By Luca Marcolivio
ROME, FEB. 2, 2012 (Zenit.org).- A series of meetings is being held in the Vicariate of Rome to analyze Benedict XVI’s Easter homilies.
The homily under examination Jan. 26 was that of the Easter Vigil of March 22, 2008, and a round table looked at the theme: »Man’s Identity in Time and Beyond Time.»
The speakers at the meeting were Monsignor Livio Melina, president of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute; Laura Palazzani, a teacher of bioethics at LUMSSA University, and Angelo Luigi Vescovi, scientific director of the Hospital Home for Relief of Suffering of San Giovanni Rotondo.
The debate was moderated by Cesare Mirabelli, president emeritus of the Constitutional Court.
»Man is a limited being: he is so in relation to time, space and body,» noted the Pope in his homily.
»And yet, the body also attests to the possibility of overcoming these limitations. In fact, this is revealed precisely in the relationship with others of being called to openness in love,» observed Monsignor Melina.
Therefore, our mortal body, experiencing love, can acquire a perception of eternity, which drives the individual to go beyond his egoism and to give himself, entering finally in a relationship »with Him who in Himself has life.»
Jesus Christ, therefore, is the one who journeys »beyond death» and even returns. Jesus’ Easter is the great step, the great journey, which unites our past and our future in the embrace of the Father,» commented Monsignor Melina.
Corporeity, hence, because of Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension to Heaven, will also be an integral part of our eternal life. It is not just a matter of chance that the Redeemer took leave of the disciples precisely in a moment of fellowship, the Last Supper, and that sacred Scripture often speaks of food and banquets together with the Lord. (cf. Isaiah 25:6; Luke 22:30; Revelation 3:20).
That man’s identity is not exhausted in the body is also a conviction of biologist Angelo Luigi Vescovi, who recalled how the perception of the world by man is always extremely limited in regard to the objective reality.
The contribution of professor Laura Palazzani’s was focused on the topic of the end of life, in the context of medical-scientific progress.
The series of theological lectures on Benedict XVI’s Easter homilies concluded today with the theme of Man’s Stability in the Globalized World. Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Enrico Giovannini, president of Istat; and Giampiero Milano, ordinary professor of Canonical and Ecclesiastical Law at the Rome-Tor Vergata University, were the scheduled speakers.
