Vive Le Pape!
Posted by Rebecca Teti in News on Thursday, September 18, 2008 7:01 PM
I didn’t forget about our weekly Paul 101 session with the Holy Father. He himself paused the series to reflect on his recent trip to France for the 150th anniversary of Lourdes. I always think it’s interesting to read how the Pope himself assesses his pastoral visits.
The entire collection of addresses is here.
There’s almost too much richness to choose from, but here are two highlights. First, his address to the “world of culture” in Paris. The Pope is a man of both deep personal holiness and erudition; everything he writes and preaches with a ringing clarity, always. But every so often he outdoes even himself with a masterwork of rhetoric. Such was his homily at St. Patrick’s in New York and such is this speech to this highly secular audience about the roots of culture.
Met as they were on the site of a monastery, the Pope begins by reflecting on how the monasteries preserved and built on Western civilization. I appreciated his insight that “culture” isn’t something we can try to create; it’s the fruit of a search.
First and foremost, it must be frankly admitted straight away that it was not their intention to create a culture nor even to preserve a culture from the past. Their motivation was much more basic. Their goal was: quaerere Deum. Amid the confusion of the times, in which nothing seemed permanent, they wanted to do the essential – to make an effort to find what was perennially valid and lasting, life itself. They were searching for God. They wanted to go from the inessential to the essential, to the only truly important and reliable thing there is.
And then, in a completely different vein from anything else I’ve heard (well… read) him preach, there’s this meditation during the Eucharistic Procession in Lourdes. Here’s the conclusion:
all of you who see before you the infinite abasement of the Son of God and the infinite glory of the Resurrection, remain in silent adoration of your Lord, our Master and Lord Jesus Christ. Remain silent, then speak and tell the world: we cannot be silent about what we know. Go and tell the whole world the marvels of God, present at every moment of our lives, in every place on earth. May God bless us and keep us, may he lead us on the path of eternal life, he who is Life, for ever and ever. Amen.
Think I’ll bring that text with me to my next holy hour.
Can’t resist highlighting a third text: his homily for a mass with the sick at Lourdes.
And though Lisa already posted them, here’s a good place for pictures of the trip.
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