Pope Francis: ‘The beatitudes always bring joy’

January 29, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 3 Print

Vatican City, Jan 29, 2020 / 04:45 am (CNA).- The beatitudes should be a defining feature of a Christian’s identity because they reveal the way that Jesus lived his life, Pope Francis said Wednesday.

“The beatitudes always bring joy; they are the way to joy,” Pope Francis said Jan. 29.

“It will do us good to take the Gospel of Matthew today, chapter five verses one to eleven, and read the beatitudes — perhaps a few more times during the week — to understand this road so beautiful, so sure of the happiness that the Lord offers us,” he said in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.

Pope Francis said that the beatitudes should be considered “a Christian’s identity card”  because they reveal “the face of Jesus himself.”

“There are eight beatitudes,” he said. “It would be nice to learn them by heart to repeat them, to have precisely in mind and heart, this law that Jesus gave us.”

Pope Francis began a new series of catechesis on the eight beatitudes from Matthew’s Gospel. In this series, the pope will reflect on one beatitude per week over the next two months in his Wednesday general audiences.

The pope said that the beatitudes are a message for all of humanity. 

“It's hard not to be touched by these words of Jesus, and it is a just desire to want to understand them and to welcome them more fully,” he said.

Francis clarified that the beatitudes bring one the true joy of being “blessed,” which is different from worldly happiness.

“It is the Easter joy,” the pope said.

In giving himself to us, God often chooses “unthinkable paths” that test our limits, bringing tears or defeat, the pope said. It is the joy of one who "has the stigmata, but is alive, one who has died to himself and experienced the power of God.”

“But what does the word 'blessed' mean? The original Greek term makarios does not indicate one who has a full belly or is doing well, but is a person who is in a condition of grace, who progresses in the grace of God,” he said.

The pope noted that Jesus taught the Beatitudes as a part of his “Sermon on the Mount,” adding that the mountain is an allusion to Sinai, where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments.

“Jesus begins to teach a new law: to be poor, to be meek, to be merciful. These 'new commandments' are much more than norms. In fact, Jesus does not impose anything, but reveals the way of happiness,” Pope Francis said.

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The Dispatch

Benedict XVI’s funeral: Tens of thousands attend simple, solemn liturgy for beloved pope emeritus

January 5, 2023 Catholic News Agency 2
The coffin of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is carried into St. Peter’s Square prior to his funeral Mass on Jan. 5, 2023. / Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Jan 5, 2023 / 03:21 am (CNA).

Tens of thousands of people were present in St. Peter’s Square for the funeral Thursday of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, a leading theologian of the 20th century and the first pope to resign from office in nearly 600 years.

Royalty, cardinals, patriarchs, government officials, and many Catholic families and religious attended the funeral on a cold and foggy morning at the Vatican. More than 3,700 priests concelebrated the Mass.

Cardinals Joseph Zen, Daniel DiNardo, Timothy Dolan, Gianfranco Ravasi, and Giuseppe Betori, all cardinals created by Benedict, were seated in the front row. The Vatican said 125 cardinals concelebrated.

The ceremony began with the transport of the pope emeritus’ wooden coffin from the basilica to St. Peter’s Square.

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Benedict’s personal secretary, approached the coffin, knelt before it, and kissed it. The crowd then prayed the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary in Latin for the repose of the soul of the late pope.

The funeral Mass was simple and solemn, in accord with Benedict XVI’s wishes. The Sistine Chapel Choir sang the “Salve Regina,” “In Paradisum,” and other hymns.

An image of the resurrection of Christ was hung from St. Peter’s Basilica behind the altar.

Pope Francis presided over the funeral for his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

In his homily, he reflected on Jesus’ final words on the cross: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

“God’s faithful people, gathered here, now accompany and entrust to him the life of the one who was their pastor,” he said.

“Like the women at the tomb,” he said, “we too have come with the fragrance of gratitude and the balm of hope, in order to show him once more the love that is undying. We want to do this with the same wisdom, tenderness and devotion that he bestowed upon us over the years.”

Benedict XVI died on Dec. 31 at the age of 95. As confirmed by Archbishop Gänswein, his last words were “Signore, ti amo!” (“Lord, I love you”).

Nearly 200,000 people came to see Benedict XVI lying in state inside St. Peter’s Basilica in the days ahead of the funeral.

“Together, we want to say: ‘Father, into your hands we commend his spirit,’” Francis said in his homily. “Benedict, faithful friend of the Bridegroom, may your joy be complete as you hear his voice, now and forever.”

The Vatican only invited two official state delegations — from Italy and Germany — to the funeral, but some heads of state and public figures decided to attend in an unofficial capacity.

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, and Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar came to the Vatican to attend the ceremony, along with European royals Queen Sofia of Spain and King Philip and Queen Mathilde of Belgium.

In the Prayers of the Faithful, the second prayer was said in German: “For Pope Emeritus Benedict, who has fallen asleep in the Lord: May the eternal Shepherd receive him into his kingdom of light and peace.”

The readings for the Mass were Isaiah 29:16–19 in Spanish; Psalm 23 sung in Latin; 1 Peter 1: 3–9 in English, and the Gospel of Luke 23:39–46 read in Italian.

At the end of the funeral Mass, Pope Francis presided over the Final Commendation and Valediction, which were followed by a moment of silent prayer.

Pope Francis approached with a cane and prayed while touching the wooden coffin of his predecessor.

Bells tolled and the crowd applauded as Benedict XVI’s coffin was carried into St. Peter’s Basilica to his place of burial in the basilica crypt. People waved flags and banners, including one that said “Santo Subito,” calling for Benedict’s immediate canonization.

Born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, he was elected to the papacy in April 2005, taking the name Benedict XVI, after decades of service to the Catholic Church as a theologian, prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, cardinal, and one of the closest collaborators of St. John Paul II, whom he succeeded as pope.

Widely recognized as one of the Catholic Church’s top theologians, Benedict’s pontificate was marked by a profound understanding of the challenges to the Church in the face of growing ideological aggression, not least from an increasingly secular Western mindset, both within and outside the Church. He famously warned about the “dictatorship of relativism” in a homily just before the conclave in 2005 that elected him pope.

On Feb. 11, 2013, the 85-year-old Benedict shocked the world with a Latin-language announcement of his retirement, becoming the first pope in 600 years to do so. He cited his advanced age and his lack of strength as unsuitable to the exercise of his office.

Reflecting on life after death in an Angelus message on Nov. 2, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI said eternal life will be like “immersing yourself in the ocean of infinite love where time — a before and an after — no longer exists. Fullness of life and joy: This is what we hope for and expect from our being with Christ.”

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3 Comments

  1. “Jesus begins to teach a new law: to be poor, to be meek, to be merciful.”

    Jesus The Christ, fulfills The Law.

    Jesus Fulfills the Law

    “17Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled. 19He therefore that shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But he that shall do and teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

    Christ Has Revealed, Through His Life, His Passion, And His Death On The Cross, That No Greater Love Is There Than This, To Desire Salvation For One’s Beloved.

    Reply

  2. We are heartened to read: “that the beatitudes should be considered ‘a Christian’s identity card’ because they reveal ‘the face of Jesus himself.’ […] The pope noted that Jesus taught the Beatitudes as a part of his ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ adding that the mountain is an allusion to Sinai, where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments.”

    But, then, we also read from Pope Francis: “Jesus begins to teach a new law: to be poor, to be meek, to be merciful. These ‘new commandments’ are much more than norms. In fact, Jesus does not impose anything, but reveals the way of happiness.”

    Now, very hypothetically but possibly to clarify, in what instances, exactly, might the latter and “much-more-than-norms” Beatitudes possibly replace the earlier (and imposed?) commandments on Sinai? (As also proposed in one early outline, then rejected, for the new Catechism of the Catholic Church.)
    In 1993, and with explicit clarity, Pope John Paul II already presented the Beatitudes as Christ’s “self-portrait…”

    “These latter [the Beatitudes] are above all PROMISES, from which there also indirectly flow NORMATIVE [!] INDICATIONS for the moral life. In their originality and profundity they are a sort of SELF-PORTRAIT OF CHRIST […]” Also, “…THERE IS NO SEPARATION OR OPPOSITION between the Beatitudes and the commandments: both refer to the good, to eternal life” (Veritatis Splendor, 16, CAPS shown as italics in the original).

    Should the reader now wait to see (?), if between the lines and in strategic omissions, Pope Francis’ new and co-authored book on St. John Paul II conjures Marc Antony as well as Pachamama: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

    Reply

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