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Pope Benedict XVI- General Audiences |
General
Audience
On St. Paul and the Sacraments
"No One Makes Himself a Christian. We Become Christians"
H.H. Benedict XVI
December 10, 2008
www.zenit.org
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Following St. Paul, we saw two things in last Wednesday's catechesis.
The first is that our human history is contaminated from the beginning
by the abuse of created freedom, which attempts to emancipate itself
from the Divine Will. And true freedom is not found like this, but is
opposed to truth and, consequently, falsifies our human realities. Above
all it falsifies fundamental relationships: the relationship with God,
the relationship between man and woman, and the relationship between man
and the earth. We have said that this contamination of our history is
spread throughout its fabric, and that this inherited defect has
increased and is now visible everywhere. This is the first thing. The
second is this: from St. Paul we have learned that there is a new
beginning in history and of history in Jesus Christ, he who is man and
God. With Jesus, who comes from God, a new history begins formed by his
"yes" to the Father, and because of this, no longer founded on the pride
of a false emancipation, but on love and truth.
However, the question now arises: How can we enter into this new
beginning, into this new history? How does this history touch me? With
the first contaminated history we are inevitably united by our
biological descent, all of us belonging to the one body of humanity. But
how is communion with Jesus, the new birth to become part of the new
humanity, realized? How does Jesus come into my life, my being? St.
Paul's fundamental response, and that of the whole New Testament, is: He
comes by the power of the Holy Spirit. If the first history got under
way, so to speak, with biology, the second does so in the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit of the Risen Christ. In Pentecost, this Spirit created the
beginning of a new humanity, of the new community, the Church, the Body
of Christ.
However, we must be even more concrete: How can this Spirit of Christ,
the Holy Spirit, become my Spirit? The answer is that this happens in
three ways, profoundly connected with one another. The first is this:
The Spirit of Christ calls at the door of my heart, touches me
interiorly. However, given that the new humanity must be a real body,
given that the Spirit must bring us together and truly create a
community, given that the characteristic of the new beginning is the
overcoming of divisions and the creation of the aggregation of those who
are dispersed, this Spirit of Christ makes use of two visible elements
of aggregation: the Word and the sacraments, particularly baptism and
the Eucharist. In the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul says: "If you
confess with your lips that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (10:9), thus
you will enter into the new history of life and not of death. Then St.
Paul continues: "But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not
believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never
heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men
preach unless they are sent?" (Romans 10:14-15). In a subsequent verse
he says again: "faith comes from preaching" (Romans 10:17). Faith is not
a product of our thought, our reflection; it is something new that we
cannot invent but only receive as a gift, as a novelty brought about by
God. And faith does not come from reading, but from hearing. It is not
something that is only interior, but a relationship with Someone. It
implies an encounter with the proclamation, it implies the existence of
the other that proclaims and creates communion.
And finally the proclamation: He who proclaims does not speak on his
own, but as someone sent. He is within a structure of mission that
begins with Jesus sent by the Father, passes to the Apostles -- the word
"apostle" means "sent" -- and continues in the ministry, in the missions
transmitted by the Apostles. The new fabric of history appears in this
structure of the missions, in which we hear, in ultimate term, God
himself speak, his personal word, the Son who speaks with us, comes to
us. The Word has been made flesh, Jesus, to really create a new
humanity. Because of this the word of proclamation becomes the sacrament
of baptism, which is a rebirth by water and the Spirit, as St. John will
say. In the sixth chapter of the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul speaks
in a very profound way of baptism. We have heard the text, but perhaps
it would be useful to repeat it: "Do you not know that all of us who
have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We
were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk
in newness of life" (6:3-4).
In this catechesis, of course, I cannot go into a detailed
interpretation of this difficult text. I would like to point out briefly
only three things. The first: "We have been baptized" is passive. No one
can baptize himself, he needs the other. No one can become a Christian
by himself. To be Christian is a passive process. We can only become
Christians through another. And this "other" that makes us Christians,
that gives us the gift of faith, is in the first instance the community
of believers, the Church. We receive the faith, the baptism of the
Church. If we do not let ourselves be formed by this community we cannot
be Christians. An autonomous Christianity, self-produced, is a
contradiction in itself. In the first instance, this "other" is the
community of believers, the Church, but in the second instance, neither
does this community act by itself, according to its own ideas or
desires. The community also lives in the same passive sense: Only Christ
can constitute the Church. Christ is the real giver of the sacraments.
This is the first point: No one baptizes himself, no one makes himself a
Christian. We become Christians.
The second is this: Baptism is more than a cleansing. It is death and
resurrection. Paul himself, speaking in the Letter to the Galatians of
the change in his life through the encounter with the Risen Christ,
describes it thus: I have died. He really begins, at this moment, a new
life. To be a Christian is more than and aesthetic operation, which
would add something nice to an existence that is more or less complete.
It is a new beginning, it is a rebirth: death and resurrection.
Obviously, in the resurrection what was good in the previous existence
re-emerges.
The third element is this: Matter forms part of the sacrament.
Christianity is not a purely spiritual reality. It involves the body. It
involves the cosmos. It extends to the new earth and the new heavens.
Let us return to the last word of St. Paul's text: In this way, he says,
we can "live a new life." Element of an examination of conscience for
all of us: to live a new life. This through baptism.
We now turn to the sacrament of the Eucharist. I have already shown in
other catecheses with what profound respect St. Paul transmits verbally
the tradition on the Eucharist received from the witnesses themselves of
the last night. He transmits these words with a precious treasure
entrusted to his fidelity. And so we really hear in these words the
witnesses of the last night. We hear the words of the Apostle: "For I
received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus
on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given
thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do
this in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:23-25). It is an
inexhaustible text. Also here, in this catechesis, I will only make two
brief observations. Paul transmits the Lord's words on the chalice thus:
this chalice is "the new covenant in my blood." Hidden in these words is
a reference to two fundamental texts of the Old Testament. The first
reference is to the promise of a new covenant in the book of the prophet
Jeremiah. Jesus says to the disciples and says to us: now, in this hour,
with me and with my death the new covenant is realized; with my blood
this new history of humanity begins in the world. However, present in
these words also is a reference to the moment of the covenant on Sinai,
where Moses said: "Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has
made with you in accordance with all these words" (Exodus 24:8). There
it was a question of the blood of animals. The blood of animals could
only be expression of a desire, the hope of the new sacrifice, of true
worship. With the gift of the chalice the Lord gives us the true
sacrifice. The only true sacrifice is the love of the Son. With the gift
of this love, eternal love, the Word enters into the new covenant. To
celebrate the Eucharist means that Christ gives himself to us, his love,
to conform us to himself and thus create the new world.
The second important aspect of the doctrine on the Eucharist appears in
the same first Letter to the Corinthians, where Saint Paul says: "The
cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood
of Christ? Because there is one bread , we who are many are one body,
for we all partake of the one bread." (10:16-17). In these words the
personal and social character of the Eucharist also appears. Christ
unites himself personally to each one of us, one with the other. We
receive Christ in communion, but Christ unites himself also in my
neighbor. Christ and neighbor are inseparable in the Eucharist. And thus
we are only one bread, only one body. A Eucharist without solidarity
with others is an abuse of the Eucharist. And here we are at the root
and at the same time at the center of the doctrine of the Church as Body
of Christ, of the Risen Christ.
We also see all the realism of this doctrine. Christ gives us his body
in the Eucharist, he gives himself in his body and so makes us his body,
he unites us to his risen body. If man eats normal bread, this bread in
the process of digestion becomes part of his body, transformed in
substance of human life. But in Holy Communion the inverse process takes
place. Christ, the Lord, assimilates us to himself, introduces us into
his glorious Body and so all together we become his Body. Those who read
only Chapter 12 of the First Letter to the Corinthians and Chapter 12 of
the Letter to the Romans might think that the word on the Body of Christ
as organism of the charisms is only a kind of sociological-theological
parable. In fact, in Roman political science this word of the body with
the different members that form a unity was used by the state itself, to
say that the state is an organism in which each one has his function,
the multiplicity and diversity of the functions form a body and each one
has its place. Reading only Chapter 12 of the First Letter to the
Corinthians one might think that Paul limited himself to transfer this
to the Church, that this was only a sociology of the Church. But keeping
this 10th chapter in mind we see that the realism of the Church is very
different, much more profound and true than that of a state-organism.
Because Christ really gives us his body and makes us his body. We are
really united with the risen body of Christ, so we are united to one
another. The Church is not just a corporation as the state; it is a
body. It is not simply an organization but a real organism.
Finally, I will only address a very brief word on the sacrament of
marriage. In the Letter to the Corinthians there are only some notes,
while in the Letter to the Ephesians a profound theology of marriage has
been developed. Here Paul describes marriage as a "great mystery." He
says so "in reference to Christ and to his Church" (5:32). Highlighted
in this passage is a reciprocity that is configured in a vertical
dimension. The mutual submission must adopt the language of love, which
has its model in the love of Christ for his Church. This Christ-Church
relation makes the theological aspect of marital love primary, it exalts
the affective relation between spouses. A genuine marriage will be well
lived if in the constant human and affective growth there is an effort
to remain connected with the efficacy of the Word and the meaning of
baptism. Christ has sanctified the Church, purifying it through the
cleansing of water, accompanied by the Word. Participation in the body
and blood of the Lord does no more than cement, in addition to making
visible, an indissoluble union by grace.
And finally we hear St. Paul's word to the Philippians: "The Lord is at
hand" (Philippians 4:5). I think we have understood that, through the
Word and the sacraments, in all our life the Lord is at hand. Let us ask
him that we might be increasingly touched in our innermost being by his
closeness, so that joy will be born -- that joy that is born when Jesus
is really close.
[The Holy Father then greeted pilgrims in several languages. In English,
he said:]
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
As we continue our catechesis on the writings of Saint Paul, I wish
today to consider some of the ways in which this great Apostle
contributes to our understanding of the Church’s sacramental life.
Baptism, he explains, is a sharing in the death and resurrection of
Christ. We die to sin, and we rise with Christ to a new life of mystical
union with him. Washed clean in the purifying waters, we emerge
sanctified and justified, and we "put on" Christ. Through Baptism, the
believer becomes a "new creature", renewed in the Holy Spirit, and
incorporated through the same Spirit into the one body of Christ. In the
sacrament of the Eucharist, the life of the Church is nourished and
built up. Following the teaching handed down by the Apostles, the
Christian community does what Jesus did at the Last Supper, when he took
bread and wine, blessed them, and gave them to his disciples to eat and
drink. In this way, the memory of the Passion is recalled and a
foretaste of the heavenly banquet is given to God’s people as they await
his coming again. The Eucharist seals the union between Christ and his
bride, the Church – and in the course of a reflection on this mystical
relationship, Saint Paul develops his understanding of Christian
marriage. By pondering the teaching of this great Apostle, may we grow
daily in our love for the Church and draw deeply from the wells of
living water that she opens up for us.
I am pleased to welcome the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors here
today, including groups from Australia and the United States. I greet
especially the newly professed Missionaries of Charity from various
countries. Upon all of you, and upon your families and loved ones, I
invoke God’s blessings of joy and peace.
© Copyright 2008 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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