Vil pave Benedikt gi ut nye retningslinjer for messefeirngen i Den Katolske kirke? Ryktene om at dette snart skal skje er visst hetere enn noen gang. På bloggen Open Book er det en interessant analyse av hvorfor paven er så interessert i liturgien; det kommer av hans kjærlighet til Kristus – som altså også gir seg slike konkrete utslag. (Jeg har selv uthevet noen setninger i sitatet under.)
This is such a crucial moment, I think, for Benedict. Some folks scoff at my interest in the writings and words of Pope Benedict, but I do come by it honestly, I think. I was fairly unacquainted with him before his election, was brought up short, in a good way, by the homily he gave at his installation Mass, in which he went through the symbols with which he was being vested (the pallium, etc) and explained each one in this amazingly clear, pastoral and rich way. «There’s a teacher,» I thought.
What my husband says all the time is that the striking thing to him about Benedict is not just his understanding of theology and so one, but that he gets the problems. He understands what the core issues are, and not in any abstract way. He understands modern alienation, the temptation of secularization and relativism, as well as the very ordinary and constant problems Christians have as we attempt to live out our faith every day.
And for him, the answer is Christ. A recent editorial in the NCR(egister) lays it out: The Key to Benedict – which is not, as some would have you believe, nostalgia, a desire to «roll back» Vatican II, authoritarianism, control, or anything like that:
Pope Benedict, also, is simply and deeply devoted to the person of Christ, in all of his clarity and depth.
When secular newspapers write about Pope Benedict’s new post-synodal apostolic exhoratation Sacramentum Caritatis (The Sacrament of Charity), they say things like “Pope Refuses to Yield” or “Benedict Loves Latin” as if the Holy Father were merely imposing his personal preferences on the Church. HVIS DU HAR TID:
But, from the very beginning, Benedict has been telling us exactly what he would do, and why he would do it. He started before the conclave that elected him, when he spoke about friendship with Christ, a concept he has returned to several times.
Noting that Jesus defines friendship as “the communion of wills,” he cited the old Roman definition of friendship — Idem velle idem nolle (same desires, same dislikes) — as the model of our friendship with Christ.
In his first message after becoming pope, he applied that lesson to the Eucharist. “I ask everyone in the coming months to intensify love and devotion for Jesus in the Eucharist,” he said, “and to express courageously and clearly faith in the Real Presence of the Lord, especially by the solemnity and the correctness of the celebrations.”
He wanted us to show our friendship with Jesus in the Eucharist not just by good feelings, but by a communion of wills — “by the solemnity and correctness” of our Masses.
This love for Jesus, which is both practical and passionate — we should say practical because it is passionate — is the key to Pope Benedict’s thinking. It is front and center in is private works (such as “On the Way to Christ Jesus”), in his official works before becoming Pope (Dominus Iesus — “The Lord Jesus” — foremost among them), and in his first encyclical and latest document on charity and the Eucharist.