WEDNESDAY HOMILY: Pope's Message for Lent Helps us Through Papal Transition

By Fr Samuel Medley, SOLT
2/13/2013
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Pope Benedict XVI's Message for Lent is what will help us go through a papal transition of saying farewell to his holiness and saying hello to his successor: "Believing in Charity Calls Forth Charity."

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HYTHE, KENT, UK (Catholic Online) - One fine morning ten years ago in St Peter's square in the Vatican I saw a man in a black cassock walk across the square. He had white hair and the build of a famous cardinal I knew. "That can't be. It is!" I walked up to him and asked him, "Are you Cardinal Ratzinger?" With a very warm smile he said, "Yes I am!"

Any intelligent premeditated question I had prepared for that moment went out of my mind and I felt like a total idiot staring in face of one of the brightest theological minds of third millennium.

He must have seen my awkwardness because he joked about how young I was when he visited my hometown of St Paul, Minnesota.

I like many have been touched by this gentle soul, this humble worker in the Lord's vineyard, this utterly amazing Pope.

For Lent, God is taking my Pope away.

In the middle of Lent I am getting a new Pope.

Believing in charity calls forth charity.

This is the Lenten message my Pope has asked me to think about, the Lenten interior and spiritual plan for the whole Church.

I believe in God. I believe God. I believe God's plan is to bring about the maximum charity in my soul and the souls of all the faithful. I believe God's plan for me to believe in charity and thus to bring it about is to not be shaken by receiving a new Pope in Lent.

As I am grateful for the gifts and blessings of Pope Benedict XVI, the awesome spiritual bombs the B16 has dropped and the explosive ripples of grace have blessed this generation, I am also truly grateful, sincerely and totally thankful IN ADVANCE for the next Pope.

I don't know who it will be, but I know that ...

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1 - 4 of 4 Comments

Ac
3 months ago
nice post - stuck w.me : shared it at the brkfst table for Saint Valentine's day - much love, Pater!
Helen R Hawkins
3 months ago
He is not going away. He will be our Beloved Grandfather. I will pray for this very Holy Man.
zeeshan
3 months ago
I am very much desheart POP Benedict XVI resigned really its our wish he will be till his life like POP but unfortunatly he do not continue........
Greg
3 months ago
If it was the United States, or Germany, or China, we could debate who would be the best for that country from secular point of view. Still, the person would be chose through democratic or not so democratic means. In case of the Church it is not us who build Her, but Christ. the Church is not democracy. It is a Kingdom, where the King is Christ. He will choose the best Pope He can choose out of all of us. Will he be a good Pope? Will he be a bad Pope? I don't know. Christ knows. He knew it on the Cross. He knew this very next Pope in the Garden of Eden. He knew all of them when He was creating the Universe. It is hard for me to get out of the trap of my sinful pride, and fear, but I proclaim that I trust Jesus more than I trust anyone else, and I know He knows what He is doing. I wish I could die and be of a good use for Him. I know He is trying to crack my heart open and change me the best it is possible to be done. I am so sorry, my Lord, that I had built so many defenses, and sinned so much in the past that it is so hard for me to die for myself. I wish I could be the best tool for you. I bed you. Change me. If you, dear reader, happen to read my poor post, please say to God Our Father, through Jesus Christ His Only Son, to change this poor Gregory, who desires to fall completely in Love in God's Creation, and to die completely to himself, and become obedient to God, and His Church. Amen."

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