EPISCOPAL ORDINATION
OF SIX NEW BISHOPS
Memorial of the three Archangels
Homily of H.H. Benedict XVI
St. Peter's Basilica
September 29, 2007
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We are gathered together around the Lord's altar on an occasion
both solemn and joyful: the Episcopal Ordination of six new
Bishops, called to carry out different offices at the service of
the one Church of Christ. They are Mons. Mieczysław Mokrzycki,
Mons. Francesco Brugnaro, Mons. Gianfranco Ravasi, Mons. Tommaso
Caputo, Mons. Sergio Pagano and Mons. Vincenzo Di Mauro. I offer
my cordial greeting to them all, with a fraternal embrace. I
extend a special greeting to Mons. Mokrzycki who, together with
the present Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, served for many years as
Secretary to the Holy Father John Paul II and then, after my
election as Successor of Peter, also served as my Secretary with
great humility, competence and dedication. Together with him, I
greet Pope John Paul II's friend, Cardinal Marian Jaworski, to
whom Mons. Mokrzycki will offer his assistance as Coadjutor. I
also greet the Latin Bishops of Ukraine who are here in Rome for
their ad limina Apostolorum visit. My thoughts also go to the
Greek-Catholic Bishops, some of whom I met last Monday, and to
the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. May Heaven bless all their
efforts to keep the healing and strengthening power of Christ's
Gospel active in their Land and to pass it on to future
generations.
We are celebrating this Episcopal Ordination on the Feast of the
three Archangels who are mentioned by name in Scripture:
Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. This reminds us that in the
ancient Church - already in the Book of Revelation - Bishops
were described as "angels" of their Church, thereby expressing a
close connection between the Bishop's ministry and the Angel's
mission. From the Angel's task it is possible to understand the
Bishop's service. But what is an Angel? Sacred Scripture and the
Church's tradition enable us to discern two aspects. On the one
hand, the Angel is a creature who stands before God, oriented to
God with his whole being. All three names of the Archangels end
with the word "El", which means "God". God is inscribed in their
names, in their nature. Their true nature is existing in his
sight and for him. In this very way the second aspect that
characterizes Angels is also explained: they are God's
messengers. They bring God to men, they open heaven and thus
open earth. Precisely because they are with God, they can also
be very close to man. Indeed, God is closer to each one of us
than we ourselves are. The Angels speak to man of what
constitutes his true being, of what in his life is so often
concealed and buried. They bring him back to himself, touching
him on God's behalf. In this sense, we human beings must also
always return to being angels to one another - angels who turn
people away from erroneous ways and direct them always, ever
anew, to God. If the ancient Church called Bishops "Angels" of
their Church, she meant precisely this: Bishops themselves must
be men of God, they must live oriented to God. "Multum orat pro
populo" - "Let them say many prayers for the people", the
Breviary of the Church says of holy Bishops. The Bishop must be
a man of prayer, one who intercedes with God for human beings.
The more he does so, the more he also understands the people who
are entrusted to him and can become an angel for them - a
messenger of God who helps them to find their true nature by
themselves, and to live the idea that God has of them.
All this becomes even clearer if we now look at the figures of
the three Archangels whose Feast the Church is celebrating
today. First of all there is Michael. We find him in Sacred
Scripture above all in the Book of Daniel, in the Letter of the
Apostle St Jude Thaddeus and in the Book of Revelation. Two of
this Archangel's roles become obvious in these texts. He defends
the cause of God's oneness against the presumption of the
dragon, the "ancient serpent", as John calls it. The serpent's
continuous effort is to make men believe that God must disappear
so that they themselves may become important; that God impedes
our freedom and, therefore, that we must rid ourselves of him.
However, the dragon does not only accuse God. The Book of
Revelation also calls it "the accuser of our brethren..., who
accuses them day and night before our God" (12: 10). Those who
cast God aside do not make man great but divest him of his
dignity. Man then becomes a failed product of evolution. Those
who accuse God also accuse man. Faith in God defends man in all
his frailty and short-comings: God's brightness shines on every
individual. It is the duty of the Bishop, as a man of God, to
make room in the world for God, to counter the denials of him
and thus to defend man's greatness. And what more could one say
and think about man than the fact that God himself was made man?
Michael's other role, according to Scripture, is that of
protector of the People of God (cf. Dn 10: 21; 12: 1). Dear
friends, be true "guardian angels" of the Church which will be
entrusted to you! Help the People of God whom you must lead in
its pilgrimage to find the joy of faith and to learn to discern
the spirits: to accept good and reject evil, to remain and
increasingly to become, by virtue of the hope of faith, people
who love in communion with God-Love.
We meet the Archangel Gabriel especially in the precious account
of the annunciation to Mary of the Incarnation of God, as Luke
tells it to us (1: 26-38). Gabriel is the messenger of God's
Incarnation. He knocks at Mary's door and, through him, God
himself asks Mary for her "yes" to the proposal to become the
Mother of the Redeemer: of giving her human flesh to the eternal
Word of God, to the Son of God. The Lord knocks again and again
at the door of the human heart. In the Book of Revelation he
says to the "angel" of the Church of Laodicea and, through him,
to the people of all times: "Behold, I stand at the door and
knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come
in to him and eat with him, and he with me" (3: 20). The Lord is
at the door - at the door of the world and at the door of every
individual heart. He knocks to be let in: the Incarnation of
God, his taking flesh, must continue until the end of time. All
must be reunited in Christ in one body: the great hymns on
Christ in the Letters to the Ephesians and to the Colossians
tell us this. Christ knocks. Today too he needs people who, so
to speak, make their own flesh available to him, give him the
matter of the world and of their lives, thus serving the
unification between God and the world, until the reconciliation
of the universe. Dear friends, it is your task to knock at
people's hearts in Christ's Name. By entering into union with
Christ yourselves, you will also be able to assume Gabriel's
role: to bring Christ's call to men.
St Raphael is presented to us, above all in the Book of Tobit,
as the Angel to whom is entrusted the task of healing. When
Jesus sends his disciples out on a mission, the task of
proclaiming the Gospel is always linked with that of healing.
The Good Samaritan, in accepting and healing the injured person
lying by the wayside, becomes without words a witness of God's
love. We are all this injured man, in need of being healed.
Proclaiming the Gospel itself already means healing in itself,
because man is in need of truth and love above all things. The
Book of Tobit refers to two of the Archangel Raphael's
emblematic tasks of healing. He heals the disturbed communion
between a man and a woman. He heals their love. He drives out
the demons who over and over again exhaust and destroy their
love. He purifies the atmosphere between the two and gives them
the ability to accept each other for ever. In Tobit's account,
this healing is recounted with legendary images. In the New
Testament, the order of marriage established in creation and
threatened in many ways by sin, is healed through Christ's
acceptance of it in his redeeming love. He makes marriage a
sacrament: his love, put on a cross for us, is the healing power
which in all forms of chaos offers the capacity for
reconciliation, purifies the atmosphere and mends the wounds.
The priest is entrusted with the task of leading men and women
ever anew to the reconciling power of Christ's love. He must be
the healing "angel" who helps them to anchor their love to the
sacrament and to live it with an ever renewed commitment based
upon it. Secondly, the Book of Tobit speaks of the healing of
sightless eyes. We all know how threatened we are today by
blindness to God. How great is the danger that with all we know
of material things and can do with them, we become blind to
God's light. Healing this blindness through the message of faith
and the witness of love is Raphael's service, entrusted day
after day to the priest and in a special way to the Bishop.
Thus, we are prompted spontaneously also to think of the
Sacrament of Reconciliation, the Sacrament of Penance which in
the deepest sense of the word is a sacrament of healing. The
real wound in the soul, in fact, the reason for all our other
injuries, is sin. And only if forgiveness exists, by virtue of
God's power, by virtue of Christ's love, can we be healed, can
we be redeemed.
"Abide in my love", the Lord says to us today in the Gospel (Jn
15: 9). At the moment of your Episcopal Ordination he says so
particularly to you, dear friends. Abide in his love! Abide in
that friendship with him, full of love, which he is giving you
anew at this moment! Then your lives will bear fruit, fruit that
abides (cf. Jn 15: 16). Let us all pray for you at this time,
dear Brothers, so that this may be granted to you. Amen.
© Copyright 2007 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
