And the Pope’s message for Lent has been released:
Focused on the theme “They will look on the one whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37), the document highlights how God’s love is both “agape” – “the oblative love of he who seeks exclusively the good of the other” – and “eros” – “the love of he who desires to possess what he lacks, which yearns for union with the loved one”. The theologian pope explained that the love of God is certainly agape: “Everything that the human creature is and has is divine gift”. But it is also eros: “The Creator of the universe shows for the people he has chosen a predilection that transcends all human motivation.” And “the Omnipotent awaits the ‘yes’ of his creatures like a young bridegroom await that of his bride.” But “unfortunately, humanity, from its origins, seduced by the lies of Evil, closed itself off from the love of God in the illusion of impossible self-sufficiency.”
“However, God did not admit defeat. Rather, the ‘no’ of man was like a decisive push that induced him to manifest his love in all its redemptive strength.” And it is the Cross in which the “fullness of God’s love” is revealed.
Lent, then, is a time of contemplation and reflection about the Cross. “The answer that the Lord wants from us is first of all that we welcome his love and allow ourselves to be drawn by Him. Accepting his love, however, is not enough. We must match it and commit ourselves to communicating it to others: Christ ‘draws me to him’ to unite with me, so that I may learn to love my brothers with his very love.”
The contemplation of the Cross, with its missionary character, also prompts us “to open our hearts to others, recognizing the wounds inflicted on the dignity of the human being; it pushes us especially to fight against all forms of contempt for life and exploitation of people and to ease the tragedy of solitude and neglect of so many people.” Benedict XVI added: “May Lent be for each Christian a renewed experience of the love of God given to us in Christ, a love that we should seek daily in our turn to ‘give again’ to our neighbour, especially those who are suffering and in need. Only thus can we participate fully in the joy of Easter.”
Fr. Z was at the press conference and has observations:
The document was signed on 21 November 2006. It is very short. It constitutes quite a break with Messages of the past. This message is strongly theological, providing starting points. Messages in the past were strong practical, exploring themes like “Marginalization of the Poor” (1977) and “World Hunger” (1996). This time he is much more explicitly theocentric, returning to the fundamental building block of Deus caritas est. Cordes said that he could only speculate why the Holy Father has changed the style of the Lenten message.
Cordes, in his comments, seemed to desire to bring the discussion away from the theological dimension and right away pass to the concrete exercise of charity. In a way I had the sense that he wanted to talk about something other than the message. To accomplish this they enlisted the help of an old Italian priest Fr. Oreste Benzi, founder of the “Pope John XXIII” houses which work for the marginalized. Benizi gave a sustained fervorino (over a half hour). His experience working with the very difficult cases life can reveal reminded me that there are those who service the Church at a desk and those who serve at a gutter or a bedside
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