Homily

Benedict XVI: Sts Peter and Paul and the priesthood

Pope Benedict XVI

Contents - Jul 2012 - Buy a copy now Homily: Benedict XVI: Sts Peter and Paul and the priesthood - Pope Benedict XVI Religious Freedom: Prague's Cardinal Duka thanks Australians for helping religious prisoners - Peter Westmore News: The Church Around the World Campus Life: A new model for Catholic university chaplaincy in Brisbane - Br Barry Coldrey Obama and same-sex 'marriage': Shaking his fist at God - Babette Francis The climate alarmist 'religion' and Third World poverty - David Legates Benedict XVI calls for reform of US Catholic higher education - Hilary White Austrian Chancellor's son: How faith helped to survive the Nazis - Michelle Baumann Update: 'Jesus Abandoned' aid reaches the needy in Nigeria - Madonna Brosnan 'Born again': how to change from a nominal to a "living" Christian - Andrew Kania Benedict XVI: Grave threats to the Church's moral witness - Donald R. McClarey Letters: Papal infallibility - Peter D. Howard Letters: Reasons for Hope - Anthony English Letters: Transubstantiation - Frank Mobbs Letters: US religious women - Richard Congram Letters: Anti-Catholicism - Fr. M. Shadbolt Letters: Caritas - P.W. English Letters: Communion reception - Ken Bayliss Letters: Patron Saints - Fred Preshaw Books: ANSWERING THE ANTI-CATHOLIC CHALLENGE, by Robert M. Haddad - Angela Schumann (reviewer) Books: FR ALEXANDER MEN: Martyr of Atheism, by Michel Evdokimov - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: THE FACE OF GOD and THE TRUE ICON, by Paul Badde - Paul MacLeod Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Letters: The Year of Grace and the New Evangelisation - Fr Dennis Byrnes

The Lord challenges us [as priests] to move beyond the boundaries of our own world and to bring the Gospel to the world of others, so that it pervades everything and opens up the world for God's kingdom. We are reminded that even God stepped outside himself, setting aside his glory in order to seek us and to bring us his light and his love. We want to follow the God who sets out in this way, we want to move beyond the inertia of self-centredness, so that He Himself can enter our world.

Jesus calls on us to bear fruit, fruit that abides. What fruit does He expect from us? What is this fruit that abides? Now, the fruit of the vine is the grape, and it is from the grape that wine is made.

Wine is an image of love: this is the true fruit that abides, the fruit that God wants from us. But let us not forget that in the Old Testament the wine expected from noble grapes is above all an image of justice, which arises from a life lived in accordance with God's law. And this is not to be dismissed as an Old Testament view that has been surpassed - no, it still remains true.

The true content of the Law, its summa, is love for God and for one's neighbour. But this twofold love is not simply saccharine. It bears within itself the precious cargo of patience, humility and growth in the conforming of our will to God's will, to the will of Jesus Christ, our friend.

Only in this way, as the whole of our being takes on the qualities of truth and righteousness, is love also true, only thus is it ripe fruit. Its inner demand - faithfulness to Christ and to his Church - seeks a fulfillment that always includes suffering. This is the way that true joy grows. At a deep level, the essence of love, the essence of genuine fruit, coincides with the idea of setting out, going towards: it means self-abandonment, self-giving, bearing within itself the sign of the cross.

Christ's yoke is identical with His friendship. It is a yoke of friendship and therefore "a sweet yoke", but as such it is also a demanding yoke, one that forms us. It thus reminds us that we too, as shepherds in his service, are to carry others with us, taking them as it were upon our shoulders and bringing them to Christ. We must be shepherds for unity and in unity, and it is only in the unity represented by Peter that we truly lead people to Christ.

Extracts from Benedict XVI's homily on 29 June 2011 at a Mass for the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul in St Peter's Basilica.

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 25 No 6 (July 2012), p. 2