Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Over the past few months no few experts and commentators expressed doubts about the Holy Father's Apostolic Visit to the Holy Land. Some even suggested, better not go: such a complicated situation with the Palestinians after the fighting in Gaza and with the Israelis after the Williamson story and with the ongoing diatribe over Pius XII. Nevertheless Pope Benedict XVI, who has a lofty vision of the mystery of God which the Church has the duty to announce to the world, went, led simply by the Holy Spirit and not for any 'political' reason, however real. St Paul recalls in fact that “ reality is Christ” (Col 2,17).
His vision turned the journey into a triumph, despite glum forecasts, even from certain journalists who still see the things of the Church according to “progressist” that is good schemas, to counter “conservative”, that is bad, schemas. We need to ask ourselves: what logic should guide any Catholic bishop anywhere in the world, the Pope, first of all? Solely the logic of announcing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who became man in order to bear witness to the truth, who died for our sins and who rose from the dead to save and to justify all mankind.
This would appear simple, but it is bracketed not only in the world - and this is obvious - but even in the Church. It is no new thing, that some would remove from the life of Christ any value of truth, from his death any expiatory value, and from his resurrection any historic relevance. Yet Christ died “propter”, that is for us and in our place, since he alone could make reparation for the offence committed against God with sin, as the doctrine of the Church states. No other human, finite and a sinner, could do it. Being true man and true God, He could.
In his encyclical Spe salvi the Holy Father Benedict XVI writes about "the figure of Christ as the true philosopher, holding the Gospel in one hand and the philosopher's travelling staff in the other. With his staff, he conquers death; the Gospel brings the truth that itinerant philosophers had searched for in vain. In this image, which then became a common feature of sarcophagus art for a long time, we see clearly what both educated and simple people found in Christ: he tells us who man truly is and what a man must do in order to be truly human. He shows us the way, and this way is the truth. He himself is both the way and the truth, and therefore he is also the life which all of us are seeking. He also shows us the way beyond death; only someone able to do this is a true teacher of life. The same thing becomes visible in the image of the shepherd. As in the representation of the philosopher, so too through the figure of the shepherd the early Church could identify with existing models of Roman art. There the shepherd was generally an expression of the dream of a tranquil and simple life, for which the people, amid the confusion of the big cities, felt a certain longing. Now the image was read as part of a new scenario which gave it a deeper content: “The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want ... Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, because you are with me ...” (Ps 23 [22]:1, 4). The true shepherd is one who knows even the path that passes through the valley of death; one who walks with me even on the path of final solitude, where no one can accompany me, guiding me through: he himself has walked this path, he has descended into the kingdom of death, he has conquered death, and he has returned to accompany us now and to give us the certainty that, together with him, we can find a way through. The realization that there is One who even in death accompanies me, and with his “rod and his staff comforts me”, so that “I fear no evil” (cf. Ps 23 [22]:4)—this was the new “hope” that arose over the life of believers. ” (cf. Spe Salvi n. 6).
Christ did not find in his expiatory death simply a reason for hope, because he himself is Hope: ‘Surrexit Christus spes mea’, as the Easter sequence sings . This and none other then, is the necessary and sufficient reason for the Pope's visit to the Holy Land where Jesus Christ became man in Nazareth, was born in Bethlehem, preached in Galilee and Judea, died and rose from the dead in Jerusalem. (Agenzia Fides 14/5/2009; righe 43, parole 692)
