Seeing Love

From the pope's remarks concluding this year's Lenten retreat:

“I was reminded of the fact,” Benedict XVI said, “that the medieval theologians have translated the word 'logos' not only as 'verbum', but also as 'ars'. 'Verbum' and 'ars' are interchangeable. Only in the two together does the entire meaning of the word 'logos' appear for medieval theologians. The 'Logos' is not simply a mathematical reasoning, the 'Logos' has a heart. The 'Logos' is also love. Truth is beautiful. Truth and beauty go together. Beauty is the seal of truth.”

“And yet you, starting from the Psalms and from our everyday experience, have also strongly emphasized that the 'very beautiful' of the sixth day—expressed by the creator—is always challenged in this world by evil, suffering, and corruption. It almost seems that evil wants to permanently mar creation, to contradict God and to make His truth and His beauty unrecognisable. In a world that is also so marked by evil, the 'Logos', eternal beauty and eternal 'ars', should appear as the 'caput cruentatum'. The incarnate Son, the incarnate 'Logos' is crowned with a crown of thorns and, nevertheless, just that way, in this suffering figure of the Son of God, we begin to see the most profound beauty of our Creator and Redeemer. In the silence of the 'dark night' we can still hear the Word. Believing is nothing other than, in the darkness of the world, touching the hand of God and thus, in silence, listening to the Word, seeing Love.”

(via the Vatican Information Service)

Comments

[janet]

Even if the Holy Spirit chooses the best pope ever, I'm really going to miss this man.

Glad you posted this while I could still say something.

AMDG

[Craig]

I'm with Janet: that is really wonderful.

[janet]

Tonight, we started watching the Catholicism series with some people at church. In the first video, there is the film of Benedict on the balcony when he was announced as the new pope. Waaaahhhhh.

AMDG

[Sally Thomas]

I know, I'm going to miss him, too. My oldest daughter is in Rome right now, living the long goodbye -- she went to pray the Angelus in St. Peter's Square the night before he made the announcement; she went to his Ash Wednesday Mass; she's going with her class to his final audience.

When he was announced as the new pope, we weren't Catholic yet; nevertheless, we were all glued to our incredibly slow computer with the dial-up connection, knowing that there was a new pope but not knowing who it was, and watching the picture appear from the top of his head down, pixel by pixel, until finally we saw the face.

My daughter says she still remembers us saying, "It's Ratzinger! It's Ratzinger!"

And now we're Catholic. This all feels a little like the end of the world, even though we know it's really not.

[Sally Thomas]

Anyway, I mean, I'm waah-ing with Janet, partly because I love Pope Benedict, and partly because I'm realizing that what I think of these days as my life really started with him. I remember being at Janet's house, maybe the day we actually met face to face for the first time (I'm not counting the time at the homeschool skating, Janet), and having a now-mutual friend show us, on his computer, a video he had taken when they happened to be in St. Peter's Square and the white smoke went up and the bells started ringing.

Anyway, that excerpt is amazing. I may have to put it on my blog, too. There are people in my life who need to hear that voice right now.

[Janet]

At breakfast with friends after Mass today, one of the men was talking about how he had been away from the Church, and was having a really dreadful year. His father died, and his family lost everything in Katrina. He went to Rome for business and "just happened" to get the last ticket for a papal Mass. He ended up at the front of the crowd along the way that Pope Benedict was walking to the Mass. The Pope stopped right in front of him, looked him in the eye, and blessed the crowd. It changed his life. He's now a very active member of our parish.

AMDG

[Janet]

I had forgotten that video, Sally. I guess he will have some more now.

AMDG

[Mac]

I didn't realize you had been Catholic for such a relatively short time, Sally (by my standards). For my part I feel somewhat detached from the resignation etc. Not sure why. Doesn't seem like a particularly good thing.

A while back my wife suggested I subscribe to this daily VNS email. I've been on the point of unsubscribing several times, because there's always a message waiting for me the first time I log into Gmail every day, and I'm at work and really can't take time to read it if there's anything substantial in it, but I don't want to delete it, either, so they accumulate. Right now I have about 30 unread ones. About a third or so of them contain something I'm glad I read, although this is unusual even among them.

[Mac]

Even though I've been in the Church for 30+ years, JPII's reign was so long that I've only known two popes. I guess there's a fair chance that the new one will be the last one I see, if, as a lot of people are saying we probably will, it's a considerably younger man this time. On the other hand, though, several of the ones mentioned as possibilities are older than I am, so maybe not.