Pope Benedict XVI - Books and Quotes

Christ Illuminates the Darkest Nights

In spite of all, there is good in the world, and this good is bound to win, thanks be to God, the God of Jesus Christ, who was born, died, and rose again. At times, of course, it is hard to understand this profound reality, because evil is noisier than goodness. An atrocious murder, widespread violence, grave forms of injustice hit the headlines, whereas acts of love and service, the daily effort sustained with fidelity and patience, are often left in the dark; they pass unnoticed. For this reason, too, we cannot stop at reading the news if we wish to understand the world and life; we must be able to pause in silence, in meditation, in calm, prolonged reflection; we must know how to stop and think.
In this way, our mind can find healing from the inevitable wounds of daily life; it can penetrate the events that occur in our life and in the world and can attain that wisdom which makes it possible to see things with new eyes. It is above all in the recollection of the conscience that God speaks to us, so that we can learn to evaluate truthfully our own actions and also the evil present within us and around us. In this way, we are able to start out afresh on a journey of conversion that makes us wiser and better people, more capable of generating solidarity and communion and of overcoming evil with good. Christians are people of hope, even and above all when they face the darkness that often exists in the world and has nothing to do with God’s plan but is the result of the erroneous choices of human beings, for Christians know that the power of faith can move mountains (cf. Mt 17:20). The Lord can illuminate even the thickest darkness.

Homily at the First Vespers for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, December 31, 2012.
From the book 'God Is Ever New - Meditations on Life, Love and Freedom.'

 

I love PB16.... such a powerful and truthful reflection!

 

Also, bear in mind, we are advised to not let the left hand know what the right hand is doing. We are not to invite "look at me, what i am doing". Not only is that prideful but such a person has received their reward.

Where do we draw the line, providing hope to a dark world & one so focused on the religion of the environment & leftist politics, vs keeping our good works anonymous?

 

Those in the Vatican will do as they see fit. In my religious studies, I learned so much through the encyclicals of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. In the last 12 years, it seems every time I gave a , it was offset by a couple of Quietly living out the Corporal and Spiritual works of Mercy now better keeps me on track.

 

One time I counted up the good works done in my Parish back home , they just went on and on. Schools. Old people homes. Day Centre. Youth club. Credit Union. Food Collection for the needy. St Vincent De Paul for the poor. A Housing Association. The list goes on and on. Multiply this by all the Parishes in Ireland and the World. It is incredible and so quiet.

 

The Journey of Faith Opens to Life

"Saying “I believe in God” means founding my life on him, letting his Word guide it every day, in practical decisions, without fear of losing some part of myself. . . . Faith makes us pilgrims on earth, integrated into the world and into history, but bound for the Heavenly Homeland. Believing in God thus makes us harbingers of values that often do not coincide with the fashion and opinion of the moment. It requires us to adopt criteria and assume forms of conduct that are not part of the common mindset. Christians must not be afraid to go “against the current” in order to live their faith, resisting the temptation to “conform”. In many of our societies, God has become the “great absent One”, and many idols have supplanted him, multiform idols, especially possession and the autonomous “I”. And even the major and positive breakthroughs of science and technology have instilled in people an illusion of omnipotence and self-sufficiency and an increasing egotism that has created many imbalances in interpersonal relations and social behavior. Nevertheless, the thirst for God (cf. Ps 63:1–2) has not been quenched, and the Gospel message continues to resonate in the words and deeds of numerous men and women of faith. Abraham, the father of believers, continues to be a father of many children who agree to walk in his footsteps and set out in obedience to the divine call, trusting in the benevolent presence of the Lord and receiving his blessing in order to become themselves a blessing for all. It is the blessed world of faith to which we are all called, in order to walk fearlessly, following the Lord Jesus Christ. And at times it is a difficult journey that also undergoes trial and death but that opens to life in a radical transformation of reality that only the eyes of faith can perceive and enjoy to the full. Affirming “I believe in God” impels us, therefore, to set out, to come out of ourselves, exactly as Abraham did, to bring to the daily situation in which we live the certainty that comes to us from faith: namely, the certainty of God’s presence in history today too; a presence that brings life and salvation and opens us to a future with him for a fullness of life that will know no end. "

General Audience, January 23, 2013
(From the book God Is Ever New)

 

Only Love Can Save Us

"Only from the saints, only from God does true revolution come, the definitive way to change the world. In the last century, we experienced revolutions with a common program—expecting nothing more from God, they assumed total responsibility for the cause of the world in order to change it. And this, as we saw, meant that a human and partial point of view was always taken as an absolute guiding principle. Absolutizing what is not absolute but relative is called totalitarianism. It does not liberate man but takes away his dignity and enslaves him. It is not ideologies that save the world, but only a return to the living God, our Creator, the guarantor of our freedom, the guarantor of what is really good and true. True revolution consists in simply turning to God, who is the measure of what is right and who at the same time is everlasting love. And what could ever save us apart from love?"

Address at World Youth Day Vigil, Cologne, August 20, 2005
(From the book God Is Ever New)

 

What a wonderful quote. So simple and so deep. Yes the Saints are our Spiritual Nuclear Power Plants. Without them the Light of the World goes out. I am always on the look out for Saints in the World around me. Even to meet a truly holy person is such a joy. One thing about going to Daily Mass you are bound to meet very good holy people. Just to look at them brings hope.

 

Love Comes from God

"Love of God and love of neighbor are . . . inseparable; they form a single commandment. But both live from the love of God, who has loved us first. No longer is it a question, then, of a “commandment” imposed from without and calling for the impossible, but rather it is a question of a freely bestowed experience of love from within, a love that by its very nature must then be shared with others. Love grows through love. Love is “divine”, because it comes from God and unites us to God; through this unifying process, it makes us a “we” that transcends our divisions and makes us one, until in the end God is “everything to every one” (1 Cor 15:28).

Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est,
December 25, 2005
(From God Is Ever New)

 

God Is an Event of Love

In the course of human history, a thick layer of dirt has covered God’s good creation, which makes it difficult if not impossible to perceive in it the Creator’s reflection, although the knowledge of the Creator’s existence is reawakened within us ever anew, as it were, spontaneously, at the sight of a sunset over the sea, on an excursion to the mountains, or before a flower that has just bloomed. But the Creator Spirit comes to our aid. He has entered history and speaks to us in a new way. In Jesus Christ, God himself was made man and allowed us, so to speak, to cast a glance at the intimacy of God himself. And there we see something totally unexpected: in God, an “I” and a “You” exist. The mysterious God is not infinite loneliness; he is an event of love. If by gazing at creation we think we can glimpse the Creator Spirit, God himself, rather like creative mathematics, like a force that shapes the laws of the world and their order, but then, even, also like beauty, now we come to realize: the Creator Spirit has a heart.
He is Love.
The Son who speaks to the Father exists, and they are both one in the Spirit, who constitutes, so to speak, the atmosphere of giving and loving that makes them one God. This unity of love that is God is a unity far more sublime than the unity of a last indivisible particle could be. The Triune God himself is the one and only God.

Homily at the Holy Mass, Pentecost,
Meeting with the Ecclesial Movements
and New Communities, June 3, 2006
(From God Is Ever New).

 

"Faith is a gift of God, but it is also a profoundly free and human act. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says so clearly: “Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act . . . contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason” (no. 154). Indeed, it involves them and lifts them up in a gamble for life that is like an exodus, that is, a coming out of ourselves, from our own certainties, from our own mental framework, to entrust ourselves to the action of God, who points out to us his way to achieve true freedom, our human identity, true joy of the heart, peace with everyone. Believing means entrusting oneself in full freedom and joyfully to God’s providential plan for history, as did the Patriarch Abraham, as did Mary of Nazareth. Faith, then, is an assent with which our mind and our heart say their “yes” to God, confessing that Jesus is Lord. And this “yes” transforms life, unfolds the path toward fullness of meaning, thereby making it new, rich in joy and trustworthy hope.
Dear friends, our time needs Christians who have been grasped by Christ, who grow in faith through their familiarity with Sacred Scripture and the sacraments. People who are, as it were, an open book that tells of the experience of new life in the Spirit, of the presence of that God who supports us on our way and opens us to everlasting life."

From 'The Transforming Power of Faith'
Pope Benedict XVI

 

"Having faith in the Lord is not something that involves solely our intelligence, the area of intellectual knowledge; rather, it is a change that involves our life, our whole self: feelings, heart, intelligence, will, corporeity, emotions, and human relationships. With faith everything truly changes."

So Pope Benedict XVI introduced his catecheses for the Year of Faith, a series of sixteen talks given at his weekly audience from October 2012 to the end of his papacy in February 2013. These talks explore how and why faith is relevant in the contemporary world. How can we come to certainty about things that cannot be calculated or scientifically confirmed? What does God's revelation mean for our daily lives? How can the hunger of the human heart be fulfilled? Offering the guidance of biblical exegesis, pastoral exhortation, and brotherly encouragement, Pope Benedict seeks to answer these questions and many others.

 

Growing in the Certainty of Being Loved by the Lord

"The source of Christian joy is the certainty of being loved by God, loved personally by our Creator, by the One who holds the entire universe in his hands and loves each one of us and the whole great human family with a passionate and faithful love, a love greater than our infidelities and sins, a love that forgives. This love “is so great that it turns God against himself”, as appears definitively in the mystery of the Cross: “So great is God’s love for man that by becoming man he follows him even into death, and so reconciles justice and love” (Deus caritas est, no. 10). . . . In other words: Jesus said he was the “Way” that leads to the Father, as well as the “Truth” and the “Life” (cf. Jn 14:5–7). Thus, the question is, How can our children and young people, practically and existentially, find in him this path of salvation and joy? This is precisely the great mission for which the Church—as the family of God and the company of friends into which we are already integrated with Baptism as tiny children—exists and in which our faith and joy and the certainty of being loved by the Lord must grow. It is therefore indispensable . . . that the new generations experience the Church as a company of friends who are truly dependable and close in all life’s moments and circumstances, whether joyful and gratifying or arduous and obscure; as a company that will never fail us, not even in death, for it carries within it the promise of eternity."

Address at the Ecclesial Convention of the Diocese of Rome, June 5, 2006

 

God Alone Is Our Firm Hope

"It is impossible to live without hope. Experience shows that all things, even our life, are at risk; they can collapse for some internal or external reason at any moment. It is normal: all that is human, hence therefore also hope, has no basis in itself but needs a “rock” to which to be anchored. This is why Paul writes that Christians are called to base human hope on the “Living God”. In him alone does it become safe and dependable. Actually, only God, who revealed the fullness of his love to us in Jesus Christ, can be our firm hope. Indeed, in him, our hope, we have been saved (cf. Rom 8:24). However, be careful: in times like these, given the cultural and social context in which we are living, there may be a greater risk of reducing Christian hope to an ideology, to a group slogan, or to outward appearances. Nothing is more contrary to Jesus’ message! He does not want his disciples to “recite” a part, even that of hope. He wants them “to be” hope, and they can be hope only if they remain united to him!."

Homily at the Holy Mass, Fourth Anniversary of the Death of John Paul II, April 2, 2009
(From God Is Ever New).

 

His Resurrection: A Bridge between the World and Eternal Life

"The Resurrection of the Lord assures us that the divine plan of salvation, despite all the obscurity of history, will certainly be brought about. This is why his Passover truly is our hope. And we, risen with Christ through Baptism, must now follow him faithfully in holiness of life, advancing towards the eternal Passover, sustained by the knowledge that the difficulties, struggles and trials of human life, including death, henceforth can no longer separate us from Him and his love. His Resurrection has formed a bridge between the world and eternal life over which every man and every woman can cross to reach the true goal of our earthly pilgrimage."

Regina Caeli, April 13, 2009

 

Those Who Suffer Wait for the Hope of the Risen One

"Today, even in this modern age marked by anxiety and uncertainty, we relive the event of the Resurrection, which changed the face of our life and changed the history of humanity. From the Risen Christ, all those who are still oppressed by chains of suffering and death look for hope, sometimes even without knowing it. May the Risen Lord grant that the strength of his life, peace, and freedom be experienced everywhere. Today the words with which the angel reassured the frightened hearts of the women on Easter morning are addressed to all: “Do not be afraid. . . . He is not here; for he has risen” (Mt 28:5–6). Jesus is risen, and he gives us peace; he himself is peace. For this reason, the Church repeats insistently: “Christ is risen—Christós anésti.” Let the people of the third millennium not be afraid to open their hearts to him. His Gospel totally quenches the thirst for peace and happiness that is found in every human heart. Christ is now alive, and he walks with us. What an immense mystery of love!"

“Urbi et Orbi” Message, April 16, 2006

 

Wonderful quote! If I had the temerity to tweak this quote of Benedict XVI, I would include just a few more words of the angel of the Lord, i.e., "He is not here; for He has risen, as he said He would." Not only did He rise again, but He told us He would do so. Our Lord fulfills His promises. Heaven and earth will pass away but His words shall never pass away.

 

Great observation.

 

Christ Is Our Hope in an Alienated World

"In present-day society, many forms of poverty are born from isolation, from being unloved, from the rejection of God, and from a deep-seated tragic closure in man who believes himself to be self-sufficient, or else merely an insignificant and transient datum; in this world of ours that is alienated “when too much trust is placed in merely human projects” (Caritas in veritate, no. 53), only Christ can be our certain hope. This is the message that we Christians are called to spread every day, through our witness. . . . Jesus never abandons his friends. He assures us of his help, because nothing can be done without him, but at the same time, he asks everyone to make a personal commitment to spread his universal message of love and peace."

Homily at the Holy Mass, Brno, Czech Republic, September 27, 2009
(From God Is Ever New)