VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI weekly Catechesis: “Certainly the Lord is transcendent as creator and arbiter of the being; but he is also close to his creatures and enters space and time, indeed his presence among us reaches its apex in the Incarnation of Christ”

Vatican City (Fides Service) - At his weekly audience this morning in St Peter’s Square Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the second part of Psalm 135 (verses 10-26, “Thanksgiving for God’s work of salvation”, vespers Monday week four). “The Lord’s work is celebrated in two ambits, space and time” the Holy Father explained. The first of the psalm which we looked at last week , proclaims faith in God the creator who reveals himself in his cosmic creatures. “Now the joyous song of the psalmist … leads us to a different horizon. We know that biblical Revelation repeatedly proclaims that the presence of God the Saviour is manifested above all in the history of salvation.”
The psalmist sees the Lord’s many salvific interventions which have their heart in the fundamental exodus from Egypt. “This is closely connected the travailed wandering in the desert of Sinai, the final destination being the arrival in the promised land, a gift of God which Israel continues to experience all through the Bible.” The latter part of the psalm looks on the land which the Bible praises with enthusiasm. “This elaborate celebration which goes beyond the reality of that land, is really in praise of the divine gift”: a gift will allows the people to be free, a gift born from the Lord’s mercy “his fidelity to the promises made in the covenant with Israel, his love continually revealed through «memory».”
Psalm 135 interweaves two modalities of the one divine Revelation, cosmic and historic: “Certainly the Lord is transcendent as creator and arbiter of the being; but he is also close to his creatures, and enters space and time, indeed his presence among us reaches its apex in the Incarnation of Christ.” The Holy Father concluded his teaching quoting Saint Cyprian who at the beginning of his treatise on “works of charity and mercy” “contemplates the great deeds God has accomplished in Christ and concludes with a passionate recognition of God’s mercy”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 16/11/2005, righe 25, parole 373)