Paving the way for his first state visit to Germany, Pope Benedict XVI recorded a message for German tv program Wort am Sonntag yesterday. The Holy Father will travel to Germany on Thursday. In his address, which can be read in German here and in English here, the pope looks forward to his visit, emphasising especially his visit to the monastery “where Luther began his journey”. He also emphases that the visit is not religious tourism or a show. For the pope, his visit is about God, of whom we have such dire need, returning to our world. He closes his address with words which touch upon the basic crisis of faith in the west: the question of God’s existence. I’ll simply share it here.
Perhaps you will ask me: “But does God exist? And if he exists, does he care about us? Can we reach him?” It is true of course that we cannot put God on the table, we cannot touch him like a utensil or take him in hand like any object. We must again develop the capacity to perceive God, a capacity that exists in us. We can intuit something of God’s grandeur in the grandeur of the cosmos. We can use the world through technology because it is made in a rational manner. In the great rationality of the world we can intuit the creator spirit from which it comes, and in the beauty of creation we can intuit something of the beauty, of the grandeur and also the goodness of God. In the Word of sacred Scriptures we can hear the words of eternal life that do not come merely from men, but that come from him, and in them we hear his voice. And, finally, we glimpse God too in encounters with persons who are touched by him. I am not thinking only of the great ones: from Paul to Francis of Assisi to Mother Teresa; but I am thinking of the many simple people of whom no one speaks. And yet, when we meet them, there emanates something of goodness, sincerity, joy, and we know that God is there and that he touches us too. So, in these days we want to try to return to seeing God, to return to being persons through whom the light of hope might enter the world, a light that comes from God and helps us to live.
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In Caelo et in Terra 