"Let the light of Christ shine, not one's own light"

By Andrea Tornielli

Benedict XVI died emeritus but was buried as pontiff. An ocean of prayers accompanied the funeral rite presided over by Pope Francis on the parvis of St. Peter's Basilica. Prayers of gratitude rose up from all over the world, in the certainty that Joseph Ratzinger can finally enjoy the face of the Lord he loved and followed all his life, and to whom he addressed his last words before his final hours: "Lord, I love you!"

There is a distinctive trait that unites Benedict XVI to his successor, and we can find it in the words that the Pope Emeritus spoke in his first Urbi et Orbi message, on the morning the day after his election: "In undertaking his ministry, the new Pope knows that his task is to bring the light of Christ to shine before the men and women of today: not his own light but that of Christ". Not his own light, his own protagonism, his own ideas, his own tastes, but the light of Christ. Because, as Benedict XVI said, the Church is not our Church but His Church, the Church of God. The servant must account for how he has managed the good that has been entrusted to him. We do not bind people to us; we do not seek power, prestige or esteem for ourselves. It is interesting to note that already as a cardinal, for years, Joseph Ratzinger had warned the Church against a pathology that afflicted it and still afflicts it: that of relying on structures, on the organisation. That of wanting to 'count' on the world stage in order to be 'relevant'.

In May 2010 in Fatima, Benedict XVI told the Portuguese bishops: "When, in the feeling of many, the Catholic faith is no longer the common patrimony of society and is often seen as a seed undermined and obfuscated by 'divinities' and lords of this world, it is very difficult for it to touch hearts through simple speeches or moral appeals, and even less through generic reminders of Christian values". Because "the mere utterance of the message does not reach deep into the heart of the person, does not touch his freedom, does not change his life. What fascinates above all is the encounter with believing people who, through their faith, draw people towards the grace of Christ, bearing witness to Him'. It is not speeches, grand reasoning or vibrant reminders of moral values that touch the hearts of today's women and men. Religious and proselytising marketing strategies are not needed for the mission. Nor can today's Church think of living in nostalgia for the relevance and power it had in the past. Quite the contrary: both Benedict XVI and his successor Francis have preached and witnessed to the importance of returning to the essential, to a Church rich only in the light it freely receives from its Lord.

And it is precisely this return to the essential that is the key to the mission. Joseph Ratzinger had said this when he was still prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, during a catechesis in December 2000, which was quoted in these days by Fides director Gianni Valente. Ratzinger took his starting point from the Gospel parable of the Kingdom of God, compared by Jesus to the mustard seed, which "is the smallest of all seeds but, once it has grown, is larger than the other plants in the garden and becomes a tree". He explained that when speaking of the "new evangelisation" in secularised societies, it was necessary to avoid "the temptation of impatience, the temptation to immediately seek great success, to seek great numbers". Because this "is not God's method". The new evangelisation, he added, "cannot mean: immediately attracting with new, more refined methods the great masses that have drifted away from the Church". The very history of the Church, Cardinal Ratzinger further observed, teaches that 'great things always begin with the small grain and mass movements are always ephemeral'. Because God 'does not count with large numbers; external power is not the sign of his presence. Most of Jesus' parables point to this structure of divine action and thus respond to the concerns of the disciples, who expected quite different successes and signs from the Messiah - successes of the kind offered by Satan to the Lord'. The Christians, the future Benedict XVI further recalled, "were small communities scattered throughout the world, insignificant according to worldly criteria. In reality they were the seed that penetrated the dough from within and carried within themselves the future of the world'. Therefore, it is not a question of 'enlarging the spaces' of the Church in the world: 'We do not seek an audience for ourselves, we do not want to increase the power and extension of our institutions, but we want to serve the good of people and humanity by giving space to He who is Life. 

And precisely this return to the essentials is the key to the mission. Joseph Ratzinger had said this when he was still prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, during a catechesis in December 2000, which was quoted in these days by Fides director Gianni Valente. Cardinal Ratzinger took his starting point from the Gospel parable of the Kingdom of God, compared by Jesus to the mustard seed, which "is the smallest of all seeds but, once it has grown, is larger than the other plants in the garden and becomes a tree". He explained that when speaking of the "new evangelisation" in secularised societies, it was necessary to avoid "the temptation of impatience, the temptation to immediately seek great success, to seek great numbers". Because this "is not God's method". The new evangelisation, he added, "cannot mean: immediately attracting with new, more refined methods the great masses that have drifted away from the Church". The very history of the Church, Cardinal Ratzinger further observed, teaches that 'great things always begin with the small grain and mass movements are always ephemeral'. Because God 'does not count with large numbers; external power is not the sign of his presence. Most of Jesus' parables point to this structure of divine action and thus respond to the concerns of the disciples, who expected quite different successes and signs from the Messiah - successes of the kind offered by Satan to the Lord'. The Christians, the future Benedict XVI further recalled, "were small communities scattered throughout the world, insignificant according to worldly criteria. In reality they were the seed that penetrated the dough from within and carried within themselves the future of the world'. Therefore, it is not a question of "enlarging the spaces" of the Church in the world: "We do not seek an audience for ourselves, we do not want to increase the power and extension of our institutions, but we want to serve the good of people and humanity by giving space to He who is Life. This expropriation of the self by offering it to Christ for the salvation of mankind, is the fundamental condition of true commitment to the Gospel'.

It is this awareness that has accompanied the Christian, theologian, bishop and Pope Benedict XVI throughout his long existence. An awareness echoed in a quotation that his successor - to whom he always guaranteed "reverence and obedience" - wished to include in his funeral homily. It is taken from the "Pastoral Rule" of St Gregory the Great: “Amid the shipwreck of the present life, sustain me, I beseech you, by the plank of your prayer, that, since my own weight sinks me down, the hand of your merit will raise me up”. "It is the awareness of the Shepherd," commented Pope Francis, "that he cannot carry alone what, in reality, he could never carry alone and, therefore, he knows how to abandon himself to prayer and to the care of the people entrusted to him. Because without Him, without the Lord, we can do nothing.