Il Card. Bagnasco presenta
l'XI volume dell'Opera Omnia di Joseph Ratzinger
l'XI volume dell'Opera Omnia di Joseph Ratzinger
ROME, Tuesday, December 7, 2010 ( ZENIT.org ) .- Here is the text of intervention delivered on Tuesday at Genoa, in the framework of the Great Council Hall of the Palazzo Ducale, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, Archbishop of Genoa and President of the Italian Episcopal Conference , during the presentation of the eleventh volume published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana Opera Omnia of Joseph Ratzinger.
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S ono happy to participate in the The presentation of the volume of the Opera Omnia of Pope Benedict XVI, and thank the promoters of the initiative. I greet with esteem and kindness guests who have spoken from Rome, Prof. Gianmaria Vian, director of the Osservatore Romano and Prof. Lucetta Scaraffia known in the field not only for its Catholic cultural and philosophical work always on time and documented.
All now agree on be Pope Benedict a great theologian, with an enviable ability to present with clarify their thoughts. The work omnia , destinata a raccogliere in modo organico e sistematico il frutto della sua riflessione teologica, sta prendendo corpo e testimonia la fecondità e la profondità dei suoi studi. Potrebbe però sorprendere non poco il fatto che il primo volume pubblicato raccolga gli studi sulla liturgia: perché un grande teologo si occupa di liturgia? Non vi sono forse temi più rilevanti e meritevoli di interesse? Nel contesto culturale contemporaneo non sarebbe più utile impegnarsi nel mostrare la rilevanza della fede cristiana per la costruzione di una società più giusta e più rispettosa della dignità dell’uomo?
1. Liturgy and the primacy of God
answers to these questions Benedict XVI himself in the preface to the volume dedicated to Theology of the Liturgy . From the liturgy, in keeping with the chronological order of Constitutions of Vatican II means putting 'unequivocally highlight the primacy of God, the priority theme of "God" (p. 5). We can not but notice the line of Pope Benedict with the words of Paul VI at the close of the Second Session of the Council, while announcing the promulgation of the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium " We consider that respect the scale of values \u200b\u200band obligations: God first, our first obligation prayer, the liturgy of the first source of divine life communicated to us, our first school of spiritual life, the first gift we can give to the Christian people, with us believing and praying, and first invitation to the world, so that melt in prayer, blessed and true their mute language and feel the ineffable regenerative power of singing the praises of God with us and hopes People for Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit "[1]. We understand then that deal with liturgy does not mean forgetting the difficulties that the Christian faith today in comparison with contemporary culture, by contrast is high testimony to what constitutes the heart of Christian faith. Fact, the Council declares that the liturgy "is extremely effective because the faithful in their lives and manifest to others the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church, which has the distinction of being both human and divine, visible but endowed with invisible realities, zealous in action and dedicated to contemplation, present in the world and yet, in this way and that in it that is human is ordered to the divine and subordinate to it, what is visible to the invisible, what action to contemplation, and this is what we are looking to the future city '(SC 2). I think these expressions of SC may help to understand adequately the thought of J. Ratzinger on the value of the liturgy to the world as a manifestation of the primacy of God Church, in fact, when he celebrates, recognizes and manifests itself as a reality that can not be reduced to a single aspect and organizational grounds. In celebration is quite obvious that the heart of the Christian community is to be found "beyond" the confines of this world. Not only that in the celebration seems like everything is subject to this "beyond." The symbolic language of ritual is best suited to express and preserve the priority of God's acting human. The ritual is in fact human action: it is the man who performs symbolic actions, gestures, poses, speak words, uses natural elements (water, bread, wine, oil ...). At the same time, however, the man did not "create" the rite, it is received from a tradition housing where the faith of centuries' past, present and future come together in one great chorus of prayer "( Letter seminarians , n. 2). And even when the Church intervenes in the ritual change put in place a very special caution so that "in some ways the new forms arises organically from forms already existing" (SC 23). In this regard, J. Ratzinger explains: "If now we ask again what is in the rite of Christian worship, the answer is this: it is an expression that has become the form, and ecclesial comunitarietà della preghiera e dell’azione liturgica – una comunitarietà che supera la storia. In esso si concretizza il legame della liturgia con il soggetto vivente “Chiesa”, che a sua volta è caratterizzato dal legame con il profilo della fede cresciuto nella Tradizione apostolica» (p. 159).
The liturgy, as well as expressing the absolute priority of God, also expressed his being the "God-with-us." Benedict XVI writes in Deus Caritas Est : "Being Christian is not an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with a event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction "(n. 1). How can we deny that this meeting was held for us first of all, in mysterio , on the day of our baptism? In the liturgy takes place each time'incontro with God: the story of salvation that continues in the Church (cf. SC 6). Commenting Dt 4.7 ("What great nation has gods so close to it as the Lord our God is near us whenever we call upon him?"), As was expressed about the participation in Sunday Mass, " The Lord has made the first day of the week on his own, in which we are meeting, which prepares the table for us and invites us to himself. From the phrase of the Old Testament, on which we are considering, we infer that the Israelites were in the proximity of God is not a burden, but the reason for their pride and their joy. Indeed, the communion with the Lord Sunday is not a burden, but it is grace, a gift that lights the whole week; cheated ourselves, if we subtract to it "(p. 550).
Finally, the liturgy expresses the priority of God also showed how "the liturgy of pilgrimage. We read in The Spirit of the Liturgy . An introduction, "the Christian liturgy is, as we have seen, the liturgy of promise fulfilled ... but it is the liturgy of hope. Also in itself still bears the mark of impermanence. The new Temple, not built by human hands, is present, yet is still under construction. The big gesture is the embrace by the Crucified One who has not yet reached its goal, but has only just begun. The Christian liturgy is a liturgy in the journey, a pilgrimage to the liturgy of the transformation of the world, which will be accomplished when God is "all in all" " (P. 61).
The ritual has a capacity to express this tension eschatological: it does not pretend to explain everything, does not always provide serenity and peace, even at times produce unrest , confronts us with our weaknesses, shows us a goal that is never fully achieved in this world, claim to join the assembly of heaven that sings the praises of God, "we wait in joyful hope the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. "
2. Liturgy and theological interest-key
The interest in the liturgy of the theologian Ratzinger then be read in light of his decision to take up questions of fundamental theology. He writes in the introduction to the volume we are presenting "The subject I chose was the fundamental theology, because first of all I wanted to get to the bottom of the question: why do we believe? But this question from the beginning was inherently understood the other question, that the proper response to God and therefore demand about divine worship. From here go including my work on the liturgy. My goal was not the specific problems of liturgical study, but in the anchoring of the liturgy when the fundamental of our faith, and therefore also its place in all of our human existence "(p. 6). It is a goal that deserves some consideration. Here our author declares first that deal with liturgy does not distract from the fundamental question of faith: the liturgy, unfatti, is again on the fundamental of our faith and our existence.
An essay of no quick and easy reading content in our book - The foundation of Christian sacramental - is an illuminating implementation of the above statement. When asked "what is really the man who celebrates the worship of the Church, the Sacraments of Jesus Christ?" And why?, Ratzinger replied: "He does because he knows that, as a man, he can only find God in humanely. In a human way, however, means: in the form of communion, of corporeality and historicity. And it does so because he knows that, as a man, he does not capacity for itself when and how and where God should show, rather than one who knows that he receives, which depends on the authority that he is given the authority that he has not granted, but that is the sign of the sovereign freedom of God, who decides for itself how its presence "(pp. 239-240). Celebrating the sacraments man discovers as they are in tune with their own experience of man, especially those with particular experiences such as birth, death, eating, sexual communion between man and woman, in which it makes clear the spiritual reality . These are experiences in which man experiences that matter and the body are 'cracks through which the eternity getta uno sguardo nel procedere uniforme della vita quotidiana» (p. 225).
I Sacramenti, però, al tempo stesso rivelano all’uomo anche la propria identità di essere che tende alla comunione, che vive nella corporeità e nella storia e che proprio «in modo umano» Dio gli si rende presente, e proprio nella storia dell’umanità la salvezza ha fatto irruzione con «quell’Uomo che al tempo stesso era Dio». Egli «si è inserito in questa dimensione orizzontale e così ha spalancato la prigione: la catena della dimensione orizzontale, che tiene legato l’uomo, Christ has become the lifeline that pulls us to the shore of the eternity of God "(pp. 235-236). The attention to the liturgy and the dynamics of symbolic language and ritual offers, J. Ratzinger, a valuable contribution to counter a purely functional reality in which things are seen only as things, to regain a place in the 'symbolic transparency of reality to the eternal "(p. 222).
3. Liturgy form of existence
The last part of The spirit of the liturgy. An introduction is titled: "The liturgical form." In it the author talks about the ritual and rites, gestures, positions and attitudes that the body assumes in the celebration of active participation. In the latter context it is interesting to note that, referring to the exercise of the body and the discipline of athletes called by the Apostle Paul, Ratzinger berths liturgy training. He writes: "It is - let us once again in a different way - an exercise to learn to accept others in their otherness, love a workout - a workout open to the totally Other, God, let ourselves be molded and used by him "(p. 167). Celebrating the liturgy is to let the shape totally Other, of God's participation in the liturgy, and then turned on, but at the same time in a way also "passive" or "initiation". Pay attention to the size of the initiatory rite of the liturgy, which means first of all not to reform the liturgy suffers in own rites, but the reform of the liturgy promotes their rituals, to the heart of the mystery celebrated. It is illuminated in this regard the homily delivered by Benedict XVI in Cologne in the final celebration of World Youth Day (August 21, 2005), which reads the mystery of the Eucharist and its celebration by the category of "transformation", "making the bread into his Body and the wine into his Blood, he [Jesus] anticipates his death, accepts it in his heart and he transforms into an action of love [...]. This is the substantial transformation which was accomplished at the Last Supper and was destined to provoke a process of transformations leading ultimately to the transformation of the world up to the point where God will be all in all (cf. 1 Cor 15:28) [...]. This first fundamental transformation of violence into love, of death into life, brings other changes. Bread and wine become his Body and his Blood. At this point, however, the transformation must not end with, and must now gather fully. The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us so that we ourselves will be transformed in our turn. We are to become the Body of Christ, kin to him all eat the one bread, and this means that we become one "[5].
In a recent texts by Cardinal Ratzinger on the Liturgy, published on the eve of his election to the Chair of Peter, he takes up this concept, saying that God in the liturgy becomes a gift for us and so we can be transubstantiated with him and be transformed in our time in love: "The only gift that God expects, the only thing that is not yours, is our freedom, our love is the answer. God created a free world, freedom has created, has created the opportunity to say "yes" or "no", as the possibility of making a free gift to God The one true sacrifice may be our only " yes, the joy of being united with God in love [...]. A humanized world, a world in which love is the sign of all is the true sacrifice. Only then will we enter the heart of the NT, because the death of Christ is not a destruction, not the glorification of suffering, but it qualifies as the ultimate gesture of love in which the Lord, with its open arms, embraces us and, as is said in the Gospel of John (chapter 12), it "pulls" in his hands. With this love, in which God gives and becomes a gift to us, we can be with him and transubstantiated processed in love with a "yes" free "[6].
We are grateful to the theologian Ratzinger and Pope Benedict XVI for the work of profound renewal who continues in the Church because it is more faithful to his Lord and its living Tradition. With disarming clarity and rigor, he offers in light, explains and explores the centrality of the Vatican II said about the sacred liturgy, considering the "source and summit" of Christian life, the life and mission of the Church. In the words of that meeting I would like to conclude my speech: "The apostolic work is ordered that all who become children of God through faith and baptism should come together, praise God in the Church, and participate in the Sacrifice the table of the Lord "(SC 10).
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1) Paul VI, speech concluding the second period the Council in EV 1, pp. [127] - [129].
3) "They have, therefore, an exact notion of the sacred liturgy, those who consider it only as a part of divine worship and sensitive external or as a ceremonial decorative or less wrong those who see it as a mere sum of laws and precepts with which the ecclesiastical hierarchy orders the completion of the rites. " AAS 39 (1947), p. 532.
4) R. Guardini, Training liturgical , OR Ed, Milano 1988, p. 98.
5) Cf the full text: Benedict XVI, The Revolution of God , Libreria Editrice Vaticana , Vatican City, 2005, pp. 69-76. The same concept is reiterated in Deus Caritas Est No 13: "The Eucharist draws us into self-giving of Jesus We do not just statically receiving the incarnate Logos, we enter into the dynamic of his self-giving "(cf. also Sacramentum Caritatis , 70).
6) J. Ratzinger, The center of Christian worship , "Land Ambrosian", 46 (2005), pp. 17-21 (here, p. 20).
Source: Maranatha.it
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