VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI in Bavaria - “The harvest is great and has need of workers in every generation. And in every generation although in a different way, true are also the words: the workers are few”

Saturday, 16 September 2006

Freising (Agenzia Fides) - The Pope reserved the last meeting of his six day apostolic visit to Bavari in Germany, 9-14 September, for the local priests and permanent deacons whom he addressed in Freising Cathedral in the morning of Thursday 14 September. Almost summing up his visit the Pope said he had encountered “so much cordiality, faith and joy in God”. He then recalled his own ordination to the priesthood in the same Cathedral: “I remember while I lay prostate here on the floor as though enveloped by the Litany of the Saints and their intercession I realised that on this path we are not alone … I remember ordaining priests and deacons here who are now working at the service of the Gospel ... I remember of course the processions in honour of St Corbinian…”
The Pope then reflected on the Gospel passage where Jesus urged his disciples to pray to the master of the harvest: “The harvest is great and needs workers in every generation. And true also in every generation although in a different way are the words: the workers are few”- said Pope Benedict XVI -. The harvest is there but God wishes to involve people to bring it to the granary. God needs people. He needs people who say: Yes I am willing to be your worker for the harvest”. The fact that we must pray for vocations means also that the calling “must come from God”, and the Pope said in this regard: “We cannot, as in other callings, simply recruit people using, so to say, targeted propaganda and suitable strategies. The call, which comes from the heart of God must always find the way to the heart of the person. Nevertheless: for it to reach the human heart our collaboration is necessary. To ask the master of the harvest certainly means first of all praying for this, shaking His Heart and saying: ‘Please do it! Wake them up! Fill them with enthusiasm and joy for the Gospel! Make them understand that this is the most precious of treasures and that one who finds it feels impelled to share it!’.” Praying to God means “not only praying in words; it means also turning words into deeds so that from our praying heart the spark of joy in God, joy for the Gospel, will stir in other hearts willingness to pronounce their "yes".”
Pope Benedict XVI then spoke about the falling number of priests and the consequent rise in personal pastoral duties, offering some indications. The first was taken from Paul in the Letter to the Philippians (cfr 2, 5-8), where he says we "must have the same sentiments as Jesus Christ". This means “on the one hand, knowing God in depth, knowing Christ in depth , being with Him; only if this happens do we really discover the "treasure". On the other we must also reach other to others. We cannot keep this "treasure" for ourselves, we must share it”. The Pope continued: “this calls for zeal and humility … if we truly encounter Christ again and again, we cannot keep this new for ourselves … we feel impelled to be "heralds ", apostles of Christ. But for this zeal not to become empty and wearing for us, it must go hand in hand with humility, moderation, acceptation of our limits”.
This combination of zeal and moderation means also service in all its many dimensions: “But we can serve others, give to others only if we also receive, if we empty ourselves. This is why the Church proposes spaces which on the one hand are new places in which to "expiate" to "inspire" and on the other are places of service. First of all the daily celebration of the Holy Mass: let us not celebrate it as something routine, which in a way, "I must do", instead let us celebrate it "in depth"!...The other space which the Church so to say imposes and frees us by giving it to us, is the Liturgy of the Hours. Let us strive to recite it truly as a prayer, prayer in communion with the Israel of the Old and the New Testament, prayer in communion with praying people down through the centuries, prayer in communion with Jesus Christ, prayer which rises from the depth of the I, from the profoundest subject of these prayers. Praying in this manner we include in our prayer those who lack the time, or energy, or ability to pray”.
The Pope underlined that this does not mean “retiring on one’s own in private, it is a pastoral priority, a pastoral work, through which we ourselves become priests again, are again filled with Christ, we include others in the praying communion of the Church and at the same time we allow the power of prayer, the presence of Jesus Christ to exude in this world”. The Holy Father ended his homily returning to the motto of his pastoral visit: "If you believe you are never alone", and he added: “This is true and it must be true also for priests, for each one of us.”
At the end of the meeting the Pope was driven to Munich airport for the farewell ceremony and then boarded the plane for Rome. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 16/9/2006 - righe 57, parole 876)


Share: