Pope Benedict XVI - Books and Quotes

From Totus Tuus page:

"Exciting news for Catholics worldwide! A beautiful new English edition of “The Lord Holds Us by the Hand” has just been released by Ignatius Press. This collection brings together previously unpublished homilies of Pope Benedict XVI, delivered during private Masses — both during his pontificate and as Pope Emeritus.

Spanning the liturgical seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter (2005–2017), these homilies offer a profound window into the heart of Joseph Ratzinger as preacher, theologian, and pastor. With Christ always at the center, Benedict reflects on how the Lord accompanies us, sustains us, and holds us by the hand on our journey of faith.

The book includes a preface by Archbishop Georg Gänswein and an introduction by Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ. It is the first volume in a series — with more unpublished homilies expected soon!

In these pages, we hear once again Benedict XVI’s clear, deep, and Christ-centered voice reminding us that the Christian life is never a solitary path, but one guided by God’s presence and mercy.

This is a wonderful gift for anyone who loves Pope Benedict’s writings and wants to grow closer to Christ through Scripture and prayer."

 

Book description:

"What did Pope Benedict XVI teach and preach when he was out of the limelight, behind closed doors, among friends? In his late years, after the noise of the papacy had quieted down, how did he understand Scripture, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Christian life? When he had the room to be vulnerable, what did he say about the heart of his own spirituality?

In The Lord Holds Us by the Hand, we experience a different side of Joseph Ratzinger. This collection of private homilies―all delivered off the public record in small chapels, during his years as pope and pope emeritus―reveals not a “detached exegete”, as his longtime secretary Archbishop Gänswein notes, but a Christian in “lively participation” with God. In these meditations, never before published in English, “exegesis, theology, catechesis, and spirituality intertwine and join together, leading the listener to enter in depth into the heart of the mystery of Christ.”

The work touches on many of the complex truths of the Catholic faith, from the Immaculate Conception to the mystery of our salvation on the Cross, yet it distills them into simple, personal, human terms, refined by a lifetime of prayer and experience."

 

From a Pope Benedict XVI Fb page:

"On this day in 1951 Joseph Alois Ratzinger was ordained to the priesthood, together with his brother, Georg.

This is what he had to say about this momentous occasion in 2016:

"Sixty-five years ago, a fellow priest who was ordained on the same day wrote on the memorial card for his first Mass his name, the date and a single word in Greek: Eucharistomen. This word, in all its dimensions, expresses all that can be said at this moment. Eucharistomen is also about human thanksgiving...

Eucharistomen... At that time, my friend Berger was not referring only to the dimension of human gratitude but naturally hints at the more profound word that is hidden, which appears in the liturgy, in the Scriptures, in the words "gratias agens benedixit fregit deditque”... Eucharistomen brings us back to that reality of thanksgiving, to that new dimension that Christ has given. He has transformed into thanksgiving, and so into blessing, the Cross, the suffering, all the evil of the world. And thus He has fundamentally transubstantiated life and the world, and has given us, and gives us today the Bread of true life, which overcomes the world thanks to the strength of his love.

In the end, we also want to be put inside the Lord's thanksgiving and thus actually receive the newness of life and help transubstantiation of the world: that it be a world not of death, but of life; a world in which love has overcome death."

- Pope Benedict XVI, 28 June 2016.

 

Also from Fb page:

"Joseph Ratzinger was ordained to the priesthood on this day in 1951.

Pope Benedict XVI, Letter to Seminarians
18 October 2010

When in December 1944 I was drafted for military service, the company commander asked each of us what we planned to do in the future. I answered that I wanted to become a Catholic priest. The lieutenant replied: “Then you ought to look for something else. In the new Germany priests are no longer needed”. I knew that this “new Germany” was already coming to an end, and that, after the enormous devastation which that madness had brought upon the country, priests would be needed more than ever. Today the situation is completely changed. In different ways, though, many 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. Where people no longer perceive God, life grows empty; nothing is ever enough. People then seek escape in euphoria and violence; these are the very things that increasingly threaten young people. God is alive. He has created every one of us and he knows us all. He is so great that he has time for the little things in our lives: “Every hair of your head is numbered”. 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."

 

A great man and theologian. Sadly missed.

 

From Fb page on Pope Benedict XVI:

Tuesday, 30 June
The FIRST MARTYRS of the CHURCH of ROME

"Love for Christ, for his words and for the Truth, we cannot stoop to compromises. The Truth is Truth; there are no compromises. Christian life demands, so to speak, the “martyrdom” of daily fidelity to the Gospel, the courage, that is, to let Christ grow within us and let him be the One who guides our thought and our actions. However, this can happen in our life only if we have a solid relationship with God. Prayer is not time wasted, it does not take away time from our activities, even apostolic activities, but exactly the opposite is true: only if we are able to have a faithful, constant and trusting life of prayer will God himself give us the ability and strength to live happily and serenely, to surmount difficulties and to witness courageously to him."

Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience,
29 August 2012.