"STATIO" AND PENITENTIAL
PROCESSION
FROM THE CHURCH OF ST ANSELM
TO THE BASILICA OF ST SABINA ON THE AVENTINE HILL
HOLY MASS, BLESSING AND
IMPOSITION OF THE ASHES
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS
BENEDICT XVI
Basilica of St Sabina
Ash Wednesday , 6 February 2008
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
If
Advent is the season par excellence that invites us to hope in
the God-Who-Comes,
Lent renews in us the hope in the One who made us pass from
death to life. Both are seasons of purification - this is also
indicated by the liturgical colour that they have in common - but in
a special way Lent, fully oriented to the mystery of Redemption, is
defined the "path of true conversion" (cf. Collect). At the
beginning of our penitential journey, I would like to pause briefly
to reflect on prayer and suffering as qualifying aspects of the
liturgical Season of Lent, whereas I dedicated the
Message for Lent, published last week, to the practice of
almsgiving. In the Encyclical
Spe Salvi, I identified prayer and suffering, together with
action and judgement, as ""settings' for learning and practising
hope". We can thus affirm that precisely because the Lenten Season
is an invitation to prayer, penance and fasting, it affords a
providential opportunity to enliven and strengthen our hope.
Prayer nourishes hope
because nothing expresses the reality of God in our life better than
praying with faith. Even in the loneliness of the most severe trial,
nothing and no one can prevent me from addressing the Father "in the
secret" of my heart, where he alone "sees", as Jesus says in the
Gospel (cf. Mt 6: 4, 6, 18). Two moments of Jesus' earthly existence
come to mind. One is at the beginning and the other almost at the
end of his public ministry: the 40 days in the desert, on which the
Season of Lent is based, and the agony in Gethsemane - are both
essentially moments of prayer. Prayer alone with the Father face to
face in the desert; prayer filled with "mortal anguish" in the
Garden of Olives. Yet in both these circumstances it is by praying
that Christ unmasks the wiles of the tempter and defeats him. Thus,
prayer proves to be the first and principal "weapon" with which to
win the victory "in our struggle against the spirit of evil" (cf.
Collect).
Christ's prayer reaches its
culmination on the Cross. It is expressed in those last words which
the Evangelists have recorded. Where he seems to utter a cry of
despair: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mt 27: 46; Mk
15: 34; cf. Ps 22[21]: 1), Christ was actually making his own the
invocation of someone beset by enemies with no escape, who has no
one other than God to turn to and, over and above any human
possibilities, experiences his grace and salvation. With these words
of the Psalm, first of a man who is suffering, then of the People of
God in their suffering, caused by God's apparent absence, Jesus made
his own this cry of humanity that suffers from God's apparent
absence, and carried this cry to the Father's heart. So, by praying
in this ultimate solitude together with the whole of humanity, he
opens the Heart of God to us. There is no contradiction between
these words in Psalm 22[21] and the words full of filial trust:
"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Lk 23: 46; cf. Ps
31[30]: 5). These words, also taken from Psalm 31[30], are the
dramatic imploration of a person who, abandoned by all, is sure he
can entrust himself to God. The prayer of supplication full of hope
is consequently the leitmotif of Lent and enables us to experience
God as the only anchor of salvation. Indeed when it is collective,
the prayer of the People of God is a voice of one heart and soul, it
is a "heart to heart" dialogue, like Queen Esther's moving plea when
her people were about to be exterminated: "O my Lord, you only are
our King; help me, who am alone and have no helper but you" (Est 14:
3)... for a great danger overshadows me (cf. v. 7). In the face of a
"great danger" greater hope is needed: only the hope that can count
on God.
Prayer is a crucible in
which our expectations and aspirations are exposed to the light of
God's Word, immersed in dialogue with the One who is the Truth, and
from which they emerge free from hidden lies and compromises with
various forms of selfishness (cf.
Spe Salvi, n. 33). Without the dimension of prayer, the human
"I" ends by withdrawing into himself, and the conscience, which
should be an echo of God's voice, risks being reduced to a mirror of
the self, so that the inner conversation becomes a monologue, giving
rise to self-justifications by the thousands. Therefore, prayer is a
guarantee of openness to others: whoever frees himself for God and
his needs simultaneously opens himself to the other, to the brother
or sister who knocks at the door of his heart and asks to be heard,
asks for attention, forgiveness, at times correction, but always in
fraternal charity. True prayer is never self-centred, it is always
centred on the other. As such, it opens the person praying to the
"ecstasy" of charity, to the capacity to go out of oneself to draw
close to the other in humble, neighbourly service. True prayer is
the driving force of the world since it keeps it open to God. For
this reason without prayer there is no hope but only illusion. In
fact, it is not God's presence that alienates man but his absence:
without the true God, Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, illusory
hopes become an invitation to escape from reality. Speaking with
God, dwelling in his presence, letting oneself be illuminated and
purified by his Word introduces us, instead, into the heart of
reality, into the very motor of becoming cosmic; it introduces us,
so to speak, to the beating heart of the universe.
In a harmonious connection
with prayer, fasting and almsgiving can also be considered occasions
for learning and practising Christian hope. The Fathers and ancient
writers liked to emphasize that these three dimensions of Gospel
life are inseparable, reciprocally enrich each other and bear more
fruit the more they collaborate with each other. Lent as a whole,
thanks to the joint action of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, forms
Christians to be men and women of hope after the example of the
Saints.
I would now like to pause
briefly on the aspect of suffering since, as I wrote in the
Encyclical
Spe Salvi: "The true measure of humanity is essentially
determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer. This
holds true both for the individual and for society" (n. 38). Easter,
to which Lent is oriented, is the mystery which gives meaning to
human suffering, based on the superabundant com-passion of God,
brought about in Jesus Christ. The Lenten journey therefore, since
it is wholly steeped in Easter light, makes us relive what happened
in Christ's divine and human Heart while he was going up to
Jerusalem for the last time to offer himself in expiation (cf. Is
53: 10). Suffering and death fell like darkness as he gradually came
nearer to the Cross, but the flame of love shone brighter. Indeed,
Christ's suffering was penetrated by the light of love (cf.
Spe Salvi, n. 38).
It was the Father's love that permitted the Son to confidently face
his last "baptism", which he himself defines as the apex of his
mission (cf. Lk 12: 50). Jesus received that baptism of sorrow and
love for us, for all of humanity. He has suffered for truth and
justice, bringing the Gospel of suffering to human history, which is
the other aspect of the Gospel of love. God cannot suffer, but he
can and wants to be com-passionate. Through Christ's passion he can
bring his con-solatio to every human suffering, "the consolation of
God's compassionate love - and so the star of hope rises" (Spe
Salvi, n. 39).
As for prayer, so for
suffering: the history of the Church is very rich in witnesses who
spent themselves for others without reserve, at the cost of harsh
suffering. The greater the hope that enlivens us, the greater is the
ability within us to suffer for the love of truth and good, joyfully
offering up the minor and major daily hardships and inserting them
into Christ's great com-passion (cf. ibid., n. 40). May Mary, who,
together with that of her Son, had her immaculate Heart pierced by
the sword of sorrow, help us on this journey of evangelical
perfection. In these very days, while commemorating the 150th
anniversary of the Apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes we are
prompted to meditate on the mystery of Mary's sharing in humanity's
suffering; at the same time, we are encouraged to draw consolation
from the Church's "treasury of compassion" (ibid.) to which she
contributed more than any other creature. Therefore, let us begin
Lent in spiritual union with Mary who "advanced in her pilgrimage of
faith" following her Son (cf.
Lumen Gentium, n. 58) and always goes before the disciples on
the journey towards the light of Easter. Amen! Top
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