From Benedict’s General Audience yesterday, a meditation on a passage from Ephesians
The first divine gesture, revealed and acted in Christ, is the election of believers, fruit of a free and gratuitous initiative of God. In the beginning, therefore, "before the foundation of the world" (verse 4), in the eternity of God, divine grace was disposed to enter into action. I am moved meditating on this truth: From eternity we are before the eyes of God and he has decided to save us. This call has our "holiness" — a great word — as content. Holiness is participation in the transcendent purity of the divine Being. And we know that God is charity. Therefore, to participate in divine purity means to participate in the "charity" of God, conforming ourselves with God who is "charity."
"God is love" (1 John 4:8,16). This is the consoling truth that enables us also to understand that "holiness" is not a reality removed from our life, but instead, in the measure in which we can become persons who love God, we enter into the mystery of "holiness." Thus the agape becomes our daily reality. We are led, therefore, to the sacred and vital horizon of God himself.
Part of the July 6 audience was a delegation from the Italian town of Norcia, the birthplace of St. Benedict, patriarch of Western monasticism, patron of Europe and founder of the Benedictine order.
Every year, the town sponsors the Benedictine Torch of Peace initiative in which the torch is lit, usually in a European capital, and is carried back to Norcia as a way to underline the common Christian roots of Europe.
Pope Benedict said this year the torch was lit in Moscow with a representative of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II meeting with the delegation. Before coming to Rome, the torchbearers stopped in Marktl am Inn, Germany, "where I was born," said the pope.
"May this striking initiative foster an ever greater dedication to paying witness to Christian values in Europe," he said.
Part of the July 6 audience was a delegation from the Italian town of Norcia, the birthplace of St. Benedict, patriarch of Western monasticism, patron of Europe and founder of the Benedictine order.
Every year, the town sponsors the Benedictine Torch of Peace initiative in which the torch is lit, usually in a European capital, and is carried back to Norcia as a way to underline the common Christian roots of Europe.
Pope Benedict said this year the torch was lit in Moscow with a representative of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II meeting with the delegation. Before coming to Rome, the torchbearers stopped in Marktl am Inn, Germany, "where I was born," said the pope.
"May this striking initiative foster an ever greater dedication to paying witness to Christian values in Europe," he said.
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