Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI memorial Mass
held on 10 January 2023
at Our Lady of the Assumption (Cathedral) in Manzini
* * * * *
Most of us, if not all of us, like love stories. That is why we are Christians.
Our Christian faith is a story of love because God is love as we read in today’s second reading from the first letter of John, chapter 4. We know it, but we risk forgetting that love is at the heart of our faith. The initiative came and continues to come from God as John says:
“Love consists in this: it is not we who loved God but God loved us and sent his Son”.
There are many Gospel passages we treasure because of God’s loving initiative. Think of the time he called Matthew or Zaccheus or the many ways Peter experienced being love by Jesus...
The way they experienced being loved by Jesus with a personal love, is also what gathers us here because we too experience being loved by Jesus.
There is a beautiful passage Benedict wrote in 2005 at the beginning of his encyclical letter called “Deus caritas est” (God is love). He says exactly what I have just shared with you:
Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea,
but the encounter with an event, a person,
which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction
It is said that Benedict XVI final words were: “Jesus, I love you”. He summarized in these four words, what his life was all about: responding with love, the one who loved him first.
This being loved by God in Jesus has practical consequences. John today repeats a few times: “love one another”. In the few verses we read, at least four times we are called to love as a result of being loved, particularly loving one another. Later on, in this same chapter John insists:
“Anyone who says ‘I love God’ and hates his brother, is a liar, since whoever does not love the brother whom he can see cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
Aware of this love for Jesus, in 2005 after the death of John Paul
II, the Cardinals entrusted to Card. Ratzinger the feeding of Jesus’
sheep all over the world. All over the world because, still today,
the Pope remains a point of reference for so many even beyond the
Catholic Church.
The one called to be a shepherd experiences this in a unique way as we heard in the Gospel. Once, twice, three times Jesus asks Peter “‘Do you love me?’ ... ‘Lord, you know everything; you know I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.”
Feeding means loving, and loving also means being ready to suffer. Loving means giving the sheep what is truly good, the nourishment of God’s truth, of God’s word, the nourishment of his presence. (Benedict XVI)
As I shared on Eswatini TV, it is said that Benedict XVI was probably the best intellectually prepared Pope in history. The challenge is that, his texts were not “social media” ones (just a few characters), but longer texts offering much food for thought.
At the same time, he was able to lead and share his faith with simple words. It was Pope Benedict who appointed me Bishop in 2008. Before my appointment, I was living in Rome not far from where he was. I recall a day in October 2005 when children who had received their first communion gathered for a time of prayer with him. They were delighted to be with him and to pray with him. Seven children asked him questions (for example about his first communion, confession...) and he answered briefly and in ways they could understand him.
The same could be said about young people. Many recall the World Youth Day in Madrid (Spain) in 2011. Hundreds of thousands of young people were with him in prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament when a terrible storm came over them. Many probably expected the Pope to stand and take refuge somewhere else. He did not. He waited with them until it was over. Then he told the young people:
Thank you for your joy and resistance. Your strength is stronger than the rain. Thank you. The Lord is sending us His blessings with the rain. With this, you're leading by example.
These are practical examples of a man who understood that he was
called to share a person: the person of Jesus, in ways that everyone
could understand and examples of a man who loved the sheep entrusted to him by Jesus.
I chose today’s first reading which we read on the first day of the year because Benedict, like all his predecessors, every year offered a reflection on peace for that day-
In his case, the choosing of his name was linked to peace. He wrote in 2006:
The very name Benedict, which I chose on the day of my election to the Chair of Peter, is a sign of my personal commitment to peace.
In taking this name, I wanted to evoke both the Patron Saint of Europe, who inspired a civilization of peace on the whole continent, and Pope Benedict XV, who condemned the First World War as a ''useless slaughter'' and worked for a universal acknowledgment of the lofty demands of peace.
A useless slaughter. Every war, civil or between countries, is a useless slaughter.
It was followed in 2007 by a message on the challenges to peace in the world:
At the origin of many tensions that threaten peace are surely the many unjust inequalities still tragically present in our world. Particularly insidious among these are, on the one hand, inequality in access to essential goods like food, water, shelter, health; on the other hand, there are persistent inequalities between men and women in the exercise of basic human rights.
A fundamental element of building peace is the recognition of the essential equality of human persons springing from their common transcendental dignity. (...) The extremely grave deprivation afflicting many peoples, especially in Africa, lies at the root of violent reactions and thus inflicts a terrible wound on peace.
Similarly, inadequate consideration for the condition of women helps to create instability in the fabric of society. I think of the exploitation of women who are treated as objects, and of the many ways that a lack of respect is shown for their dignity; I also think —in a different context—of the mindset persisting in some cultures, where women are still firmly subordinated to the arbitrary decisions of men, with grave consequences for their personal dignity and for the exercise of their fundamental freedoms. There can be no illusion of a secure peace until these forms of discrimination are also overcome, since they injure the personal dignity impressed by the Creator upon every human being.
In our continent we always remember that it was Benedict XVI who called a Second Special Assembly for Africa in 2009 under the topic “The Church in Africa in Service to Reconciliation, Justice and Peace. «You are the salt of the earth ... You are the light of the world» (Mt 5: 13,14)
His last two messages on peace were a call to educate young people in Justice and Peace (2012) and to be peacemakers (2013). This call, could be a beautiful tribute we could offer in our diocese to his service and memory.
A final word. Benedict reminded us that every Pope – being different from each other – is a particular gift of God to his people. He was not the traveling charismatic John Paul II nor did he have the Latin American style of Francis. Still, the tribute of about 200.000 people in Rome in just a few days shows how much he touched the lives of many.
It was also seen in his courageous decision to resign to the ministry entrusted to him. I happened to be in Rome the day it was announced and we were all surprised because we were used to see the Pope being so until his last breath. Some could not understand it or accept it. On 27 February 2013, in his final address, he said:
I am not abandoning the cross, but remaining in a new way at the side of the crucified Lord
It is the richness of our Christian
faith. Benedict taught us to respect the personal spiritual journey
of each person – even the one of a Pope – in his and her
following of Jesus.
Then, he offered us a particular gift: preparing himself for death. He was 94 when he wrote:
Quite soon, I shall find myself before the final judge of my life. Even though, as I look back on my long life, I can have great reason for fear and trembling, I am nonetheless of good cheer, for I trust firmly that the Lord is not only the just judge, but also the friend and brother who himself has already suffered for my shortcomings, and is thus also my advocate, my “Paraclete.” In light of the hour of judgement, the grace of being a Christian becomes all the more clear to me. It grants me knowledge, and indeed friendship, with the judge of my life, and thus allows me to pass confidently through the dark door of death.”
Eternal rest grant him O Lord...
Click below for photo album of the Mass
