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Skriven 2006-11-10 06:21:58 av Marc Lewis (1:396/45)
Ärende: Vatican Information Service (Press Release)
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                               VIS-Press releases

GOD MUST BE AT THE CENTER OF OUR LIVES

VATICAN CITY, NOV 8, 2006 (VIS) - Made public today was the homily pronounced
by the Pope yesterday during a Mass concelebrated in the Vatican's "Redemptoris
mater" Chapel with bishops from Switzerland.

The Holy Father's address to Swiss bishops, of which VIS yesterday published a
summary, was not, in fact, delivered at all. According to a communique from the
Holy See Press Office released yesterday afternoon, the text published
yesterday "reflected the contents of a draft version prepared earlier for the
Swiss bishops 'ad limina' visit of February 2005."

In his off-the-cuff homily during yesterday's Mass, Benedict XVI noted how the
Gospel readings he and the Swiss prelates had just heard had "a common theme,
which could be summed up in the phrase: God never fails."

Referring to the parable of the guests who decide not to attend the banquet,
the Holy Father indicated how God "does not fail because He always finds new
ways to reach mankind, and to open His great house in order to fill it
entirely. ... God does not fail, even today, though so often we hear the word
'no.' ... We are aware that churches are becoming ever less full, that
seminaries continue to empty, that religious houses are ever emptier; we know
all the forms in which this 'no-I've-more-important-things-to-do' can present
itself."

"Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus," said the Pope
quoting the words of St. Paul. "Learn to think as Christ thought, learn to
think with Him! Such thought is not just of the mind, but also of the heart.
... If we enter into His feelings, ... love for God is reawakened within us. We
feel how beautiful it is that He exists, and that we can know Him, that we know
Him in the face of Jesus Christ Who suffered for us."

"I believe" the Pope continued, "that we must commit ourselves above all to
listening to the Lord, to prayer, to a profound participation in the
Sacraments, to learning God's feelings in the face and the sufferings of our
fellows, in order to be infected by His joy, by His zeal, by His love, and to
contemplate the world with Him. ... If we are able to do this, then even amid
so many 'nos,' we will again find men and women who await Him; perhaps strange
men and women, as the parable clearly says, but who are called to enter His
hall."

The Holy Father concluded his homily by highlighting the fact that problems
"cannot be resolved if God is not placed at the center, if God does not become
visible in the world once more, if He does not become a determining force in
our lives, and if He does not, through us, decisively enter the world. It is my
belief that the destiny of the world today, in its current dramatic situation,
depends upon this: whether God - the God of Jesus Christ - exists and is
recognized as such, or whether He disappears. Our concern is that He should
remain present."
HML/IMITATING CHRIST/... VIS 061108 (520)

SUMMARY

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