Sunday, October 16, 2005

I just love him!

The Pope i.e. Yes, I'm quite aware that for a lot of my friends that is just heresy. Well, burn me. He's just amazing. He ROCKS!

Not that, as a Catholic, I need to in anyway justify my love of our Holy Father. Indulge me, howver. I think it's wonderful that he has, as his inner private circle, a well educated, intelligent laywoman, Ingrid Stampa, who lives with him in the papal apartments. Rocco Palmo (thankfully, not quite yet retired) has this great post on Ms. Stampa, who is also featured in Inside the Vatican (the comments on Rocco's post are hysterical. In every sense of the word).

Then there was his talking to a crowd of kids at St. Peter's, trying to explain the mysteries of the Eucharist to the second graders.

During a question-and-answer session with a half-dozen children, one boy told the pope that he had been told that Christ was really present in the Eucharist, or Communion.
"But how? I don't see him," the boy said. Benedict chuckled.
"We don't see him, but there are so many things that we don't see that exist and they are essential," Benedict said. "For example, we don't see our reason, but we still have reason. We don't see our intelligence, but we have it … We don't see the electric current, but we still see it works: We see how this microphone works, the lights.
"We don't see the risen Lord with our eyes, but we know that where Jesus is, men change, become better, become a bit more able to have peace and reconciliation."
"Catechist Pope" as Sandro Magister aptly called him after World Youth Days in Cologne. (Was going to blog more on this, but Amy's, of course, ahead of me:))

Then at Ressourcement* - Restoration in Catholic Theology (described as one of the most thoughtful and intelligent Catholic blogs out there, that studies the thought of the ressourcement school -- de Lubac, Congar, Balthasar, and of course, Ratzinger), I came across this review of one of the Pope's latest books "On the way to Jesus Christ," a series of Christological essays and reflections in response to the age-old question, "Who do you say that I am?," and on the way, responding to the various trends in modern "historical Jesus" scholarship (which, of course, is of considerable interest to yours truly).

In this timely collection of essays, from a scholar who has so often been at the forefront of these debates, he responds again to the question of Christ: "Who do you say that I am?". While many theologians seem to suggest that there can be no true and orthodox response to this inquiry, Ratzinger shows that the mystery of Christ is such that while there are certainly boarders [sic] within which one must swim, theological speculation, faithful to the Church, is like an ocean--virtually inexhaustible.
Can't wait to read the book!

PS: *Restoration is simply translating "Resourcement" into Enlgish, and is not being used as it often is in liturgical discussions, where it means simply "turn the clock back to 1959."

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