"Church's Mission Is to Offer Christ"
Homily
in Istanbul's Catholic Cathedral
H.H. Benedict XVI
Dec. 1, 2006
Zenit.org
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
At the conclusion of my pastoral visit to Turkey, I have the joy
of meeting the Catholic community of Istanbul and celebrating
the Eucharist in thanksgiving to the Lord for all his gifts. I
wish first to greet the Patriarch of Constantinople, His
Holiness Bartholomew I, and the Armenian Patriarch, His
Beatitude Mesrob II, my venerable brothers, who have graciously
joined us for this celebration. I express to them my deep
gratitude for this fraternal gesture, which honors the entire
Catholic community.
Dear brothers and sisters of the Catholic Church, Bishops,
priests and deacons, religious and lay men and women belonging
to the different communities of the city and the various rites
of the Church: I greet all of you with joy in the words of Saint
Paul to the Galatians: "Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!" (Gal 1:3). I thank the civil
authorities present for their gracious welcome, and particularly
all who made it possible for my visit to take place. Finally, I
greet the representatives of the other ecclesial communities and
the other religions who are present. How can we fail to think of
the various events which took place here and forged our common
history? At the same time I feel obliged to recall with
particular gratitude the many witnesses of the Gospel of Christ
who urge us to work together for the unity of all his disciples
in truth and charity!
In this Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, I wish to thank God for
all his works in human history and to invoke upon everyone the
gifts of the Spirit of holiness. As Saint Paul has just reminded
us, the Spirit is the enduring source of our faith and unity. He
awakens within us true knowledge of Jesus and he puts on our
lips the words of faith that enable us to acknowledge the Lord.
Jesus had already said to Peter after his confession of faith at
Caesarea Philippi: "Blessed are you, Simon, Son of Jonah! For
flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in
heaven" (Mt 16:17). We are indeed blessed when the Holy Spirit
opens us to the joy of believing and makes us enter the great
family of Christians, his Church. For all her rich diversity, in
the variety of gifts, ministries and works, the Church is
already one, since "it is the same God who inspires them all in
every one". Saint Paul adds that: "to each is given the
manifestation of the Spirit for the common good". To manifest
the Spirit, to live by the Spirit, is not to live for oneself
alone, but to let oneself be conformed to Christ Jesus by
becoming, like him, the servant of his brothers and sisters.
Here is a very concrete teaching for each of us Bishops, called
by the Lord to guide his people by becoming servants like him;
it is also true for all the Lord's ministers and for all the
faithful: when we received the sacrament of Baptism, all of us
were immersed in the Lord's death and resurrection, "we were
given to drink of the one Spirit" and Christ's life became our
own, that we might live like him, that we might love our
brothers and sisters as he has loved us (cf. Jn 13:34).
Twenty-six years ago, in this very Cathedral, my predecessor,
the Servant of God John Paul II, expressed his hope that the
dawn of the new millennium would "rise upon a Church that has
found again her full unity, in order to bear witness better,
amid the exacerbated tensions of this world, to God's
transcendent love, manifested in his Son Jesus Christ" (Homily
in the Cathedral of Istanbul, 5). This hope has not yet been
realized, but the Pope still longs to see it fulfilled, and it
impels us, as disciples of Christ advancing with our hesitations
and limitations along the path to unity, to act ceaselessly "for
the good of all", putting ecumenism at the forefront of our
ecclesial concerns, and not committing our respective Churches
and communities to decisions which could contradict or harm it.
Thus we will truly live by the Spirit of Jesus, at the service
of the common good.
Gathered this morning in this house of prayer consecrated to the
Lord, how can we not evoke the other fine image that Saint Paul
uses in speaking of the Church, the image of the building whose
stones are closely fitted together to form a single structure,
and whose cornerstone, on which everything else rests, is
Christ? He is the source of the new life given us by the Father
in the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of Saint John has just proclaimed
it: "out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water". This
gushing water, this living water which Jesus promised to the
Samaritan woman, was seen by the prophets Zechariah and Ezechiel
issuing forth from the side of the Temple, so that it could make
fruitful the waters of the Dead Sea: a marvelous image of the
promise of life that God has always made to his people and that
Jesus came to fulfill. In a world where men are so loath to
share the earth's goods and there is a dramatic shortage of
water, this good so precious for the life of the body, the
Church discovers that she possesses an even greater treasure. As
the Body of Christ, she has been charged to proclaim his Gospel
to the ends of the earth (cf. Mt 28:19), transmitting to the men
and women of our time the Good News which not only illuminates
but overturns their lives, even to the point of conquering death
itself. This Good News is not just a word, but a person, Christ
himself, risen and alive! By the grace of the sacraments, the
water flowing from his open side on the Cross has become an
overflowing spring, "rivers of living water", a flood that no
one can halt, a gift that restores life. How could Christians
keep for themselves alone what they have received? How could
they hoard this treasure and bury this spring? The Church's
mission is not to preserve power, or to gain wealth; her mission
is to offer Christ, to give a share in Christ's own life, man's
most precious good, which God himself gives us in his Son.
Brothers and Sisters, your communities walk the humble path of
daily companionship with those who do not share our faith, yet
"profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us
adore the one, merciful God" ("Lumen Gentium," 16). You know
well that the Church wishes to impose nothing on anyone, and
that she merely asks to live in freedom, in order to reveal the
One whom she cannot hide, Christ Jesus, who loved us to the end
on the Cross and who has given us his Spirit, the living
presence of God among us and deep within us. Be ever receptive
to the Spirit of Christ and so become attentive to those who
thirst for justice, peace, dignity and respect for themselves
and for their brothers and sisters. Live in harmony, in
accordance with the words of the Lord: "By this everyone will
know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one
another" (Jn 13:35).
Brothers and sisters, let us now hand over our desire to serve
the Lord to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Servant of the
Lord. She prayed in company with the Apostles in the Upper Room,
in the days leading up to Pentecost. Together with her, let us
pray to Christ her Son: Send forth, O Lord, your Holy Spirit
upon the whole Church, that he may dwell in each of her members
and make them heralds of your Gospel!
Amen.
[Translation issued by the Holy See]
© Copyright 2006 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Look at
the One they Pierced!
