In today’s General Audience, Pope Benedict kissed a baby (Whatever. Bitter? Me?) and revealed the course of the teaching he’ll offer for the next few months – the relationship between Christ and His Church.

The Church, said Benedict XVI, “was built on the foundation of the Apostles as a community of faith, of hope and of charity. Through the Apostles, we go back to Jesus himself. The Church started when some fishermen from Galilee met Jesus and allowed themselves to be conquered by his look, by his voice, by his warm and strong invitation: “Follow me, I will make you fishers of men!” (Mk 1:17; Mt 4:19)”. The mission which started thus “is not however isolated, it has a place in the mystery of communion, which involves the entire People of God, and is implemented in steps spanning the old to the new Covenant. Something that must be said in this regard is that the message of Jesus is completely misunderstood if separated from the context of faith and hope of the chosen people: like the Baptist, his immediate precursor, Jesus turns first and foremost to Israel (cfr Mt 15:24), for the “harvest” in the eschatological time which has come with him.”

Describing as “baseless” an “individualistic interpretation of the proclamation about the Kingdom made by Christ”, the pope-theologian stressed that the “evident sign of the intention of the Nazarene was to unite the community of the covenant” in the “institution of the Twelve”. If their number is a clear reference to the ancient tribes of Israel, “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. By entrusting them 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 Jn 20:23). The 12 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.” He added: “Between the Son of God made man and this Church, there is a profound, inseparable and mysterious continuity, and through this, he remains ever present in his people, and in a special way in the successors of the Apostles.”

Another take:

The Pope pointed out that Jesus’ message "is completely misunderstood" if it is separated "from the context of the faith and hope of the chosen people." This, he said, is because "Jesus addressed Himself first of all to Israel in order to ‘gather them’ together in the eschatological time that had arrived with Him.”

“Jesus’ preaching,” he said, “like John’s, is both a call of grace and a sign of contradiction and judgment for the entire people of God."

Benedict continued, saying that although the preaching of Jesus is "always a call to individual conversion, … to interpret Christ’s announcement of the Kingdom in individualistic terms would be unilateral and groundless," because in biblical tradition and despite its novelty, "it is clear that the entire mission of the Son-made-flesh has a community goal."