A tribute to a spiritual father.
Many tributes and obituaries have already been written about Pope Benedict XVI, many beautiful and some vitriolic. I would like to offer my own tribute as the first post on this new website.
I was not ready to take in the wisdom of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI when I was first exposed to it. Home on summer break after my sophomore year at university, I had only begun learning about Catholicism and the history of Christianity. I was perusing a Barnes & Noble and spotted Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity. My initial thought was, “What a perfect book for me to begin learning about Christianity.” But I was not even close to prepared to breathe in the refined analysis and theology of one of the most brilliant minds of the century. I put the book on my shelf, where it remained unread for years.
Fast forward to 2010. Having entered the Church about a year after Pope Benedict was elected, I was now in my novitiate year of formation with my former religious community, the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. Confident in my priestly vocation but unsure as to the particulars of God’s plan, and still lacking a great deal of spiritual maturity, I took great comfort from a letter Pope Benedict XVI wrote that October to seminarians, in which he said:
[M]any people nowadays also think that the Catholic priesthood is not a “job” for the future, but one that belongs more to the past. You, dear friends, have decided to enter the seminary and to prepare for priestly ministry in the Catholic Church in spite of such opinions and objections. You have done a good thing. Because people will always have need of God, even in an age marked by technical mastery of the world and globalization: they will always need the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, the God who gathers us together in the universal Church in order to learn with him and through him life’s true meaning and in order to uphold and apply the standards of true humanity… God is alive, and he needs people to serve him and bring him to others. It does makes sense to become a priest: the world needs priests, pastors, today, tomorrow and always, until the end of time.
…Dear seminarians, with these few lines I have wanted to let you know how often I think of you, especially in these difficult times, and how close I am to you in prayer. Please pray for me, that I may exercise my ministry well, as long as the Lord may wish. I entrust your journey of preparation for priesthood to the maternal protection of Mary Most Holy, whose home was a school of goodness and of grace.
These are the words of a spiritual father, and I will always be grateful to Pope Benedict XVI for them.
Later on in seminary, I came across something else he wrote, back when he was the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was a document called Donum veritatis, and it lays out the vocation of the theologian.
Recently, I attended Pope Benedict XVI’s funeral Mass. What a blessing to thank him and pray for him. Only God knows how many souls he impacted. Now, I will read and meditate on Introduction to Christianity and Donum veritatis as I prepare for my training as a theologian dedicated to the study of Mary. I am eager to begin, with Mary interceding and Christ’s wisdom lighting the way through the words of this humble and dedicated servant.
Rest in peace, spiritual father.
(Note: this post was updated on Jan. 6th)
