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the fifteen texts Benedict XVI wrote after his resignation from the papacy and arranged to have released after his death, in the volume published by Mondadori, “What Christianity is. A spiritual quasi-testament,” four are making their debut, and among these one stands out above the rest.
It is 17 pages long and bears the title “The meaning of communion.” It was completed on June 28 2018, just when a very heated clash was underway within the German Church and between it and Rome on the question of whether or not to give Eucharistic communion to Protestant spouses as well, in the case of interconfessional marriages, with Pope Francis in confusion, now leaning yes and now no, and sometimes with the yes and no spoken together.
In this text of his, Joseph Ratzinger goes to the root of the question. If Catholics also reduce the Mass to a fraternal supper, as it is for Protestants, then everything is permitted, even that intercommunion – he writes – should become the political seal of German reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as indeed happened “before the eye of the television camera.”
But the Mass is not a supper, even if it was born during the last supper of Jesus. Nor is it derived from Jesus’ meals with sinners. From the start it has been only for the community of believers, subject to “strict conditions of access.” Its true name is “Eucharistia,” and at its center is the encounter with Jesus risen. More than many liturgists, those who grasped its essence – Benedict recalls – were the young people who silently adored the Lord in the consecrated host, during the World Youth Days in Cologne, Sydney, and Madrid.
The first part of Benedict’s essay is reproduced below. Erudite, yet spry. With flashes of personal memories and with quick and evocative references to questions such as the foundations of priestly celibacy or the meaning of the “daily bread” invoked in the Our Father.
Publication is authorized by the Piergiorgio Nicolazzini Literary Agency (PNLA), © 2023 Mondadori Libri SpA, Milan, and © 2023 Elio Guerriero as editor.
*
THE MEANING OF COMMUNION
Continued below.
magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it
It is 17 pages long and bears the title “The meaning of communion.” It was completed on June 28 2018, just when a very heated clash was underway within the German Church and between it and Rome on the question of whether or not to give Eucharistic communion to Protestant spouses as well, in the case of interconfessional marriages, with Pope Francis in confusion, now leaning yes and now no, and sometimes with the yes and no spoken together.
In this text of his, Joseph Ratzinger goes to the root of the question. If Catholics also reduce the Mass to a fraternal supper, as it is for Protestants, then everything is permitted, even that intercommunion – he writes – should become the political seal of German reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as indeed happened “before the eye of the television camera.”
But the Mass is not a supper, even if it was born during the last supper of Jesus. Nor is it derived from Jesus’ meals with sinners. From the start it has been only for the community of believers, subject to “strict conditions of access.” Its true name is “Eucharistia,” and at its center is the encounter with Jesus risen. More than many liturgists, those who grasped its essence – Benedict recalls – were the young people who silently adored the Lord in the consecrated host, during the World Youth Days in Cologne, Sydney, and Madrid.
The first part of Benedict’s essay is reproduced below. Erudite, yet spry. With flashes of personal memories and with quick and evocative references to questions such as the foundations of priestly celibacy or the meaning of the “daily bread” invoked in the Our Father.
Publication is authorized by the Piergiorgio Nicolazzini Literary Agency (PNLA), © 2023 Mondadori Libri SpA, Milan, and © 2023 Elio Guerriero as editor.
*
THE MEANING OF COMMUNION
Continued below.
The Catholic Mass as No One Ever Explained It Before. A Brand New Work From Pope Benedict
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