop them. To those who tried to silence them they replied: "We cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:20). This is how the Church was born, and from the day of Pentecost she has not ceased to spread the Good News "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

4. The Holy Spirit, soul of the Church and principle of communion

If we are to understand the mission of the Church, we must go back to the Upper Room where the disciples remained together (cf. Luke 24:49), praying with Mary, the "Mother", awaiting the Spirit that had been promised. This icon of the nascent Church should be a constant source of inspiration for every Christian community. Apostolic and missionary fruitfulness is not principally due to programmes and pastoral methods that are cleverly drawn up and "efficient", but is the result of the community's constant prayer (cf. "Evangelii Nuntiandi," 75). Moreover, for the mission to be effective, communities must be united, that is, they must be "of one heart and soul" (cf. Acts 4:32), and they must be ready to witness to the love and joy that the Holy Spirit instils in the hearts of the faithful (cf. Acts 2:42). The Servant of God John Paul II wrote that, even prior to action, the Church's mission is to witness and to live in a way that shines out to others (cf. "Redemptoris Missio," 26). Tertullian tells us that this is what happened in the early days of Christianity when pagans were converted on seeing the love that reigned among Christians: "See how they love one another" (cf. Apology, 39 § 7).

To conclude this brief survey of the Word of God in the Bible, I invite you to observe how the Holy Spirit is the highest gift of God to humankind, and therefore the supreme testimony of his love for us, a love that is specifically expressed as the "yes to life" that God wills for each of his creatures. This "yes to life" finds its fullness in Jesus of Nazareth and in his victory over evil by means of the redemption. In this regard, let us never forget that the Gospel of Jesus, precisely because of the Spirit, cannot be reduced to a mere statement of fact, for it is intended to be "good news for the poor, release for captives, sight for the blind ...". With what great vitality this was seen on the day of Pentecost, as it became the grace and the task of the Church towards the world, her primary mission!

We are the fruits of this mission of the Church through the working of the Holy Spirit. We carry within us the seal of the Father's love in Jesus Christ which is the Holy Spirit. Let us never forget this, because the Spirit of the Lord always remembers every individual, and wishes, particularly through you young people, to stir up the wind and fire of a new Pentecost in the world.

5. The Holy Spirit as "Teacher of the interior life"

My dear young friends, the Holy Spirit continues today to act with power in the Church, and the fruits of the Spirit are abundant in the measure in which we are ready to open up to this power that makes all things new. For this reason it is important that each one of us know the Spirit, establish a relationship with Him and allow ourselves to be guided by Him.

However, at this point a question naturally arises: who is the Holy Spirit for me? It is a fact that for many Christians He is still the "great unknown". This is why, as we prepare for the next World Youth Day, I wanted to invite you to come to know the Holy Spirit more deeply at a personal level. In our profession of faith we proclaim: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son" (Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed). Yes, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the love of the Father and of the Son, is the Source of life that makes us holy, "because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us" (Romans 5:5). Nevertheless, it is not enough to know the Spirit; we must welcome Him as the guide of our souls, as the "Teacher of the interior life" who introduces us to the Mystery of the Trinity, because He alone can open us up to faith and allow us to live it each day to the full. The Spirit impels us forward towards others, enkindles in us the fire of love, makes us missionaries of God's charity.

I know very well that you young people hold in your hearts great appreciation and love for Jesus, and that you desire to meet Him and speak with Him. Indeed, remember that it is precisely the presence of the Spirit within us that confirms, constitutes and builds our person on the very Person of Jesus crucified and risen. So let us become familiar with the Holy Spirit in order to be familiar with Jesus.

6. The Sacraments of Confirmation and the Eucharist

You might ask, how can we allow ourselves to be renewed by the Holy Spirit and to grow in our spiritual lives? The answer, as you know, is this: we can do so by means of the Sacraments, because faith is born and is strengthened within us through the Sacraments, particularly those of Christian initiation: Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist, which are complementary and inseparable (cf. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1285). This truth concerning the three Sacraments that initiate our lives as Christians is perhaps neglected in the faith life of many Christians. They view them as events that took place in the past and have no real significance for today, like roots that lack life-giving nourishment. It happens that many young people distance themselves from their life of faith after they have received Confirmation. There are also young people who have not even received this sacrament. Yet it is through the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and then, in an ongoing way, the Eucharist, that the Holy Spirit makes us children of the Father, brothers and sisters of Jesus, members of his Church, capable of a true witness to the Gospel, and able to savour the joy of faith.

I therefore invite you to reflect on what I am writing to you. Nowadays it is particularly necessary to rediscover the sacrament of Confirmation and its important place in our spiritual growth. Those who have received the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation should remember that they have become "temples of the Spirit": God lives within them. Always be aware of this and strive to allow the treasure within you to bring forth fruits of holiness. Those who are baptized but have not yet received the sacrament of Confirmation, prepare to receive it knowing that in this way you will become "complete" Christians, since Confirmation perfects baptismal grace (cf. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1302-1304).

Confirmation gives us special strength to witness to and glorify God with our whole lives (cf. Romans 12:1). It makes us intimately aware of our belonging to the Church, the "Body of Christ", of which we are all living members, in solidarity with one another (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:12-25). By allowing themselves to be guided by the Spirit, each baptized person can bring his or her own contribution to the building up of the Church because of the charisms given by the Spirit, for "to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" (1 Corinthians 12:7). When the Spirit acts, he brings his fruits to the soul, namely "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Galatians 5:22). To those of you who have not yet received the sacrament of Confirmation, I extend a cordial invitation to prepare to receive it, and to seek help from your priests. It is a special occasion of grace that the Lord is offering you. Do not miss this opportunity!

I would like to add a word about the Eucharist. In order to grow in our Christian life, we need to be nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ. In fact, we are baptized and confirmed with a view to the Eucharist (cf. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1322; "Sacramentum Caritatis," 17). "Source and summit" of the Church's life, the Eucharist is a "perpetual Pentecost" since every time we celebrate Mass we receive the Holy Spirit who unites us more deeply with Christ and transforms us into Him. My dear young friends, if you take part frequently in the eucharistic celebration, if you dedicate some of your time to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the Source of love which is the Eucharist, you will acquire that joyful determination to dedicate your lives to following the Gospel. At the same time it will be your experience that whenever our strength is not enough, it is the Holy Spirit who transforms us, filling us with his strength and making us witnesses suffused by the missionary fervour of the risen Christ.

7. The need and urgency of mission

Many young people view their lives with apprehension and raise many questions about their future. They anxiously ask: How can we fit into a world marked by so many grave injustices and so much suffering? How should we react to the selfishness and violence that sometimes seem to prevail? How can we give full meaning to life? How can we help to bring it about that the fruits of the Spirit mentioned above, "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (No. 6), can fill this scarred and fragile world, the world of young people most of all? On what conditions can the life-giving Spirit of the first creation and particularly of the second creation or redemption become the new soul of humanity?

Let us not forget that the greater the gift of God -- and the gift of the Spirit of Jesus is the greatest of all -- so much the greater is the world's need to receive it and therefore the greater and the more exciting is the Church's mission to bear credible witness to it. You young people, through World Youth Day, are in a way manifesting your desire to participate in this mission. In this regard, my dear young friends, I want to remind you here of some key truths on which to meditate.

Once again I repeat that only Christ can fulfil the most intimate aspirations that are in the heart of each person. Only Christ can humanize humanity and lead it to its "divinization". Through the power of his Spirit he instils divine charity within us, and this makes us capable of loving our neighbour and ready to be of service. The Holy Spirit enlightens us, revealing Christ crucified and risen, and shows us how to become more like Him so that we can be "the image and instrument of the love which flows from Christ" ("Deus Caritas Est," 33).

Those who allow themselves to be led by the Spirit understand that placing oneself at the service of the Gospel is not an optional extra, because they are aware of the urgency of transmitting this Good News to others. Nevertheless, we need to be reminded again that we can be witnesses of Christ only if we allow ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit who is "the principal agent of evangelization" (cf. "Evangelii Nuntiandi," 75) and "the principal agent of mission" (cf. "Redemptoris Missio," 21). My dear young friends, as my venerable predecessors Paul VI and John Paul II said on several occasions, to proclaim the Gospel and bear witness to the faith is more necessary than ever today (cf. "Redemptoris Missio," 1). There are those who think that to present the precious treasure of faith to people who do not share it means being intolerant towards them, but this is not the case, because to present Christ is not to impose Him (cf. "Evangelii Nuntiandi," 80).

Moreover, two thousand years ago, twelve Apostles gave their lives to make Christ known and loved. Throughout the centuries since then, the Gospel has continued to spread by means of men and women inspired by that same missionary fervour. Today too there is a need for disciples of Christ who give unstintingly of their time and energy to serve the Gospel. There is a need for young people who will allow God's love to burn within them and who will respond generously to his urgent call, just as many young blesseds and saints did in the past and also in more recent times. In particular, I assure you that the Spirit of Jesus today is inviting you young people to be bearers of the good news of Jesus to your contemporaries.

The difficulty that adults undoubtedly find in approaching the sphere of youth in a comprehensible and convincing way could be a sign with which the Spirit is urging you young people to take this task upon yourselves. You know the ideals, the language, and also the wounds, the expectations, and at the same time the desire for goodness felt by your contemporaries. This opens up the vast world of young people's emotions, work, education, expectations, and suffering ... Each one of you must have the courage to promise the Holy Spirit that you will bring one young person to Jesus Christ in the way you consider best, knowing how to "give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but [to] do it with gentleness and reverence" (cf. 1 Peter 3:15).

In order to achieve this goal, my dear friends, you must be holy and you must be missionaries since we can never separate holiness from mission (cf. "Redemptoris Missio," 90). Do not be afraid to become holy missionaries like Saint Francis Xavier who travelled through the Far East proclaiming the Good News until every ounce of his strength was used up, or like Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus who was a missionary even though she never left the Carmelite convent. Both of these are "Patrons of the Missions". Be prepared to put your life on the line in order to enlighten the world with the truth of Christ; to respond with love to hatred and disregard for life; to proclaim the hope of the risen Christ in every corner of the earth.

8. Invoking a "new Pentecost" upon the world

My dear young friends, I hope to see very many of you in Sydney in July 2008. It will be a providential opportunity to experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit's power. Come in great numbers in order to be a sign of hope and to give appreciative support to the Church community in Australia that is preparing to welcome you. For the young people of the country that will host you, it will be an exceptional opportunity to proclaim the beauty and joy of the Gospel to a society that is secularized in so many ways. Australia, like all of Oceania, needs to rediscover its Christian roots. In the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Oceania, Pope John Paul II wrote: "Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Church in Oceania is preparing for a new evangelization of peoples who today are hungering for Christ... A new evangelization is the first priority for the Church in Oceania" (No. 18).

I invite you to give time to prayer and to your spiritual formation during this last stage of the journey leading to the XXIII World Youth Day, so that in Sydney you will be able to renew the promises made at your Baptism and Confirmation. Together we shall invoke the Holy Spirit, confidently asking God for the gift of a new Pentecost for the Church and for humanity in the third millennium.

May Mary, united in prayer with the Apostles in the Upper Room, accompany you throughout these months and obtain for all young Christians a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit to set their hearts on fire. Remember: the Church has confidence in you! We Pastors, especially, pray that you may love and lead others to love Jesus more and more and that you may follow Him faithfully. With these sentiments I bless you all with deep affection.

From Lorenzago, 20 July 2007

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

I'm here

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep your pants on. Class is out for the summer. I'll start posting again in a bit.

Flexo

Where did you go?

Hey Blogmaster, you ever going to post again?

Bender

God Gives Freedom, He Does Not Take It From Us

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Homily at the Mass for Detainees at the Penal Institute for Minors
Casal del Marmo, Rome
March 18, 2007

You may well ask, how difficult can it be to love, or to live well? What is the secret of love, the secret of life? Let's turn back to the Gospel we just heard. There are three characters in this Gospel -- a father and his two sons. Both sons live in peace, both are farmers who are well off, they sell their crop well, and life seems good.

Nevertheless, the younger son gradually finds this life boring and unsatisfactory. This can't be all there is to life, he tells himself: getting up every day, maybe at 6 a.m., and then following the Jewish tradition, a prayer and a reading of the Holy Bible, and then, to work, and at the end of the day, another prayer. And so, day after day, he thinks, "But there has to be more in life, I should go out and find some other life where I can be really free, where I can do whatever I please -- a life that will be free of this discipline, these standards set by the commandments of God, or by my father's orders. I'd like to be by myself, for a change, and have a life that is totally just for me, with all its pleasures. Because now, all I have is work."

And so he decides to get all the patrimony due him and to leave home. The father is very respectful and generous, and respects his son's freedom -- he lets him find for himself his own plan for life.

So the son goes, according to the Gospel, to a faraway place. Geographically far, probably, because he wants a change, but also internally, because he wants a completely different life. His idea of that life is freedom -- doing whatever he wishes, not to have to live by the standards of a remote God, to do everything that seems beautiful to him, what pleases him, to enjoy life in all its richness and fullness.

In fact, for a time -- possibly for several months -- everything seemed to go his way. He was happy he was finally able to “live,” he felt happy. And then gradually, he started to feel bored. It was the same thing all over, which in the end remains a void that is ever more disquieting. He feels increasingly that this still is not “the life,” that even going forward with all these new things, life seemed even farther away.

Everything becomes empty, and even now, he feels once again the slavery of routine. And ultimately, his money is gone, and he finds out that he has been reduced to a state of life even worse than pigs in their sty. So he starts to reflect, asking himself whether the way to living fully was through freedom, in the sense of doing whatever I want, to live just for myself. Or was it better to live for others, contribute to building a better world, to the growth of the human community.

So he embarks on a new road, an internal journey. The young man reflects and considers all these new aspects of the problem and begins to see that he was much more free at home -- as a proprietor himself, he could contribute to the well-being of his own family and of society, in communion with the Creator. He begins to recognize the purpose of his life, seeing the plan that God has for him.

In this interior journey, in the maturation of a new plan for life, the young man then sets out on the exterior journey, to go back home, to start his life anew. Because now he understands that he took the wrong track. I must start anew with a completely different idea, he tells himself.

And he arrives at the house of his father, who had given him the freedom to go, to give him the possibility of learning what it means to live and how not to live. The father, with all his love, embraces him, offers him a feast, and life can start again with this feast.

The son now understands that it is work, humility, the discipline of every day, that create true feasting and true freedom. And so he has come back home, matured and purified within. He has learned what it means to live. Certainly, his life was not always going to be easy, the temptations would return, but at least, he is now aware that a life without God does not work -- it lacks essence, it lacks light, it lacks the why, the great sense of human existence. He has understood that we can only understand God on the basis of His own words. We Christians may add that we know God in Jesus, who has shown us the face of God.

The young man understands now that the commandments of God are not an obstacle to freedom and the good life, but they are pointers for the road one must take in order to find true life. He understands that even work, discipline, commitment to others instead of only to oneself, broadens our life. Because this very commitment to work, to do what we have to do, gives depth to our life -- it makes us feel ultimately the satisfaction of having helped to make this world better, more free and more beautiful.

I will not now talk about the other son who remained at home, but in his envious reaction, we see that perhaps interiorly, he too had felt it might have been better to leave home and take all the liberties he wants to. But he, too, in his interior homecoming -- he had been out in the fields working -- would have understood that one can truly live only with God, with His Word, in communion with one's own family, in communion with others, in the great Family of God. . . .

The Gospel helps us to understand who God truly is: He is the merciful Father who, in Jesus, loves us beyond all measure. The errors we make, no matter how big, do not erode the faithfulness of His love. In the sacrament of confession, we can always start life anew -- He welcomes us always, He restores dignity to his children. So let us rediscover this sacrament of forgiveness which makes joy gush forth from a heart that is reborn into the true life.

This parable also makes us understand what man is: he is not a “monad,” an isolated entity that lives for himself alone and could have a life all by himself and all to himself. On the contrary, we live with others, we were created together with all others, and only in being with others, in giving ourselves to each other, can we find true life.

Man is a creature on which God has stamped His own image, a creature who is drawn into the horizon of His grace. But even if he is also a fragile creature, exposed to evil, he is still capable of doing good.

Finally, man is a free being. But we have to understand what is freedom, and what is simply the appearance of freedom. We could say that freedom is like a trampoline to launch us towards the infinite sea of divine goodness. But it can also be a slippery slope down which we can easily plunge toward the abyss of sin and evil, and thus lose both our freedom and our dignity.

[During Lent], the Church helps us to make our interior journeys and invites us to repentance which, before it is seen as an effort that is always important in order to change our behavior, should be considered an opportunity to decide to get up and begin anew, abandoning sin and choosing to return to God. . . . Every time, like today, that we participate in the Eucharist -- source and school of love -- we become capable of living this love, of announcing it and of being witness to it in our own life. But we must decide to go towards Christ, just as the prodigal son went back, interiorly and exteriorly, to his father. At the same time, we must avoid the selfish attitude of the older son, so sure of himself, so ready to condemn others, and who closes his heart to understanding, welcoming and forgiving his younger brother, forgetting that he too is in need of pardon.

True Freedom Entails Saying "Yes" to God

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

-- Genesis 3:1-7

Homily of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 2005

What picture does this passage show us? The human being does not trust God. Tempted by the serpent, he harbors the suspicion that in the end, God takes something away from his life, that God is a rival who curtails our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we have cast Him aside; in brief, that only in this way can we fully achieve our freedom. The human being lives in the suspicion that God's love creates a dependence and that he must rid himself of this dependency if he is to be fully himself.

Man does not want to receive his existence and the fullness of his life from God. He himself wants to obtain from the tree of knowledge the power to shape the world, to make himself a god, raising himself to God's level, and to overcome death and darkness with his own efforts. He does not want to rely on love that to him seems untrustworthy; he relies solely on his own knowledge since it confers power upon him. Rather than on love, he sets his sights on power, with which he desires to take his own life autonomously in hand. And in doing so, he trusts in deceit rather than in truth and thereby sinks with his life into emptiness, into death.

However, love is not dependence, but a gift that makes us live. The freedom of a human being is the freedom of a limited being, and therefore is itself limited. We can possess it only as a shared freedom, in the communion of freedom: only if we live in the right way, with one another and for one another, can freedom develop. We live in the right way if we live in accordance with the truth of our being, and that is, in accordance with God's will. For God's will is not a law for the human being imposed from the outside and that constrains him, but the intrinsic measure of his nature, a measure that is engraved within him and makes him the image of God, hence, a free creature.

If we live in opposition to love and against the truth -- in opposition to God -- then we destroy one another and destroy the world. Then we do not find life, but act in the interests of death. All this is recounted with immortal images in the history of the original fall of man and the expulsion of man from the earthly Paradise.

Dear brothers and sisters, if we sincerely reflect about ourselves and our history, we have to say that with this narrative is described not only the history of the beginning but the history of all times, and that we all carry within us a drop of the poison of that way of thinking, illustrated by the images in the Book of Genesis. We call this drop of poison "original sin."

Precisely on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we have a lurking suspicion that a person who does not sin must really be basically boring and that something is missing from his life: the dramatic dimension of being autonomous; that the freedom to say "no," to descend into the shadows of sin and to want to do things on one's own is part of being truly human; that only then can we make the most of all the vastness and depth of our being men and women, of being truly ourselves; that we should put this freedom to the test, even in opposition to God, in order to become, in reality, fully ourselves. In a word, we think that evil is basically good, we think that we need it, at least a little, in order to experience the fullness of being. * * * We think that a little bargaining with evil, keeping for oneself a little freedom against God, is basically a good thing, perhaps even necessary.

If we look, however, at the world that surrounds us we can see that this is not so; in other words, that evil is always poisonous, does not uplift human beings but degrades and humiliates them. It does not make them any the greater, purer or wealthier, but harms and belittles them. This is something we should indeed learn on the day of the Immaculate Conception: the person who abandons himself totally in God's hands does not become God's puppet, a boring "yes man"; he does not lose his freedom.

Only the person who entrusts himself totally to God finds true freedom, the great, creative immensity of the freedom of good. The person who turns to God does not become smaller but greater, for through God and with God he becomes great, he becomes divine, he becomes truly himself. The person who puts himself in God's hands does not distance himself from others, withdrawing into his private salvation; on the contrary, it is only then that his heart truly awakens and he becomes a sensitive, hence, benevolent and open person.

Freedom is Contingent Upon Truth

Freedom, in its true sense, is the power to do what one ought to do, not necessarily what one wants to do. That is, true freedom is the ability to do what is right, and not the ability to do as one pleases. This is because one ought to do good, and what is good and right is that which is consistent with truth. And to do that which is inconsistent with truth is not freedom, but is instead being confined and controlled by error. Error causes disorder and leads to more error. True freedom is necessarily limited, in that it is inalienable, that is, it cannot be given away. If freedom were able to be given away, if one was free to be unfree and able to choose to be a slave, he obviously would no longer be free or in a state of freedom. The consequence of sin is that, by embracing a false and counterfeit “freedom,” we necessarily become a slave to error, even if we erroneously continue to insist that we are still free.

True freedom exists only in order, not disorder. A choice or act is freely made only when it is made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily, with an understanding of the consequences of that choice or act. If one cannot, because of external factors or because of a defective internal conscience, recognize what is true and what is false, what is good and what is evil, then one cannot make an informed and intelligent choice. In short, one cannot be truly free. Error does not lead to truth, it leads to further error and ignorance of truth. Indeed, as Aristotle pointed out, a slight error in the beginning, if not corrected, leads to a great error in the end. Consequently, making erroneous choices, choosing to do that which is wrong, which is contrary to truth and order, distorts one's ability to further recognize truth and good over that which is false and evil and consequently detracts from our freedom.

Freedom is necessarily dependent and contingent upon truth. Thus, it is necessarily limited by truth, including moral truth. Such that the ability to engage in something contrary to truth, as one might want to do, is not freedom at all. For example, it has been said that a man is free to put water in his car's gasoline tank, but that man is no longer free to drive -- he is now a pedestrian.

Thus, we see that there is no true conflict between human freedom and God's law. The true end of human freedom is growth as a mature person into how each is created by God. The natural law governing human behavior is not opposed to human freedom, but rather "it protects and promotes that freedom." It is only in innocence and higher truth that one can be free, and eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge does not free us, it does not make things clearer, it does not make us like gods, empowered to choose and determine what is right and what is wrong; it only enslaves us to error and sin.