Yesterday's general audience on the canticle from the Book of Revelation (15:3-4):
According to our hymn, this divine intervention has a very specific purpose: to be a sign that invites all the peoples of the earth to conversion. Nations must learn to "read" in history a message of God. Humanity's history is not confused and without meaning, nor is it given over, without appeal, to the malfeasance of the arrogant and perverse. There is the possibility to recognize divine action hidden in it. In the pastoral constitution "Gaudium et Spes," Vatican Council II also invites the believer to scrutinize, in the light of the Gospel, the signs of the times to see in them the manifestation of the very action of God (cf. n. 4 and 11). This attitude of faith leads man to recognize the power of God operating in history, and thus to open himself to fear of the name of the Lord. In biblical language, in fact, this "fear" does not coincide with dread, but is the recognition of the mystery of the divine transcendence. Because of this, it is the basis of faith and is joined with love: "the Lord your God requires of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul" (cf. Deuteronomy 10:12).
Saturday's homily from St. John Lateran
An excerpt:
This teaching authority frightens many men within and outside the Church. They wonder if it is not a threat to freedom of conscience, if it is not a presumption that is opposed to freedom of thought. It is not so. The power conferred by Christ on Peter and his Successors is, in an absolute sense, a mandate to serve. The teaching authority, in the Church, entails a commitment to service of the obedience of the faith. The Pope is not an absolute monarch, whose thought and will are law. On the contrary, the Pope's ministry is guarantee of obedience to Christ and his word. The Pope must not proclaim his own ideas, but bind himself constantly and bind the Church to obedience to the Word of God, in face of attempts to adapt and water down, in face, as well, of all opportunism.
Pope John Paul II did so, when, in face of all attempts, apparently benevolent, in face of erroneous interpretations of freedom, he emphasized in an unequivocal way the inviolability of the human being, the inviolability of human life from its conception until natural death. The freedom to kill is not true freedom, but a tyranny that reduces the human being to slavery. In his important decisions, the Pope is conscious of being linked to the great community of faith of all times, to binding interpretations developed through the Church's journey of pilgrimage. Thus, his power is not above all, but at the service of the Word of God, and on him weighs the responsibility to ensure that this Word continues to be present in its grandeur and resonating in its purity, so that it will not be shattered with the constant changes of fashion.
The chair is -- let us say it once again -- symbol of the teaching authority, which is an authority of obedience and service, so that the Word of God -- his truth! -- may shine among us, indicating the way to us. However, when speaking of the chair of the Bishop of Rome, how can one not recall the words that St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote to the Romans? Peter, coming from Antioch, his first see, went to Rome, his definitive see; a see that became definitive with the martyrdom that joined forever his succession with Rome as that "which presides in love," an extremely significant expression.
We do not know with certainty what Ignatius really wished to say when using these words. But for the early Church, the word love, "agape," made reference to the mystery of the Eucharist. In this mystery, the love of Christ is always made tangible among us. Here, he always gives himself again. Here, he always lets his heart be pierced again. Here, he keeps his promise, the promise according to which, from the Cross, he would attract all men to himself. In the Eucharist, we ourselves learn the love of Christ.
Thanks to this center and heart, thanks to the Eucharist, the saints have lived, bringing the love of God to the world in ever new forms and ways. Thanks to the Eucharist, the Church is always reborn. The Church is no more than that network -- the Eucharistic community! -- in which all of us, by receiving the same Lord, become only one body and embrace the whole world. To preside in doctrine and love, in the end, must be only one thing: all the doctrine of the Church, in the end, leads to love. And the Eucharist, as the present love of Jesus Christ, is the criterion of all doctrine. On love depend all the law and the prophets, says the Lord (Matthew 22:40). Love is the fulfillment of the law, wrote St. Paul to the Romans (13:10).
Dear Romans, now I am your bishop. Thank you for your generosity, thank you for your affection, thank you for your patience! As Catholics, in a certain sense, we are all Romans. With the words of Psalm 87, a hymn of praise to Zion, Mother of all peoples, Israel sang and the Church sings: "But of Zion it must be said: 'They all were born here.'" (Psalm 87:5). In the same way, we might also say: as Catholics, in a certain sense, we have all been born in Rome. So, I want to try to be, with all my heart, your bishop, the Bishop of Rome. And all of us want to try to be ever more Catholics, more brothers and sisters in the great family of God, that family in which there are no strangers.
