Teachers ask questions
Pope Benedict XVI is a great teacher, and he asks great questions. He did that again today in his homily at a Mass in Regensburg’s Islinger Field.
“We are gathered for a celebration of faith,” said the Pope. “But the question immediately arises: What do we actually believe? What does it mean to have faith?…
“The Church, for her part,” he continued, “has given us a little ‘Summa’ in which everything essential is expressed. It is the so-called ‘Apostles’ Creed”, which … speaks of God, the creator and source of all that is, of Christ and His work of salvation, and it culminates in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting.”
But just like teachers prod their students into explaining the meaning behind something they learn and say by rote, Benedict asks people who have been saying the Creed all their lives….what it means.
“We believe in God. This is a fundamental decision on our part,” said the Holy Father, recalling how “from the Enlightenment on, science, at least in part, has applied itself to seeking an explanation of the world in which God would be unnecessary.” If this were so, he added, “He would also become unnecessary in our lives. But whenever the attempt seemed to be nearing success, inevitably it would become clear that something was missing from the equation!”
“What came first?” the Holy Father asked, “Creative Reason, the Spirit who makes all things and gives them growth, or Unreason, which, lacking any meaning, somehow brings forth a mathematically ordered cosmos, as well as man and his reason? … As Christians, we … believe that at the beginning of everything is the eternal Word, with Reason and not Unreason. With this faith we have no reason to hide, no fear of ending up in a dead end.”
He methodically works through all the reasoning behind the prayerful words, so that they become more than words. And he applies them to modern thinking.
“We believe in God,” he continued, “the God Who is Creator Spirit, creative Reason, the source of everything that exists, including ourselves. The second section of the Creed tells us more. This creative Reason is Goodness, it is Love. It has a face. … He has shown himself to us as a man. … Today, when we have learned to recognize the pathologies and the life-threatening diseases associated with religion and reason, and the ways that God’s image can be destroyed by hatred and fanaticism, it is important to state clearly the God in Whom we believe, and to proclaim confidently that this God has a human face. Only this can free us from being afraid of God – which is ultimately at the root of modern atheism. Only this God saves us from being afraid of the world and from anxiety before the emptiness of life.”
Then he gets to the politically sensitive notion of judgment.
“The second section of the Creed ends by speaking of the last judgment. … Judgment – doesn’t this word also make us afraid? On the other hand, doesn’t everyone want to see justice eventually rendered to all those who were unjustly condemned, to all those who suffered in life, who died after lives full of pain? Don’t we want the outrageous injustice and suffering which we see in human history to be finally undone, so that in the end everyone will find happiness, and everything will be shown to have meaning?
“This triumph of justice, this joining together of the many fragments of history which seem meaningless and giving them their place in a bigger picture in which truth and love prevail: this is what is meant by the concept of universal judgment.
 When Christ wrapped up his teachings with the apostles, he cautioned them to not be afraid, then he sent them out on mission. Benedict did the same.
“Faith is not meant to instill fear; rather it is meant … to call us to accountability,” the Holy Father concluded. “We are not meant to waste our lives, misuse them, or spend them selfishly. In the face of injustice we must not remain indifferent and thus end up as silent collaborators or outright accomplices. We need to recognize our mission in history and to strive to carry it out.”
“But when responsibility and concern tend to bring on fear, then we should remember the words of Saint John: … ‘No matter what our hearts may charge us with – God is greater than our hearts and all is known to Him.”
Homework: read the entire text when it becomes available here.
