Upon a request from Father Michiel Peeters of Voorhof.net, I made a translation of the lectio divina that Pope Benedict XVI held at the Basilica of St. John Lateran on 11 June. Fr. Peeters considers the text an ideal tool for people preparing for Baptism, and that is the topic that the Holy Father discoursed about.
Here we see the professor pope, the university teacher expounding on essential Catholic theology, both personally and creatively. The text, crafted to be heard rather than read, is sometimes dense, but always challenging. It is, as a lectio divina should be, just as much an educational experience as a personal call for each of us to renew our own journey on the way of Baptism. As the Holy Father says, “we are constantly on a baptismal journey, on a catechumenal journey, through these words and through the realisation of these words. The Sacrament of Baptism is not an act that lasts an hour. Rather it is a reality of our whole life, a journey of our whole life.”
Photo credit: Reuters/Max Rossi
In Caelo et in Terra 