Address of His Holiness, Benedict XVI
Shared with his brother Cardinals
Sala Clementina, Vatican City
Thursday morning, February 28, 2013
With
great joy I greet you, and extend to each of you my most cordial
greetings. I wish to thank Cardinal Angelo Sodano who, as always, has
managed to interpret and transmit the sentiments of the entire College: Cor
ad cor loquitur (in heart-to-heart speech). Thank you, Your Eminence,
with all my heart. And I wish to say – returning to the reference to the
experience of the disciples at Emmaus – that also for me, it has been a great
joy to journey with you during these past years, in the light of and the
presence of the risen Lord.
As I
said yesterday before the thousands of faithful who filled Saint Peter’s
Square, your closeness and your counsel have been a great help to me in my
ministry. In these eight years, we have lived some beautiful moment of
light which has radiated in the pilgrimage of the Church, with faith and
conviction; along with some moments when clouds gathered threateningly in the
skies. We have attempted to serve Christ in his Church with profound and
total love, which is the soul of our ministry. We have given hope, the
gift of Christ which alone can illumine the way before us. Together, we
can thank the Lord who strengthens the bonds of communion between us, and
together, we pray that he will help us to continue growing in unity, so that
the College of Cardinals, which is like an orchestra where diversity – a true
expression of the universal Church – will always be attuned to the superior and
unanimous harmony.
I would
like to leave you a simple thought, which is very heartfelt: a thought about
the Church, about her mystery, that represents for all of us – we might say –
life’s rationale and passion. My parting thought is inspired by an
expression used by Roman Guardini, written during the year in which the Fathers
of the Second Vatican Council were approving the Constitution Lumen Gentium, in
his final book, along with a personal commitment from me, since the words of
this book are particularly dear to me. Guardini says: The Church is
not an institution devised and constructed with physical materials … but a living
reality. She lives throughout the course of time, becoming like every
living being, transformed. Also, her nature remains always the same, and
her heart is Christ. It seems to me that this is what we experienced,
yesterday on the Piazza: we saw that the Church is a living body, enlivened by
the Holy Spirit and truly living by the strength of God. She is in the
world but not of the world: she is of God, of Christ, of the Spirit. I
saw it yesterday. In this, there is also truth in another of Guardini’s
expressions: The Church reawakens the soul. The Church lives,
grows and is reawakened in the soul that – like the Virgin Mary – welcomes the
Word of God and treasures it through the working of the Holy Spirit; offering
to God her body and conscious of her poverty and humility, becoming capable of
presenting Christ to the world today. Throughout the Church, the Mystery
of the Incarnation remains always prensent. Christ continues his
pilgrimage throughout the passage of time to all the corners of the world.
Dear
Brothers, let us be always united in this Mystery: in prayer, especially in the
daily celebration of the Eucharist; let us continue to serve the Church and all
humanity. This is our joy, which no one can take from us.
Before
personally greeting each of you, I wish to assure you that I will always be
close to you in prayer, especially in these next days, so that you may be fully
and completely docile to the workings of the Holy Spirit during the election of
the new Pope. May the Lord point out to
you the one who He desires, and through you, through the College of Cardinals,
there will also be a future Pope to whom I have already promised my
unconditional and reverent obedience.
Having said this, with affection and gratitude, I impart my heartfelt
Apostolic Blessing.
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