VATICAN - “We must learn to listen with the heart to God who speaks” Pope Benedict XVI tells students and teachers of Pontifical Universities in Rome for the opening of the new academic year

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Following a Eucharistic concelebration in St Peter’s Basilica on 23 October presided by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, to mark the beginning of the academic year at Roman Pontifical Universities, Pope Benedict XVI entered the Vatican Basilica to address the students and professors gathered there.“In-depth reflection on Christian truths and the study of theology or any other religious disciplines requires education to silence and contemplation, because we must learn to listen with the heart to God who speaks” the Pope said addressing seminarians, deacons, priests, men and women religious and many lay students from all over the world especially from new dioceses and mission territories who come to study in Rome.
.“Here you find professors and formators of different nationalities and cultures. This variety does not produce dispersion because, as today’s liturgical celebration well expresses, all these different faculties and collages tend to a superior unity, following common criteria for formation, chiefly fidelity to the Magisterium. Therefore at the beginning of a new academic year let us thank the Lord for this singular community of teachers and students which manifests most eloquently the universality and unity of the Catholic Church.”
Pope Benedict XVI than underlined the “primary importance of spiritual life and the necessity to give attention not only to cultural growth but also to a balanced human growth and profound ascetic and religious formation”. The authentic disciple of the Lord must build “a close friendship with Him by means of meditation and prayer... thought always has need of purification to enter the dimension in which God pronounces His creative and redeeming Word... Only if they come from silence and contemplation will our words be of value and of use, and not fall into the world’s inflation of discourses in search of consensus from public opinion. A person who studies at an ecclesiastical institute must prepare to be obedient to the truth and strive for special ascesis in thought and word ”.
At the beginning of the new academic year the Pope prayed that the Holy Spirit might enlighten the students’ hearts. “Your apostolate tomorrow will be rich and fruitful to the extent that you prepare in these years studying seriously, and above all by nourishing your personal relationship with the Lord, striving for holiness and having as the only purpose of your existence the building up of the Kingdom of God”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 25/10/2006, righe 32, parole 450)