VATICAN CITY, 2 NOV 2008 (VIS) - At midday today, the Pope appeared at the window of his private study overlooking St. Peter's Square, to pray the Angelus with the faithful gathered below.
On the day in which the Church commemorates the departed faithful, the Holy Father highlighted the importance of Christians living "our relationship with the dead in the truth of faith, and looking to death and the afterlife in the light of Revelation".
"Today too it is necessary to spread the message of the reality of death and eternal life - a reality particularly subject to superstition and syncretism - so that Christian truth does not risk being confused with mythologies of various kinds", he said.
After recalling the words of St. Augustine to the effect that "everyone seeks 'blessed life' and happiness", Benedict XVI affirmed that "we don't know what this is or what it is like, but we feel ourselves attracted to it. It is a universal hope, shared by people of all times and places. The expression 'eternal life' is an attempt to give a name to this unquenchable hope: not an endless succession, but an immersion in the ocean of infinite love, where time, before and after, exist no more. Fullness of life and of joy is what we hope and expect from being with Christ.
"Today we renew our hope in eternal life, a hope truly founded in the death and resurrection of Christ", the Pope added. "Christian hope is never something merely individual, it is always a hope for others. Our lives are deeply linked to one another, and the good and bad each of us does always touches other people".
The Holy Father concluded: "The prayer of a pilgrim soul in the world can help another soul that continues purifying itself after death. This is why today the Church invites us to pray for our deceased loved ones and to spend time at their tombs in cemeteries"
This afternoon, as is traditional on All Souls Day, the Holy Father went down to the Vatican Grottoes to pray privately for the Popes buried there, and for all the deceased.
ANG/ALL SOULS/... VIS 20081103 (370)
On the day in which the Church commemorates the departed faithful, the Holy Father highlighted the importance of Christians living "our relationship with the dead in the truth of faith, and looking to death and the afterlife in the light of Revelation".
"Today too it is necessary to spread the message of the reality of death and eternal life - a reality particularly subject to superstition and syncretism - so that Christian truth does not risk being confused with mythologies of various kinds", he said.
After recalling the words of St. Augustine to the effect that "everyone seeks 'blessed life' and happiness", Benedict XVI affirmed that "we don't know what this is or what it is like, but we feel ourselves attracted to it. It is a universal hope, shared by people of all times and places. The expression 'eternal life' is an attempt to give a name to this unquenchable hope: not an endless succession, but an immersion in the ocean of infinite love, where time, before and after, exist no more. Fullness of life and of joy is what we hope and expect from being with Christ.
"Today we renew our hope in eternal life, a hope truly founded in the death and resurrection of Christ", the Pope added. "Christian hope is never something merely individual, it is always a hope for others. Our lives are deeply linked to one another, and the good and bad each of us does always touches other people".
The Holy Father concluded: "The prayer of a pilgrim soul in the world can help another soul that continues purifying itself after death. This is why today the Church invites us to pray for our deceased loved ones and to spend time at their tombs in cemeteries"
This afternoon, as is traditional on All Souls Day, the Holy Father went down to the Vatican Grottoes to pray privately for the Popes buried there, and for all the deceased.
ANG/ALL SOULS/... VIS 20081103 (370)
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