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Pope Benedict XVI- General Audiences |
General Audience
"Safeguarding the gift"
H.H. Benedict XVI
April 5, 2006
www.zenit.org
Dear
Brothers and Sisters:
In the new
series of Catecheses that began a few weeks ago, we are considering
the origins of the Church so as to understand Jesus' original plan
and thereby grasp the essential of the Church that lives on through
the changing times.
Thus, we also understand the reason for our being in the Church and how
we must strive to live it at the dawn of a new Christian millennium.
In thinking about the newborn Church, we can discover two aspects:
a first aspect is strongly highlighted by St Irenaeus of Lyons, a
martyr and great theologian of the end of the second century, the
first to have given us a theology that was to a certain extent
systematic. St Irenaeus wrote: "Wherever the Church is, God's
Spirit is too; and wherever God's Spirit is, there is the Church and
every grace; for the Spirit is truth" (Adversus Haereses,
III, 24, 1: PG 7, 966).
Thus, a deep bond exists between the Holy Spirit and the Church. The
Holy Spirit builds the Church and gives her the truth; he pours out
love, as St Paul says, into the hearts of believers (cf. Rom 5: 5).
Then there is a second aspect. This deep bond with the Spirit does
not eradicate our humanity, with all of its weaknesses. So it is
that from the start the community of the disciples has known not
only the joy of the Holy Spirit, the grace of truth and love, but
also trials that are constituted above all by disagreements about
the truths of faith, with the consequent wounds to communion.
Just as the fellowship of love has existed since the outset and will
continue to the end (cf. I Jn 1: 1ff.), so also, from the start,
division unfortunately arose. We should not be surprised that it
still exists today. "They went out from us, but they were not of
us", John says in his First Letter, "for if they had been of us,
they would have continued with us; but they went out, that it might
be plain that they are not of us" (I Jn 2: 19).
Thus, in the events of the world but also in the weaknesses of the
Church, there is always a risk of losing faith, hence, also love and
brotherhood. Consequently, it is a specific duty of those who
believe in the Church of love and want to live in her to recognize
this danger too and accept that communion is no longer possible with
those who have drifted away from the doctrine of salvation (cf. II
Jn 9: 11).
That the newborn Church was well aware of the possible tensions in
the experience of communion is clearly shown by John's First
Letter: no voice is more forcefully raised in the New Testament
to highlight the reality and duty of fraternal love among
Christians; but the same voice is addressed with drastic severity to
adversaries of the Church who used to be members of the community
but now no longer belong to it.
The Church of love is also the Church of truth, understood primarily
as fidelity to the Gospel entrusted by the Lord Jesus to his
followers. It was being made children of the same Father by the
Spirit of truth that gave rise to Christian brotherhood: "For all
who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" (Rom 8: 14).
However, if the family of God's children is to live in unity and
peace, it needs someone to keep it in the truth and guide it with
wise and authoritative discernment: this is what the ministry of
the Apostles is required to do.
And here we come to an important point. The Church is wholly of the
Spirit but has a structure, the apostolic succession, which is
responsible for guaranteeing that the Church endures in the truth
given by Christ, from whom the capacity to love also comes.
The first brief description in the Acts sums up very effectively the
convergence of these values in the life of the newborn Church: "And
they devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship (koinonia),
to the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2: 42).
Communion is born from faith inspired by apostolic preaching, it is
nourished by the Breaking of Bread and prayer, and is expressed in
brotherly love and service.
We have before us the description of fellowship in the newborn
Church with the riches of its internal dynamism and visible
expressions: the gift of communion is safeguarded and promoted in
particular by the apostolic ministry, which in turn is a gift for
the entire community.
The Apostles and their successors are therefore the custodians and
authoritative witnesses of the deposit of truth consigned to the
Church, and are likewise the ministers of charity. These are two
aspects that go together.
They must always be mindful of the inseparable nature of this
twofold service which in fact is only one: truth and love, revealed
and given by the Lord Jesus. In this regard, their service is first
and foremost a service of love: and the charity they live and
foster is inseparable from the truth they preserve and pass on.
Truth and love are the two faces of the same gift that comes from
God and, thanks to the apostolic ministry, is safeguarded in the
Church and handed down to us, to our present time!
And the love of the Trinitarian God also reaches us through the
service of the Apostles and their successors, to communicate to us
the truth that sets us free (cf. Jn 8: 32)!
All this, which we see in the newborn Church, impels us to pray for
the Successors of the Apostles, for all the Bishops and for the
Successors of Peter, so that together they may truly be at the same
time custodians of truth and love; so that, in this regard, they may
truly be apostles of Christ and that his light, the light of truth
and love, may never be extinguished in the Church or in the world.
To special groups:
I am happy to offer a warm welcome to all the English-speaking
visitors and pilgrims present at today's Audience, including the
class from the NATO Defense College and the groups from England,
Denmark, the Faroe Islands and the United States of America. May
your time in Rome strengthen your faith and renew your love for the
Lord and his Church. May God bless you all!
Lastly, I address a cordial greeting to the sick, the
newly-weds and the young people, among whom I greet in
particular the students from Ponte Felcino. In this last part of
Lent I urge you to continue with commitment on your spiritual
journey towards Easter.
Dear young people, intensify your witness of faithful love to
the Crucified Christ. May you, dear sick people, look at the
Lord's Cross, to offer up the trial of illness courageously. And
you, dear newly-weds, ensure that your spousal union
is always enlivened by divine love.
In his greeting to the Spanish-speaking pilgrims, the Holy Father
mentioned the fifth centenary of St Francis Xavier's birth on 7
April. He announced that Cardinal Antonio Marķa Rouco Varela would
preside on this day as the Pope's Special Envoy at the celebrations
at the Shrine of Javier, Navarre, Spain. The Pope also encouraged
prayer for peace in the region.
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