The General Audience today was in Rome, indoors in the Paul VI Hall. Benedict spoke on John the Evangelist (continuing his catechesis on the 12 Apostles), and began with a brief explanation of the rationale behind his first encyclical.

Benedict XVI arrived from his summer residence of Castel Gandolfo by helicopter. In Paul VI Hall, packed with pilgrims from all over the world, the pontiff continued his analysis of the figures of the apostles, dedicating today’s teaching to the contents of John’s writings, the gospel and the letter, of which “the characteristic topic… is love”. He said: “It is not by chance that I wanted to start my first encyclical letter with the words of this Apostle: ‘God is love’ (Deus caritas est); those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them’ (1 Jn 4:16). It is very difficult to find such writings in other religions. And so such expressions bring us face to face with a fact that is truly unique to Christianity.”

Starting out not from “an abstract treatment, but from a real experience of love, with direct and concrete reference, that may even be verified, to real people”, John highlights the components of Christian love that the pope summed up in three points. The pontiff said: “The first regards the very Source of love that the Apostle places in God, reaching the point where he affirms that ‘God is love’ (1 Jn 4:8,16). John is the only writer of the New Testament who gives us definitions of God. He says, for example, that ‘God is Spirit’ (Jn 4:24) or that ‘God is light’ (1 Jn 1:5). Here he proclaims with striking intuition that ‘God is love’. Take note: this is not a simple affirmation that ‘God loves’, still less is it that ‘love is God’! In other words: John does not limit himself to describing divine conduct, he goes right to its roots. Further, he does not intend to attribute a divine quality to a generic, perhaps impersonal love; he does not rise from love to God, but he turns directly to God to define his nature with the infinite dimension of love. By this, John wants to say that the essential constituent of God is love and hence all the activities of God are born from love and are stamped with love: everything God does, he does for love and with love.”

The second point, continued the pope, is that God, in his love, “did not limit himself to verbal statements, but he truly committed himself and he ‘paid’ himself. As John in fact writes, ‘God so loved the world (that is, all of us) that he gave his only Son’ (Jn 3:16). Now, the love of God for mankind is concretized and manifested in the love of Jesus himself. Once again, it is John who writes: Jesus, ‘having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end’ (Jn 13:1). In virtue of this sacrificial and total love, we are all radically saved from sin, as the Apostle writes once again: ‘My little children… if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world’ (1 Jn 2:1-2; cfr 1 Jn 1:7). This is how far the love of Jesus went for us: until the shedding of his own blood for our salvation! The Christian, pausing in contemplation before this “excess” of love, cannot but ask himself what a dutiful response would be.”