Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Aosta (Agenzia Fides) – On the afternoon of Friday, July 24, the Holy Father Benedict XVI preisded the Celebration of Vespers in the Cathedral of Aosta. In the homily, the Pope commented on the Concluding Prayer from the Vespers, which “is composed of two parts: an address -- a heading, so to speak -- and then two requests,” the Pope said, explaining that the address in Italian only says “Merciful Father,” while the original Latin text says “Omnipotent and merciful God” and added: “Certainly the relationship with God is something deeply personal and the person is a being in relation and if the fundamental relationship – relationship with God – is not alive, is not lived, all the other relationships cannot find their proper form. This is also true in society, for humanity as such. There, is God is lacking, if God is set aside, if God is absent, we lack the compass that shows us the entire picture of all relationships, in order to find the path, an orientation as to where to walk.”
Benedict XVI then mentioned that: “We should once against bring the reality of God to our world, make Him known and make Him present,” and mentioned the expreience of the encounters with Bishops who come to the Vatican for their Ad Limina visits, and speak of places that still have traditional religions. “Everyone knows that God exists, one God, that the word God can only be singular, that the gods are not God, that there is a God, the God,” the Pope said. “And yet, at the same time, God seems absent, very distant. He does not seem to enter into our daily life. He hides Himself. We do not see His face...And the act of evangelization consists precisely in the fact that the distant God draws close, that God is no longer distant but near, that this “known-unknown” now makes Himself truly known, reveals His face, reveals Himself...because He is the true power. He is Omnipotent.”
The Pope then reflected on the fact that “we feel a little threatened by omnipotence; it seems to limit our freedom, it seems too great a burden, but we must learn that the omnipotence of God is not an arbitrary power, because God is the good, he is the truth, and therefore God can do everything but he cannot go against the good, he cannot go against the truth, he cannot go against love and freedom... God is the safeguard of our freedom, of love, of truth. This eye that watches us is not an evil eye that keeps us under surveillance, but it is the presence of a love that never abandons us and that gives us the certainty that good is being, good is living: it is the eye of love that gives us the air to live [on]...The height of God's power is mercy and forgiveness...True power is the power of grace and mercy. In mercy, God shows true power.”
Commenting on the second part of the address in the prayer, the Pope mentioned that “God suffered and in his Son he suffers with us and this is the ultimate apex of his power: that he can suffer with us...Thus He shows true divine power: he wanted to suffer with us, and for us. He never leaves us alone in our sufferings. God suffered in his Son and is near to us in our sufferings.” But why is suffering necessary to save the world? It was necessary “because of the ocean of evil, of injustice, of hatred, of violence, which the many victims of hate and injustice that have a right to justice. God cannot ignore this cry of the suffering, who are oppressed by injustice. Forgiving is not ignoring but transforming. And God must enter into this world and oppose the ocean of injustice with a larger ocean of goodness and love. This is the event of the Cross: from that moment, against the ocean of evil, there is an infinite river that is always greater than all the injustices of the world, a river of goodness, of truth, of love. Thus in forgiving, God transforms the world and enters into our world so that there truly be a power, a river of goodness greater than all the evil that could ever exist...This God invites us to join Him, to leave this ocean of evil, hate, violence, and selfishness and to identify ourselves with Him and enter into the river of His love.”
The second part of the prayer, the Pope continued saying, call to mind two texts from the Letter to the Romans: “in the first, Saint Paul says that we should become a living sacrifice (cf 12:16). We ourselves, with our entire being, should become adoration, sacrifice, restoring our world to God and thus transforming the world. In the second, in which Paul describes apostolate as a priesthood (cf 15:16), the function of the priesthood is to consecrate the world so that it may become a living host, so that the world may become liturgy: that the liturgy may not simply be something that exists alongside the reality of the world, but that the world itself becomes a living host, becomes liturgy. This is the great vision that Teilhard de Chardin also had: in the end, we will have a truly cosmic liturgy, where the cosmos becomes a living host. And we ask the Lord to help us to be priests in this sense, to aid in the transformation of the world, in adoration of God, beginning with ourselves. May our lives speak of God; may our life truly be liturgy and proclamation of God, the port where the distant God becomes the near God, and true gift of ourselves to God.”
The second petition, in which we ask “Let your people always experience the fullness of your love,” and in the Latin text “Fill us with your love,” Benedict XVI spoke of “how much hunger there is on earth, hunger for bread in so many parts of the world,” and with this prayer, we ask God: “Open your hand and truly satisfy the hunger of every living being. Satisfy our hunger for truth, for your love.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 27/7/2009)
