Benedict Speaks

On Finance and Media: Be Non-Conformists...  VIS 16/2/2012

‘We can reflect upon the Church today .There is much talk about the Church of Rome, many things are said. Let us hope that people also talk about our faith. Let us pray to God that it may be so”.

The Pope then went on to refer to the force of evil which, in today’s world, also emerges “in two great powers which are good and useful in themselves but easily open to abuse: the power of finance and the power of the media. Both are necessary, both are useful, but so subject to misuse that they often go against their true goals”.

Today “we see how the world of finance can dominate mankind. Possession and appearance dominate and enslave the world. ... Finance is no longer a tool to promote well being and to support the life of man, but a force that oppresses him, one which almost has to be worshipped”. The Pontiff called on his audience not to conform to this power.

“Be non-conformists. What counts is not possession but existence”  he said. Christians must not bow to this power, but use it “as a means, with the freedom of the children of God”.

Turning then to consider the question of public opinion, Benedict XVI highlighted how “we have a great need of information, knowledge about the truth of the world; but there is a power of appearance which in the end counts even more than reality itself”. Appearance “overlies the truth and becomes more important. Man no longer pursues the truth but wants above all to appear”. Here too “there is a Christian non-conformism.

“Jesus, in His public life, healed many sick people, thus revealing that what God wants for man is life, life in abundance”.

On God’s love stronger than any Evil.  VIS 12/2/2012

Today’s Gospel reading shows us Jesus “in contact with a form of sickness considered at that time to be the most serious”, leprosy, which made the sufferer “unclean” and excluded him from social life. While Jesus was preaching in Galilee a leper came up to Him asking to be healed.

“Jesus did not seek to avoid contact with the man. Quite the contrary, moved by intimate concern for his condition.

He stretched out His hand - breaking the legal proscription - and said: ‘I do choose. Be made clean’. Christ’s gesture and words encapsulate the entire history of salvation, they incarnate God’s will to heal us, to purify us from the evil which disfigures us and blights our relationships.

“That contact between Jesus’ hand and the leper broke down all barriers between God and human impurity; between the sacred and its opposite, certainly not in order to deny evil and its negative power but to demonstrate that the love of God is stronger than all evil, even the most contagious and terrible. Jesus took our infirmities upon Himself. He became a ‘leper’ that we might be purified. ...

“The victory of Christ is our profound healing and our resurrection to a new life”.

In closing, Benedict XVI encouraged the faithful to pray to the Virgin Mary. “Through His Mother, it is always Jesus Who comes to us, to free us from all sickness of body and soul. Let us allow ourselves to be touched and purified by Him, and let us show mercy to our
fellows”.