Rorate Caeli has carried part of a letter by Fr. Philippe Jouachim, Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, Nantes, France that usefully (for me) sums up much of what I have been saying when people - slightly unsettled by the bizarre media coverage of papal events - have asked my opinion. I particularly liked his phrase that "nobody will care about an adulterated Faith, for it will have nothing to offer". All the more reason to rejoice in the fullness of our wonderful Catholic Faith.
Fr Jouachim recommends offering up our prayers and sacrifices for the Church at this time. This is what we did here on Thursday evening as the Holy father left office. Thank you to parishioners for a great turn out to pray for the Church and for Benedict, Pope Emeritus.
Dear faithful, it falls upon us to live the upcoming days with hope. What if we trusted the Holy Spirit? True, it will be necessary that we wait, for some weeks, to view it in all its tones: as in 2005, we will hear the assembly of "experts" explain to us one more time that the Church must change, that the faith must change, that morals must change. Some will expect the election of a "modern" pope, "living according to his time", wearing a white suit and dark glasses and proposing the marriage of priests, opening the priesthood to women, favouring the remarriage of divorcees, and blessing the sacrosanct condom. We will hear, as usual, on television sets, before excited and obliging journalists, the priest who is outside the system, the defrocked one who wants to go back into service, the parishioner who is allergic to all things that recall the Church of the past, and, why not, some trendy exegetes or theologians who explain to us that everyone has been mistaken for two thousand years.
What matters, my dear friends, is to think that, after some inevitable disturbances, the Church will have a new leader, and that he will have the graces that are needed to accomplish his mission, just as his predecessor did.
He will know, as those who were before him on the chair of Peter, that nobody cares about an adulterated truth, and that the "evolutions" desired by some will fill neither our churches, nor our seminaries.
May the Lent that will begin this week move us to offer our prayers and our sacrifices for our Church, so that her future head will impart to us the love of truth and will guide us to heaven!
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From the very beginning of his pontificate, Pope Benedict sought to divert attention from himself and focus people’s minds on Jesus. Some people attributed this to his shyness, his aversion to the limelight and retiring nature. While his human attributes may have contributed in a small way to this, his intent had nothing to do with human personality.
I suspect his experience of the way so many people viewed his predecessor, made an impression on him. He may have felt that the adulation and praise for John Paul II was nice and certainly deserved - but it was not the most important thing. It only mattered if it brought people to God.
Did he wonder if the adulation of the millions who mobbed John Paul resulted in changed lives or was it just a passing fancy – the cult of celebrity - forgotten once he was gone? It would not be the same with him. Time and again he diverted the focus from himself and pointed people to Our Lord.
Unsurprisingly, at the end he would finish as he began – pointing out that this is not about him, but about Christ and His Church. For him, and for his successor, success will not be measured by how many people fill St. Peter’s Square or turn up for World Youth Day - but how many souls they help get to Heaven.
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