To belong to him, to be called by him, is to be rooted in life indestructible.
-Ratzinger, Eschatology.
The news coming out of Rome has perhaps led some of us to think about Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, about death, about life.
Several years ago, Word Among Us published a short book I wrote as a popular introduction to Benedict’s thought. No, I was not seeking to compete with actual theologians writing quite ably on the topic, but simply to provide a way into his thinking for a general audience – especially since so much was available online in the form of papal homilies, addresses and so on.
His fellow academics have correctly discerned many fundamental themes in the work of theologian Joseph Ratzinger: an interest in the relationship between faith and reason, religion and culture, modernity and faith; the liturgy; and the continuity and discontinuity in historical development.
A pope does not leave his own interests and expertise at the door of the Sistine Chapel when he is elected, so all these points of study that interested Joseph Ratzinger over his decades as an academic theologian continue to inform his writing as pope.
However, when you listen and read the papal writings attentively, it is difficult not to notice one particular element that seems to come into focus no matter what the specific topic or who the audience is.
That “element” is a person: Jesus Christ.
Benedict made this focus clear from his first homily as pope. He referred to Pope John Paul II’s 1978 inaugural homily in which his predecessor exhorted his listeners to “Open wide the doors for Christ.” Benedict concluded his own homily in this way:
If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful, and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ—and you will find true life.
Pope Benedict has articulated this invitation countless times over the years of his pontificate. Whether the initial occasion concerns liturgy, vocations, justice and charity, or a particular moment in the Church’s year, for the Holy Father, everything always comes back to Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus, the pope reminds us, that we find the peace for which our anxious, restless hearts yearn. In him we find joy and comfort when the world lets us down. It is in him that we find the true, lasting answers to the anxieties and fears that beset us all in the darkest nights and in the midst of the most intense suffering.
Come Meet Jesus highlights the ways in which Pope Benedict is inviting his listeners, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, to discover the saving, healing, life-giving love of Jesus. Pope Benedict’s words are not difficult to understand. He writes in a lucid, clear style. However, as I mentioned at the beginning, the quantity of works available from even a few years of his papacy is great, and not many of us have the time to follow the pope’s words on a daily basis. This book is offered with the hopes that more might be inspired to listen with open minds and hearts to Pope Benedict’s persistent and heartfelt invitation for all of us to put friendship with Jesus at the center of our lives.
I thought I’d share with you the end of the book, the last chapter of which is centered on suffering and death.
Death looms in all of our lives. Some of us have lived more intimately with it than others.
Perhaps we have come close to death ourselves, or been in the presence of someone who have died, or engaged in that corporal work of mercy we call “burying the dead”—caring for what is left with respect for what God has made.
There is no question that to face death and commit to seeing the other side that Jesus promises is an act of faith. None of us reading these pages has ever walked to that other side and returned. We cannot know what it was like in the same way that we can know what it is to visit Chicago, for example, or give birth, or even come close to the brink of death itself. It is in the company of this reality that we must finally and absolutely confront the issue that has lurked for so long: who is this Jesus of whom we speak, in whom we say we believe?
If he is only a teacher, even his most powerful teachings cannot really help me as I face death, for there are many teachers who have taught many things. Why believe him and not them?
If he is one in whom I believe because belief in him joins me to others on this earth and gives me a ticket to various rituals that bestow a particular identity, what good is that ticket when my skin is cold and my body is lowered in the ground?
If his story gives me comfort now, but is no more or less true than other stories that others share, what fruit can the story bear for me when my ears can no longer hear them?
Throughout this book, we have listened to Pope Benedict “propose” Jesus of Nazareth to us. He has not proposed a useful idea, an interesting story, or a profitable life plan. He has proposed a Person, the Son of God who really lived, died, and rose, and who lives now and who can be known now and who is Lord of creation now.
Faced with the void, I must ask: Do I really believe that?
Because if I do—if Jesus is the Lord who is with me now, who forgives me, who guides me, who gives me his very life in Eucharist, whose every word in the gospels is directed at me, then there is no void. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? (1 Cor 15:55).
This is the joy of the Easter Vigil: we are free. In the resurrection of Jesus, love has been shown to be stronger than death, stronger than evil. Love made Christ descend, and love is also the power by which he ascends. The power by which he brings us with him. In union with his love, borne aloft on the wings of love, as persons of love, let us descend with him into the world’s darkness, knowing that in this way we will also rise up with him. On this night, then, let us pray: Lord, show us that love is stronger than hatred, that love is stronger than death. Descend into the darkness and the abyss of our modern age, and take by the hand those who await you. Bring them to the light! In my own dark nights, be with me to bring me forth! Help me, help all of us, to descend with you into the darkness of all those people who are still waiting for you, who out of the depths cry unto you! Help us to bring them your light! Help us to say the “yes” of love, the love that makes us descend with you and, in so doing, also to rise with you. Amen!
Charlotte was Both 
Pope Benedict XVI was one of the few people who could be a worthy successor to John Paul II. Thanks.
It wasn’t downloadable by clicking there.