Pope: Human Body Can Speak Language of Love

Says Sin Has Not Succeeded in Erasing It

VATICAN CITY, MAY 15, 2011 (Zenit.org).- People today have a hard time understanding the splendor of Michelangelo's depiction of the human body because we tend to see the body as "heavy matter," opposed to the spirit, according to Benedict XVI.
The Pope made this reflection in an address Friday to participants in a conference marking the 30th anniversary of the foundation of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family. 
Friday was the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on John Paul II; at that day's general audience, he would have announced the creation of the Pontifical Council for the Family and the institute for study.
Benedict XVI took up his predecessor's theology in his reflection on the language of the body. He recounted an incident shortly after Michelangelo's death, when the painter Paolo Veronese was accused before the Inquisition of having painted inappropriate figures in a depiction of the Last Supper.
The painter referred in his defense to the nude figures in Michelangelo's artwork in the Sistine Chapel, to which the inquisitor responded: "Do you not know that in these figures there is nothing save what is of spirit?"
The Pope proposed that this lesson is hard to understand today because "the body appears to us as inert, heavy matter, opposed to the consciousness and the freedom of the spirit."
But Michelangelo's bodies are "inhabited by light, life, splendor," the Holy Father said. "He wanted to show in this way that our bodies hide a mystery. In them the spirit manifests itself and operates. [...] Our bodies are not inert, heavy, but they speak -- if we know how to hear them -- the language of true love."
Benedict XVI went on to reflect about the "first word of this language," found in creation. "The bodies of Adam and Eve, before the Fall, appear in perfect harmony," he explained. "There is a language in them that they did not create, an eros rooted in their nature, that invites them mutually to receive themselves from the Creator, to be able thus to give themselves."
In love, he continued, man is "re-created." And the true appeal of sexuality is in this context.
But sin, the Holy Father observed, has also given the body a negative language: "It speaks to us of the oppression of the other, of the desire to possess and exploit."
Nevertheless, the Fall is "not the last word on the body in salvation history," the Pope assured. "God also offers to man a journey of redemption of the body, whose language is preserved in the family. If after the Fall, Eve received the name Mother of the Living this testifies that the power of sin does not succeed in erasing the original language of the body, the blessing of life that God continues to offer when man and woman unite in one flesh. The family is the place where the theology of the body and the theology of love intersect."
It is in the family, the Holy Father said, that man discovers himself not as an autonomous individual, but as someone in relation to others, "whose identity is founded on being called to love, to receive himself from others and give himself to others."

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Founder of Vocationists Is Beatified

Established Order to Foster Priestly Vocations

By Carmen Elena Villa POZZUOLI, Italy, MAY 9, 2011 (Zenit.org).- "Make yourselves true saints, as all the rest is zero," Don Justino Maria Russolillo would say.

And in trying to help people become saints, he founded an order to foster priestly and religious vocations.

Don Russolillo was beatified Saturday in a ceremony presided over by Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes.

Justino was born in Pianura on Jan. 18, 1891. His family of 10 siblings was well-off, but above all, rich in Christian values. He was educated primarily by his aunt Michelena.

Already as a child, he showed an inclination to the priestly life. "Together with his little friends he improvised small processions and liturgies in the patio of his family home," the postulator of his cause, Vocationist Father Giacomo Capraro, told ZENIT.

The family went through hard financial times, but he continued to follow his call to the priesthood. "Don't worry. I would give my eyes so long as you could become a priest," his mother told him one day.
He was so outstanding in the seminary that Father Antonio Stravino, then rector of the Pontifical Regional Seminary of Naples-Posillipo, said one day: "If we had 30 students like Russolillo, we would be the most envied seminary in Italy."
"He always allowed himself to be guided by his spiritual father, showing great openness to divine inspirations and attributing great obedience to his spiritual directors," noted Father Capraro.

Calling the Lord of the harvest

In July of 1912, when Justino was a young seminarian, a consistory statement was released, inviting all the bishops of Italy to evaluate the situation of the seminaries.

"Don Justino meditated on it," Father Capraro noted. "The [future] Blessed was only 21 years old!"

But that was the inspiration that led to "a religious family dedicated wholly to the formation and education of vocations to the ecclesiastical-religious state," the postulator explained.

Thus Don Justino began the Society of the Divine Vocation, establishing a center to educate those who presented signs of a priestly or religious vocation so that they would have an adequate orientation.

Wherever he went, his main objective was the search and cultivation of vocations, especially among the poor and underprivileged. The Most Holy Trinity, the Holy Family and the Church were the three great pillars of his work.
Contagious
His brother Ciro would also became a Vocationist priest and his sister Giovanna was a nun and the first superior-general of the women's branch of this community.

In 1947 and 1948, the two Vocationist religious congregations would become congregations of pontifical right.
The communities today work in Italy, as well as France, Brazil, Argentina, the United States, Nigeria, India, the Philippines, Madagascar, Colombia and Ecuador.
"The Vocationist Fathers and Sisters must be, for those who are initiated in the vocation to consecrated life, like fathers and mothers," the postulator explained of his community. "Ready to educate those whom Divine Providence has called to give themselves to the Church."

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Benedict XVI Warns Against "Liquid" Society

Proposes Culture of Life and Beauty

VENICE, Italy, MAY 9, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is warning against the danger of the present "liquid" society, which embraces relativism and rejects stability in human relations.This was one of the points stressed by the Pope on Sunday afternoon in a meeting with the world of culture and the economy at the end of his visit to Venice.
Over the weekend, he also visited the city of Aquilea, the see of the old patriarchate that constituted the largest ecclesiastical and metropolitan diocese of the whole of Medieval Europe, which included present-day Slovenia, Croatia, Austria and Germany
In this address, the Pontiff spoke about the "liquid" culture, a concept coined by Polish philosopher Zygmunt Bauman, who between 1971 and 1990 was a professor of sociology at the University of Leeds, England.
European society, said the Holy Father, is submerged in a liquid culture; in this regard, he pointed out "its 'fluidity,' its low level of stability or perhaps absence of stability, its mutability, the inconsistency that at times seems to characterize it."
He noted that Bauman attributes the birth of the "liquid" society to the consumerist model. The philosopher stated that its most profound impact has been felt in social relations, and, more in particular, in relations between man and woman, which have become increasingly flexible and impalpable, as manifested by the present concept of love reduced to a mere passing sentiment.
Speaking to an audience in the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, Benedict XVI opposed this model of a liquid society with a model of the society "of life and of beauty."
"It is certainly an option, but in history it's necessary to choose: man is free to interpret, to give meaning to reality, and it is precisely in this liberty that his great dignity lies," said the Pope.
He continued, "In the ambit of a city, regardless of which one it is, also choices of an administrative, cultural and economic character depend, at the basis, on this fundamental orientation, which we can call 'politics,' in the most noble and lofty sense of the term."
The Pontiff explained, "It is about choosing between a 'liquid' city, homeland of a culture that seems to be increasingly the culture of the relative and the ephemeral, and a city that constantly renews its beauty, taking recourse to the beneficent resources of art, learning, of relations between men and nations."

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Benedict XVI Warns of an Emptied Christianity

Says Emmaus Discouragement Is Present Also Today

VENICE, Italy, MAY 8, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is bringing a message of the new evangelization to northeastern Italy, urging the region to remember that the faith is more than a cultural and social tradition.
The Pope visited Venice and Aquilea Saturday and today, giving four addresses and a homily in just a few hours.
This afternoon, some 300,000 people attended the Mass he celebrated, coming not only from dioceses of the region, but also from Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and Germany.
"You live in a context in which Christianity shows itself as the faith that has accompanied the path of so many peoples for centuries, even through persecutions and the most difficult trials," the Holy Father said in his homily. "Nevertheless, today this belonging to Christ runs the risk of being emptied of its truth and its deepest elements: It runs the risk of becoming a perspective that only touches life superficially, in the aspects that are just social and cultural."
He warned of being content with a Christianity "in which the experience of faith in Jesus, crucified and risen, does not enlighten the path of existence."
The Bishop of Rome proposed that the situation of the peoples of the region is similar to that of the disciples on the way to Emmaus.
The depression and discouragement of those two disciples is seen "when the disciples of today distance themselves from the Jerusalem of the Crucified and Risen One, when they cease to believe in the power and the living presence of the Lord," he proposed. "The problem of evil, of pain and suffering, the problem of injustice and abuse, of fear of others, of outsiders, and those who arrive to our lands from far away and seem to threaten who we are, [this] brings Christians of today to say with sadness: 'We had hoped that the Lord would free us from evil, from pain, from suffering, from fear, from injustice."
The Pope invited these Christians to rediscover Christ, through the Word of God, and the sacrament of his Body and Blood, which "restores to us the eyes of faith, so as to see everything and everyone with the eyes of God and the light of his love."
"Be holy!" the Pontiff urged them. "Put Christ at the center of your lives. Build the edifice of your existence upon him.
"In Jesus you will find the strength to open yourselves to others and to make of yourselves, with his example, a gift for all of humanity."

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Pope: Don't Forget Bible Comes From God

Stresses "Inspiration" in Message to Commission

VATICAN CITY, MAY 6, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Interpreting the Bible as a collection of mere human words causes the treasure contained in Scripture to be lost, Benedict XVI says.
The Pope affirmed this in a message dated Monday and sent to the president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Cardinal William Levada. The message was for the commission's plenary assembly, which for a third time was focused on the theme "Inspiration and Truth of the Bible." The Holy Father noted that this theme was one of the main points in his postsynodal apostolic exhortation "Verbum Domini."
Citing that document, he added that "an interpretation of the sacred writings that neglects or forgets their inspiration does not take into account their most important and valuable characteristic, their provenance from God."
"Such an interpretation does not allow one to access the Word of God, and loses, therefore, the inestimable treasure that sacred Scripture contains for us," he said.
Though the words might have "extraordinary depth and beauty," the Holy Father noted, it is the discussion on inspiration that speaks to the "profound nature and decisive and distinctive meaning of sacred Scripture, namely, its quality as Word of God."
The theme of inspiration is related to that of truth, the Pontiff clarified, since a "deeper study of the process of inspiration will doubtless lead to a greater understanding of the truth contained in the sacred books."
He said that a commitment to "discover ever more the truth of the Sacred Books is equivalent therefore to seeking to know God more and more, and the mystery of his salvific will."
Finally, the Pope cautioned against taking words or phrases of Scripture out of context. 
"The context in which it is possible to perceive holy Scripture as the Word of God," he said, "is that of the unity of the history of God, in a totality in which individual elements are mutually illumined and opened to understanding."

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Pope: Christians Believe in Someone, Not Something

Concert Honors Benedict XVI for 6th Anniversary

VATICAN CITY, MAY 6, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The Christian faith is not based on believing in something, but in Someone, Benedict XVI says.
The Pope affirmed this Thursday in an address following a concert in honor of his 6th anniversary as the Successor of Peter. He was elected April 19 and installed April 24, 2005.
The concert was offered to the Pope by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. The orchestra and choir of the Opera Theatre of Rome, respectively conducted by Maestro Jesús López Cobos and Maestro Roberto Gabbiani, performed Antonio Vivaldi's "Credo RV 591" and Gioachino Rossini's "Stabat Mater."
The Holy Father reflected on the beginning and ending words of the creed: "Credo" and "Amen."
"What does 'I believe' mean?," he asked, indicating that it can mean to accept something among one's convictions, to trust someone and to be certain.
"When, however, we say it in the Creed," he said, "it assumes a more profound meaning. It is to affirm with confidence the real meaning of the reality that sustains us, that sustains the world; it means to accept this meaning as the solid ground on which we can be without fears; it is to know that the foundation of everything, of ourselves, cannot be created by us, but can only be received."
The Holy Father added that Christian faith is not "'I believe something,' but 'I believe in Someone,' in the God who revealed himself in Jesus."
"In him I perceive the real meaning of the world," the Pontiff said, "and this believing involves the whole person, who is on the way to him."
"The word 'Amen,' which in Hebrew has the same root as the word 'faith,' takes up this same concept: to lean with confidence on God, the solid base."
Vivaldi and Rossini
In regard to Vivaldi's piece, Benedict XVI pointed out three things, beginning with the unusual characteristic of the composer's vocal production: the absence of soloists.
"In this way, Vivaldi wishes to express the 'we' of the faith. The 'I believe' is the 'we' of the Church that sings, in space and time, as a community of believers, its faith; 'my' affirmation 'I believe' is within the 'we' of the community," he reflected.
Then he pointed out "the two splendid central pictures: Et incarnatus est and Crucifixus. Vivaldi pauses, as was customary, at the moment in which God who seems far away becomes close, is incarnated and gives himself to us on the cross."
He noted how it expresses "the profound sense of wonder in face of this Mystery and invite[s] us to meditation, to prayer."
"A last observation. In his first meeting with Vivaldi, Carlo Goldoni, great exponent of the Venetian theater, pointed out: 'I found him surrounded by music and with the breviary in hand.' Vivaldi was a priest and his music is born from his faith."
The Pope went on to describe Gioacchino Rossini's "Stabat Mater" as "a great meditation on the mystery of Jesus and on the sorrow of Mary."
"Rossini's religiosity expresses a rich gamut of feelings in face of the mysteries of Christ, with a strong emotive tension."
Rossini's work, he added, is characterized by "an emotive intensity that becomes a sincere prayer," "a simple and genuine faith."
"Dear friends, may this evening's pieces nourish our faith," said the Pope at the end of his address, as he reiterated to everyone his gratitude for the event and requested that they remember to "pray for my ministry in the Vineyard of the Lord."

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Liturgy Needs Tradition and Progress, Says Pope

Notes Fruits as Well as Errors in 50 Years of Reform

VATICAN CITY, MAY 6, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The liturgy lives from a constant relationship between tradition and progress, according to Benedict XVI. 
The Pope made this observation today when he addressed participants in the 9th International Congress on the Liturgy sponsored by the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of Rome's St. Anselm Pontifical Athenaeum.
The congress, titled "The Pontifical Institute: Between Memory and Prophecy," was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the institute's foundation by Pope John XXIII.
The Holy Father drew from this title to consider "memory" and "prophecy."
"In regard to memory, we must note the abundant fruits elicited by the Holy Spirit in half a century of history, and for this we must thank the Giver of all good, despite the misunderstandings and errors in the concrete realization of the reform," he said.
"With the term 'prophecy,'" the Pontiff continued, "our gaze opens to new horizons."
He said that the "liturgy of the Church goes beyond the 'conciliar reform.'" This reform, Benedict XVI clarified, "was not primarily to change the rites and gestures, but rather to renew mentalities and to put at the center of Christian life and ministry the celebration of the paschal mystery of Christ. Unfortunately, perhaps, also for us pastors and experts, the liturgy was taken more as an object to be reformed rather than a subject capable of renewing Christian life."
The liturgy lives from a "correct and constant relationship between healthy 'traditio' and legitimate 'progressio,'" he added. 
"Not infrequently tradition and progress are clumsily opposed," the Pope stated. "In reality, the two concepts are integrated: tradition is a living reality, which because of this includes in itself the principle of development, of progress."

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LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO SEMINARIANS

Dear Seminarians,

When in December 1944 I was drafted for military service, the company commander asked each of us what we planned to do in the future. I answered that I wanted to become a Catholic priest. The lieutenant replied: “Then you ought to look for something else. In the new Germany priests are no longer needed”. I knew that this “new Germany” was already coming to an end, and that, after the enormous devastation which that madness had brought upon the country, priests would be needed more than ever. Today the situation is completely changed. In different ways, though, many people nowadays also think that the Catholic priesthood is not a “job” for the future, but one that belongs more to the past. You, dear friends, have decided to enter the seminary and to prepare for priestly ministry in the Catholic Church in spite of such opinions and objections. You have done a good thing. Because people will always have need of God, even in an age marked by technical mastery of the world and globalization: they will always need the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, the God who gathers us together in the universal Church in order to learn with him and through him life’s true meaning and in order to uphold and apply the standards of true humanity. Where people no longer perceive God, life grows empty; nothing is ever enough. People then seek escape in euphoria and violence; these are the very things that increasingly threaten young people. God is alive. He has created every one of us and he knows us all. He is so great that he has time for the little things in our lives: “Every hair of your head is numbered”. God is alive, and he needs people to serve him and bring him to others. It does makes sense to become a priest: the world needs priests, pastors, today, tomorrow and always, until the end of time.

The seminary is a community journeying towards priestly ministry. I have said something very important here: one does not become a priest on one’s own. The “community of disciples” is essential, the fellowship of those who desire to serve the greater Church. In this letter I would like to point out – thinking back to my own time in the seminary – several elements which I consider important for these years of your journeying.

1. Anyone who wishes to become a priest must be first and foremost a “man of God”, to use the expression of Saint Paul (1 Tim 6:11). For us God is not some abstract hypothesis; he is not some stranger who left the scene after the “big bang”. God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. In the face of Jesus Christ we see the face of God. In his words we hear God himself speaking to us. It follows that the most important thing in our path towards priesthood and during the whole of our priestly lives is our personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ. The priest is not the leader of a sort of association whose membership he tries to maintain and expand. He is God’s messenger to his people. He wants to lead them to God and in this way to foster authentic communion between all men and women. That is why it is so important, dear friends, that you learn to live in constant intimacy with God. When the Lord tells us to “pray constantly”, he is obviously not asking us to recite endless prayers, but urging us never to lose our inner closeness to God. Praying means growing in this intimacy. So it is important that our day should begin and end with prayer; that we listen to God as the Scriptures are read; that we share with him our desires and our hopes, our joys and our troubles, our failures and our thanks for all his blessings, and thus keep him ever before us as the point of reference for our lives. In this way we grow aware of our failings and learn to improve, but we also come to appreciate all the beauty and goodness which we daily take for granted and so we grow in gratitude. With gratitude comes joy for the fact that God is close to us and that we can serve him.

2. For us God is not simply Word. In the sacraments he gives himself to us in person, through physical realities. At the heart of our relationship with God and our way of life is the Eucharist. Celebrating it devoutly, and thus encountering Christ personally, should be the centre of all our days. In Saint Cyprian’s interpretation of the Gospel prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread”, he says among other things that “our” bread – the bread which we receive as Christians in the Church – is the Eucharistic Lord himself. In this petition of the Our Father, then, we pray that he may daily give us “our” bread; and that it may always nourish our lives; that the Risen Christ, who gives himself to us in the Eucharist, may truly shape the whole of our lives by the radiance of his divine love. The proper celebration of the Eucharist involves knowing, understanding and loving the Church’s liturgy in its concrete form. In the liturgy we pray with the faithful of every age – the past, the present and the future are joined in one great chorus of prayer. As I can state from personal experience, it is inspiring to learn how it all developed, what a great experience of faith is reflected in the structure of the Mass, and how it has been shaped by the prayer of many generations.

3. The sacrament of Penance is also important. It teaches me to see myself as God sees me, and it forces me to be honest with myself. It leads me to humility. The Curé of Ars once said: “You think it makes no sense to be absolved today, because you know that tomorrow you will commit the same sins over again. Yet,” he continues, “God instantly forgets tomorrow’s sins in order to give you his grace today.” Even when we have to struggle continually with the same failings, it is important to resist the coarsening of our souls and the indifference which would simply accept that this is the way we are. It is important to keep pressing forward, without scrupulosity, in the grateful awareness that God forgives us ever anew – yet also without the indifference that might lead us to abandon altogether the struggle for holiness and self-improvement. Moreover, by letting myself be forgiven, I learn to forgive others. In recognizing my own weakness, I grow more tolerant and understanding of the failings of my neighbour.

4. I urge you to retain an appreciation for popular piety, which is different in every culture yet always remains very similar, for the human heart is ultimately one and the same. Certainly, popular piety tends towards the irrational, and can at times be somewhat superficial. Yet it would be quite wrong to dismiss it. Through that piety, the faith has entered human hearts and become part of the common patrimony of sentiments and customs, shaping the life and emotions of the community. Popular piety is thus one of the Church’s great treasures. The faith has taken on flesh and blood. Certainly popular piety always needs to be purified and refocused, yet it is worthy of our love and it truly makes us into the “People of God”.

5. Above all, your time in the seminary is also a time of study. The Christian faith has an essentially rational and intellectual dimension. Were it to lack that dimension, it would not be itself. Paul speaks of a “standard of teaching” to which we were entrusted in Baptism (Rom 6:17). All of you know the words of Saint Peter which the medieval theologians saw as the justification for a rational and scientific theology: “Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an ‘accounting’ (logos) for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15). Learning how to make such a defence is one of the primary responsibilities of your years in the seminary. I can only plead with you: Be committed to your studies! Take advantage of your years of study! You will not regret it. Certainly, the subjects which you are studying can often seem far removed from the practice of the Christian life and the pastoral ministry. Yet it is completely mistaken to start questioning their practical value by asking: Will this be helpful to me in the future? Will it be practically or pastorally useful? The point is not simply to learn evidently useful things, but to understand and appreciate the internal structure of the faith as a whole, so that it can become a response to people’s questions, which on the surface change from one generation to another yet ultimately remain the same. For this reason it is important to move beyond the changing questions of the moment in order to grasp the real questions, and so to understand how the answers are real answers. It is important to have a thorough knowledge of sacred Scripture as a whole, in its unity as the Old and the New Testaments: the shaping of texts, their literary characteristics, the process by which they came to form the canon of sacred books, their dynamic inner unity, a unity which may not be immediately apparent but which in fact gives the individual texts their full meaning. It is important to be familiar with the Fathers and the great Councils in which the Church appropriated, through faith-filled reflection, the essential statements of Scripture. I could easily go on. What we call dogmatic theology is the understanding of the individual contents of the faith in their unity, indeed, in their ultimate simplicity: each single element is, in the end, only an unfolding of our faith in the one God who has revealed himself to us and continues to do so. I do not need to point out the importance of knowing the essential issues of moral theology and Catholic social teaching. The importance nowadays of ecumenical theology, and of a knowledge of the different Christian communities, is obvious; as is the need for a basic introduction to the great religions, to say nothing of philosophy: the understanding of that human process of questioning and searching to which faith seeks to respond. But you should also learn to understand and – dare I say it – to love canon law, appreciating how necessary it is and valuing its practical applications: a society without law would be a society without rights. Law is the condition of love. I will not go on with this list, but I simply say once more: love the study of theology and carry it out in the clear realization that theology is anchored in the living community of the Church, which, with her authority, is not the antithesis of theological science but its presupposition. Cut off from the believing Church, theology would cease to be itself and instead it would become a medley of different disciplines lacking inner unity.

6. Your years in the seminary should also be a time of growth towards human maturity. It is important for the priest, who is called to accompany others through the journey of life up to the threshold of death, to have the right balance of heart and mind, reason and feeling, body and soul, and to be humanly integrated. To the theological virtues the Christian tradition has always joined the cardinal virtues derived from human experience and philosophy, and, more generally, from the sound ethical tradition of humanity. Paul makes this point this very clearly to the Philippians: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (4:8). This also involves the integration of sexuality into the whole personality. Sexuality is a gift of the Creator yet it is also a task which relates to a person’s growth towards human maturity. When it is not integrated within the person, sexuality becomes banal and destructive. Today we can see many examples of this in our society. Recently we have seen with great dismay that some priests disfigured their ministry by sexually abusing children and young people. Instead of guiding people to greater human maturity and setting them an example, their abusive behaviour caused great damage for which we feel profound shame and regret. As a result of all this, many people, perhaps even some of you, might ask whether it is good to become a priest; whether the choice of celibacy makes any sense as a truly human way of life. Yet even the most reprehensible abuse cannot discredit the priestly mission, which remains great and pure. Thank God, all of us know exemplary priests, men shaped by their faith, who bear witness that one can attain to an authentic, pure and mature humanity in this state and specifically in the life of celibacy. Admittedly, what has happened should make us all the more watchful and attentive, precisely in order to examine ourselves earnestly, before God, as we make our way towards priesthood, so as to understand whether this is his will for me. It is the responsibility of your confessor and your superiors to accompany you and help you along this path of discernment. It is an essential part of your journey to practise the fundamental human virtues, with your gaze fixed on the God who has revealed himself in Christ, and to let yourselves be purified by him ever anew.

7. The origins of a priestly vocation are nowadays more varied and disparate than in the past. Today the decision to become a priest often takes shape after one has already entered upon a secular profession. Often it grows within the Communities, particularly within the Movements, which favour a communal encounter with Christ and his Church, spiritual experiences and joy in the service of the faith. It also matures in very personal encounters with the nobility and the wretchedness of human existence. As a result, candidates for the priesthood often live on very different spiritual continents. It can be difficult to recognize the common elements of one’s future mandate and its spiritual path. For this very reason, the seminary is important as a community which advances above and beyond differences of spirituality. The Movements are a magnificent thing. You know how much I esteem them and love them as a gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. Yet they must be evaluated by their openness to what is truly Catholic, to the life of the whole Church of Christ, which for all her variety still remains one. The seminary is a time when you learn with one another and from one another. In community life, which can at times be difficult, you should learn generosity and tolerance, not only bearing with, but also enriching one another, so that each of you will be able to contribute his own gifts to the whole, even as all serve the same Church, the same Lord. This school of tolerance, indeed, of mutual acceptance and mutual understanding in the unity of Christ’s Body, is an important part of your years in the seminary.

Dear seminarians, with these few lines I have wanted to let you know how often I think of you, especially in these difficult times, and how close I am to you in prayer. Please pray for me, that I may exercise my ministry well, as long as the Lord may wish. I entrust your journey of preparation for priesthood to the maternal protection of Mary Most Holy, whose home was a school of goodness and of grace. May Almighty God bless you all, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

From the Vatican, 18 October 2010, the Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist.

Yours devotedly in the Lord,
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

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We Must Learn How to Pray, Says Pope

Launches New Catechesis Series for Wednesday Audiences

VATICAN CITY, MAY 4, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI today began a new series of catecheses for Wednesday general audiences, taking up the theme of prayer and introducing the topic by a look at prayer in ancient cultures. "Virtually always and everywhere, people have turned to God," he explained.

The Pope announced that he will be catechizing on the prayer "that Jesus taught us and that the Church continues to teach us."

He said he would base the "school of prayer" on sacred Scripture, fathers of the Church, spirituality masters, and the liturgy.

"It is in Jesus, in fact, that man is made capable of approaching God with the depth and intimacy of the relationship of fatherhood and sonship," he said in St. Peter's Square. "Together with the first disciples, we now turn with humble trust to the Master and ask: 'Lord, teach us to pray.'"

The Bishop of Rome affirmed that "prayer cannot be taken for granted.

"We must learn how to pray," he said, "almost as if acquiring this art anew; even those who are very advanced in the spiritual life always feel the need to enter the school of Jesus to learn to pray with authenticity."

The Pontiff went on to introduce the theme with striking examples from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome.

He spoke of these peoples' "eloquent expressions of a desire to see God, to experience his mercy and forgiveness, to grow in virtue and to experience divine help in all that we do."

"The pagan religions, however, remain a plea for divine help," the Pope said, "an expression of that profound human yearning for God which finds its highest expression and fulfillment in the Old and New Testaments. Divine revelation, in fact, purifies and fulfills man's innate desire for God and offers us, through prayer, the possibility of a deeper relationship with our heavenly Father."

"At the beginning of this journey of ours in the 'school of prayer,'" he concluded, "we now wish to ask the Lord to illumine our minds and hearts so that our relationship with him in prayer is ever more intense, affectionate and constant. Once again, let us say to him: 'Lord, teach us to pray."

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