“Here are two particularly meaningful words,” continued Benedict XVI. “’Seek’ and ‘find’. We can draw these two verbs from today’s gospel page and extract crucial guidance for the new year, which we want to be a time in which to renew our spiritual journey with Jesus, in the joy of seeking and finding him incessantly. The truest joy, in fact, lies in the relationship with he who is met, followed, known, and loved, thanks to a continual tension between the mind and the heart. Being a disciple of Christ: this is enough for the Christian. The friendship with the Teacher assures the soul of deep peace and serenity in dark moments and in the most arduous trials. When faith comes up against dark nights, in which God’s presence is no longer ‘felt’ or ‘seen’, the friendship of Jesus guarantees that in reality nothing can ever separate us from his love (cfr Rm 8:39). Seeking and finding Christ, the inexhaustible source of truth and life: the word of God invites us to take up again, at the start of the new year, this never-ending journey of faith. ‘Teacher, where do you live?’ we ask Jesus too, and he replies: ‘Come and See’. This is an incessant search and new discovery for the believer because Christ is the same yesterday, today and always, but we, the world, history, are never the same, and He comes to us to give us his communion and fullness of life.
And here’s that homily from last week – the Baptism and the baptisms – offered spontaneously.
Just as in this baptismal dialogue the "no" is expressed in three renunciations, so too the "yes" is expressed in three expressions of loyalty: "yes" to the living God, that is, a God Creator and a creating reason who gives meaning to the cosmos and to our lives; "yes" to Christ, that is, to a God who did not stay hidden but has a name, words, a body and blood; to a concrete God who gives us life and shows us the path of life; "yes" to the communion of the Church, in which Christ is the living God who enters our time, enters our profession, enters daily life.
Ratzinger, you abstract, distant doctrinal watchdog, you…
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