VATICAN - THE POPE’S TEACHING AT GENERAL AUDIENCE: “THE LORD IS NEVER INDIFFERENT TO HUMAN VICISSITUDES INDEED HE INTERVENES TO DEMOLISH ARROGANT AND OPPRESSIVE EMPIRES, HE LOWERS THE PROUD WHO CHALLENGE HIM, HE JUDGES THOSE WHO PERPETRATE EVIL”

Wednesday, 10 December 2003

Vatican City (Fides Service ) – On Wednesday 10 December the Pope addressed thousands of visitors gathered in the Paul VI Hall in the Vatican for his usual general audience. He focussed his teaching on the Canticle from the Book of Revelation “The Wedding of the Lamb” (Rev. 19,1-2.5.7), a hymn composed of a sequence of alleluias and acclamations. “Before these joyful invocations, there was the dramatic lament sung in the previous chapter by kings, merchants and navigators about the fall of imperial Babylon, the city of malice and oppression, symbol of the persecution unleashed against the Church– the Holy Father said -. In antithesis to this cry rising from the earth, there resounds in heaven a joyful choir of liturgical imprint which repeats besides the alleluia also the amen.”
Postponing the explanation of the individual verses to a later date, the Holy Father dwelt on particular two parts of this great hymn of praise: the opening acclamation («Salvation, glory and might belong to our God; for his judgements are true and just») and the finale («This is the wedding day of the Lamb; his bride has prepared herself for the wedding»). The joyful opening invocation “represents God’s decisive intervention in history: the Lord is not indifferent like an emperor isolated and impassive to human vicissitudes... He intervenes to demolish arrogant and oppressive empire, he lowers the proud who challenge him, he judges those who perpetrate evil.” The final acclamation instead is one of the dominant motives of the Book of Revelation itself: Christ and the Church, the Lamb and his bride, are in profound communion of love. In a hymn about the Wedding Feast at Cana, Saint Ephrem, applied this nuptial imagery of Christ’s union with his Church to our individual souls: “Christ, invited to weddings (the wedding feast at Cana), celebrated the feast of his own wedding feast: with his bride, that is, every believing soul.” (S.L.) (Fides Service 10/12/2003 – lines 23; words 336)


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