Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote a letter of gratitude to Father Joseph Kaiser, parish priest of Saint Oswald at Marktl parish in Bavaria, where he was baptized 91 years ago.
Father Kaiser made this letter public on the day of Mary’s Assumption, August 15, 2018, reported ACI Press agency in Italian on August 21.
“It’s very good to see that you are always open and available to people, to the faithful, and that you have done everything to lead everyone to the true center, Jesus Christ, who always accompanies us, each day, until we are called to go through the door of eternal life,” wrote Benedict XVI.
The Pope Emeritus was baptized in Saint Oswald’s church on Holy Saturday, April 16, 1927, the day of his birth. He recalled the day in his homily of Divine Mercy Sunday, April 15, 2007, on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
“I have always considered it a great gift of Divine Mercy that my birth and rebirth were given to me, so to speak, on the same day under the sign of the beginning of Easter. So, on the same day I was born a member of my own family and of the great family of God,” he said.
“I give thanks in particular because, from the first day, I was able to enter and grow in the great community of believers, in which the border is wide open between life and death, between Heaven and earth. I give thanks for having been able to learn so many things, drawing from the wisdom of this community in which not only are human experiences contained since the most ancient times: the wisdom of this community is not only human wisdom, but in it there comes to us the wisdom of God himself – eternal Wisdom,” he added in his homily.
