Dear friends,
It is with a heavy heart that I announce to you that the Pope emeritus, Benedict XVI has passed away. Upon receiving the news, I tolled our church bell for several minutes to announce his departure.
Pope Benedict XVI was a great theologian and a dedicated servant of the Church. Please pray for him that he may be admitted swiftly to the Father’s house.
Joseph Ratzinger was elected the two hundred sixty-fifth successor of St. Peter on April 19, 2005. He took the name Benedict after Pope Benedict XV who helped lead the Church through the turbulent years of World War I and St. Benedict of Nursia who is the father of Western monasticism. Benedict XVI was pope until his resignation on February 28, 2013. He was the first pope in over five hundred years to resign.
On a personal note, I will greatly miss him. Studying his writings was an important part of my own priestly formation, and I learned a lot from him. To this day, I regularly reference his homilies for preparing my own preaching.
To conclude, here is an excerpt from Pope Benedict’s homily for the inauguration Mass of his pontificate. This is a text that I have returned to time and time again in my priesthood for encouragement. He said,
“Today too the Church and the successors of the Apostles are told to put out into the deep sea of history and to let down the nets, so as to win men and women over to the Gospel – to God, to Christ, to true life. The Fathers made a very significant commentary on this singular task. This is what they say: for a fish, created for water, it is fatal to be taken out of the sea, to be removed from its vital element to serve as human food. But in the mission of a fisher of men, the reverse is true. We are living in alienation, in the salt waters of suffering and death; in a sea of darkness without light. The net of the Gospel pulls us out of the waters of death and brings us into the splendour of God’s light, into true life. It is really true: as we follow Christ in this mission to be fishers of men, we must bring men and women out of the sea that is salted with so many forms of alienation and onto the land of life, into the light of God. It is really so: the purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men. And only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary. There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him. The task of the shepherd, the task of the fisher of men, can often seem wearisome. But it is beautiful and wonderful, because it is truly a service to joy, to God’s joy which longs to break into the world.”
Yours in Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
Fr. Brad
O God, faithful rewarder of souls,
grant that your departed servant Pope Benedict,
whom you made successor of Peter
and shepherd of your Church,
may happily enjoy for ever in your presence in heaven
the mysteries of your grace and compassion,
which he faithfully ministered on earth.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.