Words of Guidance From Benedict in His Final Advent as Pope

I found a couple of posts I made in 2012, thanks to the On This Day app. They were two rather lengthy quotations from the words of Pope Benedict XVI (who was still in office, in what proved to be the final Advent of his papacy). I'm not sure when he said them, but I posted them both on December 10, 2012:

The last thing I could have imagined "on that day," three years ago, was that Benedict had already discerned with firm conviction God's will for his own mysterious, unique vocation. He was only three months away from making the stunning, historic announcement of his resignation from the papacy.

His natural death would not have surprised me three years ago. But this... sacrifice: it was and remains a powerful witness to Jesus's authority over His Church.

Benedict was called to make this sacrifice "without fear but with simplicity and joy"--to put God entirely at the center of his life, to live in silence and prayer and allow God to choose another to take his place on the chair of Saint Peter.

Remarkably, Benedict continues to dwell in that silence nearly three years later. His quiet presence at the Jubilee Door on Monday and his embrace of Pope Francis were a reminder to us of the ways that his gesture of abandonment continues to instruct us.

When Benedict opened himself to "the divine initiative" in his vocation, he opened the whole Church. Now he continues to witness to our need in the Church to make room for Jesus first--and for the presence of His Spirit--when speaking of God, "trusting that He will act in our weakness."

Benedict continues to live in this trust "that the more we put [Christ] at the center rather than ourselves, the more fruitful our communication will be."

Do we believe this? Are we learning to trust in Him first and at the center of everything: to trust in Him to accomplish His infinite and incomprehensible will for our good even in our weakness?

Let us leave more room for God.

Love is the Light

The words of Benedict XVI:

Window in the Primary Atrium, John XXIII Montessori Children's Center.

The Solitude of Our Tears

"The Lord Jesus... took upon Himself
the burden of all our mortal anguish.
His face is reflected in that of every person
who is humiliated and offended,
sick and suffering,
alone, abandoned, and despised.
Pouring out His blood,
He has rescued us from the slavery of death,
He has broken the solitude of our tears,
He has entered into our every grief
and our every anxiety."

~Benedict XVI

Remembering Benedict

I can't think of a better way to end the month of February than by reproducing here the full text of the tribute I wrote two years ago on this day. It was then that Benedict XVI took leave of us in order to enter a greater solitude.

We knew that the times to come would be dramatic, but we really had no idea. God had new surprises in store for us. Anyway, here's the article.

An Encounter, A Love Story, An Event

I am remembering once again with gratitude the Servant of God Luigi Giussani on the tenth anniversary of his death. It's hard to believe that it's been ten years already.

Fr. Giussani passed away on the Feast of the Chair of Peter, 2005.

Thus begins the commemoration within the next few months of a momentous series of events that took place a decade ago.

A little more than a month after Fr. Giussani's death, on April 2, 2005, his friend John Paul II joined him in the Father's house.

In fact, John Paul II had been too ill to preside at Fr. Giussani's funeral, and so he sent his most trusted collaborator, Cardinal Ratzinger, as his personal representative. On February 24, Ratzinger celebrated the funeral mass at Milan Cathedral and preached in front of thousands of people at the church and in the square, and countless others who were watching the funeral on Italian national television.

Many heard for the first time the simplicity and the depth of the preaching of the man who was about to become Pope Benedict XVI.

Here are a few of his words on that occasion.

Only Christ gives meaning to the whole of our life. Fr Giussani always kept the eyes of his life and of his heart fixed on Christ. In this way, he understood that Christianity is not an intellectual system, a packet of dogmas, a moralism, Christianity is rather an encounter, a love story; it is an event. [my emphasis]

This love affair with Christ, this love story which is the whole of his life was however far from every superficial enthusiasm, from every vague romanticism. Really seeing Christ, he knew that to encounter Christ means to follow Christ. This encounter is a road, a journey, a journey that passes also... through the “valley of darkness.”

In the Gospel, we heard of the last darkness of Christ’s suffering, of the apparent absence of God, when the world’s Sun was eclipsed. He knew that to follow is to pass through a “valley of darkness,” to take the way of the cross, and to live all the same in true joy.

The Eucharist and Living in Communion

It's easy to forget that less than two years ago, Benedict XVI was still pope. I mention this not out of any desire to indulge in nostalgia. I am quite confident in the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in the Church through the ministry of Pope Francis, and I am learning and being challenged to grow in new ways by his spiritual fatherhood.

It remains true, nevertheless, that Benedict's teaching is still important. Indeed, we have scarcely begun to appreciate its depths.

As Francis has often noted, however, we live in a "throwaway culture," a culture of 24 hour news that pours over information about today's current story only to forget everything about it tomorrow, a culture of tweets and texts and combox verbiage that amplify whatever clamors most for attention and appears most sensational.

The wisdom of Pope Benedict has been forgotten by the information systems that we depend upon and participate in. But it is not thereby diminished in itself.

It is every bit as much food for the poor today.

When I feel weighted with sorrow, I still turn to Benedict XVI. Not surprisingly, a day like today (election day in the United States) leads me to reflect upon being a Catholic Christian in the political and social realms of the early 21st century. As the affluent world expands and casts monstrous shadows everywhere, it is easy to feel alienated, marginalized, and isolated.

I wonder where in the world I belong.

Even some of my brothers and sisters in Christ seem caught up in fevered speculations and preoccupations with current events viewed without adequate perspective. It's easy for me to get caught up in this myself, but not for too long. My mental fragility forces me to recognize that I cannot figure these things out in my own head. I'm overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed in the shadows. And tempted to a kind of morbid loneliness. Am I some kind of a freak in this world?

I am not the only one who suffers from this kind of stress. I know that many find themselves poor in the midst of strange wealth, hungry in front of a glut of indigestible food.

Today, Benedict XVI helped me to focus. These words from a homily in March of 2006 reminded me of where I belong -- where everything belongs -- and where to find the food that satisfies:

"In the Eucharist, Jesus nourishes us,
he unites us with himself,
with his Father,
with the Holy Spirit
and with one another.
This network of unity that embraces the world
is an anticipation
of the future world in our time.
Precisely in this way,
since it is an anticipation of the future world,
communion is also a gift with very real consequences.
It lifts us from our loneliness,
from being closed in on ourselves,
and makes us sharers in the love
that unites us to God and to one another.
It is easy to understand how great this gift is
if we only think of the fragmentation and conflicts
that afflict relations
between individuals, groups and entire peoples.
And if the gift of unity in the Holy Spirit does not exist,
the fragmentation of humanity is inevitable.
'Communion' is truly the Good News,
the remedy given to us by the Lord
to fight the loneliness that threatens everyone today,
the precious gift that makes us feel welcomed
and beloved by God,
in the unity of his People gathered in the name of the Trinity;
it is the light that makes the Church shine forth
like a beacon raised among the peoples."

~Benedict XVI

I Throw Myself Upon His Infinite Mercy

All the events of last week were set within the context of our annual Divine Mercy novena and the celebration of Mercy Sunday. Having journeyed through Lent and the Paschal Triduum, we culminate with the celebration of God's mercy. (Another thing for which we can thank St. John Paul II).

The mercy of God in Jesus Christ is where I find my roots. I don't know where else to stand. Mercy is the creative, forgiving, regenerating love of God beyond all measure. Mercy is the love that gives us what we lack, that empowers us to accomplish what we can't do by ourselves.

Mercy is where I must go, because I am a complete mess as a human being. I'm not happy about that. I want to change (although, frankly, I'm often glad to just be lazy). My love for God is weak. My desire to grow in love is weak. What do I have, really, that I can bring before God in prayer?

Jesus. Every day I pray, "Lord, I throw myself upon your infinite mercy!" After all is said and done, and I find my work and my prayer to be a sorry mixed bag, what's left? Jesus.

God gives Himself. He is the way and the truth and the life. He is my hope for healing and for attaining my destiny. Jesus gives Himself to save me from my sins, and also to give me a participation in the life of God. The life of God! Whoever even thinks about this? Whoever thinks about the fact that Jesus brings not only freedom from sin but also a radical elevation of life to the level of union with God?

Here I am, struggling day by day just to get by, to survive, to tread water in the ocean of my own sanity. And yet I am called to live forever with God. It's difficult even to understand what this means. Do I even want this, really? Yes, I have been created to want this, and yet I live on the surface of myself. I don't know what to do in the end except to throw myself upon the mercy of God.

And this "God" for whom I have been created: who is He? Who is God?

Infinite Giving, Infinite Giftedness and Giving, Infinitely Poured Out: Infinitely, Eternally, Transcending all possible created worlds of limitation and definition such as we have ever known or have ever experienced.

All these words of mine are baby talk; I aim sounds of speech and fall so short. Poor words.

God Is, and God Is Love.

The very inner life of God is love. The One God is a Trinity of Persons. God has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Let us allow our beloved Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI to help us adore this mystery:

"Three Persons who are one God because the Father is love, the Son is love, the Spirit is love. God is wholly and only love, the purest, infinite and eternal love. He does not live in splendid solitude but rather is an inexhaustible source of life that is ceaselessly given and communicated" (General Audience for Trinity Sunday, 2009).

Who Will Fill the Vacant Chair?

This is not St. Peter's chair. This is my chair. It is never infallible,
ever. He who sits in it is assured of only two things: (1) frequently
falling asleep; (2) being climbed on by a child, without warning!

Happy Feast of the Chair of St. Peter...the chair that will soon be vacant! Its interesting that we commemorate today the unique episcopal office exercised by the Bishop of Rome, even as we prepare to witness an historically unprecedented change in that office. Benedict is leaving in less than a week! I'm sure that the final words and gestures of his papacy will enable our hearts to grow, even as we endure them in sorrow.

Meanwhile it is only human to wonder, "Who will succeed him?"

Yes, the conclave drama has captivated me. I'm reading about cardinals (and there are a lot of really, really good ones). My conclusion? I have no idea who next pope will be. Not a clue. 

And I'm okay with that. God is good. He will take care of His Church.

The wonderful Cardinal Arinze from Nigeria, who worked many years in the Roman curia, has helped me keep perspective. He gave a recent video interview, in which he said, with his expressive face and lovely Nigerian English enunciation: "Don't Worry! The Holy Spirit does not go on holidays!" [You can find it on YouTube...I should try to update this later with a link! :)]

The Janaros with Cardinal Arinze, 2004.
Really, this picture is fun because of the
size of the kids. Look at John Paul, haha!

He'd be a great pope. But he's 80 years old. He won't even be in the conclave. Ah, too bad.

Cardinal Arinze participated in a conference at our college in 2004. As theology department chairman, I shared in the task of welcoming him, and we were seated together at the conference. I gave him a copy of a draft of an article about John Paul II that I was working on (eventually published in 2006).

There were a couple of hours of break in the afternoon. I assumed he'd go take a nap. Instead, he read my paper. At the dinner banquet, he came to the table and his face was all bright and beaming. "I read your paper," he said to me. "Its wonderful! You are an 'expert' on the Pope." Well, that was encouraging, even though it was not deserved. I am a student of John Paul II, but not an expert.

I haven't spoken with him since then, although he has come back to Front Royal many times. He has participated in various college and graduate school events. He's even played tennis on the tennis courts. Cardinal Arinze pops up all the time, it seems. I haven't run into him at K-Mart yet, but if I ever do, I won't be surprised!

He was just here less than a month ago, participating in a conference of Catholic college presidents (he strongly supports the "alternative" Catholic colleges and schools, because they are faithful to the teachings of the Church; I'm sure it also helps that, as an African bishop, he has an appreciation of what it takes to build institutions from scratch).

While he was in town, he said Mass and met with the students of Chelsea academy. The little boy in the picture on the right, who is now as tall as the Cardinal, asked the first question. My son! :)

Cardinal Arinze is wise and learned, but very down to earth, with joy, a great sense of humor (really, he's hilarious), and tons of common sense. He loves Jesus, and he loves the Church, with intelligence and simplicity.

The younger cardinals from the developing world have a similar sensibility. They radiate the faith and love, the strength and the struggles of their churches. That doesn't mean that its "time" for an African pope or an Asian pope, etc., etc. Who knows?

God knows. Maybe it will be the most obscure and unaccomplished cardinal in the conclave. Whoever he is, the next pope will be the successor of St. Peter and occupy his chair. He will be responsible for keeping everyone focused on the reality of Christian faith and life. The successor of St. Peter will be concerned with fostering and preserving the opportunity for everyone to share in Peter's confession of faith, which is at its core the recognition of and relationship with a Person.

Conclaves, popes, cardinals, bishops are instruments and servants of the grace that comes from the Father, the grace that enables you and me to meet Jesus today, and to recognize who He is, to cry out with faith and love, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!"

Benedict: Following the Hunger for God

Below these reflections, I have reproduced a post from one year ago on "secularization". The problems it addresses are still very much with us.

Pope Benedict knows this very well. He is not quitting in the face of this crisis. Rather, he is resigning his office in order to follow the call to seek God in prayer, to offer the sufferings of his present physical condition in humility and silence before God.

It seems appropriate to revisit a point central to the eight years of Benedict's pontificate, because the secularized world cannot really understand why he has made his decision. A world without God does not understand the value of prayer, and therefore has no understanding of what Benedict means when he says he desires to "continue to serve the Church" by offering himself to God in prayer. Benedict lives a relationship with Christ in the Church, and he is now turning to prayer not simply for "practical" reasons. These constitute some of the circumstances he faces, of course, but at its core his decision is motivated by the conviction that this is the path of his vocation, the next step in a lifetime of hungering for God and seeking to know Him more intimately in an ever deeper personal encounter with Jesus Christ. He knows too that this hidden life is not an escape, but a profound way of entering into a deeper communion with his brothers and sisters, a way of offering himself to Christ in the communion of the Church in the context of his present sufferings, after a long life of dedicated pastoral service.

I am confident that his prayers will sustain his successor so that he can give a strong and attentive witness to the truth about God and His love for us in Jesus Christ--the truth that is everywhere attacked, ignored, or falsified with cheap substitutes.

My "introduction" has turned into a post of its own. Nevertheless, let me present the thoughts of last year, given in the context of the words of the Pope. Here is the post of February 17, 2012, which was called Secularization, Transcendence, and Love:


-----------------------------------------------------------------------


Sometimes we throw around terms like "secularism" and "the secularized West." It is important to be precise about what this means. Terms like these are not intended to cast "the secular world" in a negative light. Rather they are intended to express an ideological and practical attitude that limits the human person to the life of this finite world. Pope Benedict XVI explains it very concisely:

"Secularization, which presents itself in cultures by imposing a world and humanity without reference to Transcendence, is invading every aspect of daily life and developing a mentality in which God is effectively absent, wholly or partially, from human life and awareness."

Secularism imprisons the human person within the confines of "the world." Sometimes it restricts itself to the world as human beings immediately perceive it (e.g. materialism). But it can allow for the affirmation of "deeper realities," and for the development of human beings and the universe under the influence of "mysterious" natural powers (e.g. the many kinds of spiritualisms that flourish today, as well as a reductionist view of religion).

Secularism is a proposal of life "without reference to Transcendence." The essence of secularism is its effort to smother the deepest reality in the life of every human person, that thirst for the Infinite that shapes every human heart. The "transcendence" that Pope Benedict speaks of here is not just any kind of "going beyond" the surface of things. It is the Beyond-all-things, that Mystery which energizes the human person and is the ultimate goal of every human aspiration. Secularism seeks to suffocate this "restlessness" of the human heart.

It does not forbid a person to be "religious" (provided that "religion" is reduced to a human system, or a set of rules that rest on human contrivance, whether ancient or new). It does not have a problem with "spirituality" as long as the "spirit" remains in the finite prison of its own idealism, or of the occult. Secularism is even compatible with talk about God. But it wants to eliminate the search for God, the hunger for God, and of course, love for God.

Above all, however, secularism cannot abide the amazing fact that the Transcendent God --the Mystery that every human heart yearns for--has entered history and dwells among us in the very midst of our world. In the end, this is why secularism is doomed to fail: because God wills to make Himself known, because He loves us. He loves every human person, even the most determined secularists who appear to have forgotten all about Him.

The witness to Jesus Christ as God's loving gift of Himself is difficult in our secularized culture. But let us never forget that His grace is at work.

Letting Himself Become Small

What? A Pope resigns?

This hasn't happened in 600 years!!!

Why is Pope Benedict XVI taking this rare and peculiar step?

Sure, its happened a few times in history. But Benedict hasn't been imprisoned during a persecution like the early popes who resigned. And this is hardly like the wacky and chaotic period of the Council of Constance, 600 years ago, when there were three guys claiming to be the real pope. Add to the mix one of those always helpful (?) devout Catholic monarchs (the Emperor Sigismund), who decided to get involved, and....

Its a long story, but to get to the point, Pope Gregory XII (who was the legitimate pope) agreed to resign and gave the Council authority to choose his successor. Then the two antipopes were deposed. The Council appointed Gregory bishop of Frascati and Dean of the college of cardinals. But it took Constance two years to elect his successor, Martin V...which means that for two years the papacy was vacant, but the ex-pope was alive and well and cardinal bishop of a prestigious diocese right outside of Rome!

There have been some confusing times in the history of the Church. Most of the times of the Church have been confusing times. But she's still here.

Actually, Benedict's situation resembles more that of Pope St. Celestine V, who resigned at the end of the 13th century. In fact, he was a Benedictine monk who was plucked from his austere solitude and made bishop of Rome. He was incapable of the task, however, and resigned because he wanted to return to his life of prayer. (Note, the "St." in front of Celestine's name stands for Saint -- thus it would appear that resigning the papacy doesn't mean you're a bad person.)

Pope Benedict's reasons for resigning, whatever they may be, are born from his desire to follow Christ and serve the Church. He knows that the Church endures through the work of the Holy Spirit, and that this is a work of "reform in continuity." It is a work that remains vital at this unprecedented moment in the history of the human race.

The world is indeed in transition to a new epoch, fraught with unimaginable possibilities and unimaginable dangers. Benedict XVI has always known this. He has left an enduring legacy of wisdom for this emerging epoch. The great pain of his labors is not less for the fact that he has only now revealed it to us.

Still, his work is not finished. He is going forth to pray, to continue to seek the face of God. In this too, he teaches us.

In this new gigantic world of power, he is letting himself become small. He is embracing the poverty through which God works.

You Have Been a Blessing to Us

"After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God....

I have had to recognize my incapacity....

I ask pardon for all my defects....

I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future
through a life dedicated to prayer."

--from the Declaration of February 11, 2013
  Pope Benedict XVI

The Delicate Breath of Grace

It is so easy to forget that God's initiative, God's gift, is the foundation of every beginning. The Lord encounters us anew every day of our lives, and it is this encounter that awakens us from the stupor of evasive rationalizations and desperate attempts to justify ourselves.

Every moment we need the presence of His love, the memory that salvation has come, that life is something more than our solitary and anxious efforts to put together the pieces of our own shattered existence.

And this initiating, healing, tender companionship that is God's love finds an intimacy in our lives through the Woman who brings Him to us, and whose own maternal love accompanies His saving presence.


The world’s salvation is not the work of man

– of science, of technology, of ideology – 

but comes from grace.

What does this word mean?

Grace is love in its purity and beauty,

it is God himself such as he is revealed

in the salvific history narrated in the Bible

and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Mary is called “full of grace” (Luke 1:28)

and with this identity of hers she reminds us

of God’s primacy in our life

and in the history of the world;

she reminds us

that the power of God’s love is stronger than evil,

that it can fill the voids that egoism leaves

in the history of persons, of families,

of the nations of the world.

These voids can become a sort of hell

in which human life is drawn downwards

toward nothingness,

without meaning and without light....

Only love can save us from this fall,

but it is not just any kind of love:

it is a love that has the purity of grace in it

– the grace of God that transforms and renews – 

and that can breathe, into lungs filled with toxins,

new oxygen, clean air,

a new energy of life.

Mary tells us

that man can never fall so far down

that it is too far for God,

who descended to the very depths;

however far our heart is led into error,

God is always “greater than our heart” (1 John 3:20).

The delicate breath of grace

can disperse the blackest clouds;

it can make life beautiful and rich with meaning,

even in the most inhuman situations.

Benedict XVI

Death Opens To Something Completely New

But how do we Christians respond to th[e] question of death?

We respond with faith in God,

with a look firm with hope

founded on the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So death opens to life,

to eternal life,

which is not an infinite doubling of the present time

but something completely new.

Faith tells us that the true immortality to which we aspire

is not an idea, a concept,

but a relation of full communion with the living God:

it is being in his hands, in his love,

and becoming in him one with all our brothers and sisters

that he has created and redeemed,

with the whole of creation.

Our hope, then, rests in God’s love

which shines on the Cross of Christ....

This is life that has reached its fullness,

life in God;

it is a life that now we can only glimpse

as one glimpses calm skies through the clouds.

Benedict XVI (Homily, 11/4/12)

The Poverty of a Child

Teresa, age one, as baby Jesus in Nativity Play, 2003

The glory of God is not manifested in the triumph and power of a king, it does not shine in a famous city, in a sumptuous palace, but dwells in the womb of a virgin, it reveals itself in the poverty of a child.


The omnipotence of God, also in our lives, acts with the force, often silent, of the truth and of love.


Faith tells us, then, that the defenseless power of that Child in the end overcomes the noise of the powers of the world.

                                            Benedict XVI

We Are Not Left to Ourselves

God has left His Heaven and come down to earth for man...

taking on human flesh and becoming man like us.

Advent invites us to follow

the path of this presence

and reminds us again and again

that God is not removed from the world,

He is not absent,

we are not left to ourselves,

but He comes to us in different ways,

which we need to learn to discern.

And we, with our faith, our hope and our charity,

are called every day to see and bear witness to this presence,

in an often superficial and distracted world,

to reflect in our lives the light

that illuminated the cave of Bethlehem!

Benedict XVI

He Communicated Himself to Us

"He has made [His plan] known

by engaging with man,
to whom He has not only revealed something,
but His very self.
He has not simply communicated a set of truths,
but He communicated Himself to us,
to the point of becoming one of us,
to being incarnate.
God not only says something,
He communicates with us,
draws us into the divine nature,
so that we are involved in the divine nature,
deified.
God reveals His great plan of love,
engaging with man,
approaching him
to the point of becoming Himself a man."

Benedict XVI

The Encounter Between Man and God

Today many have a limited understanding

of the Christian faith,

because they identify it

with a mere system of beliefs and values ​

and not so much with the truth of God

revealed in history,

eager to communicate with man

face to face,

in a relationship of love with Him.

In fact,

the foundation of every doctrine or value

is the event of the encounter

between man and God in Christ Jesus.

Christianity, before being a moral or ethical value,

is the experience of love,

of welcoming the person of Jesus.

Benedict XVI, November 14, 2012

Suffering With Us

"Bernard of Clairvaux coined the marvelous expression: Impassibilis est Deus, sed non incompassibilis—God cannot suffer, but he can suffer with. Man is worth so much to God that he himself became man in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way—in flesh and blood—as is revealed to us in the account of Jesus's Passion. Hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in all suffering, the consolation of God's compassionate love" (Benedict XVI, encyclical Spe Salvi, 39).

Who Needs to be Newly Evangelized? ME!!!

The Year of Faith has begun. It will provide many opportunities for us to pray, study our faith, and consider the possibilities of the New Evangelization. What I hope and pray for in this year is that each of us, starting with myself, might discover Jesus Christ anew and belong to Him more fully. For is there anyone among us who is not utterly poor in front of Him? 

We can always grow in our adherence to Him, and our allowing of our hearts to be more deeply healed and penetrated by His love for us. The faith we have been given, and that we want to share, is nothing less than the event "of encountering Jesus as a living Person, of letting ourselves be totally involved by Him and by His Gospel" (Benedict XVI).

The New Evangelization must be this, or else it is just more clanging cymbals. Every human person has been created to encounter Jesus Christ, and to be transformed by His mercy. And my awareness of this is real only if it is fundamentally an awareness of my own need as a person.

First of all, I need to be newly evangelized. Every moment of every day, I need Christ.

*Jesus, I pray, open the depths of my self so that I might let You love me more!*

Jesus stood up and proclaimed, "If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.'" (John 7:37-38)

What's "New" About The New Evangelization?

Artificial lights conceal the gathering storm....

The Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization begins this coming week. It is worthwhile to recall the words of Benedict XVI when he established the special Congregation for the New Evangelization last year. Among other things, Benedict has a special concern for the need to bring the Gospel in a new way to Western culture that has become alienated from the faith that shaped its past:

The term, “new evangelization” recalls the need for a renewed manner of proclamation, especially for those who live in a context, like the one today, in which the development of secularization has had a heavy impact, even in traditionally Christian countries.

The Gospel is the ever new proclamation of the salvation worked by Christ which makes humanity participate in the mystery of God and in his life of love and opens it to a future of strong, sure hope. Highlighting that at this moment in history, the Church is called to carry out a new evangelization, [which] means intensifying her missionary action so that it fully corresponds to the Lord’s mandate.

The Second Vatican Council recalled that “The groups among whom the Church operates are utterly changed so that an entirely new situation arises” (Decree Ad Gentes, n. 6). The farsighted Fathers of the Council saw the cultural changes that were on the horizon and which today are easily verifiable. It is precisely these changes which have created unexpected conditions for believers and require special attention in proclaiming the Gospel, for giving an account of our faith in situations which are different from the past.

The current crisis brings with it traces of the exclusion of God from people’s lives, from a generalized indifference towards the Christian faith to an attempt to marginalize it from public life. In the past decades, it was still possible to find a general Christian sensibility which unified the common experience of entire generations raised in the shadow of the faith which had shaped culture. Today, unfortunately, we are witnessing a drama of fragmentation which no longer acknowledges a unifying reference point; moreover, it often occurs that people wish to belong to the Church, but they are strongly shaped by a vision of life which is in contrast with the faith....

Throughout the centuries, the Church has never ceased to proclaim the salvific mystery of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but today that same message needs renewed vigour to convince contemporary man, who is often distracted and insensitive. For this reason, the new evangelization must try to find ways of making the proclamation of salvation more effective; a proclamation without which personal existence remains contradictory and deprived of what is essential.

Even for those who remain tied to their Christian roots, but who live the difficult relationship with modernity, it is important to realize that being Christian is not a type of clothing to wear in private or on special occasions, but is something living and all-encompassing, able to contain all that is good in modern life.