WHAT DO CATHOLICS BELIEVE ABOUT ... THE EUCHARIST

The Catechism of the Catholic Church: "The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice, in the liturgy of the Church, which is his Body.... In the sense of sacred Scripture the memorialis not merely the recollection of past events, but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men. (Cf Ex 13:3). In the liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and real. This is how Israel understands its liberation from Egypt: every time the Passover is celebrated, the Exodus events are made present to the memory of believers so that they may conform their lives to them....When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ's Passover, and it is made present: the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the cross (Heb 7:25-27) remains forever present. "As often as the sacrifice of the Cross by which 'Christ our Pasch has been sacrificed (1 Cor 5:7)' is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out" (Lumen Gentium 3). ... The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents(makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit." (#1362-1366) 

Now this beautiful explanation from the CCC gives us the pure Catholic teaching, but how does this understanding come about? Relying on Sacred Scripture and the early Church Fathers we shall dig deeply into this great mystery, Gods' greatest gift to His Church, Himself. 

1.) THE PROMISE :

Any discussion on the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist will at some point center on John chapter 6, and what we refer to as the "Promise of the Eucharist". Note that this is only the promise, the fulfillment will come later. 
Chapter 6 begins with Jesus performing two miracles. The first was the feeding of the five thousand. Realize the symbolism here of Jesus using the fish and the loaves of bread. Any serious student of Christian history will tell you that the "fish" was a symbol for Christ. In the Greek, the word for fish, ICHTHYS, was an acronym. It meant "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior" So here we note how John portrays this miracle using "fish", an obvious reference to Christ Himself, and bread (the loaves) which Christ used at the last supper. 
The second miracle has Jesus walking on the water. This, along with the first miracle, shows forth Christ's' power over the elements of nature. Jesus is showing forth His divinity. This is all designed to prepare the hearts of his hearers for the real test the next day. 

2.) THE TYPOLOGY, PART I:

After being asked; "Rabbi, when didst thou come here?", Jesus proceeds to explain to the Jews how He is going to fulfill one of the Old Testament "types". A "type" is a person, place , or thing in the Old Testament that prefigures or images the person and work of Christ in the New. Hebrews 10:1 says; "For the law, having but a shadow of the good things to come, and not the exact image of the objects, is never able by the sacrifices they offer continually, year after year the same, to perfect those who draw near;" Note that the Old Testament 'law' is but a shadowof the good things to come! Now we know that a shadow is far inferior to what it represents. Jesus uses this 'typology' in John 3:14: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that those who believe in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting." Our Lord here compares the lifting of the serpent' ( see Num 21:9) with his own Crucifixion. I ask you which of the two is superior? Obviously the Crucifixion. 

Now let's get back to John 6. After the Jews ask Jesus for a 'sign' to prove he is from God, as did the prophet Moses by "giving our ancestors Manna in the desert", Jesus says: "Amen, Amen, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." Verse 34, the Jews said "Lord, give us this bread always." Verse 35, Jesus replied "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst" Jesus is comparing himself to the Manna in the desert, a food that the Israelites physically ate, and "died nonetheless (verse 49)." Up unto this point, you could argue that Jesus is speaking metaphorically, spiritually, but what he says next changes all that. Verses 51-52 "I am the living bread that has come down from heaven. If anyone eat this bread he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."

Now understand that the Jews themselves, took Jesus literally. They exclaimed "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Elsewhere in scripture when Jesus was misunderstood, either Jesus corrected the misunderstanding, or the evangelist did. John 19-22, Jesus said "Destroy this temple, and in three days raise it up", the evangelist corrects the misunderstanding in verse 21 "He was speaking of the temple of his body". You can see this elsewhere in scripture too. In Matt 16:6-12, the disciples clearly misunderstood our Lord, and our Lord patiently corrected them. 

So here was a clear opportunity for Jesus to correct a supposed misunderstanding. I say 'supposed' for that is what our non-Catholic friends say, this is "a misunderstanding". But what does Jesus do? Does he correct this literal understanding? not only does he not correct them, but he magnifies this teaching by saying, "Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life within you." (emphasis mine) Only now does Jesus add that we must also drink his blood. Six times in this paragraph Jesus reasserts the necessity to "eat my flesh and drink my blood", six times! Do you think he was trying to tell us something? 

Non-Catholics are fond of quoting John 3:3 "Unless you be born again.." Why is it that that 'unless' is so important, and this 'unless' isn't. You can't have it both ways, we must be consistent when interpreting Gods' word. 

The non-Catholic will be quick to point out verse 64 "It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing." See, they will say, Jesus was speaking figuratively, or spiritually, that is why he said "the spirit gives life". Are we to believe that Jesus just said "eat my flesh and drink my blood, but it will profit nothing?" This is what happens when one only interprets scripture to disprove anothers position. Verses get wrenched out of context and given new meanings not intended by the writers. 

First note that Jesus said "the flesh", not "my flesh". Jesus' flesh profits much, for it was that flesh which suffered and died for us, opening the gates of heaven to us. But "the flesh", which our Lord spoke of, profits nothing. Meaning that looking at things carnally cannot understand the things of the spirit. See 1 Cor 15:50 "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven", or Gal 5:17 "For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh..", among others (2 Pet 2:10; 1 Cor 10:2; Eph 2:3, 6:5 etc.) That is why Jesus said "No one can come to me unless he is enabled to do so by my Father (verse 64)". It is only by walking in the spirit that we can come to accept this doctrine. 

Besides, in the Hebrew culture, to "each ones flesh, and to drink ones blood', was to revile, or persecute that one. We can see this understanding in Rev 17:6 "And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints..." She persecuted them. Isaiah 49:25-26 "But I will judge those that have judged thee, and thy children I will save. And I will feed thy enemies with their own flesh: and they shall be made drunk with their own blood, as with new wine: and all flesh shall know, that I am the Lord that save thee." Knowing this, is it possible to understand our Lords words figuratively? That would mean he said "If you persecute and revile me, you shall live forever." This is why no one misunderstood what our Lord said! 

Look at verse 67; "From this time on, many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him." Did you read that, his disciples left him because they understood him literally. If they had misunderstood him, this was Jesus' last chance to correct them and call them back. But he didn't, he left them go.. If, indeed they did misunderstand him, and Jesus let them go anyway, then Jesus was not the greatest teacher of all time, because he would have let himself be misunderstood, giving no evidence that he wished to correct this misunderstanding. No, they understood him all right, it was their faith that was lacking. 

3.) EX. 12 ... THE PASSOVER LAMB

In John 1:29, we read that John the Baptist, pointing to Jesus, proclaims "Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world". It is kind of an obscure passage. What did he mean by "lamb of God"? We've already discussed typology, and the image John uses here refers us back to Exodus 12. 

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, "This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they shall take every man a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household; and if the household is too small for a lamb, then a man and his neighbor next to his house shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old; you shall take it from the sheep or from the goats; and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs in the evening. Then they shall take some of the blood, and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat them. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled with water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning, anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's passover. (Ex 12:1-11)

This is what John was referring to, the Passover Lamb. Some things of note in this passage: "they shall take every man a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household", we are the household of God (Eph 2:19). They shall eat the flesh that night, We too must eat the flesh of this Lamb (of God) (1 Cor 11:26). And you shall let none of it remain until the morning, We receive the whole Christ at the table of the Lord. It is the Lord's passover. "For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." (1 Cor 5:8) What 'festival' is Paul here referring to, but the festival of the New Testament passover meal, the Holy Mass! How do we know that? Because Paul goes on to explain the Mass in chapters 10 &11. 

In Malachi 1:11 we read: "For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts." This verse has been used by early Church Fathers as the prophecy of the Mass. We find it in the "Didache" (circa 100a.d.), Justin Martyrs' "Dialogue with Trypho the Jew" (140 a.d.), Iranaeus' "Against Heresies" (180 a.d.), and in the writings of St. Augustine. What other Christian religion claims to offer a continual sacrifice from the rising of the sun to its setting thereof but the Catholic faith? If there is no New Testament sacrifice, as non-Catholics claim, then this prophecy remains unfulfilled, and Malachi is a false prophet and doesn't belong in the Bible! But, Malachi is in the Bible, thus he is a true prophet of the Most High, therefore the Catholic Religion is the only faith fulfilling this prophecy (along with the other Apostolic Faiths). 

We also read in Exodus 12:24, that the Passover was to be a perpetual ordinance, "forever". This Jewish Passover meal was just the type, of which the New Testament passover is the fulfillment. For this fits in perfectly with the Malachi prophecy. This sacrifice will be offered not only in Jerusalem, but "in every place", and at all times. 

4.) THE FULFILLMENT : 1 COR 10:24-25 (see also MATT 26:26-27; MARK 14:22-24; LUKE 22:19-20)" For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."

This, now, is the fulfillment of that great promise of our Lord in John 6. In the setting of the Passover liturgy, Jesus changes the words of the 'Cup of Blessing' that were used for 1500 years. Yes, folks, the Passover liturgy was just a type of "The Mass". It pointed forward to this supreme moment of God condescending to man to become our food! Still not convinced? Then listen to these words of St. Paul: " The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor 10:16) You cannot get much plainer language than that, my friends. But just in case his listeners did not understand that, Paul goes on to say " Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself." (1 Cor 11:27-29) And as Fr. Ken Roberts likes to say, "That's St. Paul, not Pope Paul!" I ask you, how can you be "guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord" if you are only eating a symbol? Or a memorial? 

Notice also what Paul says in this same epistle. He compares the Eucharist with pagan sacrifices " You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons."(1 Cor 10:21) By doing this, Paul puts the Mass in the same context as the sacrifices offered by the pagans. Why is that important? Because our separated brethren will have us believe there is no sacrifice in the New Testament, yet Paul here clearly shows the mass to be a sacrifice. Look, also at what the writer to the Hebrews proclaims "We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat."( Heb 13:10) What is an altar? Is it not a place where 'sacrifice is offered? That is its definition. Therefore, if "We have an altar", then we must have something to offer on that altar, and that means there is indeed, a New Testament sacrifice.

The following excerpt from Scott Hahn "Eucharist, Holy Meal" 
5.) EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITINGS : St. Ignatius of Antioch, disciple of the beloved disciple John, spoke of the heretics who were plaguing the Church in his day. "They abstained from the Eucharist because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior, Jesus Christ." 

Then St. Justin Martyr in the 2nd Century, one of the great apologists, defenders of the faith, stated, "This food is known among us as the Eucharist. We do not receive these things as common bread 
and common drink but as Jesus Christ, our Savior, being made flesh by the word of God." 

Then in the 4th Century, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, another venerable Church Father, wrote, "Since then he has declared instead of the bread, 'This is my body,' who after that will venture to doubt. And seeing that he has affirmed and said, 'This is my blood,' who will raise a question and say it is not his blood?" 

So we have testimony throughout all of the first centuries of the Church to this effect. You are hard-pressed, I would say it is practically impossible to find a single statement by anybody in the 
first eight centuries of the Church where you have a denial of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, flesh and blood, body, soul and divinity there in the Eucharist. I remember when I first discovered that, I was still anti-Catholic, but boy, did that bother me; because I wondered how could John's disciple get it so wrong? How could St. Ignatius say something so patently false and superstitious after spending all this time at the feet of the beloved disciple, St. John? 

8.) THE EMMAUS EXPERIENCE : LUKE 24:30-31
" While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?" And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cle'opas, answered him, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?" And he said to them, "What things?" And they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since this happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; and they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see." And he said to them, "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, "Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight.( Luke 24:15-31) 

Boy, there is so much to learn from this great passage of Scripture. But let's concentrate on just a couple of them. The most obvious lesson is to note how the disciples came to notice him in the breaking of the bread, as is explicated for us in verse 35. 
Second, notice the first thing that Jesus does with his disciples on His appearance to them is have the Mass. What?, you may say! Look at the text! First Jesus explains the Scriptures to them, just as we do at mass in the Liturgy of the Word. Then He goes on to the Liturgy of the Eucharist by making Himself present to them in the "Breaking of the Bread"

Yes, there can be no doubt about it. The real presence of our Lord in the Eucharist is one of the most clearest doctrines in all of Scripture. Only those who have closed their eyes to the beauty and wonder of Catholic teaching can overlook this plain teaching. Let us all pray that Almighty God will bless us all with a deeper and clearer understanding of this our greatest treasure, THE HOLY EUCHARIST, Amen

Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter (May 4, 2011): Children of the Light

Children of the Light

May 4, 2011
Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter
Father Steven Reilly, LC

Listen to this meditation as a podcast here. 

John 3:16-21
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

Introductory Prayer:  Lord, you know my needs better than I do. I turn to your Spirit to teach me what to ask for in this prayer. I want to fulfill your holy will over my life. I love you, Lord, and I place all my hope in you.

Petition: Lord, increase my faith in the power of the Resurrection.

1. God Loves the World:  The tsunami that struck the Indian Ocean countries in 2004 and the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 provoked many people to question God’s goodness. How could he, if he is good, have permitted such a catastrophe? But what does our faith teach us? That God loves the world, so much that he sent his only Son. Evil in the world is real and present, and such massive casualties show that nature herself cooperates with the power of death. But that power is being broken. The first decisive blow to the chain that binds the world was Christ’s death on the cross. The execution of Our Lord was the greatest act of moral evil history can ever see, but through God’s power, it has become the source of eternal life for us all, as we now celebrate in this Easter season. Through the power of the Resurrection, we are journeying towards the ultimate defeat of suffering and death.

2. Sin Is the Worst Evil:  The physical evil brought by a natural disaster is terrible. But sin is worse. This Gospel reading reminds us of souls who consciously choose evil. The irony is that people make this choice pursuing some form of self-fulfillment. Instead of fulfillment, they encounter the emptiness of a life that carries with it the burden of self-imposed condemnation. They live in darkness as opposed to the light. If we knew someone who freely chose to live in a darkened cave, we would think that person nothing short of insane. But where are the dark patches in our own lives?

3. Christ Leads Us Towards the Light:  Christ’s body had been physically destroyed through the evil decisions and cruelty of men. When the risen Lord appeared to the apostles in the Upper Room, his new life of glory pointed in a new direction, and they were flooded with the vision of where we are heading. Through our life in the Church, we are heading to a renewal of all things in Christ, in which death will be no more, and where every tear will be wiped away. The physical evil of natural disasters and the moral evil of sin may try to challenge our faith. But they are the last gasps of a defeated enemy. Let us take heart! We are headed to the light, where Christ is King and Lord of all.

Conversation with Christ:  Lord, I long to live in the light. Banish from my soul all darkness of sin or disbelief. At times I struggle to see the pattern of your divine plan. But through my faith, I know that you are love and mercy and you are guiding us towards the light that will never end.

Resolution:  I will renew my spiritual vision of the world by frequently lifting my mind up to God during the day.

http://meditation.regnumchristi.org/ 

Jesus’ Resurrection Left a Footprint Within History

By Father Thomas Rosica, CSB

In reading the Resurrection chapters of the four Gospels, the differences between the accounts are very obvious. Not one of the evangelists recounts the actual Resurrection. It is an event that is taking place within the mystery of God between Jesus and the Father; by its very nature, the resurrection event lies outside human experience.

What lessons can we learn about the Resurrection from each of the Gospel accounts, particularly from Matthew’s story that we hear proclaimed today?

Mark’s call to the cross

In the earliest Gospel account in Mark’s Gospel (Chapter 16), the last scene is a startling one … for the story ends with “[The women] came out and fled from the tomb, for they were possessed by fear and trembling, and they said nothing to anyone” (16:8).

The most striking aspect of Mark’s ending is that we never encounter the Risen Lord. Instead, we see an awe-inspiring, almost eerie scene.

In the darkness of early morning, the women arrive at the tomb to accomplish a nearly impossible task. These women are the only ones who follow Jesus to the foot of the cross and to the tomb. They find the tomb opened and empty, and are greeted by a heavenly figure who gives them a commission: “Go and tell his disciples and Peter that he goes before you into Galilee; there you will see him as he told you” (16:7).

Mark’s Resurrection account is meant to disturb the Christian reader; to undo the ease that makes one forget that the call to discipleship is the call to the cross. Readers of Mark’s account are invited to view their lives in the shadow of the cross.

Matthew’s living Christ

Matthew tells the story of the resurrection in four scenes: the women’s experience at the tomb (28:1-7); their short encounter with the risen Lord (28:8-10); the Jewish leaders’ attempt to suppress the story (28:11-15); the appearance to the disciples in Galilee (28:16-20). The final scene, ending with the Great Commission (28:19-20), stands on its own as a programmatic conclusion to the entire Gospel.

The women present in Matthew’s Resurrection chapter do not witness the Resurrection. They do experience the earthquake, the appearance of the angel, and the emptiness of the tomb — all of which are signs or traces of divine activity that has brought these things about.

Matthew literally makes Jesus present in the last scene of the Gospel on the mountain where Jesus had directed the disciples to go (28:16-20). At the end of the Gospel, he points us back to the first programmatic sermon of Jesus on the mountain in Galilee (5:1-7:21).

Matthew’s meek and humble Jesus is the teacher as well as the example of meekness and humility. In revising Mark’s Gospel, Matthew deliberately completes the picture of Jesus and of the Christian life.

The bleak image and invitation of the cross and the dead Jesus are filled out with a living and present Jesus, whose words, reflected upon the Scriptures of Israel, offer a consoling and learnable “way” for those disciples willing to learn. Matthew issues the call to learn of the meek and humble Jesus.

Luke’s symphony

The Easter chapter of Luke’s Gospel (24), like a beautiful symphony, presents us with a biblically oriented pastoral practice and distinct way of Christian living. In the first movement (25:1-12), God alone breaks open a helpless situation. In the second movement of the marvelous story of Jesus and the disciples on the road to Emmaus (25:13-35), God, in the person of Jesus, accompanies people on their journeys through despair. The stories of the third movement (25:36-53) lead people into an experience of community.

John’s Risen Lord

John tells of appearances of the Risen Lord in both Jerusalem and Galilee. The resurrection stories of the fourth Gospel are a series of encounters between Jesus and his followers that reveal diverse faith reactions.

Whether these encounters are with Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple, Mary Magdalene, the disciples or Thomas, the whole scenario reminds us that in the range of belief there are different degrees of readiness and different factors that cause people to come to faith.

A new dimension of existence

Benedict XVI writes about “The Nature of Jesus’ Resurrection and Its Historical Significance” in “Jesus of Nazareth Part 2: Holy Week — From the Entrance Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection” (Ignatius Press, 2011).

I would like to highlight several points made by the Pope in this masterful text: “Jesus did not simply return to normal biological life as one who, by the laws of biology, would eventually have to die again. [...]

“Jesus is not a ghost (’spirit’). In other words, he does not belong to the realm of the dead but is somehow able to reveal himself in the realm of the living. [...]

“The encounters with the Risen Lord are not the same as mystical experiences, in which the human spirit is momentarily drawn aloft out of itself and perceives the realm of the divine and eternal, only to return then to the normal horizon of its existence. Mystical experience is a temporary removal of the soul’s spatial and cognitive limitations” (pp. 272-273).

Benedict XVI continues: “[The resurrection] is a historical event that nevertheless bursts open the dimensions of history and transcends it. Perhaps we may draw upon analogical language here, inadequate in many ways, yet still able to open up a path toward understanding: as already anticipated in the first section of this chapter, we could regard the Resurrection as something akin to a radical ‘evolutionary leap,’ in which a new dimension of life emerges, a new dimension of human existence” (p. 273).

He added: “As something that breaks out of history and transcends it, the Resurrection nevertheless has its origin within history and up to a certain point still belongs there. Perhaps we could put it this way: Jesus’ Resurrection points beyond history but has left a footprint within history. Therefore it can be attested by witnesses as an event of an entirely new kind” (p. 275).

Fathoming a mystery

In our highly technological world, the reality of the Resurrection becomes increasingly difficult to fathom. So many spend their lives explaining it away rather than probing the depths of its mystery. And they try to do this alone, separated from a believing community of Christians, locked in the prison of self and of ideas, frozen before a computer screen as they try to fathom what happened on Easter morning.

Some people state quite frankly that the whole story is simply out of date. But the Resurrection is not a matter of the head, of theory and ideas, but a matter of the heart that can only be experienced and learned through a community’s worship and liturgy. To be fully experienced and grasped, the Resurrection requires an environment of hauntingly beautiful music, of smoke and incense, bread and wine, murmurs of greeting and shouts of joy, dazzling colors and most of all, three-dimensional bodies of real people, even those who aren’t necessarily “regulars” of our parish communities, who gather together every year to hear the Easter proclamation.

One doesn’t sit at a computer and tap out “Jesus is risen.” It has to be performed and enacted. If the Resurrection were meant to be a historically verifiable occurrence, God wouldn’t have performed it in the dark without eyewitnesses. The Resurrection was an event transacted between God the Father and God the Son by the power of God the Holy Spirit.

Not a single Gospel tells us how it happened. We don’t know what he looked like when he was no longer dead, whether he burst the tomb in glory or came out like Lazarus, slowly unwrapping his shroud and squinting with wonder against the dawn of Easter morning in a garden in Jerusalem.

Finding the words

How shall we find words for the Resurrection? How can we give expression to the conquest of death and the harrowing of hell and the washing that has joined us to God’s life? There are no words — there are only the wrong words — metaphors, chains of images, verbal icons — that invite us into a mystery beyond words.

For four years I lived in the Holy City of Jerusalem and hundreds of times I visited the remains of the Church building that houses the place of Calvary and the Holy Sepulcher. It is truly holy ground for Christians, and being there never failed once to move me. That old building is truly a microcosm of our own lives, our hearts and our Church.

In the midst of the dark, dirty and chaotic Holy Sepulcher Basilica is the tomb of Jesus, a shrine to the risen Christ. But he is not there. All around that tomb are the remnants of 2,000 years of dreadfully human corruption. Nevertheless, it is the most important shrine and holy place for Christians. Christ is risen from the dead!

At Calvary, and elsewhere in the Holy Land, corruption seems so rampant … but God shall be victorious, because 70 feet away from Calvary there is a tomb that is empty.

And there is also another startling truth about that Church and the moments that it commemorates: Every single one of us has within us a shrine to the Risen Christ. That shrine is our first love for him, and him alone.

Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Do we truly live as children of the light, of the Living One? The Resurrection of Jesus is the sign that God is ultimately going to win.

In the midst of all the chaos found in the Holy Sepulcher building, I found that if I knelt long enough in some corner of the Church amidst religious groups seemingly at war with each other, disquiet disappeared and I often experienced a strange peace and deep joy and consolation because of the resurrection of the man who was God’s Son and our Savior. The only way to discern, detect and discover the presence of the Risen Lord is on one’s knees, in the midst of the chaos of the Church and the world.

Jesus’ victory over death belongs to the Church’s ongoing pastoral and sacramental life and its mission to the world. The Church is the community of those who have the competence to recognize Jesus as the Risen Lord. It specializes in discerning the Risen One. As long as we remain in dialogue with Jesus, our darkness will give way to dawn, and we will become “competent” for witness. In an age that places so much weight on competency, we would do well to focus every now and then on our competence to discern the Resurrection.

What is the Resurrection? Benedict XVI explains it so well in “Jesus of Nazareth”: “It is part of the mystery of God that he acts so gently, that he only gradually builds up his history within the great history of mankind; that he becomes man and so can be overlooked by his contemporaries and by the decisive forces within history; that he suffers and dies and that, having risen again, he chooses to come to mankind only through the faith of the disciples to whom he reveals himself; that he continues to knock gently at the doors of our hearts and slowly opens our eyes if we open our doors to him.

“And yet — is not this the truly divine way? Not to overwhelm with external power, but to give freedom, to offer and elicit love. And if we really think about it, is it not what seems so small that is truly great?” (p. 276).

Eight Habits of Highly Effective Fathers

by Chris Erickson, June 2000 Lay Witness Magazine

+Educate yourself in the Faith.
+Put what you learn into practice by forming good habits.
+Teach Christ's Truths through your own experience.
+Pray together.
+Spend time with your children.
+Guard the windows to the soul!
+Be vigilant over your children's friends.
+Make your home a place of tranquility and peace — beginning with loving your wife.

By Chris Erickson with improvements by Mike Humphrey

1. Educate yourself in the Faith.

Read a chapter or a passage or two from Sacred Scripture and the Catechism each day. St. Jerome tells us that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. Pope John Paul II encourages families

"to use the Catechism of the Catholic Church to learn about the faith and to answer the questions that come up, especially the moral questions which confront every­one today."

Listen to God's Word to us as revealed through Scripture and Tradition. In addition to the Bible and the Catechism, there are many other worthwhile books and Church documents, such as Pope John Paul II 's 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio (on marriage and family issues). We cannot pass on to our children what we ourselves have never taken the time to learn.

2. Put what you learn into practice by forming good habits.

Satan knows the Scriptures better than Scripture scholars do, Knowing God's instructions won't benefit us if we don't live them. A father's primary responsibility is to be a Christian witness to his children.

Our homes can be a haven of moral virtue if we foster it through our own example. We preach in vain if we do not practice what we teach.

3. Teach Christ's Truths through your own experience.

Jesus asks: "For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?" (Mt. 16:26). The Holy Father reminds us that parents are the first and most important educators of their own children. Teach your children about God through your own experience. There is a great difference between "knowing about God" and "knowing God." Share with them simple stories of faith that reveal how you relate to God in your everyday situations. Tell them about your discernment, your trust, your prayer, your dependence on God, and your love for Him. It doesn't need to be anything weighty. God ought to be as real to them as you are. Avoid the attitude that says,

"My child can learn about religion at Sunday school."

If religion is a subject set aside for an hour on Sundays, your child most likely will be a "Sunday Christian", if he keeps his faith at all. Wouldn't you protest if your child were instructed only one hour each week in literature, mathematics, or some other subject?

4. Pray together.

Mass, Confession, cerebrating feast days, reading the Bible or a book on a saint and, above all, daily prayer can all be done together. This bonds a family in the faith, and every strengthening of family bonds is a victory for society. Our Holy Father affirms that

"prayer needs to become a regular habit in the daily life of each family."

Even if you only have five minutes of nightly prayer with your children, do not underestimate its value. A child into his adult life those memories — those "seeds of faith." Think of the abundant harvest if a father devoted more time to family prayer! Some pray the Rosary each evening with their children. If that sounds like too much, don't let it discourage you from saying other simple prayers together. If they are sincere and from the heart, they will reap a great reward.

5. Spend time with your children.

Don't let the pursuit of success or wealth cause you to miss your child's fundamental need to know you as a father. We can teach our children a great deal about Our Lord and ourselves simply by spending time with them. The great truths of our faith and how we personally relate to those truths can be taught through ordinary conversation, fixing cars, collecting bugs, camping, fishing, hiking, gardening, or sports: Any type of hobby allows wonderful opportunities to intimately know each other and to exchange ideas.

6. Guard the windows to the soul!

Keep a careful check over media influences that can lead your family astray. What if, in place of TV and videos, dad invited two strangers to come into his home to entertain his family? The family sits down with their usual bowI of popcorn, and this time they're entertained by strangers in their home groping one another, and engaging in sexual innuendo in their word, dress, and conduct. Shocking? Unacceptable? Yet we often allow the same sorts of things into our house through the media. These are insidious poisons that strike at our fundamental religious beliefs and actions. Fathers, don't dull your family's sense of sin! The world is already hard at work doing it. With a little diligence you can find wholesome alternatives. It is critically important to inculcate strong moral values into your children at the earliest years so as they mature, they will freely choose to apply these same rules of prudence when viewing videos in other homes.

7. Be vigilant over your children's friends.

Get to know your children's friends, or at least try to determine whether their influence is good or bad. No kid is going to be perfect, so avoid being over scrupulous. If you find a particular friend to be a thistle in the growth of your child's faith, talk about it with your child and permit your child the opportunity to be a witness and to set an example for his friend. If that fails to correct the behavior, step in and speak directly to his friend, letting him know what you expect if he wants the relationship to continue. Obviously it isn't so simple with teenagers. In these situations, I believe you will achieve better results by appealing to your child's values and concepts of right and wrong. Teach your teenagers to accept responsibility for their spiritual welfare. The best aid a father can have in teaching his teenager is a good memory! Be sympathetic, honest, and remember that "more flies are caught with honey than with vinegar." top

8. Make your home a place of tranquility and peace — beginning with loving your wife

Love your wife as Christ loves the Church (Eph. 5:25). That's a tall order, but your sons will relate to women in much the same way you relate to your wife; and your daughters will learn from your example what to desire and expect from men. St. John Chrysostom said the home should be a "little church," a miniature king­dom of God. Is your home too stern, too demanding on the children? Is dad too busy and mom often irritable? Does the mood reflect a menacing storm? If so, each will seek their freedom and go their own way. Value honesty and hard work, offer great love, admit mistakes, ask forgive­ness, and laugh much. Adorn your home with constant reminders of your Christian faith: A crucifix reminds us of the precious price Christ paid for us; sacred pictures or statues bring to mind events in the life of Our Lord; a favorite Scripture verse or two or an open Bible remind us of what is most important in life. Avoid making others uncomfortable by either exaggerated asceticism or flamboyance.

Fathering is undoubtedly a challenge, and it has been so since antiquity. But the Lord has given fathers the responsibility and the grace to meet the challenge. Probably the most important attributes a father can have for the welfare of his family today are courage and a quiet confidence in God. An exceptional example of courage and quiet confidence, as well as quiet obedience, is the "guardian of the Redeemer," St. Joseph, the preeminent model of "true fatherhood."

We should look to him as our model.

~About the Author

Chris Erickson is the executive director of The Coming Home Network which provides fellowship, encouragement and support for Protestant pastors and laity who are on the journey or who have already been received into the Catholic Church. For more information visit www.chnetwork.org

Ten Things Pope Benedict XVI Wants You to Know

Vatican inside observer John L. Allen, Jr., drawing from the writings and speeches of the Holy Father, shares the ten most important things that Pope Benedict XVI wants all Catholics to know.

+God Is Love
+Jesus Is Lord
+Truth and Freedom Are Two Sides of the Same Coin
+Faith and Reason Need One Another
+The Eucharist Is the Heart of the Christian Life
+Christianity Is a Positive Message
+The Church Forms Consciences but Stays Out of Politics
+The Importance of Catholic Identity
+Christ and the Church Are Inseparable
+The Virtue of Patience

1. God Is Love

STRIP EVERYTHING else away, and the core of the Christian message is that God is love. The ultimate reality in the universe, the one which created it and sustains it, is love. In faith, we call that personal love God. Since that's the point upon which everything else in Christianity pivots, it's no surprise that Pope Benedict chose to title his very first encyclical, the most important form of papal teaching, Deus Caritas Est-precisely, "God Is Love."

The heart of the encyclical's argument is that eros, or human sexual love, is a beautiful reflection of God's passionate love for humanity. Yet eros, he says, is not an end in itself. Rather, it calls us out of ourselves, toward something even higher. Eros must be transformed through "a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing" into agape, meaning the complete gift of oneself for another. Agape, in turn, flows into service of one's neighbor, especially the poor and vulnerable, which is the basis for all Catholic charitable work. In order for this purification to happen, we have to exercise our reason about the right way to put our love into action. Thus, Benedict says, a final element of the Christian concept of love is logos referring not only to "words" in the sense of human thought, but also to the Word, the Son of God, made flesh in Jesus Christ.

Against any abstract or purely philosophical concept of God, Deus Caritas Est reminds us that the Christian God is not just a force or a concept, but a lover. "God is the absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this universal principle of creation-the Logos, primordial reason-is at the same time a lover with all the passion of a true love," Benedict writes. The late Italian Vatican writer Orazio Petrosillo said that with Deus Caritas Est, Joseph Ratzinger, once known as Grande Inquisitore, or "the Grand Inquisitor," revealed himself as If Innamorato, or "the Great Lover."

Benedict is well aware that critics over the centuries, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, have complained that Christianity "ruined" eros by making human beings ashamed of their sexuality, by treating sex as something to be controlled and feared. Instead, Benedict argues, Christianity liberates eros by pointing the way toward its true fulfillment. The pope chose to write on this theme, at this time, in part out of concern for all the violence and hatred in today's world justified in the name of a loving God. Too often, Benedict believes, people mistake passion for love, as if all we need is the heart, not the head. In reality, the pope insists, feeling is just the beginning of love, not the end. At bottom, love is the recognition that we are the sons and daughters of God's love for all humanity, which calls us to love of our neighbor-all our neighbors, everywhere in the world.

Benedict's understanding of love is closer to that of Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov, who wrote, "Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams." Real love comes at a price. That's the kind of love we see in Jesus, and that's the kind of love that Benedict describes in Deus Caritas Est.

2. Jesus Is Lord

BENEDICT XVI has always been a prodigious writer, and in May 2007 he released the first book of his papacy: "Jesus of Nazareth", a 400-page work that's projected as the first volume of a longer study. In essence, Benedict wants to assure his readers that the gospels are reliable witnesses to Jesus. They teach us that the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith are one and the same figure: the Living Son of God, made flesh. Placing Christ at the center is Benedict's modus operandi, and proper ("Christology," meaning teaching about Christ), is the dominant doctrinal concern of his papacy.

Benedict wrote the book in part because during the last century, a number of popular reinterpretations of Jesus were floated by Bible scholars and theologians, usually in an effort to make Jesus more "relevant." But the pope believes that starting with desired social outcomes and then drawing conclusions about Jesus puts the cart before the horse. There can be no humane social order or lasting moral progress, he says, apart from a right relationship with God, and it is Jesus Christ who reveals God's face to us. If we really want to promote justice and tolerance, Benedict says, we have to start with Christ. Preaching Christ is not a distraction, he believes, from building a better world-it is building a better world.

Over the course of the book, Benedict critiques a number of popular modern images of Jesus: Jesus as a preacher of liberal morality, Jesus as a social revolutionary, Jesus as an inspired prophet or sage on the level of other founders of religious movements. The pope is well aware that these interpretations usually arise from noble motives, which he also shares-to affirm the primacy of human beings over the law, to combat poverty and injustice, and to express tolerance for other religions. But out of impatience to achieve desired social outcomes, Benedict argues, revisionist images of Jesus subvert the only basis for real humanism, which is belief in God, and in an objective truth that comes from God and stands above the human will to power.

Reflecting on Christ's temptations in the desert, Benedict makes this argument:
Whenever God is considered a secondary concern, which can temporarily or stably be set aside in the name of more important things, then it is precisely those things presumed to be more important which fail. It's not just the negative result of Marxism which makes the point. The aid given by the West to developing countries, based purely on technical-material principles, which has not only left God to the side but has also distanced people from God with the pride of its presumed superior wisdom, has made the Third World into the "Third World" in the modern sense ....Believing it could transform stones into bread, it has instead given stones in place of bread. What's at stake is the primacy of God. It's a matter of recognizing God as a reality, a reality without which nothing else can be good. History cannot be governed with merely material structures, prescinding from God. If the heart of the human person isn't good, then nothing else can be good. And goodness of heart can come only from He who is Himself goodness, who is the Good.

Reminding the world that, in Jesus of Nazareth, we see the definitive revelation of the meaning and ultimate destiny of human life, is a cornerstone of Benedict's papacy.

3. Truth and Freedom Are Two Sides of the Same Coin
IF ONE WERE LOOKING for a single word to sum up Benedict XVI's message to the men and women of his time, it might well be "truth." His motto as a bishop is Cooperatores veritatis: "coworkers of the truth."The day before the conclave opened that elected him to the papacy in April 2005, then-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger memorably defined the chief challenge facing the Catholic Church as a "dictatorship of relativism." By that, he meant the way in which denial of objective truth-of truths independent of time and culture, binding everywhere and for everyone - has become conventional wisdom.

It's worth quoting the heart of that homily:

How many winds of doctrine have we known in these recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many modes of thought. ..The small ship of thought of many Christians has often been agitated by these waves-tossed from one extreme to the other; from Marxism to liberalism, from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so on....To have a clear faith, according to the Creed of the Church, is often styled as fundamentalism. Meanwhile relativism, meaning allowing oneself to be carried away "here and there by any wind of doctrine," appears as the only attitude suited to modern times. What's being constructed is a dictatorship of relativism, which recognizes nothing as definitive, and that regards one's self and one's own desires as the final measure.
Benedict realizes that many people unconsciously endorse this "dictatorship of relativism" because they want to be free, meaning that they don't want to live on the basis of someone else's truths. But Benedict , believes that such a desire reflects a flawed understanding of what freedom entails. Freedom, he believes, is not the absence of restraint on our behavior, but rather the capacity to become the kind of person God calls us to be. That doesn't mean doing whatever we want; it means doing what we should.

Put it this way: An alcoholic might imagine himself "free" as long as he's able to drink as much as he likes, but we know he won't really be "free" until he breaks the chains of his addiction. It's the same with all of us, Benedict believes. Real freedom does not mean freedom to exploit the poor, to hate one's neighbor, or to sacrifice unborn life; it means the freedom to realize our highest potential as sons and daughters of God. God wants us to be free, but this freedom has content-it means ordering our lives in accord with God's design. Truth and freedom are thus not opposed, but interdependent. Truth, for Benedict XVI, is the doorway through which one must walk in order to be "free" in the fullest sense of the word.

4. Faith and Reason Need One Another

ON SEPTEMBER 12,2006, Benedict XVI gave a lecture at the University of Regensburg in Germany, where he once taught theology. That lecture became a "shot heard 'round the world" because of controversies surrounding a quotation from a dialogue between a fourteenth-century Byzantine emperor and a Persian scholar, in which the emperor said negative things about Muhammad, the founder of Islam. The ensuing firestorm was unfortunate, in part because few people read the whole lecture-which was not about Islam at all, but the relationship between reason and faith. The title, in fact, was "Faith, Reason and the University."

Benedict XVI summed up the testimony of the Bible and the early Christian church in the following fashion:

God is Logos, creative reason itself. Thus, "not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature."

Christianity presupposes the rationality of God, and on the basis of that conviction, Christianity itself must be reasonable. Shutting down the exercise of human reason, turning Christianity into a form of religious fundamentalism, would be inconsistent with the rational character of God himself.
More broadly, Benedict said, faith and reason desperately need one another.

In the first place, Benedict argues, faith and reason belong together because reason presumes faith. How do scientists know that there's an underlying logic to the universe? Why do they assume that nature will work tomorrow the way it did yesterday? Why do they believe the human mind is capable of penetrating nature's secrets? In the end, they take all this on faith-a stance grounded in the Judeo Christian tradition, whether today's scientists acknowledge it or not.

On another level, much dysfunction in contemporary culture, Benedict believes, can be explained by attempts to separate reason and faith. Reason without faith, he believes, becomes skepticism, cynicism, and ultimately nihilism, leading to despair. Faith without reason, on the other hand, becomes fundamentalism, extremism, and sometimes violence. We see this today in radical currents within Islam, which justify terrorism and hatred in the name of God. Benedict is well aware, however, that in a different key, the same temptation to irrationality courses through every religion, which makes it all the more important that faith and reason remain on speaking terms.

5. The Eucharist Is the Heart of the Christian Life

WHEN POPE BENEDICT XVI went to Cologne, Germany, for World Youth Day in August 2005, many Germans expected the pope to take them to task on a variety of fronts-from declining Mass attendance and internal dissent within the Church, to a general unwillingness to grant religion a role in public life. Instead, Benedict offered a message that was at the same time more gentle and yet more radical. In his concluding homily, he chose to meditate on the Eucharist, Christ's gift of himself under the forms of bread and wine at Mass.

The pope offered a memorable metaphor to describe its impact. He told the one million young people who had gathered to hear him:

To use an image well known to us today, [consecrating the Eucharist] is like inducing nuclear fission in the very heart of being the victory of love over hatred, the victory of love over death, Only this intimate explosion of good conquering evil can then trigger off the series of transformations that little by little will change the world. All other changes remain superficial and cannot save. For this reason we speak of redemption: what had to happen at the most intimate level has indeed happened, and we can enter into its dynamic. Jesus can distribute his Body, because he truly gives himself.

That imagery came from Joseph Ratzinger's lifetime of prayer and devotion centered on the Eucharist.

In March 2007, Benedict XVI released a document called an "apostolic exhortation," officially drawing conclusions from the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist that took place in the Vatican in October 2005. It's titled Sacramentum Caritatis (Sacrament of Charity) and it offers Benedict's most developed reflections on the Eucharist.

The Church's faith is essentiality a Eucharistic faith, and it is especially nourished at the table of the Eucharist....For this reason, the Sacrament of the Altar is always at the heart of the Church's life...The more lively the eucharistic faith of the People of God, the deeper is its sharing in ecclesial life in steadfast commitment to the mission entrusted by Christ to his disciples.
That last line is important, because as Benedict goes on to argue in Sacramentum Caritatis, the faith expressed in the Eucharist comes with a mission. On a personal level, it impels us to live our lives in accordance with what we profess during the Mass; we must become, as Saint Augustine once famously suggested, what we consume, meaning to model ourselves on Christ. On a social level, it means efforts to build a world in which the self-giving love of Christ, which is made new each time the Eucharist is celebrated, is the cornerstone upon which society is constructed, as opposed to ideology, profit, or the blind will to power.

Taken seriously, Benedict argues, the Eucharist can change the world-indeed, it's the only thing that can.

6. Christianity Is a Positive Message
ONE OF THE MOST striking aspects of Benedict XVI's papacy has been how determined he is to phrase his message in a positive key. To take one example, when the Holy Father visited Spain in July 2006, many expected a dramatic showdown with the Socialist government of Prime Minister Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose left-wing government has done battle with the Church on a variety of fronts: gay marriage, abortion, divorce, euthanasia, and public funding for Catholic schools. Many Catholics expected fire and brimstone from the pope. Instead, he was doggedly positive, concentrating on the Christian fundamentals, never directly engaging any of the issues that have divided Church and state.

Later, some German TV reporters asked Benedict what had happened. It's worth listening to his reply in full:

Christianity, Catholicism, isn't a collection of prohibitions: it's a positive option. It's very important that we look at it again because this idea has almost completely disappeared today. We've heard so much about what is not allowed that now it's time to say: we have a positive idea to offer, that man and woman are made for each other, that the scale of sexuality, eros, agape, indicates the level of love and it's in this way that marriage develops, first of all, as a joyful and blessing-filled counter between a man and a woman, and then the family, that guarantees continuity among generations and through which generations are reconciled to each other and even cultures can meet. So, firstly it's important to stress what we want. Secondly, we can also see why we don't want something. I believe we need to see and reflect on the fact that it's not a Catholic invention that man and woman are made for each other, so that humanity can go on living: all cultures know this. As far as abortion is concerned, it's part of the fifth, not the sixth, commandment: 'Thou shalt not kill!' We have to presume this is obvious and always stress that the human person begins in the mother's womb and remains a human person until his or her last breath. The human person must always be respected as a human person. But all this is clearer if you say it first in a positive way.

Benedict's desire is to lead contemporary Catholics back to the fundamentals of our faith, to remind us of that deep "yes" that lies beneath our specific "no's" on hot-button cultural debates.

During his May 2007 trip to Brazil, Benedict XVI put the same point a different way when he said:

The Church does not engage in proselytism. Instead, she grows by "attraction": just as Christ "draws all to himself" by the power of his love, culminating in the sacrifice of the Cross, so the Church fulfils her mission to the extent that, in union with Christ, she accomplishes everyone of her works in spiritual and practical imitation of the love of her Lord.
In other words, the pope wants Christians to let the "good news" of their faith shine through their own lives, so that its inner beauty can again become clear in a world accustomed to thinking of Christianity as little more than a fussy legal system. That doesn't make the law less important or valid, but Benedict realizes that one doesn't stir hearts with law, but with love.

7. The Church Forms Consciences but Stays Out of Politics

OVER THE COURSE of his career as a theologian and a Church official, Benedict XVI has resisted any attempt to turn Christianity into a political party. That doesn't mean, however, that faith lacks consequences for politics. Benedict wrote in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, that "Justice is both the aim and the intrinsic criterion of all politics." According to the moral vision of Benedict XVI, a Christian must work toward a just social order, which among other things implies a special concern for the poor.

In an address to the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean on May 13, 2007, Benedict endorsed what exponents of liberation theology have called the "preferential option for the poor," saying it is "implicit in the Christological faith in the God who became poor for us." And he has not shrunk from drawing the consequences of this option.

Benedict has repeatedly spoken out in defense of the poor, often in language with very concrete political implications. For example, in December 2006, he wrote to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at the time the president of the G8 group of nations, demanding "the rapid, total and unconditional cancellation" of the external debt of poor countries. The pope described debt relief as a "grave and unconditional moral responsibility, founded on the unity of the human race, and on the common dignity and shared destiny of rich and poor alike."

Benedict has shown a special pastoral concern for the struggles of Africa. In June 2005 he announced his intention to call a synod of bishops from Africa to discuss the crises facing the continent. In November 2006, when a new bond measure was launched by the World Bank to raise four billion dollars over ten years for the immunization of children in impoverished nations against preventable diseases, the very first bond was purchased by Pope Benedict XVI.

For Benedict XVI, fidelity to Church teaching and Tradition is not opposed to social concern; to conceive of things that way, he believes, would be to pit faith against works, a position Roman Catholicism rejected during the Protestant Reformation more than five hundred years ago.

At the same time, Benedict is clear that the role of the Church is to hold up moral values, not to provide a specific political blueprint for translating those values into political choices.

"If the church were to start transforming herself into a directly political subject, she would do less, not more, for the poor and for justice,"

the pope said during his trip to Brazil,

"because she would lose her independence and her moral authority, identifying herself with a single political path and with debatable partisan positions."

"The church is the advocate of justice and of the poor, precisely because she does not identify with politicians nor with partisan interests,"

Benedict continued.

"Only by remaining independent can she teach the great criteria and inalienable values, guide consciences and offer a life choice that goes beyond the political sphere."

8.The Importance of Catholic Identity

IN A MARCH 20, 2007, address to Italian businesspeople, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican's Secretary of State and a longtime intimate of Pope Benedict XVI, said that the "overall goal" of Benedict's papacy is to defend authentic Christian identity in a world marked by religious relativism.
This thrust toward a stronger sense of identity forms one of the megatrends in contemporary Catholicism. In every area of the life of the Church-from liturgy to religious orders, from Catholic schools and hospitals to seminary instruction-the question of the day is, "How do we know it's Catholic, and how do we make sure it stays Catholic?"

A consummate student of Western culture, Benedict knows that since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, religion has suffered a progressive exile from public life, especially in Europe. In the West today, religion is often seen as a purely private matter, and religious people feel pressure to either downplay or abandon those aspects of their faith that don't "fit" with the values of enlightened modern culture. Over time, Benedict worries, in too many areas the Catholic Church has gradually assimilated to this ethos, absorbing its world view like secondhand smoke. The result is that some Catholics, and some Catholic institutions, are shaped more by the values of secular modernity than the tradition of the Church.
The time has come, Benedict believes, to recover a strong sense of what makes Catholics different. His decisions in July 2007 to broaden permission for use of the pre Vatican II Mass, and to reassert that the Catholic Church alone is the true church willed by Christ, both express this conviction.

Benedict XVI comes out of the Communio school in Catholic theology, associated above all with the great twentieth-century Swiss theologian Hans Drs von Balthasar. Its key figures accent the need for the Church to speak its own language, premised on the conviction that Christianity is itself a culture, often at odds with the prevailing world view of modernity. Restoring a sense of Catholic distinctiveness-a Catholic version of what sociologists call the "politics of identity" has in some ways been Joseph Ratzinger's life's work.

In that light, Pope Benedict is less immediately concerned with numbers, such as Mass attendance or turnout at papal events, than with fostering a deep sense of Catholic distinctiveness, however few those who embrace such a spirit may be.

As early as The Ratzinger Report in 1984, he put things this way: "Today more than ever, the Christian must be aware that he belongs to a minority and that he is in opposition to everything that appears good, obvious, and logical to the 'spirit of the world,' as the New Testament calls it. Among the most urgent tasks facing Christians is that of regaining the capacity of non-conformism, Le., the capacity to oppose many developments of the surrounding culture."

That doesn't mean, of course, that Benedict wants Christians to cut themselves off from the world, retreating into a Catholic ghetto. Rather, he wants them to be in the world but not of it - to find, as he once memorably put it, "that none-too-easy balance between a proper incarnation in history, and the indispensable tension toward eternity."

9. Christ and the Church Are Inseparable
IN MARCH 2006, Benedict XVI announced that he would devote his catechesis during his regular Wednesday General Audiences that spring to the "profound, inseparable, and mysterious continuity" between Jesus and the Church. Any attempt to say "yes" to Jesus but "no" to the Church, Benedict insisted, ultimately falls apart, because Jesus' message was intended precisely "to gather and to save" a people, which is the Church.
The Wednesday catechesis is the most important regular opportunity a pope has to get his message across, and for a teaching pope such as Benedict XVI, the choice of theme is revealing in terms of his priorities. Benedict is well aware that for many contemporary men and women, Jesus of Nazareth remains a fascinating figure, but they often struggle with aspects of institutional religion. The natural temptation, therefore, is to opt for Jesus without the "intermediary" of the Church.

In the end, however, one cannot truly love Jesus or follow his teachings, Benedict insists, without taking one's place in the family of faith that Jesus called into being. Being part of that family comes with no guarantees of perfect contentment; like any family, the Church has its ups and downs, its moments of disappointment and heartache. If that's true of a human family, how much more it is of a global Church of more than one billion people, carrying the weight of two thousand years of history! But just as one does not walk away from a family when things get rough, similarly a disciple of Jesus does not walk away from his or her Church.

Describing as "baseless" any "individualistic interpretation of the proclamation about the Kingdom made by Christ," Benedict said that the "obvious intent" of Jesus "was to unite the community of the covenant" into "the Twelve," symbolized and by the twelve apostles.
"By their very existence, the Twelve called from diverse origins-become an appeal to all Israel to convert, and to allow itself to be gathered into the new covenant, a full and perfect fulfillment of the old one," the pope said. "By entrusting the Twelve with the task of celebrating his memory in the Supper before his Passion, Jesus showed that he wanted to transfer to the whole community, in the person of his leaders, the mandate of being a sign and instrument of eschatological oneness throughout history, started in him. In this light, one understands how the Resurrected One conferred upon them, with the effusion of the Spirit, the power to forgive sins (cfr John 20:23). The Twelve Apostles are thus the most evident sign of the will of Jesus regarding the existence and mission of His Church, the guarantee that between Christ and the Church, there is no contraposition."

In response to the cry of "Yes to Jesus, No to the Church," Benedict XVI responds, "Yes to Jesus means Yes to the Church."

10. The Virtue of Patience

SAINT AUGUSTINE once wrote that "the deeds of the Word are, for us, words too." He meant that we learn as much from what Jesus did as from what Jesus said.

In a similar vein, popes teach the world through their actions, their personalities, and their "styles," in addition to their explicit speech. For example, perhaps one of the most eloquent moments of John Paul II's papacy came near the end on Easter Sunday 2005, when despite his obvious agony, he spent twelve long minutes at the window of his apartment, struggling to speak to the faithful gathered below in Saint Peter's Square and to the millions watching around the world. The way John Paul poured himself out in service that day spoke volumes about his self-sacrifice, even though he never managed to utter a single word.

Probably without being conscious of it, Pope Benedict XVI is teaching the world something through his own behavior. He is exceedingly humble and gentle, which stands in stark contrast to the bluster and braggadocio often associated with global titans in the worlds of politics, finance, and culture. He is living proof that one does not have to be an exhibitionist to lead and to inspire.

Perhaps more important, he's teaching a microwave world that expects instant results to slow down a bit, to catch its breath, and to look before it leaps. Upon Benedict's election, there were fevered expectations of swift and dramatic action in manyquarters.Some expected a root-and-branch reform of the Roman Curia, the Catholic Church's central organ of government. Others anticipated a sweeping crackdown on dissident theologians and liberal activists within the Church. this day, many pundits and commentators are still waiting for the "real" Benedict to emerge from beneath his patient, gentle what they don't seem to appreciate is that what they regard as a facade is, in fact, the real pope.

Benedict is a man of deep faith, which means he realizes that, ultimately, the vicissitudes of the Church and of the world are in God's hands, not his. There's a serenity about him, a lack of what the Germans call angst, rooted in his belief that the final act of the story in which all of us are involved has already been written, and it ends well. Thus he does not feel the need to lurch from one initiative to the next or to resolve all the Church's problems in a Single bound. He understands better than most the complexities of those problems, both intellectually and pastorally, and he also grasps the importance of thinking carefully before taking steps that may have unforeseen consequences.

In an impatient world, Benedict XVI is a very patient man. To paraphrase Saint Augustine, occasionally his very lack of deeds is an important "word" for the harried women and men of his time.

About the Author

JOHN L. ALLEN, JR., is the senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and senior Vatican analyst for CNN. He's also the author of The Rise of Benedict XVI (Doubleday, 2005) and the forthcoming book, MegaTrends in Catholicism: Ten Forces Turning the Catholic Church Upside Down 
(Doubleday, 2008).