What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

Wild Rumpus

When you deal with the press conference for an encyclical, normally you prepare yourself to hear quotes of Church documents and Fathers of the Church. Today I was quite surprised in the comments of His Excellency Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, President of “Cor Unum” to find a reference to Maurice Sendak…. yep… that Maurice Sendak, of Where The Wild Things Are fame:

Archbishop Cordes
reads to us

4. [Pope Benedict] knows know to take into account, in fact, that earthly means are not enough for men and women to satisfy their needs. As the author Maurice Sendak says: “In life, there is need of more than the most you can have” (It: “Nella vita, c’è bisogno di più del massimo.”)”

I think in English this is, “There must be more to life than having everything!” – which is from Higglety Pigglety Pop! : Or There Must Be More to Life The German title of the same sounds a bit more encyclic-like: “Higgelti Piggelti Pop. Es muß im Leben mehr als alles geben.

The Conversion of Paul
Caravaggio
Rome

LITERAL TRANSLATION
O God, who taught the whole world
by the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul,
grant us, we beg,
that, walking toward You through the example of him
whose conversion we are celebrating today,
we may always be witnesses of Your truth to the world.

Stemma
Benedict XVI

Today was the release of Deus caritas est, the first and, in a sense, “programmatic” encyclical of His Holiness Pope Benedict. Already in his short pontificate, Benedict has been stressing certainly and clearly the concept of the Truth. For example, in his first address to the Cardinal Electors after the Conclave ( 20 April 2005) he referred (in Latin) to Lumen gentium 1 the “unifying power of Truth and Love”. In his 24 April 2005 “inaugural” sermon he spoke of his own role as shepherd, saying, ” Loving means giving the sheep what is truly good, the nourishment of God’s truth, of God’s word, the nourishment of his presence, which he gives us in the Blessed Sacrament.” His 1 January 2006 Message for the World Day of Peace examined deeply the relationship of peace and the truth, especially by looking at the damage that lies and lying do to man’s dignity and the bonds of society. Now, in his first encyclical he is looking the truth of man’s nature and the true meaning of “love”.

Let us remember that for his motto on his episcopal coat-of-arms, he took a phrase not from a Pauline text, but from 3 John 8: “cooperatores veritatis. In his interview book called God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald, Joseph Ratzinger explained why he chose this motto,

“...if we abandon the concept of truth, then we abandon our foundation. For it is characteristic of Christianity, from the beginning, that the Christian faith does not primarily transmit practices or observances, as is the case with many other religions, which consist above all in the observance of certain ritual rules.

Christianity makes its appearance with the claim to tell us something about God and the world and ourselves—something that is true and that enlightens us. On this basis I came to recognize that, in the crisis of an age in which we have have a great mass of communications about truth in natural science, but with respect to the questions essential for man we are sidelined into subjectivism, what we need above all is to seek anew for truth, with a new courage to recognize truth. In that way, this saying handed down from our origins, which I have chosen as my motto, defines something of the function of a priest and a theologian, to wit, that he should, in all humility, and knowing his own fallibility, seek to be a co-worker of the truth.

The title of this post is not a quote from Deus caritas est. Rather, it serves to point out an important fact: Benedict understands human nature.

His Excellency
Archbishop Wm. J. Levada
Prefect of the CDF

I am sending this directly from the press conference. Technology is amazing. Here is a taste of the encyclical that I cannot resist sharing right away. Keep in mind that in the press, there will be a great deal of focus on the distinction between human “erotic” love and the higher, sacrificial love of Christian charity which we identify with the word agape.

First, Benedict makes sure to establish clearly that man is BOTH body and soul. To emphasize the one over the other results in an improper view of man himself and, as a result love.

When Pope Benedict talks about the “higher” way of love which is agape, he is not holding up am impossible ideal. He clearly sidesteps any suggestion that man ought to deny his very nature in some impossible attempt to be “angelic”.

In par. 8:

“Fundamentally, “love” is a single reality, but with different dimensions; at different times, one or other dimension may emerge more clearly. Yet when the two dimensions are totally cut off from one another, the result is a caricature or at least an impoverished form of love. And when we have also seen, synthetically, that biblical faith does not set up a parallel universe, or one opposed to that primordial human phenomenon which is love, but rather accepts the whole man; it intervenes in his search for love in order to purify it and to reveal new dimensions in it.”

Also, in the encyclical is a delightful passage in which he talks about the need of man to experience love from the point of view of being loved and not just giving love to others.

There is in Benedict’s thought a clear grasp of man’s nature. This is a far cry from the criticisms that were rained down on his character at before and around the time of his election.

The encyclical strives in the second part to establish a theological foundation for works of charity, responding to the attitude that “to do something enough”. There are organizations even attached to the Church in some way that seem to act without reference to bishops and the hierarchical Church. This is an intervention of the Magisterium to reestablished the foundation of charitable work in the proper place: a relationship of love with Christ and with those whom Christ commanded us to love through a proper love, a higher love.

More later.