Let God's Light Shine Forth: The Spiritual Vision of Pope Benedict XVI - Hardcover
Though he was a familiar Church leader for many years before becoming pope, there has been little awareness of the spiritual side of Benedict XVI. Now for the first time readers are given a brilliant overview of the Pope’s most inspirational teachings in Let God’s Light Shine Forth. Editor Robert Moynihan offers a brief introduction to the life and work of Pope Benedict XVI and then presents an absorbing collection of his most persuasive words.
Within these pages, Pope Benedict XVI introduces a God who is good, beautiful, and true, the fountain of all life. The most important thing for each person, in Benedict’s view, is to discover and develop a loving relationship with God, because this is the way to the deepest and most lasting happiness that human beings can experience. Even in our darkest moments, he teaches, we can have hope that all things will ultimately work out in a wonderful way to show God’s glory and bring blessedness to individual men and women.
Many of these selections deal specifically with questions such as: Who is God? How we can know him? What does he wants us to do and to be? Having spent his entire life thinking, studying, and praying about such questions, Benedict has become perhaps the leading contemporary theologian (the word literally means “knower of God”) in the Roman Catholic Church. From his earliest work as a teacher to his first words as leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict’s vision of hope is powerfully summarized in Let God’s Light Shine Forth.
Within these pages, Pope Benedict XVI introduces a God who is good, beautiful, and true, the fountain of all life. The most important thing for each person, in Benedict’s view, is to discover and develop a loving relationship with God, because this is the way to the deepest and most lasting happiness that human beings can experience. Even in our darkest moments, he teaches, we can have hope that all things will ultimately work out in a wonderful way to show God’s glory and bring blessedness to individual men and women.
Many of these selections deal specifically with questions such as: Who is God? How we can know him? What does he wants us to do and to be? Having spent his entire life thinking, studying, and praying about such questions, Benedict has become perhaps the leading contemporary theologian (the word literally means “knower of God”) in the Roman Catholic Church. From his earliest work as a teacher to his first words as leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict’s vision of hope is powerfully summarized in Let God’s Light Shine Forth.
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About the Author:
DR. ROBERT MOYNIHAN is founder and editor of Inside the Vatican magazine, a monthly journal on Church and world affairs from Rome. He is regarded as one of the world’s leading Vatican analysts and has interviewed Pope Benedict XVI more than twenty times. He received his Ph.D. in medieval studies from Yale University and divides his time between Rome and Annapolis, Maryland. He is married and has two sons, Christopher, fifteen, and Luke, twelve, who are both excellent soccer players.
CHRISTINA BADDE, who assisted on the book, is a German journalist in Rome who speaks three languages and covers Vatican affairs for numerous publications around the world.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
CHRISTINA BADDE, who assisted on the book, is a German journalist in Rome who speaks three languages and covers Vatican affairs for numerous publications around the world.
Part One
THE MAN AND HIS LIFE
Robert Moynihan
“We are supposed to be the light of the world, and that means that we should allow the Lord to be seen through us. We do not wish to be seen ourselves, but wish for the Lord to be seen through us. It seems to me that this is the real meaning of the Gospel when it says ‘act in such a way that people who see you may see the work of God and praise God.’ Not that people may see the Christians but ‘by means of you, God.’Therefore, the person must not appear, but allow God to be seen through his person.”
–Pope Benedict XVI, conversation with Robert Moynihan, February 23, 1993
“The Presence of God”
On April 19, 2005, in Rome, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, at age 78, was chosen by the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church to be the 265th successor of the apostle Peter, bishop of Rome and head of the universal Church. The world was genuinely astonished. Why? In large measure, because they were surprised that a group of cardinals representing places like Argentina, Nigeria, and India had not chosen a younger, more “progressive” cardinal from the Third World to “reform” and “modernize” traditional Christian doctrines and emphasize issues of social justice. Instead, they had chosen an elderly German cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger, who, over the previous quarter century as head of the Vatican’s chief doctrinal office (the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), had earned a reputation for defending the traditional teachings of the Church and for emphasizing the priority of the “right worship” of God in any effort to build a just human society.
How did this happen? Why did it happen? What does it mean?
Over the past 30 years, not only the cardinals who elected Ratzinger as Pope, but many Catholics, and other men and women of good will around the world, have come to agree with Benedict that the greatest “crisis” facing the Church and the world is “the absence of God”–a culture and way of life without any transcendent dimension, without any orientation toward eternity, toward the sacred, toward the divine. And that the “solution” to this “crisis” is quite simple to express in a phrase: the world needs “the presence of God.”
Benedict had long argued that the “absence of God” in the modern world, the “secularization” of modern “globalized” society, has created a society in which the human person no longer has any sure protection against the depredations of power or, more importantly, any clear understanding of the meaning and ultimate destination of his life.
Yet his call to reorient human culture toward God has never meant an abandonment of the search for social justice. Rather, it has always been a challenge to place that search within the Christian context of repentance and belief in the Gospel.
Benedict’s focus on the “priority” of knowing and loving God before doing anything else whatsoever was seen by the vast majority of the college of cardinals as the right focus.
Benedict was elected by his fellow cardinals, including many from very poor countries, because they agreed with him about the need for a Pope who could preach the priority of God, and in so doing, lay the only secure foundation for a just society.
In understanding the vision of Benedict XVI, we begin not by examining his many theological works formulated over the past 50 years, but by listening as he himself describes his own beginning. His words, based on several interviews from 1993 to 1995 and also on his autobiography (published in 1998 as Milestones: Memoirs 1927—1977), reveal a man who sees the world and everyday life with a sense of wonder, as if all things are crisscrossed with hints or “traces” of God.
Indeed, this is ultimately Benedict’s great message: that the world is a sacrament–an “outward sign” of the “inward reality” of God’s love, and that man will only be happy when he recognizes the primacy of God in his own life and in the entire world.
Benedict’s conviction that creation is joyful insofar as it is oriented toward God began in his childhood in Bavaria, where Catholicism and everyday life were interwoven. The root of that conviction is seen in his early and deep appreciation for the liturgy, the ritual celebration of the Christian mysteries using the symbolism of everyday life–water, wine, bread, light and darkness.
It is evident in his love for the simple life of the Bavarian countryside, which he speaks of fondly as one of the happiest periods of his life; in his appreciation for the simple men and women of faith; in his rejection of Nazis, whose inhumane violence he saw as the fruit of their ideological rejection of God; in his later life, when as a theological advisor at the Second Vatican Council his desire to make the wonder of God more accessible and visible to more people earned him a reputation as a “progressive”; in his 25 years as Prefect of the Church’s doctrinal office, where he labored to protect the wonder and beauty of God from being encrusted and hidden under theologies of relativism, atheist Marxism, and secularism.
Ultimately it is evident in his first homilies as Pope Benedict XVI, as he called on all men and women, both in and out of the Church, to “seek God’s face,” traveling along with him on the journey that leads to an eternal home, where God is entirely present, and so true joy is everlasting.
From Marktl to Freising
“My earliest memory really goes back to Marktl, and this is the only memory I have of this earliest period in my life. I must have been just two years old, because we moved away from Marktl when I was two. In our house we were on the second floor, and on the ground floor there was a dentist, and this person had a motor car–something that was still rather rare at that time, at least in Bavaria. And the smell of the gasoline from this car is what I remember.” With a laugh, he added, “I was deeply impressed by that.”
Pope Benedict XVI was born on April 16, 1927, in the little town of Marktl am Inn, in the Bavarian diocese of Passau, in southern Germany. He was born as the third child of Joseph and Maria Ratzinger, after siblings Georg and Maria.
In that year, April 16 fell on Holy Saturday, the “silent time” in the Christian liturgy between the sorrow of Good Friday and the joy of Easter Sunday.
“I was baptized on the morning after my birth with water just blessed during the Easter vigil. My family often remarked on this; being the first baby to be baptized with this new water was an important sign.”
One senses the underlying “genetic code” of Benedict’s spiritual life in this intimate union of everyday life and the life of faith: his birth precedes his baptism by only a few hours; his family is always present, reminding him during his childhood that he was the first to be baptized in the new holy water, inculcating in him the sense of his dignity and uniqueness–a chief task of all parents, brothers and sisters; and his faith, woven into the fabric of everyday life. “The faith penetrated all of life, though not everyone was a serious, believing Catholic. In the countryside and small towns, no one yet could, or even wished, to step outside the fabric of Catholic life, of Christian life.”
Faith and family have remained the twin poles of Bene-dict’s consciousness throughout his life. First, family: his memoirs show him always eager to return to his parents’ house, to go on long walks with his mother and father, to live “in family” or “as a family” as often and as long as possible. Indeed, his parents would come to live with him when he took his first university teaching job. “I always remember, with great affection, the goodness of my father and mother.” His sister, Maria, who never married, would become his housekeeper, keeping the Ratzinger family together even in Rome, until her death–which was devastating for Benedict–in November 1991. Benedict also spends much of his summer vacation in the company of his brother, Georg, a priest who is a musicologist and the director of the cathedral choir in Regensburg, Germany.
Then the other pole: faith. “I have always been grateful for the fact that my life was from the very beginning immersed in the Paschal mystery, since it could not be seen as anything but a sign of benediction. Of course, my birth was not on Easter Sunday, but Holy Saturday. And yet, the more I reflect, the more it seems characteristic of our human existence, which still awaits Easter, is still not in full light, but confidently sets out toward the light.”
The simplicity of these words reveals a key point in Benedict’s thinking: that the faith of the simple, common people is often the purist kind.
Not far from Marktl am Inn, where he was born, is the Marian sanctuary of Altoetting, which dates back to Carolingian times (the ninth century). When Benedict was a boy, the simple friar Conrad of Parzham, who had been a doorman at the sanctuary, was beatified. “In this man, humble and kind, we saw incarnated the best of our people, led by the faith to realize its very highest possibilities. Later, I would often reflect on this extraordinary circumstance, that the Church, in the century of progress and of faith in science, saw herself best represented precisely by the most simple persons, like Bernadette of Lourdes or Brother Conrad.”
The annual cycle of worship in prayer, which, in the Catholic Church, is called the “liturgical year,” also made a deep impr...
THE MAN AND HIS LIFE
Robert Moynihan
“We are supposed to be the light of the world, and that means that we should allow the Lord to be seen through us. We do not wish to be seen ourselves, but wish for the Lord to be seen through us. It seems to me that this is the real meaning of the Gospel when it says ‘act in such a way that people who see you may see the work of God and praise God.’ Not that people may see the Christians but ‘by means of you, God.’Therefore, the person must not appear, but allow God to be seen through his person.”
–Pope Benedict XVI, conversation with Robert Moynihan, February 23, 1993
“The Presence of God”
On April 19, 2005, in Rome, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, at age 78, was chosen by the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church to be the 265th successor of the apostle Peter, bishop of Rome and head of the universal Church. The world was genuinely astonished. Why? In large measure, because they were surprised that a group of cardinals representing places like Argentina, Nigeria, and India had not chosen a younger, more “progressive” cardinal from the Third World to “reform” and “modernize” traditional Christian doctrines and emphasize issues of social justice. Instead, they had chosen an elderly German cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger, who, over the previous quarter century as head of the Vatican’s chief doctrinal office (the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), had earned a reputation for defending the traditional teachings of the Church and for emphasizing the priority of the “right worship” of God in any effort to build a just human society.
How did this happen? Why did it happen? What does it mean?
Over the past 30 years, not only the cardinals who elected Ratzinger as Pope, but many Catholics, and other men and women of good will around the world, have come to agree with Benedict that the greatest “crisis” facing the Church and the world is “the absence of God”–a culture and way of life without any transcendent dimension, without any orientation toward eternity, toward the sacred, toward the divine. And that the “solution” to this “crisis” is quite simple to express in a phrase: the world needs “the presence of God.”
Benedict had long argued that the “absence of God” in the modern world, the “secularization” of modern “globalized” society, has created a society in which the human person no longer has any sure protection against the depredations of power or, more importantly, any clear understanding of the meaning and ultimate destination of his life.
Yet his call to reorient human culture toward God has never meant an abandonment of the search for social justice. Rather, it has always been a challenge to place that search within the Christian context of repentance and belief in the Gospel.
Benedict’s focus on the “priority” of knowing and loving God before doing anything else whatsoever was seen by the vast majority of the college of cardinals as the right focus.
Benedict was elected by his fellow cardinals, including many from very poor countries, because they agreed with him about the need for a Pope who could preach the priority of God, and in so doing, lay the only secure foundation for a just society.
In understanding the vision of Benedict XVI, we begin not by examining his many theological works formulated over the past 50 years, but by listening as he himself describes his own beginning. His words, based on several interviews from 1993 to 1995 and also on his autobiography (published in 1998 as Milestones: Memoirs 1927—1977), reveal a man who sees the world and everyday life with a sense of wonder, as if all things are crisscrossed with hints or “traces” of God.
Indeed, this is ultimately Benedict’s great message: that the world is a sacrament–an “outward sign” of the “inward reality” of God’s love, and that man will only be happy when he recognizes the primacy of God in his own life and in the entire world.
Benedict’s conviction that creation is joyful insofar as it is oriented toward God began in his childhood in Bavaria, where Catholicism and everyday life were interwoven. The root of that conviction is seen in his early and deep appreciation for the liturgy, the ritual celebration of the Christian mysteries using the symbolism of everyday life–water, wine, bread, light and darkness.
It is evident in his love for the simple life of the Bavarian countryside, which he speaks of fondly as one of the happiest periods of his life; in his appreciation for the simple men and women of faith; in his rejection of Nazis, whose inhumane violence he saw as the fruit of their ideological rejection of God; in his later life, when as a theological advisor at the Second Vatican Council his desire to make the wonder of God more accessible and visible to more people earned him a reputation as a “progressive”; in his 25 years as Prefect of the Church’s doctrinal office, where he labored to protect the wonder and beauty of God from being encrusted and hidden under theologies of relativism, atheist Marxism, and secularism.
Ultimately it is evident in his first homilies as Pope Benedict XVI, as he called on all men and women, both in and out of the Church, to “seek God’s face,” traveling along with him on the journey that leads to an eternal home, where God is entirely present, and so true joy is everlasting.
From Marktl to Freising
“My earliest memory really goes back to Marktl, and this is the only memory I have of this earliest period in my life. I must have been just two years old, because we moved away from Marktl when I was two. In our house we were on the second floor, and on the ground floor there was a dentist, and this person had a motor car–something that was still rather rare at that time, at least in Bavaria. And the smell of the gasoline from this car is what I remember.” With a laugh, he added, “I was deeply impressed by that.”
Pope Benedict XVI was born on April 16, 1927, in the little town of Marktl am Inn, in the Bavarian diocese of Passau, in southern Germany. He was born as the third child of Joseph and Maria Ratzinger, after siblings Georg and Maria.
In that year, April 16 fell on Holy Saturday, the “silent time” in the Christian liturgy between the sorrow of Good Friday and the joy of Easter Sunday.
“I was baptized on the morning after my birth with water just blessed during the Easter vigil. My family often remarked on this; being the first baby to be baptized with this new water was an important sign.”
One senses the underlying “genetic code” of Benedict’s spiritual life in this intimate union of everyday life and the life of faith: his birth precedes his baptism by only a few hours; his family is always present, reminding him during his childhood that he was the first to be baptized in the new holy water, inculcating in him the sense of his dignity and uniqueness–a chief task of all parents, brothers and sisters; and his faith, woven into the fabric of everyday life. “The faith penetrated all of life, though not everyone was a serious, believing Catholic. In the countryside and small towns, no one yet could, or even wished, to step outside the fabric of Catholic life, of Christian life.”
Faith and family have remained the twin poles of Bene-dict’s consciousness throughout his life. First, family: his memoirs show him always eager to return to his parents’ house, to go on long walks with his mother and father, to live “in family” or “as a family” as often and as long as possible. Indeed, his parents would come to live with him when he took his first university teaching job. “I always remember, with great affection, the goodness of my father and mother.” His sister, Maria, who never married, would become his housekeeper, keeping the Ratzinger family together even in Rome, until her death–which was devastating for Benedict–in November 1991. Benedict also spends much of his summer vacation in the company of his brother, Georg, a priest who is a musicologist and the director of the cathedral choir in Regensburg, Germany.
Then the other pole: faith. “I have always been grateful for the fact that my life was from the very beginning immersed in the Paschal mystery, since it could not be seen as anything but a sign of benediction. Of course, my birth was not on Easter Sunday, but Holy Saturday. And yet, the more I reflect, the more it seems characteristic of our human existence, which still awaits Easter, is still not in full light, but confidently sets out toward the light.”
The simplicity of these words reveals a key point in Benedict’s thinking: that the faith of the simple, common people is often the purist kind.
Not far from Marktl am Inn, where he was born, is the Marian sanctuary of Altoetting, which dates back to Carolingian times (the ninth century). When Benedict was a boy, the simple friar Conrad of Parzham, who had been a doorman at the sanctuary, was beatified. “In this man, humble and kind, we saw incarnated the best of our people, led by the faith to realize its very highest possibilities. Later, I would often reflect on this extraordinary circumstance, that the Church, in the century of progress and of faith in science, saw herself best represented precisely by the most simple persons, like Bernadette of Lourdes or Brother Conrad.”
The annual cycle of worship in prayer, which, in the Catholic Church, is called the “liturgical year,” also made a deep impr...
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- PublisherDoubleday Religion
- Publication date2005
- ISBN 10 0385507925
- ISBN 13 9780385507929
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages224
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