Text 873, 81 rader
Skriven 2005-12-13 06:15:54 av Marc Lewis (1:396/45)
Ärende: Vatican Information Service - Press Release
===================================================
Hello All!

                The following press release is Copyrighted by the
                          Vatican Information Service.
                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                               VIS-Press releases

ABANDONING ONESELF TO GOD DOES NOT MEAN LOSS OF FREEDOM

VATICAN CITY, DEC 8, 2005 (VIS) - In the Vatican Basilica today, Solemnity of
the Immaculate Conception, Benedict XVI presided at a Eucharistic
concelebration to mark the fortieth anniversary of the closure of Vatican
Council II. Forty cardinals and 80 bishops concelebrated with the Holy Father.

At the start of his homily, the Pope recalled how Blessed John XXIII
inaugurated the Council on October 11, 1962, which at the time was the Feast of
the Divine Maternity of Mary, and how Paul VI closed in on the Feast of the
Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1965.

The moment in which Paul VI proclaimed Mary as the Mother of the Church
"remains etched in my memory" said Pope Benedict. "The Council Fathers rose
spontaneously from their chairs and applauded, paying homage to the Mother of
God, to our Mother, to the Mother of the Church."

The Holy Father affirmed that Mary "not only has a special relationship with
Christ, the Son of God Who, as man, chose to become her Son; but being totally
united to Christ, she also belongs completely to us."

With reference to the designation "Immaculate," Benedict XVI pointed out how
"today's liturgy clarifies the meaning of this word using two great images:"
the announcement to Mary of the coming of the Messiah, and the struggle between
man and the serpent, in other words, "between man and the powers of evil and
death. It is, however, foretold that the 'descendant' of woman will one day
triumph crushing the serpent's head, underfoot."

It emerges however that "man does not trust God," the Pope continued. "He
harbors the suspicion that, in the end, God takes something from his life; that
God is a competitor limiting our freedom, and that we will only be fully human
when we have definitively put Him aside; that only in this way can we fully
realize our freedom."

Man, he went on, "wants to draw from the tree of knowledge the power to create
the world, to make himself a god at the same level as Him, and to triumph over
darkness and death. He does not want to rely on love, which he sees as
undependable, and so he relies solely on his own knowledge as giving him power.
Rather than on love, he counts on power with which he seeks to control his own
life autonomously," but in doing so "he trusts lies more than truth."

After highlighting the fact that love "is not dependency, but a gift that
allows us to live," the Pope said: "Only if we live with one another and for
one another can freedom develop. ... If we live contrary to love and contrary
to truth - contrary to God - we destroy one another and we destroy the world."

Benedict XVI pointed out that "within each of us is a drop of poison," which we
call original sin. "It is precisely on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception
that the suspicion arises in us that a person who does not sin at all is, in
the end, a little boring, that something is lacking in his or her life: the
dramatic dimension of being autonomous."

Yet, he went on, "evil always poisons, it does not raise man but lowers and
humiliates him, it does not make him greater, purer and richer, but damages him
and makes him smaller. This, rather, is what we should learn on the day of the
Immaculate Conception: that the man who abandons himself completely in the
hands of God, does not become a puppet of God, ... he does not lose his
freedom," but finds it.

"The closer man is to God, the closer he is to rest of mankind," said the Holy
Father. "We see this in Mary. The fact that she is completely with God is the
reason she is also so close to human beings. It is for this reason that she is
able to be the mother of all consolation and all help."

The Virgin, he concluded, addresses us all saying "do not be afraid of Him! ...
Commit yourself to God, and you will see that precisely because of this your
life will become more extensive and illuminated, not boring, but full of
infinite surprises, because God's infinite goodness never runs dry!"
HML/IMMACULATE CONCEPTION:COUNCIL/... VIS 051209 (730)

SUMMARY

--- MPost/386 v1.21
 * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS New Orleans 1-504-897-6006 USR 33.6k (1:396/45)