Today, in the last GA until mid-August, the Pope announced that he’ll be focusing on Paul for a while. From AsiaNews:
“We must place ourselves,” said the Holy Father, “in the world of 2,000 years age. Under many aspects today’s socio-cultural context is not that much different from that of that time.”
First of all, Paul “comes from a culture that was certainly in the minority, that of the People of Israel.” In the ancient world in Rome, Jews were at best 3 per cent of the population.
“Like today their beliefs and lifestyle clearly set them apart from their environment. This can lead to mockery or admiration, something which Paul experienced as well.” For instance, the Pope noted that “Cicero despised their religion and even the city of Jerusalem,” whereas Nero’s wife Poppaea was considered as a “sympathiser. Even Julius Caesar had recognised their particularism.
Paul also lived immersed in the Hellenistic culture “which at the time was a shared heritage at least in the Eastern Mediterranean,” in a political situation in which the Roman Empire “guaranteed stability and peace from Britain to Egypt, and provided (a common fabric for super partes unification.”
And if the “universalistic vision that was typical of the Christian Paul owes its basic impulse to Jesus,” the cultural preparation provided by his environment must be remembered so much so that he was seen as man of three cultures: Jewish, Greek and Roman.”
Similarly, the Pope noted that the prevailing stoic philosophy influenced Paul as well. Among Stoic philosophers like Seneca one can find “the highest values of humanity and wisdom which are naturally received in Christianity;” for instance the doctrine of the universe as a uniquely harmonious body, equality for all, and self-control.
Today Benedict XVI moves into the Pope’s summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. He will remain there until 11 July when he will leave to celebrate World Youth Day in Sydney (Australia). He will then be back in Castel Gandolfo on 22 July and on the 28th he will travel to Brixen-Bressanone (South Tyrol) for a period of rest until 11 August.
Universal and ecumenical. For a church that is “catholic” and “one.” This is the twofold horizon that the bishop of Rome and the patriarch of Constantinople wanted to give to the Pauline Year, proclaimed together by the respective Churches of Rome and of the East. At the Mass celebrated on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the two successors of the apostles entered together into the basilica of St. Peter’s; together they went up to the altar, preceded by a Latin deacon and by an Orthodox one, carrying the book of the Gospels; together they listened to the chanting of the Gospel in Latin and in Greek; together they delivered the homily, first the patriarch and then the pope, after a brief introduction by the latter; together they recited the Creed, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan symbol in the original Greek, according to the liturgical use of the Byzantine Churches; they exchanged the kiss of peace, and at the end they blessed the faithful together. Never before now – after almost a thousand years of schism between East and West – had a liturgy so visibly oriented to unity been celebrated by the bishop of Rome and by the patriarch of Constantinople.
The relationship with the Protestant communities remains deeper in the shadows for now. But the Pauline Year could be rich in significance for the dialogue with these communities as well. The leading thinkers of the Reformation – from Luther and Calvin to Karl Barth, Rudolph Bultmann, and Paul Tillich – elaborated their thought beginning above all with the Letter of Paul to the Romans.
And the contribution that the Pauline Year could make to dialogue with the Jews is no less relevant. Paul was an observant Jew and a rabbi, before falling down blinded by Christ on the road to Damascus. And his conversion to the Risen One never meant, for him, breaking with his original faith. The promise of God to Abraham and the covenant on Sinai were always for Paul one and the same with the “new and eternal” covenant sealed by the blood of Jesus. Joseph Ratzinger has written memorable pages on this unity between the Old and New Testament, in his book “Jesus of Nazareth.”
The Pope’s homilies from this past weekend are available at Zenit (not in English at the Vatican website yet). Vespers is here and Sunday’s is here.
Reminder: If you’re looking to immerse yourself in Paul over the next year, the Aquinas and More page on the Year of St. Paul has many excellent resources.
And here, the Catholic-leaning blogger at Catholidoxy has a good post on Paul, Protestants and Catholics.
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