教宗本篤十六世就職感恩禮講道
LIKE JESUS, I WILL BE A SHEPHERD, LIKE PETER, A FISHER OF
MEN
VATICAN CITY, APR 24, 2005 (VIS) - Given below is the text of the homily
- published in English, French, Spanish, Italian and German - delivered
by the Pope during the Mass for the inauguration of his pontificate:
"Your Eminences, my dear brother bishops and priests, distinguished authorities
and members of the diplomatic corps, dear brothers and sisters.
During these days of great intensity, we have chanted the litany of the saints
on three different occasions: at the funeral of our Holy Father John Paul II;
as the cardinals entered the conclave; and again today, when we sang it with
the response: 'Tu illum adiuva' - sustain the new Successor of Saint Peter. On
each occasion, in a particular way, I found great consolation in listening to
this prayerful chant. How alone we all felt after the passing of John Paul II
- the Pope who for over twenty-six years had been our shepherd and guide on our
journey through life! He crossed the threshold of the next life, entering into
the mystery of God. But he did not take this step alone. Those who believe are
never alone - neither in life nor in death. At that moment, we could call upon
the Saints from every age - his friends, his brothers and sisters in the faith
- knowing that they would form a living procession to accompany him into the
next world, into the glory of God. We knew that his arrival was awaited. Now
we know that he is among his own and is truly at home.
"We were also consoled as we made our solemn entrance into conclave, to
elect the one whom the Lord had chosen. How would we be able to discern his
name? How could 115 bishops, from every culture and every country, discover the
one
on whom the Lord wished to confer the mission of binding and loosing? Once
again, we knew that we were not alone, we knew that we were surrounded, led and
guided
by the friends of God. And now, at this moment, weak servant of God that I
am, I must assume this enormous task, which truly exceeds all human capacity.
How
can I do this? How will I be able to do it? All of you, my dear friends, have
just invoked the entire host of saints, represented by some of the great names
in the history of God's dealings with mankind. In this way, I too can say with
renewed conviction: I am not alone. I do not have to carry alone what in truth
I could never carry alone. All the Saints of God are there to protect me, to
sustain me and to carry me. And your prayers, my dear friends, your indulgence,
your love, your faith and your hope accompany me. Indeed, the communion of
saints consists not only of the great men and women who went before us and whose
names
we know. All of us belong to the communion of saints, we who have been baptized
in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we who draw
life from the gift of Christ's Body and Blood, through which He transforms
us and makes us like Himself.
"Yes, the Church is alive - this is the wonderful experience of these days.
During those sad days of the Pope's illness and death, it became wonderfully
evident to us that the Church is alive. And the Church is young. She holds
within herself the future of the world and therefore shows each of us the way
towards
the future. The Church is alive and we are seeing it: we are experiencing the
joy that the Risen Lord promised His followers. The Church is alive - she is
alive because Christ is alive, because He is truly risen. In the suffering
that we saw on the Holy Father's face in those days of Easter, we contemplated
the
mystery of Christ's Passion and we touched His wounds. But throughout these
days we have also been able, in a profound sense, to touch the Risen One. We
have
been able to experience the joy that He promised, after a brief period of darkness,
as the fruit of His resurrection.
"The Church is alive - with these words, I greet with great joy and gratitude
all of you gathered here, my venerable brother cardinals and bishops, my dear
priests, deacons, Church workers, catechists. I greet you, men and women religious,
witnesses of the transfiguring presence of God. I greet you, members of the
lay faithful, immersed in the great task of building up the Kingdom of God which
spreads throughout the world, in every area of life. With great affection I
also
greet all those who have been reborn in the Sacrament of Baptism but are not
yet in full communion with us; and you, my brothers and sisters of the Jewish
people, to whom we are joined by a great shared spiritual heritage, one rooted
in God's irrevocable promises. Finally, like a wave gathering force, my thoughts
go out to all men and women of today, to believers and non-believers alike.
"Dear friends! At this moment there is no need for me to present a program
of governance. I was able to give an indication of what I see as my task in
my Message of Wednesday April 20, and there will be other opportunities to do
so.
My real program of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own
ideas, but to listen, together with the whole Church, to the word and the will
of the Lord, to be guided by Him, so that He Himself will lead the Church at
this hour of our history. Instead of putting forward a program, I should simply
like to comment on the two liturgical symbols which represent the inauguration
of the Petrine Ministry; both these symbols, moreover, reflect clearly what
we heard proclaimed in today's readings.
"The first symbol is the pallium, woven in pure wool, which will be placed
on my shoulders. This ancient sign, which the bishops of Rome have worn since
the fourth century, may be considered an image of the yoke of Christ, which
the bishop of this city, the Servant of the Servants of God, takes upon his shoulders.
God's yoke is God's will, which we accept. And this will does not weigh down
on us, oppressing us and taking away our freedom. To know what God wants, to
know where the path of life is found - this was Israel's joy, this was her
great
privilege. It is also our joy: God's will does not alienate us, it purifies
us - even if this can be painful - and so it leads us to ourselves. In this way,
we serve not only Him, but the salvation of the whole world, of all history.
"The symbolism of the pallium is even more concrete: the lamb's wool is
meant to represent the lost, sick or weak sheep which the shepherd places on
his shoulders and carries to the waters of life. For the Fathers of the Church,
the parable of the lost sheep, which the shepherd seeks in the desert, was
an image of the mystery of Christ and the Church. The human race - every one
of
us - is the sheep lost in the desert which no longer knows the way. The Son
of God will not let this happen; He cannot abandon humanity in so wretched a
condition.
He leaps to his feet and abandons the glory of heaven, in order to go in search
of the sheep and pursue it, all the way to the Cross. He takes it upon His
shoulders and carries our humanity; He carries us all - He is the good shepherd
who lays
down His life for the sheep. What the pallium indicates first and foremost
is that we are all carried by Christ. But at the same time it invites us to carry
one another. Hence the pallium becomes a symbol of the shepherd's mission,
of
which the second reading and the Gospel speak. The pastor must be inspired
by Christ's holy zeal: for him it is not a matter of indifference that so many
people
are living in the desert. And there are so many kinds of desert. There is the
desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment,
of loneliness, of destroyed love. There is the desert of God's darkness, the
emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life.
The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts
have become so vast. Therefore the earth's treasures no longer serve to build
God's
garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation
and destruction. The Church as a whole and all her pastors, like Christ, must
set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards
friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life
in abundance.
"The symbol of the lamb also has a deeper meaning. In the ancient Near East,
it was customary for kings to style themselves shepherds of their people. This
was an image of their power, a cynical image: to them their subjects were like
sheep, which the shepherd could dispose of as he wished. When the shepherd
of all humanity, the living God, Himself became a lamb, He stood on the side
of
the lambs, with those who are downtrodden and killed. This is how He reveals
Himself to be the true shepherd: 'I am the Good Shepherd . . . I lay down my
life for the sheep,' Jesus says of Himself (Jn 10:14ff). It is not power, but
love that redeems us! This is God's sign: He Himself is love. How often we
wish that God would make show Himself stronger, that He would strike decisively,
defeating
evil and creating a better world. All ideologies of power justify themselves
in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in
the way of progress and the liberation of humanity. We suffer on account of
God's patience. And yet, we need His patience. God, Who became a lamb, tells
us that
the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified Him. The
world is redeemed by the patience of God. It is destroyed by the impatience
of man.
"One of the basic characteristics of a shepherd must be to love the people
entrusted to him, even as he loves Christ whom he serves. 'Feed my sheep.'
says Christ to Peter, and now, at this moment, He says it to me as well. Feeding
means
loving, and loving also means being ready to suffer. 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. My
dear friends - at this moment I can only say: pray for me, that I may learn to
love
the Lord more and more. Pray for me, that I may learn to love His flock more
and more - in other words, you, the holy Church, each one of you and all of
you together. Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves. Let us
pray
for one another, that the Lord will carry us and that we will learn to carry
one another.
"The second symbol used in today's liturgy to express the inauguration of
the Petrine ministry is the presentation of the fisherman's ring. Peter's call
to be a shepherd, which we heard in the Gospel, comes after the account of
a miraculous catch of fish: after a night in which the disciples had let down
their
nets without success, they see the Risen Lord on the shore. He tells them to
let down their nets once more, and the nets become so full that they can hardly
pull them in; 153 large fish: 'and although there were so many, the net was
not torn' (Jn 21:11). This account, coming at the end of Jesus' earthly journey
with
His disciples, corresponds to an account found at the beginning: there too,
the disciples had caught nothing the entire night; there too, Jesus had invited
Simon
once more to put out into the deep. And Simon, who was not yet called Peter,
gave the wonderful reply: 'Master, at your word I will let down the nets.'
And then came the conferral of his mission: 'Do not be afraid. Henceforth you
will
be catching men' (Lk 5:1-11). Today too the Church and the successors of the
Apostles are told to put out into the deep sea of history and to let down the
nets, so as to win men and women over to the Gospel - to God, to Christ, to
true life. The Fathers made a very significant commentary on this singular task.
This
is what they say: for a fish, created for water, it is fatal to be taken out
of the sea, to be removed from its vital element to serve as human food. But
in the mission of a fisher of men, the reverse is true. We are living in alienation,
in the salt waters of suffering and death; in a sea of darkness without light.
The net of the Gospel pulls us out of the waters of death and brings us into
the splendor of God's light, into true life. It is really true: as we follow
Christ in this mission to be fishers of men, we must bring men and women out
of the sea that is salted with so many forms of alienation and onto the land
of life, into the light of God.
"It is really so: the purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men. And
only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living
God in Christ do we know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless
product
of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed,
each of us is loved, each of us is necessary. There is nothing more beautiful
than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is
nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship
with
Him. The task of the shepherd, the task of the fisher of men, can often seem
wearisome. But it is beautiful and wonderful, because it is truly a service
to joy, to God's joy which longs to break into the world.
"Here
I want to add something: both the image of the shepherd and that of the fisherman
issue an explicit call to unity. 'I have other sheep that are not
of this fold; I must lead them too, and they will heed my voice. So there shall
be one flock, one shepherd' (Jn 10:16); these are the words of Jesus at the
end of His discourse on the Good Shepherd. And the account of the 153 large
fish
ends with the joyful statement: 'although there were so many, the net was not
torn' (Jn 21:11). Alas, beloved Lord, with sorrow we must now acknowledge that
it has been torn! But no - we must not be sad! Let us rejoice because of Your
promise, which does not disappoint, and let us do all we can to pursue the
path towards the unity You have promised. Let us remember it in our prayer
to the
Lord, as we plead with Him: yes, Lord, remember Your promise. Grant that we
may be one flock and one shepherd! Do not allow Your net to be torn, help us
to be
servants of unity!
"At this point, my mind goes back to October 22 1978, when Pope John Paul
II began his ministry here in Saint Peter's Square. His words on that occasion
constantly echo in my ears: 'Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors for Christ!'
The Pope was addressing the mighty, the powerful of this world, who feared
that Christ might take away something of their power if they were to let Him
in, if
they were to allow the faith to be free. Yes, He would certainly have taken
something away from them: the dominion of corruption, the manipulation of law
and the freedom
to do as they pleased. But He would not have taken away anything that pertains
to human freedom or dignity, or to the building of a just society. The Pope
was also speaking to everyone, especially the young. Are we not perhaps all afraid
in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves
totally to Him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us?
Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique,
something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished
and deprived of our freedom? And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ
into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes
life
free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life
opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence
truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation.
And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long
personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid
of Christ! He takes nothing away, and He gives you everything. When we give
ourselves to Him, we receive a hundred-fold in return. Yes, open, open wide the
doors to
Christ - and you will find true life. Amen."
HML/INAUGURATION PONTIFICATE/BENEDICT XVI VIS 050424 (3020)
