MATER MEA MEA
TRUST OUR LADY OF TRUST
O Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church,
O Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church,
you entrust our lives,
we are your children
and into your hands we place our vocation.
Ave Maria ...
To you, O Virgin of Nazareth,
humbly offer our desire
humbly offer our desire
di seguire Gesù nella via dell'amore
con fedeltà e perseveranza,
affinché possiamo servirlo
con cuore indiviso e generoso.
Ave Maria...
Guidaci sempre con
il tuo amore di Madre,
sostienici nella debolezza,
confermaci nella speranza,
accresci in We trust in God,
love for Christ and fidelity to the Church.
O Mary, Mother and our trust!
Salve Regina ...
Mater Mea, Fiducia Mea.
POPE BENEDICT XVI
visit to the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary
FOR THE FEAST OF OUR LADY OF CONFIDENCE
LECTIO DIVINE
OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Seminary Chapel
OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Seminary Chapel
Friday, March 4, 2011
Dear brothers and sisters,
are very happy to be at least one once a year here with my seminarians, young people who are on their way to the priesthood and will be the future priests of Rome. I am delighted that this happens every year on the day of Our Lady of Trust, the Mother who accompanies us with his love every day and gives us the confidence to move forward toward Christ.
"In the unity of the Spirit" is the theme to guide your reflections during this academic year. It is an expression that is right in step of Letter to the Ephesians, which has been proposed, where St. Paul exhorts the members of that community to "maintain the unity of spirit" (4.3). This text opens the second part of Letter to the Ephesians, the so-called part exhortation, exhort and begins with the word "parakalo", "I urge." But it is the same word is also in the term " Paraklitos " and is an exhortation in the light, the power of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle's exhortation is based on the mystery of salvation, which had put in the first three chapters. In fact, our song begins with the word "therefore": "I ... then I urge you ..." (v. 1). The behavior of Christians is the result of the gift, the realization of what is given to us every day. And yet, if it is simply the realization of the gift given to us, it is not an automatic effect, because with God we are always in the reality of freedom and therefore - as the answer, even the realization of the gift is freedom - the Apostle must recall, can not take it for granted. Baptism, we know, do not automatically produce a coherent life: this is the result of will and the perseverance to work with the gift, the grace received. And that commitment costs, there is a price to pay in person. Perhaps for this reason St. Paul refers here to its present condition: "I therefore prisoner because of the Lord, beseech you ..." (ibid .). Following Christ means sharing His Passion, His Cross, follow through, and that the inheritance of the Master connects deeply to him and strengthens the authority of the exhortation of the Apostle.
Now we get to the heart of our meditation, encountering a word that strikes us in particular: the word "call", "vocation". St. Paul writes, "behave in a manner worthy of the call, the klesis who have received" ( ibid.). And the repeated shortly after, stating that "... there is only one hope to which you were called that belongs to your vocation " (v. 4). Here, in this case, it is the common vocation to all cristiani, cioè della vocazione battesimale: la chiamata ad essere di Cristo e a vivere in Lui, nel suo corpo. Dentro questa parola è inscritta un’esperienza, risuona l’eco dell’esperienza dei primi discepoli, quella che conosciamo dai Vangeli: quando Gesù passò sulla riva del lago di Galilea, e chiamò Simone e Andrea, poi Giacomo e Giovanni (cfr Mc 1,16-20). E prima ancora, presso il fiume Giordano, dopo il battesimo, quando, accorgendosi che Andrea e l’altro discepolo lo seguivano, disse loro: "Venite e vedrete" ( Gv 1,39). La vita cristiana comincia con una chiamata e rimane sempre una risposta, fino alla fine. E ciò sia nella dimensione del credere, and in that of action: so much faith as the behavior of Christians are responding to the grace of vocation.
I talked about the call of the first apostles, but we think the word "call" especially to the Mother of every call, to Mary, the chosen, the call for excellence. The icon of the Annunciation to Mary is much more than that particular Gospel story, as fundamental: it contains the whole mystery of Mary, all his history, his being, and at the same time speaks of the Church, its essence ever, as well as every believer in Christ, every Christian soul call.
At this point we must keep in mind that people talk about the past. God, the Lord has called each of us, each is named after her. God is so great that it has time for each of us knows me, knows everyone by name, personally. It is a personal call for each of us. I think we should meditate several times this mystery: God, the Lord has called me, called me, I know, waiting for my reply as the expected response of Mary, waiting for the response of the Apostles. God is calling me: this should make us attentive to God's voice, attentive to his word, his call for me to respond, to make this part of the history of salvation for which he has called me. In this text, then, St. Paul tells us some concrete evidence of this answer with four words: "humility", "sweetness", "magnanimity", "forbearing one another in love." Maybe we briefly ponder these words which refer to the Christian walk. We will return at the end, once again, on this.
"Humility" is the Greek word " tapeinophrosyne ", the same word that Paul uses in Letter to the Philippians when he speaks of the Lord, who was God and humbled himself, became " tapeinos " , fell to the creature themselves, to become man, to the obedience of the Cross (cf. Phil 2:7-8). Humility, then, is not a word any, some modesty, something ... but it's a word Christological. Imitate God reaching down to me, that is so great that you my friend, suffer me, died for me. This is the humility to learn the humility of God means that we always see the light of God, so, at the same time, we know the importance of being a person loved by God, but also our littleness, our poverty, and so behave correctly, not as masters but as servants. As St. Paul says: "We have no intention to lord it over your faith, rather, we work together for your joy" (2 Cor 1.24). Being a priest, ancora più che l’essere cristiano, implica questa umiltà.
"Dolcezza": nel testo greco qui sta la parola "praütes", la stessa parola che appare nelle Beatitudini: "Beati i miti perché avranno in eredità la terra" ( Mt 5,5,). E nel Libro dei Numeri , il quarto libro di Mosé, troviamo l’affermazione che Mosé era l’uomo più mite del mondo (cfr 12,3) e, in questo senso, era una prefigurazione di Cristo, di Gesù, che dice di sé: "Io sono mite e umile di cuore" ( Mt 11,29). Anche questa parola, quindi, "mite", "dolcezza", è una parola cristologica e implica di nuovo questo imitare Christ. Because in baptism we are conformed to Christ, so we must be conformed to Christ, to find that spirit of being mild, without violence, to convince the love and goodness.
"Magnanimity", " makrothymia " means the generosity of the heart, not minimalist that give only what is strictly necessary: \u200b\u200bwe give ourselves with all we can, and we grow in patience.
"Bear in love" is a daily task of putting up with each other in their otherness, and his enduring humility, to learn true love.
And now let's step forward. After word of the call, followed by the ecclesial dimension. We have now spoken of vocation as a call very personal God calls me, he knows me, hold my own answer. But at the same time, the call is a call of God in community, is a call to the Church, God calls us into a community. It 's true that in this passage that we are contemplating is not the word "ekklesia ", the word "Church" but the reality is all the more. St. Paul speaks of a spirit and a body. The Spirit creates the body and unites us as one body. And then talk about unity, about the chain of being, the bond of peace. And with that word mentioned the word "prisoner" at the beginning: it is always the same word, "I'm in chains," "chain will keep you," but behind the great chain of being invisible, liberating love. We are in the bond of peace, the Church is the great bond which unites us with Christ. Perhaps we should also reflect personally on this point: we are called personally, but we are called in one body. And this is not something abstract, but very real.
At this time, the seminary is the body in which there actually being in a common journey. Then comes the parish: to accept, endure, animate the whole parish, the people, the nice and not nice ones, fit into this body. Body: the Church is the body, so it has facilities, it also really a right and sometimes not so easy to enter. Of course, we want the personal relationship with God, but the body often do not like. But in doing so we are in communion with Christ, by accepting this embodiment of his Church, the Spirit, which is embodied in the body.
And on the other hand, may often feel the problem, the difficulty of this community, starting with the concrete community of the seminary to the great community of the Church, with its institutions. We must also keep in mind that it is very nice to be a company, walking into a great company of all ages, have friends in heaven and on earth, and feel the beauty of this body, be happy that the Lord has called us into a body and has given us friends all over the world.
I said the word "ekklesia " there is here, but there is the word "body", the word "spirit", the word "bond" and seven times in this small piece, returns word "one". Thus we feel is important to us as the Apostle Church unity. It ends with a "scale of unity," up to the Unity: One is God, the God of all. God is one and the oneness of God is expressed in our fellowship, because God is the Father, the Creator of us all and We are all brothers, we are all one body and the unity of God is the condition, it is also the creation of human brotherhood and peace. So, let us contemplate this mystery of unity and the importance of also always seek unity in the communion of Christ, the one God
Now we can take another step forward. If we ask what is the deeper meaning of this use of the word "call", we see that it is one of the doors that open onto the mystery of the Trinity. So far we have talked about the mystery of the Church, the one God, but it is also the mystery of the Trinity. Jesus is the mediator of the call of the Father who is in the Spirit Santo. The Christian vocation can only have one form of the Trinity, both at the individual, both in the ecclesial community. The mystery of the Church is all led by the dynamism of the Holy Spirit, which is a dynamism in the broad sense of vocation and perennial, from Abraham, who first heard God's call and responded with faith and action (cf. January 12:1-3), up to the 'here I am "of Mary, a perfect reflection of what the Son of God, when the Father welcomes the call to come into the world (cf. Heb 10.5-7 ). Thus, in the "heart" of the Church - would like St. Therese of the Child Jesus - the call of every Christian Trinity is a mystery: the mystery of the encounter with Jesus, the Word made flesh, by which God the Father calls us to communion with Him and therefore we want to give his Holy Spirit, and it is thanks to the Spirit that we can respond to Jesus and the Father in an authentic way, in a real relationship, a subsidiary. Without the breath of the Holy Spirit, the Christian vocation can not be explained simply, it loses its lifeblood.
And finally the last step. The form requires unity in the Spirit, as I said, the imitation of Jesus, the conformity to him in the reality of his behavior. The Apostle writes, as we thought: "With all humility, gentleness and patience, forbearing one another in love" and then added that unity of spirit must be kept "in the bond of peace" (Eph 4:2-3).
The Church's unity is not given by a "kind" imposed from outside, but is the result of a harmony, a common commitment to behave like Jesus, by virtue of his Spirit. There is a commentary of St. John Chrysostom at this step that is very nice. Chrysostom says the image of the "bond", the "bond of peace", and says: "It 's nice to this constraint, with which we bind ourselves together and with each other and with God, not a chain that hurts. He does not cramp the hands, I let them, give them ample space and a greater courage "(Homilies sull'Epistola Ephesians 9, 4, 1-3). Here we find the paradox of the Gospel: love is a Christian constraint, as we have said, but a constraint that free! The image of the bond, as I said, brings us back to the situation in St. Paul, which is "Prisoner", is "constraint." The Apostle is in chains because of the Lord, as Jesus himself, became a slave to free. To maintain the unity of spirit must orient their behavior to that humility, gentleness and generosity that Jesus testified in his passion, you must have hands and hearts connected by that bond of love that He has accepted us, and made himself our servant. This is the "bond of peace." It says St. John Chrysostom, in the same comment: "tie in to your brothers, those so bound together in love to bear everything with ease ... so he wants us to be linked to each other, not only to be at peace, not only for be friends, but to be all one soul "(ibid .).
The Pauline text of which we have reflected some elements, is very rich. I was able to bring to you a few ideas, which I commend to your meditation. And we pray to the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Trust, to help us to walk with joy in the unity of the Spirit. Thanks!
"In the unity of the Spirit" is the theme to guide your reflections during this academic year. It is an expression that is right in step of Letter to the Ephesians, which has been proposed, where St. Paul exhorts the members of that community to "maintain the unity of spirit" (4.3). This text opens the second part of Letter to the Ephesians, the so-called part exhortation, exhort and begins with the word "parakalo", "I urge." But it is the same word is also in the term " Paraklitos " and is an exhortation in the light, the power of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle's exhortation is based on the mystery of salvation, which had put in the first three chapters. In fact, our song begins with the word "therefore": "I ... then I urge you ..." (v. 1). The behavior of Christians is the result of the gift, the realization of what is given to us every day. And yet, if it is simply the realization of the gift given to us, it is not an automatic effect, because with God we are always in the reality of freedom and therefore - as the answer, even the realization of the gift is freedom - the Apostle must recall, can not take it for granted. Baptism, we know, do not automatically produce a coherent life: this is the result of will and the perseverance to work with the gift, the grace received. And that commitment costs, there is a price to pay in person. Perhaps for this reason St. Paul refers here to its present condition: "I therefore prisoner because of the Lord, beseech you ..." (ibid .). Following Christ means sharing His Passion, His Cross, follow through, and that the inheritance of the Master connects deeply to him and strengthens the authority of the exhortation of the Apostle.
Now we get to the heart of our meditation, encountering a word that strikes us in particular: the word "call", "vocation". St. Paul writes, "behave in a manner worthy of the call, the klesis who have received" ( ibid.). And the repeated shortly after, stating that "... there is only one hope to which you were called that belongs to your vocation " (v. 4). Here, in this case, it is the common vocation to all cristiani, cioè della vocazione battesimale: la chiamata ad essere di Cristo e a vivere in Lui, nel suo corpo. Dentro questa parola è inscritta un’esperienza, risuona l’eco dell’esperienza dei primi discepoli, quella che conosciamo dai Vangeli: quando Gesù passò sulla riva del lago di Galilea, e chiamò Simone e Andrea, poi Giacomo e Giovanni (cfr Mc 1,16-20). E prima ancora, presso il fiume Giordano, dopo il battesimo, quando, accorgendosi che Andrea e l’altro discepolo lo seguivano, disse loro: "Venite e vedrete" ( Gv 1,39). La vita cristiana comincia con una chiamata e rimane sempre una risposta, fino alla fine. E ciò sia nella dimensione del credere, and in that of action: so much faith as the behavior of Christians are responding to the grace of vocation.
I talked about the call of the first apostles, but we think the word "call" especially to the Mother of every call, to Mary, the chosen, the call for excellence. The icon of the Annunciation to Mary is much more than that particular Gospel story, as fundamental: it contains the whole mystery of Mary, all his history, his being, and at the same time speaks of the Church, its essence ever, as well as every believer in Christ, every Christian soul call.
At this point we must keep in mind that people talk about the past. God, the Lord has called each of us, each is named after her. God is so great that it has time for each of us knows me, knows everyone by name, personally. It is a personal call for each of us. I think we should meditate several times this mystery: God, the Lord has called me, called me, I know, waiting for my reply as the expected response of Mary, waiting for the response of the Apostles. God is calling me: this should make us attentive to God's voice, attentive to his word, his call for me to respond, to make this part of the history of salvation for which he has called me. In this text, then, St. Paul tells us some concrete evidence of this answer with four words: "humility", "sweetness", "magnanimity", "forbearing one another in love." Maybe we briefly ponder these words which refer to the Christian walk. We will return at the end, once again, on this.
"Humility" is the Greek word " tapeinophrosyne ", the same word that Paul uses in Letter to the Philippians when he speaks of the Lord, who was God and humbled himself, became " tapeinos " , fell to the creature themselves, to become man, to the obedience of the Cross (cf. Phil 2:7-8). Humility, then, is not a word any, some modesty, something ... but it's a word Christological. Imitate God reaching down to me, that is so great that you my friend, suffer me, died for me. This is the humility to learn the humility of God means that we always see the light of God, so, at the same time, we know the importance of being a person loved by God, but also our littleness, our poverty, and so behave correctly, not as masters but as servants. As St. Paul says: "We have no intention to lord it over your faith, rather, we work together for your joy" (2 Cor 1.24). Being a priest, ancora più che l’essere cristiano, implica questa umiltà.
"Dolcezza": nel testo greco qui sta la parola "praütes", la stessa parola che appare nelle Beatitudini: "Beati i miti perché avranno in eredità la terra" ( Mt 5,5,). E nel Libro dei Numeri , il quarto libro di Mosé, troviamo l’affermazione che Mosé era l’uomo più mite del mondo (cfr 12,3) e, in questo senso, era una prefigurazione di Cristo, di Gesù, che dice di sé: "Io sono mite e umile di cuore" ( Mt 11,29). Anche questa parola, quindi, "mite", "dolcezza", è una parola cristologica e implica di nuovo questo imitare Christ. Because in baptism we are conformed to Christ, so we must be conformed to Christ, to find that spirit of being mild, without violence, to convince the love and goodness.
"Magnanimity", " makrothymia " means the generosity of the heart, not minimalist that give only what is strictly necessary: \u200b\u200bwe give ourselves with all we can, and we grow in patience.
"Bear in love" is a daily task of putting up with each other in their otherness, and his enduring humility, to learn true love.
And now let's step forward. After word of the call, followed by the ecclesial dimension. We have now spoken of vocation as a call very personal God calls me, he knows me, hold my own answer. But at the same time, the call is a call of God in community, is a call to the Church, God calls us into a community. It 's true that in this passage that we are contemplating is not the word "ekklesia ", the word "Church" but the reality is all the more. St. Paul speaks of a spirit and a body. The Spirit creates the body and unites us as one body. And then talk about unity, about the chain of being, the bond of peace. And with that word mentioned the word "prisoner" at the beginning: it is always the same word, "I'm in chains," "chain will keep you," but behind the great chain of being invisible, liberating love. We are in the bond of peace, the Church is the great bond which unites us with Christ. Perhaps we should also reflect personally on this point: we are called personally, but we are called in one body. And this is not something abstract, but very real.
At this time, the seminary is the body in which there actually being in a common journey. Then comes the parish: to accept, endure, animate the whole parish, the people, the nice and not nice ones, fit into this body. Body: the Church is the body, so it has facilities, it also really a right and sometimes not so easy to enter. Of course, we want the personal relationship with God, but the body often do not like. But in doing so we are in communion with Christ, by accepting this embodiment of his Church, the Spirit, which is embodied in the body.
And on the other hand, may often feel the problem, the difficulty of this community, starting with the concrete community of the seminary to the great community of the Church, with its institutions. We must also keep in mind that it is very nice to be a company, walking into a great company of all ages, have friends in heaven and on earth, and feel the beauty of this body, be happy that the Lord has called us into a body and has given us friends all over the world.
I said the word "ekklesia " there is here, but there is the word "body", the word "spirit", the word "bond" and seven times in this small piece, returns word "one". Thus we feel is important to us as the Apostle Church unity. It ends with a "scale of unity," up to the Unity: One is God, the God of all. God is one and the oneness of God is expressed in our fellowship, because God is the Father, the Creator of us all and We are all brothers, we are all one body and the unity of God is the condition, it is also the creation of human brotherhood and peace. So, let us contemplate this mystery of unity and the importance of also always seek unity in the communion of Christ, the one God
Now we can take another step forward. If we ask what is the deeper meaning of this use of the word "call", we see that it is one of the doors that open onto the mystery of the Trinity. So far we have talked about the mystery of the Church, the one God, but it is also the mystery of the Trinity. Jesus is the mediator of the call of the Father who is in the Spirit Santo. The Christian vocation can only have one form of the Trinity, both at the individual, both in the ecclesial community. The mystery of the Church is all led by the dynamism of the Holy Spirit, which is a dynamism in the broad sense of vocation and perennial, from Abraham, who first heard God's call and responded with faith and action (cf. January 12:1-3), up to the 'here I am "of Mary, a perfect reflection of what the Son of God, when the Father welcomes the call to come into the world (cf. Heb 10.5-7 ). Thus, in the "heart" of the Church - would like St. Therese of the Child Jesus - the call of every Christian Trinity is a mystery: the mystery of the encounter with Jesus, the Word made flesh, by which God the Father calls us to communion with Him and therefore we want to give his Holy Spirit, and it is thanks to the Spirit that we can respond to Jesus and the Father in an authentic way, in a real relationship, a subsidiary. Without the breath of the Holy Spirit, the Christian vocation can not be explained simply, it loses its lifeblood.
And finally the last step. The form requires unity in the Spirit, as I said, the imitation of Jesus, the conformity to him in the reality of his behavior. The Apostle writes, as we thought: "With all humility, gentleness and patience, forbearing one another in love" and then added that unity of spirit must be kept "in the bond of peace" (Eph 4:2-3).
The Church's unity is not given by a "kind" imposed from outside, but is the result of a harmony, a common commitment to behave like Jesus, by virtue of his Spirit. There is a commentary of St. John Chrysostom at this step that is very nice. Chrysostom says the image of the "bond", the "bond of peace", and says: "It 's nice to this constraint, with which we bind ourselves together and with each other and with God, not a chain that hurts. He does not cramp the hands, I let them, give them ample space and a greater courage "(Homilies sull'Epistola Ephesians 9, 4, 1-3). Here we find the paradox of the Gospel: love is a Christian constraint, as we have said, but a constraint that free! The image of the bond, as I said, brings us back to the situation in St. Paul, which is "Prisoner", is "constraint." The Apostle is in chains because of the Lord, as Jesus himself, became a slave to free. To maintain the unity of spirit must orient their behavior to that humility, gentleness and generosity that Jesus testified in his passion, you must have hands and hearts connected by that bond of love that He has accepted us, and made himself our servant. This is the "bond of peace." It says St. John Chrysostom, in the same comment: "tie in to your brothers, those so bound together in love to bear everything with ease ... so he wants us to be linked to each other, not only to be at peace, not only for be friends, but to be all one soul "(ibid .).
The Pauline text of which we have reflected some elements, is very rich. I was able to bring to you a few ideas, which I commend to your meditation. And we pray to the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Trust, to help us to walk with joy in the unity of the Spirit. Thanks!
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