Vatican
City, 23 February 2013
(VIS) – At the conclusion of this year's spiritual exercises,
Benedict XVI thanked the members of the Curia who had accompanied him
in these days and Cardinal Gianfranco Ravisi, who led the retreat.
The Pope referred to his preaching, the theme of which was “The Art
of Believing, the Art of Praying” as “'beautiful' walks through
the universe of faith, and the universe of the Psalms.”
“I
was reminded of the fact,” Benedict XVI said, “that the medieval
theologians have translated the word 'logos' not only as 'verbum',
but also as 'ars'. 'Verbum' and 'ars' are interchangeable. Only in
the two together does the entire meaning of the word 'logos' appear
for medieval theologians. The 'Logos' is not simply a mathematical
reasoning, the 'Logos' has a heart. The 'Logos' is also love. Truth
is beautiful. Truth and beauty go together. Beauty is the seal of
truth.”
“And
yet you, starting from the Psalms and from our everyday experience,
have also strongly emphasized that the 'very beautiful' of the sixth
day—expressed by the creator—is always challenged in this world
by evil, suffering, and corruption. It almost seems that evil wants
to permanently mar creation, to contradict God and to make His truth
and His beauty unrecognisable. In a world that is also so marked by
evil, the 'Logos', eternal beauty and eternal 'ars', should appear as
the 'caput cruentatum'. The incarnate Son, the incarnate 'Logos' is
crowned with a crown of thorns and, nevertheless, just that way, in
this suffering figure of the Son of God, we begin to see the most
profound beauty of our Creator and Redeemer. In the silence of the
'dark night' we can still hear the Word. Believing is nothing other
than, in the darkness of the world, touching the hand of God and
thus, in silence, listening to the Word, seeing Love.”
Benedict
XVI again thanked Cardinal Ravasi, expressing his wish to “take
other 'walks' in this mysterious universe of the faith and to always
be more capable of praying, proclaiming, and being witnesses to the
truth, which is beauty and which is love.”
“In
conclusion, dear friends,” he finished, “I would like to thank
all of you and not only for this week, but for these past eight years
that you have carried with me—with great skill, affection, love and
faith—the weight of the Petrine ministry. This gratitude remains
with me and, even if this 'exterior', 'visible' communion—as
Cardinal Ravasi said—is now ending, our spiritual closeness
remains, the deep communion in prayer. We go forward with this
certainty, certain of God's victory, certain of the truth of beauty
and love.”
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