Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Regensburg (Agenzia Fides) - Continuing his apostolic visit to Bavaria, in the evening of Monday 11 September, after visiting Saint Oswald at Marktl am Inn where he was baptised on Easter Sunday 17 April 1927, the day after he was born, Pope Benedict XVI went to Regensburg. The next morning Tuesday 12 September the Pope presided an open air Mass at Islinger Feld, Regensburg. He began his homily with the words of the motto of his pastoral - "If you believe you are never alone" - expressing his joy because “faith brings us together and gives us a celebration. It gives us joy in God, joy for creation and joy for being together”. He then thanked the many people who had worked hard to prepare the celebration: “I never imagined how much effort down to the smallest detail is necessary to enable us to be here together in this way. For all this I can only offer ‘heartfelt thanks!’. May the Lord reward you and may the joy we experience thanks to your work of preparation be given back to you one hundred fold!”
The Pope then reflected on the question “What does it mean: to believe?”. Some may be discouraged and think the answer to this question is too complicated, in fact “the vision of faith includes heaven and earth; the past, the present, the future, eternity, and is therefore inexhaustible. However in its nucleus it is very simple. The Lord himself in fact spoke of this with his Father when he said: "You wished to reveal it to simple people - to those who are able to see with their heart" (cfr Mt 11,25). The Church, for her part, offers us a minute "Somma", in which all the essential is expressed: we call it the "Apostles Creed". This profession of faith, composed of three main parts, is simply an amplification of the formula of baptism which the Lord entrusted to the disciples, valid for all times.
“In this vision - the Pope continued - two things are revealed: faith is simple. We believe in God … who is our origin and our future. This means faith is at the same time and always, hope, the certainty that we have a future, that we will not fall into oblivion. And faith is love because God wishes us to ‘be infected’ by his love...The second thing we see: the Creed is not a sum of sentences, it is not a theory. It is, precisely, rooted in the event of Baptism … Jesus Christ, so to say, adopts us as his brothers and sisters, welcoming us as children in God’s family. In this way He makes us become one great family in the universal community of the Church. Yes, if you believe you are never alone.”
The Holy Father then posed another question: in our day is it still possible to believe? Is it reasonable? Since the times of the Enlightenment a part of science at least has searched to find an explanation of the world in which God would be superfluous. “However every time it appears to have succeeded, it becomes clear: it doesn’t add up! Without God it doesn’t work, without him the world, the universe don’t add up. In the end there remains the alternative: what was there in the beginning?... we believe that in the beginning there existed the eternal Word, Reason, not Irrationality. With this faith we need not hide ourselves, we need not fear that we are on a road to nowhere”.
We believe “in God, Spirit Creator, creative Reason, from Whom all things come, from whom we too come … God has not left us to grope about in the dark. He has shown Himself as man. He is so great that he can afford to make himself very, very small... He loves us so much as to let himself be nailed to the Cross for us in order to carry the suffering of mankind up to the very heart of God”. Pope Benedict XVI then underlined: “Today as we see the pathologies and moral sickness of religion and reason, the destruction of the image of God through hatred and fanaticism, it is important to affirm clearly in which God we believe and to confirm our belief in the human face of God.”
Continuing his homily the Pope recalled that the second part of the Creed ends with a vision of the Last Judgement and the third part ends with the Resurrection of the Dead. The Judgement of the world should not frighten us because “faith does not want to frighten us, it wants us to be responsible! We must not waste our life, or make bad use of it; neither must we keep it for ourselves. Injustice we must not leave us indifferent, we must not become its connivers or accomplices. We must take our mission in history seriously and strive to fulfil it”.
Lastly the Holy Father mentioned the feast of the Holy Name of Mary, (12 September) wishing God’s blessings on all who bear the name of Mary, also the name of his own mother and sister: “Let us too take Mary as the star of our life to lead us into the great family of God! Yes, if you believe you are never alone. Amen!” (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 13/9/2006 - righe 55, parole 820)
