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Pope Benedict XVI- General Audiences |
General
Audience
On St. Peter Damian
"Jesus Must Truly Be at the Center of Our Life"
H.H. Benedict XVI
www.zenit.org
Dear brothers and sisters,
During these Wednesday catecheses, I have been discussing some of the
great figures of the life of the Church since its origin. Today I would
like to reflect on one of the most significant personalities of the 11th
century, St. Peter Damian, monk, lover of solitude and, at the same
time, intrepid man of the Church, personally involved in the work of
reform undertaken by the popes of the time.
He was born in Ravenna in 1007 of a noble but poor family. He was
orphaned, and lived a childhood of hardships and sufferings. Even though
his sister Roselinda was determined to be a mother to him and his older
brother, he was adopted as a son by Damian. In fact, because of this, he
would later be called Peter of Damiano, Peter Damian. His formation was
imparted to him first at Faenza and then at Parma, where, already at the
age of 25, we find him dedicated to teaching. In addition to keen
competence in the field of law, he acquired a refined expertise in the
art of writing -- "ars scribendi" -- and, thanks to his knowledge of the
great Latin classics, became "one of the best Latinists of his time, one
of the greatest writers of the Latin Medieval Age" (J. Leclercq, Pierre
Damien, Ermite et Homme d'Eglise, Rome, 1960, p. 172).
He distinguished himself in the most diverse literary genres: from
letters to sermons, from hagiographies to prayers, from poems to
epigrams. His sensitivity to beauty led him to a poetic contemplation of
the world. Peter Damian conceived the universe as an inexhaustible
"parable" and an extension of symbols, from which it is possible to
interpret the interior life and the divine and supernatural reality.
From this perspective, around the year 1034, the contemplation of God's
absoluteness compelled him to distance himself progressively from the
world and its ephemeral realities, to withdraw to the monastery of Fonte
Avellana, founded a few decades earlier, but already famous for its
austerity. He wrote the life of the founder, St. Romuald of Ravenna, for
the edification of the monks and, at the same time, dedicated himself to
furthering his spirituality, expressing his ideal of eremitical
monasticism.
A particularity must now be stressed: the hermitage of Fonte Avellana
was dedicated to the Holy Cross, and the cross would be the Christian
mystery that most fascinated Peter Damian. "He does not love Christ who
does not love the cross of Christ," he said (Sermo XVIII, 11, p. 117)
and he calls himself: "Petrus crucis Christi servorum famulus" -- Peter
servant of the servants of the cross of Christ (Ep, 9, 1). Peter Damian
addressed most beautiful prayers to the cross, in which he reveals a
vision of this mystery that has cosmic dimensions, because it embraces
the whole history of salvation: "O blessed cross," he exclaimed, "you
are venerated in the faith of patriarchs, the predictions of prophets,
the assembly of the apostles, the victorious army of the martyrs and the
multitudes of all the saints" (Sermo XLVIII, 14, p. 304).
Dear brothers and sisters, may the example of Peter Damian lead us also
to always look at the cross as the supreme act of love of God for man,
which has given us salvation.
For the development of the eremitical life, this great monk wrote a Rule
which strongly stresses the "rigor of the hermitage": In the silence of
the cloister, the monk is called to live a life of daily and nocturnal
prayer, with prolonged and austere fasts; he must exercise himself in
generous fraternal charity and in an obedience to the prior that is
always willing and available. In the study and daily meditation of
sacred Scripture, Peter Damian discovered the mystical meaning of the
Word of God, finding in it food for his spiritual life. In this
connection, he called the cell of the hermitage the "salon where God
converses with men." For him, the eremitical life was the summit of
Christian life; it was "at the summit of the states of life," because
the monk, free from the attachments of the world and from his own self,
receives "the pledge of the Holy Spirit and his soul is happily united
to the heavenly Spouse" (Ep 18, 17; cf. Ep 28, 43 ff.). This is also
important for us today, even though we are not monks: To be able to be
silent in ourselves to hear the voice of God, to seek, so to speak, a
"salon" where God speaks to us: To learn the Word of God in prayer and
meditation is the path for life.
St. Peter Damian, who basically was a man of prayer, meditation and
contemplation, was also a fine theologian: His reflection on several
doctrinal subjects led him to important conclusions for life. Thus, for
example, he expresses with clarity and vivacity the Trinitarian
doctrine. He already used, in keeping with biblical and patristic texts,
the three fundamental terms that later became determinant also for the
West's philosophy: processio, relatio e persona (cf. Opusc. XXXVIII: PL
CXLV, 633-642; and Opusc. II and III: ibid., 41 ff. and 58 ff.).
However, as theological analysis led him to contemplate the intimate
life of God and the dialogue of ineffable love between the three divine
Persons, he draws from it ascetic conclusions for life in community and
for the proper relations between Latin and Greek Christians, divided on
this topic. Also meditation on the figure of Christ has significant
practical reflections, as the whole of Scripture is centered on him. The
"Jewish people themselves," notes St. Peter Damian, "through the pages
of sacred Scripture, have, one could say, carried Christ on their
shoulders" (Sermo XL VI, 15). Therefore Christ, he adds, must be at the
center of the monk's life: "Christ must be heard in our language, Christ
must be seen in our life, he must be perceived in our heart" (Sermo
VIII, 5). Profound union with Christ should involve not only monks but
all the baptized. It also implies for us an intense call not to allow
ourselves to be totally absorbed by the activities, problems and
preoccupations of every day, forgetting that Jesus must truly be at the
center of our life.
Communion with Christ creates unity among Christians. In Letter 28,
which is a brilliant treatise of ecclesiology, Peter Damian develops a
theology of the Church as communion. "The Church of Christ," he wrote,
"is united by the bond of charity to the point that, as she is one in
many members, she is also totally gathered mystically in just one of her
members; so that the whole universal Church is rightly called the only
Bride of Christ in singular, and every chosen soul, because of the
sacramental mystery, is fully considered Church." This is important: not
only that the whole universal Church is united, but that in each one of
us the Church in her totality should be present. Thus the service of the
individual becomes "expression of universality" (Ep 28, 9-23). Yet the
ideal image of the "holy Church" illustrated by Peter Damian does not
correspond -- he knew it well -- to the reality of his time. That is why
he was not afraid to denounce the corruption existing in monasteries and
among the clergy, above all due to the practice of secular authorities
conferring the investiture of ecclesiastical offices: Several bishops
and abbots behaved as governors of their own subjects more than as
pastors of souls. It is no accident that their moral life left much to
be desired. Because of this, with great sorrow and sadness, in 1057
Peter Damian left the monastery and accepted, though with difficulty,
the appointment of cardinal bishop of Ostia, thus entering fully in
collaboration with the popes in the difficult undertaking of the reform
of the Church. He saw that it was not enough to contemplate, and had to
give up the beauty of contemplation to assist in the work of renewal of
the Church. Thus he renounced the beauty of the hermitage and
courageously undertook numerous journeys and missions.
Because of his love of monastic life, 10 years later, in 1067, he was
given permission to return to Fonte Avellana, resigning from the Diocese
of Ostia. However, the desired tranquility did not last long: Two years
later he was sent to Frankfurt in an attempt to prevent Henry IV's
divorce from his wife, Bertha; and again two years later, in 1071, he
went to Montecassino for the consecration of the abbey's church, and, at
the beginning of 1072 he went to Ravenna to establish peace with the
local archbishop, who had supported the anti-pope, causing the interdict
on the city. During his return journey to the hermitage, a sudden
illness obliged him to stay in Faenza in the Benedictine monastery of
"Santa Maria Vecchia fuori porta," where he died on the night of Feb.
22-23, 1072.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is a great grace that in the life of the
Church the Lord raised such an exuberant, rich and complex personality
as that of St. Peter Damian and it is not common to find such acute and
lively works of theology as those of the hermit of Fonte Avellana. He
was a monk to the end, with forms of austerity that today might seem to
us almost excessive. In this way, however, he made of monastic life an
eloquent testimony of the primacy of God and a call to all to walk
toward holiness, free from any compromise with evil. He consumed
himself, with lucid consistency and great severity, for the reform of
the Church of his time. He gave all his spiritual and physical energies
to Christ and the Church, always remaining, as he liked to call himself,
"Petrus ultimus monachorum servus," Peter, last servant of the monks.
[Translation by ZENIT]
[At the end of the audience, the Pope greeted pilgrims in several
languages. In English, he said:]
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In our catechesis on the Christian writers of East and West, we turn to
Saint Peter Damian, who was born in Ravenna at the beginning of the
eleventh century and became an accomplished writer and Latinist. His
fine sensitivity made him excel in poetry and enabled him to see the
world as a parable, full of symbolic references to the supernatural,
leading him to embrace as a mature man a monastic vocation at Fonte
Avellana, founded not long before. He was fascinated by the salvific
mystery of the cross of Christ and promoted as the fullness of Christian
living a form of monasticism noted for its austerity. Nourished by a
mystical understanding of Scripture, Saint Peter Damian enjoyed precise
theological insights especially into the mysteries of the Holy Trinity,
our union with Christ, and the Church as a communion, from which he
derived practical advice for living in charity with others. In 1057 he
accepted the office of Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and assisted the Pope
with courage and dedication in the reform of the Church of his time.
After ten years he was granted his wish to return to his monastery and
continued to serve the Church with prayer and action until his holy
death in 1072. May the example and intercession of Saint Peter Damian,
my dear Brothers and Sisters, inspire and renew us in our love of Christ
and his Church.
I offer a warm welcome to all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors
from England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Gibraltar, Japan and
the United States. Upon all of you I cordially invoke the Lord’s
abundant blessings of joy and peace!
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