A tough one for me today, on the last full day of Pope Benedict’s Pontificate…
Today is Wednesday of the 2nd Week of Lent.
We hear about the Station, the Collects, and then have part of a sermon by Pope Benedict from 2009 for Palm Sunday.
I had to record this one several times, because I choked up toward the end.
From Benedict’s sermon:
An upright life always involves sacrifice, renunciation. To hold out the promise of a life without this constant re-giving of self is to mislead. There is no such thing as a successful life without sacrifice.
If I cast a glance back over my whole life, I have to say that it was precisely the moments when I said yes to renunciation that were the great and important moments of my life.
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This is a timely past quote from our holy father. Thank you for finding and sharing it, Fr. Z.
Just beautiful…thank you Fr. Z.
No shame in that, Father. I’ve been crying off and on for two weeks. Thank you for these Lentcazts and thank you for helping me appreciate dear Pope Benedict on your blog these last seven years!
Thank you, Father. Pope Benedict XVI will be missed.
St Thérèse of Lisieux had a great devotion to St Cecilia and her beautiful poem “The Melody of St Cecilia” ends:
…Cecilia, lend to me thy melody most sweet:
How many souls would I convert to Jesus now.
I fain would die, like thee, to win them to His feet;
For Him give all my tears, my blood. Oh, help me thou!
Pray for me that I gain, on this our pilgrim way
Perfect abandonment — that sweetest fruit of love.
Saint of my heart! oh, soon, bring me to endless day;
Obtain that I may fly, with thee, to heaven above!
April 28, 1893.
Father, I think quite a few of us are going to have a tough day of it. You selected the text for the day exceptionally well. Thank you.
As well, thanks to the Blessed Trinity and especially the Holy Ghost for giving His Holy Church such a holy and insightful Sovereign Pontiff as Pope Benedict. What a gift!
In Christ,
Father Zuhlsdorf,
The death of Blessed John-Paul II and all the events surrounding it were what brought me to your blog, and I’ve been reading ever since. Please know how grateful I am for the time and energy you have poured into wdtprs. That you experience blog issues whenever something of importance happens in the Church indicates just how heavily we rely on you!
The Holy Father’s words are so beautiful; I am anxious to share them with my children and to spend time pondering them more deeply. Thank you for bringing them to our attention, and again, thanks for all you do for us and for the Church. I am praying for you especially in these coming weeks!
In Christ, annie
Thanks, Fr. Z.
Thanks Fr. Z. The Holy Father writes so beautifully. His words go straight to the heart and soul. I really wish he would stay.
Thanks very much for these Lentcazts. They have all been very interesting and useful.
Thanks, Father!
Thank you, Fr. Z!
Thank you, that was beautiful.
I rediscovered my faith because of Pope Benedict. I always looked forward to reading his weekly lessons and prayers. I relished his homilies and can even remember some of those exquisitely crafted sentences verbatum. I always knew that even if I heard a less than inspiring homily at Mass, his brief Sunday angelus message would bring something new and unexpected to my understanding of the gospel. I will look forward to revisiting those extraordinary works in the days ahead.
I am comforted that he “will remain in a new way near to the Crucified Lord… within St. Peter’s bounds” serving the Church in his life of prayer. But I will greatly miss his visible presence.
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I too thank Papa Nostro Benedicto for his written teachings. His Wednesday audiences teachings have been compiled in four books available from Ignatius Press. In November I had the honor of briefly meeting Benedict and kissing his ring. I thanked him for leaving his teachings in writing and said I had read The Spirit of the Liturgy, the Jesus of Nazareth trilogy and his Wednesday Cathecheses. It was the latter that impressed him. He looked surprised and said: “you read THOSE?”. He was genuinely surprised that there people out there who actually read his books. His books will be his lasting legacy. The Holy Father is invigorated by talking to people, and he looked in good spirits and health in November. He also appeared in good form, for an 85 year old, today on his final Audience via ETWN.
Grazie Santo Padre. We will miss you and pray for you in gratitude.
Gratias,
“His Wednesday audiences teachings have been compiled in four books available from Ignatius Press.”
Thanks for the information, and for writing about your charming meeting with him!
Like you Father, I am also choked up today. It is almost impossible to believe that in 3 hours time, our beloved Holy Father will leave office. I console myself knowing that it has been a great joy and privilege to have been alive during his pontificate.
His words were so luminous, and there were always images and metaphors to surprise us. One image that I will always treasure is his likening the church to the moon.
“We can think of the Catholic Church by comparing it to the moon, not only for the relationship between moon and woman (as mother), but also because the moon does not have its own light. It receives light from the sun, without which it would be in total darkness. The moon shines, but its light is not its own. Lunar probes and astronauts have seen that the moon is nothing but a rocky and desert-like wasteland. They saw rock and sand, the reality quite different from the image we held about it from antiquity. The moon is by and of itself nothing but rock and sand, but it does reflect light.
Is this not an exact image of the Church? Whoever explores it and digs into it with a probe will discover, as in the moon, nothing but desert, sand and rock – the weaknesses of mankind seen as dust, stones, waste. But the decisive fact is that even if she is nothing but sand and stones, she is also Light, by virtue of the Lord. “
God bless Pope Benedict!