Monday, March 5, 2007

POPE THANKS THE PREACHER OF THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES

VATICAN CITY, MAR 3, 2007 (VIS) - This morning in the Vatican's "Redemptoris Mater" Chapel, at the conclusion of the Roman Curia's spiritual exercises, the Pope expressed thanks, in the name of all those present, to Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, archbishop emeritus of Bologna, Italy, and preacher of this year's exercises.

  Over the course of the week dedicated to the spiritual exercises, the Pope told the preacher, "you taught us to lift our hearts towards the invisible, towards true reality. And you gave us the means by which we may respond every day to the challenges of that reality."

  The Holy Father said that during the first of the meditations, on the subject of angels, he how noted how his prie-dieu was decorated with an inlaid image of Christ surrounded by flying angels. "I imagined," said the Pope, "that these angels are able to fly because they are not part of the gravitation of the material things of the earth, but of the gravitation of love of the Risen Christ, and that we too would be able to fly if only we abandoned a little the gravitation of matter and entered the new gravitation of the love of the Risen One."

  Pope Benedict also thanked Cardinal Biffi for his "very accurate and precise diagnosis of our situation today." Above all, he said, "you showed us how behind so many phenomena of our time, apparently far removed from religion and from Christ, is a question, an expectation, a desire; and that the only true response to this desire ... is Christ."

  "Finally," the Pope concluded, "I would like to thank you for your realism, for your sense of humor and for your pragmatism. ... We have learned something, and your thoughts ... will stay with us, and not only over the following weeks."

  In a Message sent to the preacher of the spiritual exercises, the Pope writes: "You have helped is to meditate on Christ's lordship over the cosmos and over history, on His blessed Passion, on the mystery of the Church and on the Eucharist, as well as on the relationship of these supernatural truths with the world. To complete ... each day's theological reflections, you wisely presented the figures of certain 'witnesses' who, in various ways and with different styles, guide and sustain our journey towards Christ, fullness of life for all people and for the universe entire."
AC/THANKS PREACHER/BIFFI                    VIS 20070305 (410)


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