ROME, JAN. 6, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The end of the calendar year is a call to reflection even for Benedict XVI, who traditionally gives an evaluation of the year-coming-to-an-end as he meets with cardinals and members of the Roman Curia for the exchange of Christmas greetings.
Giovanni Maria Vian, the editor of the Vatican’s semi-official daily, analyzed the Holy Father’s Dec. 21 address. He characterized the Pope’s evaluation of 2009 as a year «in the presence of God.»
«The Pope chose the three important international trips of the year — to Africa, to the Holy Land and to the heart of Europe — to develop a reflection on the human being who, whether aware of it or not, is in the presence of God,» Vian observed. «In fact, Benedict XVI’s concern is to attest to this reality, in a year which to a great extent has developed ‘under the sign of Africa,’ but also with a pilgrimage to the land promised to Moses and where Jesus passed proclaiming and inaugurating the kingdom of God, and with the visit to the Czech Republic, in the heart of Europe, free again for the past 20 years and in peace, though burdened by the weight of new divisions, injustice and intolerance.»
The editor said that the Pope, «as usual,» focused on the essential, and was able to present an «attentive realism,» which he contended is so often lacking in political leaders.
«And what is essential lies in the fact that heaven is no longer closed and that God is near,» Vian said. «That is why African Catholics live every day the sense of the sacred, have accepted papal primacy as an evident ‘point of convergence for the unity of the family of God,’ and celebrate joyful and orderly liturgies that reminded Benedict XVI of the ‘sobria ebrietas’ so appreciated by ancient mysticism, Jewish and Christian.»
Vian noted how the Pope called for reconciliation as the urgent need in Africa, as «in any other society.»
«Reconciliation is realized above all in the sacrament of penance,» Vian reflected, as the Holy Father had affirmed. And this sacrament has been lost to an extent, he proposed, because people are no longer in the habit of seeing the truth of themselves and God.
The L’Osservatore Romano editor noted how Benedict XVI recalled the visit to Jerusalem’s Holocaust memorial, the Yad Vashem.
But, he said, the most «striking image» in the Pope’s address was a call for the Church to form a type of «courtyard of the Gentiles,» like that of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Vian noted, «In imitation of Christ, also today — said Benedict XVI — the Church should open a space for all peoples and for those who know God from afar or for whom he is unknown or foreign, to help them ‘grasp God,’ in whose presence every human creature exists.»
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On the Net:
Papal address for the end of 2009: www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2009/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20091221_curia-auguri_en.html
