Dear Friends and Family,
Talk about early rising! We were up at 5am and at Saint
Peter’s by 6:30. By 7:30 the crowds waiting to get into the square for the
Pope’s last General Audience were mounting into the thousands, so they let
everyone in early. For some reason the metal detector I was waiting in front of
broke down, so by the time I made it into the square, almost all the seats were
taken. I waited in the back of the square for a little, but then it was too
much – “Pope Benedict’s last public appearance?!?! – I’m not getting stuck in
the nosebleeds this time!”
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Crowd waiting to get in |
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Crowd during the crush to get in |
Miraculously the guards let me through three barriers and
into the front section. I ambled up to the front and lo and behold – there was
an extra seat. Turns out I was seated between two marvelous Irish Priests both
named Kevin! So that explains the picture of the “3 Kevins”.
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3 Kevins! |
The forecast was rain, but “powerful sun” might have been a
better call. There wasn’t a cloud in sight – it was one of those gloriously
sunny and mild Roman days.
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German Cardinal and Countryman |
During normal Wednesday audiences, people chant a lot. This
time around people were chanting before, during, and after.
Every news channel on the planet must have been there. They
were interviewing people all over the place. After the audience, I wandered
around listening to the news anchors report, and I was amazed at how positive
many of them were.
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Beautiful Day at Saint Peter's! |
When the Pope arrived, they drove him all around the square
so that everyone could see him up close one last time. (see diagram) The only
thing he stopped for were babies – Pope Benedict always stops for babies!
The place was packed – I’ve heard estimates around 150,000,
and that sounds right. The road in front of Saint Peter’s was full of people
too.
His talk seemed to me kind of like his last will and
testament – thanking God for His abundant care, thanking his collaborators for
their help, and thanking all of us who support him with our prayers and support
– and our letters! He asks us to all have a “vision of faith”, to see that the
Lord is ever near us, and to entrust our future to him.
It’s really worth it to read his whole speech – see below.
If not, at least read the shortened version I put together. We interrupted him
with clapping throughout, and gave him a standing ovation that would not have
ended if they hadn’t stopped us.
It was just so nice to sit there and be with the Holy Father
in this important moment of his life and of the Church’s life. With the
beautiful blue sky and St Peter’s and the Pope both sparkling white, it seemed
kind of like what heaven must be like – time stops, all is peace, and you feel
in your heart that truly “it is good to be here.”
I recorded the Pope’s last blessing and attached it to this
message. Before this one, they announced that the blessing travels to all our
family and friends, so there you have it – if you’re reading this, you get the
Pope’s last Blessing!!!
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Pope Benedict heads out |
They whisked him away pretty quickly after the audience, and
there’s a little video of that too. It was sad to see him go. Many people
cried. It really is like losing a father, though you have the consolation that
this father is and will be so close to your spiritually.
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Interview |
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New Report |
Tomorrow Benedict will meet privately with the Cardinals,
and then at 5pm he flies to Castel Gandolfo. At 8pm, he becomes “Pope
Emeritus”.
Tonight as I write this the stars are all out, but front and
center is a gigantic full moon. It’s golden. Even the heavens are wishing
Benedict well.
Let’s stay spiritually right next to our beloved Pope as he
makes his way through his last day in the shoes of Saint Peter.
God bless you,
Brother Kevin
Abbreviated
Talk of Pope Benedict:
“I
would like my greetings and my thanks, then, to reach everyone…
At
this point I would like to thank from my heart all the many people around the
world who in recent weeks have sent me touching tokens of attention, friendship
and prayer. Yes, the Pope is never alone, now I experience this again in so
great a way that it touches my heart. The Pope belongs to everyone and many
people feel very close to him. It is true that I receive letters from the great
ones of the world - from Heads of State, religious leaders, representatives of
the world of culture and so on. But I also receive many letters from ordinary
people who write to me simply from their heart and make me feel their
affection, born from being together with Christ Jesus, in the Church. These
people do not write to me the way one writes, for instance, to a prince or a to
great person that one does not know. They write to me as brothers and sisters,
sons and daughters, with the sense of a very affectionate family tie. Here one
can touch firsthand what the Church is - not an organization, not an
association for religious or humanitarian purposes, but a living body, a
community of brothers and sisters in the Body of Jesus Christ, who unites us
all. To experience the Church in this way and to be able almost to touch with
your hands the power of its truth and its love, is a source of joy, in a time
when many speak of its decline. But we see how the Church is alive today!
…
I
thank each and everyone for the respect and understanding with which you have
accepted this important decision. I will continue to accompany the journey of
the Church through prayer and reflection, with the dedication to the Lord and
to His Spouse, with which I have tried to live every day until now and with
which I want to live forever. I ask you to remember me before God, and above
all to pray for the Cardinals, who are called to so important a task, and for
the new Successor of Peter: may the Lord accompany him with the light and the
power of his Spirit.
Let us
invoke the maternal intercession of Mary, Mother of God and of the Church, that
she accompany each of us and the whole ecclesial community; we entrust
ourselves to Her, with deep confidence.
Dear
friends! God guides His Church, he sustains her always, and especially in
difficult times. Let us never lose this vision of faith, which is the only true
vision of the Church and the world. In our heart, in the heart of each of you,
may there always be the joyous certainty that the Lord is near us, he does not
abandon us, he is near us and surrounds us with his love. Thank you!”
Full Talk of Pope
Benedict:
“Venerable
Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood!
Distinguished
Authorities!
Dear Brothers and
Sisters!
Thank you for
coming in such large numbers to this last General Audience of my pontificate.
A heartfelt
thanks! I am truly moved! And I see the Church alive! And I think we should
also thank the Creator for the beautiful weather that He is giving us today
while we’re still in winter.
As the Apostle
Paul in the biblical text that we have heard, I too feel in my heart that I
must above all thank God, who guides and builds up the Church, who sows his
Word and thus nourishes the faith in his People. At this moment my heart
expands to embrace the whole Church throughout the world, and I thank God for
the "news" that in these years in the Petrine ministry I have been
able to receive about the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love that
circulates in the Body of the Church and makes it live in love, and about the
hope that opens us and directs us towards the fullness of life, towards the
heavenly homeland.
I feel that I
carry everyone in prayer, in a present that is God’s, where I recall every
meeting, every trip, every pastoral visit. I gather everyone in prayer to
entrust them to the Lord, so that we may have full knowledge of His will, in
all wisdom and spiritual understanding, and so that we may comport ourselves in
a manner worthy of Him, of His love, bearing fruit in every good work (cf. Col 1:9-10).
At this time, I
feel great trust, because I know, all of us know, that the Word of the truth of
the Gospel is the strength of the Church, it is its life. The Gospel purifies
and renews, it bears fruit, wherever the community of believers listens and
receives the grace of God in truth and lives in charity. This is my trust, this
is my joy.
When, on April 19
almost eight years ago, I agreed to take on the Petrine ministry, I felt this
certainty firmly, and it has always accompanied me. At that moment, as I have
already stated several times, the words that resounded in my heart were: Lord,
why are you asking this of me and what are you asking of me? It is a great
weight you are placing on my shoulders, but if this is what You ask, at your
word I will let down the nets, confident that You will guide me, even with my
weaknesses. And eight years later I can say that the Lord has truly guided me,
He has been close to me, I could feel His presence every day. It has been a
stretch of the Church's journey, which has had moments of joy and light, but
also difficult moments; I felt like St. Peter and the Apostles in the boat on
the Sea of Galilee: the Lord has given us many days of sunshine and gentle
breeze, days when the fishing has been plentiful, and there were also times
when the water was rough and the wind against us, as in the whole history of
the Church, and the Lord seemed to sleep. But I always knew that the Lord is in
the boat, and I always knew that the boat of the Church is not mine, not ours,
but it is His. And He will not let her sink, it is He who leads it, certainly
also through the men he has chosen, because so He has willed it. This was and
is a certainty, that nothing can obscure. And that is why today my heart is
filled with gratitude to God because He has never left me or the Church without
His consolation, His light, His love.
We are in the Year of Faith, which I
wanted to strengthen our faith in God in a context that seems to put it more
and more into the background. I would like to invite everyone to renew their
firm trust in the Lord, to trust like children in the arms of God, certain that
those arms support us always and are what allow us to walk every day, even when
fatigued. I would like everyone to feel loved by that God who gave his Son for
us and has shown us his boundless love. I want everyone to feel the joy of
being Christian. A beautiful prayer to be recited daily in the morning says:
"I adore you, my God, I love you with all my heart. Thank you for having
created me, for having made me Christian..." Yes, we are happy for the
gift of faith; it is the most precious thing, that no one can take from us! We
thank God for this every day, with prayer and with a coherent Christian life.
God loves us, but expects that we too love Him!
But it is not only
God that I want to thank at this time. A Pope is not alone in guiding the
barque of Peter, even if the primary responsibility is his; and I have never
felt alone in carrying the joy and weight of the Petrine ministry; the Lord has
put next to me many people, with generosity and love for God and the Church,
they have helped me and have been close to me. First of all you, dear Brother
Cardinals: your wisdom, your advice, your friendship has been precious to me;
my collaborators, starting with my Secretary of State who has accompanied me
faithfully over the years, the Secretary of State and the whole of the Roman
Curia, as well as all those who, in various fields, give their service to the
Holy See: there are many faces who do not appear, they remain in the shadow,
but precisely in this silence, in their daily work, in a spirit of faith and
humility, they have been a solid and reliable support for me. A special thought
to the Church of Rome, my diocese! I cannot forget the Brothers in the Episcopate
and in the Priesthood, consecrated persons and the entire People of God: in the
pastoral visits, in encounters, in the audences, in my travels, I have always
perceived great care and deep affection, but I also have loved each and every
one, without exception, with that pastoral charity which is the heart of every
pastor, especially the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of the Apostle Peter.
Every day I have remembered each of you in my prayers, with a father's heart.
I would like my
greetings and my thanks, then, to reach everyone: the heart of a Pope extends
to the whole world. And I would like to express my gratitude to the Diplomatic
Corps at the Holy See, which makes present the great family of nations. Here I
also think of all those who work for a good communication and I thank them for
their important service.
At this point I
would like to thank from my heart all the many people around the world who in
recent weeks have sent me touching tokens of attention, friendship and prayer.
Yes, the Pope is never alone, now I experience this again in so great a way
that it touches my heart. The Pope belongs to everyone and many people feel
very close to him. It is true that I receive letters from the great ones of the
world - from Heads of State, religious leaders, representatives of the world of
culture and so on. But I also receive many letters from ordinary people who
write to me simply from their heart and make me feel their affection, born from
being together with Christ Jesus, in the Church. These people do not write to
me the way one writes, for instance, to a prince or a to great person that one
does not know. They write to me as brothers and sisters, sons and daughters,
with the sense of a very affectionate family tie. Here one can touch firsthand
what the Church is - not an organization, not an association for religious or
humanitarian purposes, but a living body, a community of brothers and sisters
in the Body of Jesus Christ, who unites us all. To experience the Church in
this way and to be able almost to touch with your hands the power of its truth
and its love, is a source of joy, in a time when many speak of its decline. But
we see how the Church is alive today!
In recent months,
I felt that my strength had decreased, and I asked God earnestly in prayer to
enlighten me with His light to make me take the right decision not for my sake,
but for the good of the Church. I have taken this step in full awareness of its
seriousness and also its novelty, but with profound peace of mind. Loving the
Church also means having the courage to make tough choices, difficult ones,
having always before oneself the good of the Church and not oneself.
Here allow me to
return once again to April 19, 2005. The seriousness of the decision also lay
precisely in the fact that from that moment on I was busy always and forever
with the Lord. Always - whoever assumes the Petrine ministry no longer has any
privacy. He belongs always and totally to everyone, to the whole Church. His
life is, so to speak, totally deprived of its private dimension. I experienced,
and I am experiencing it now, that one receives life when one gives it. I said
before that many people who love the Lord also love the Successor of Saint
Peter and are fond of him, that the Pope truly has brothers and sisters, sons
and daughters all over the world, and that he feels safe in the embrace of
their communion; because he no longer belongs to himself, he belongs to all and
all belong to him.
The
"always" is also a "forever" - there is no return to the
private sphere. My decision to forgo the exercise of active ministry, does not
revoke this. I will not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings,
receptions, conferences and so on. I am not abandoning the cross, but remain in
a new way with the Crucified Lord. I no longer carry the power of the office
for the government of the Church, but in the service of prayer I remain, so to
speak, within St. Peter's bounds. St. Benedict, whose name I bear as Pope, will
be for me a great example in this. He showed us the way to a life which, active
or passive, belongs wholly to the work of God.
I thank each and
everyone for the respect and understanding with which you have accepted this
important decision. I will continue to accompany the journey of the Church
through prayer and reflection, with the dedication to the Lord and to His
Spouse, with which I have tried to live every day until now and with which I
want to live forever. I ask you to remember me before God, and above all to
pray for the Cardinals, who are called to so important a task, and for the new
Successor of Peter: may the Lord accompany him with the light and the power of
his Spirit.
Let us invoke the
maternal intercession of Mary, Mother of God and of the Church, that she
accompany each of us and the whole ecclesial community; we entrust ourselves to
Her, with deep confidence.
Dear friends! God
guides His Church, he sustains her always, and especially in difficult times.
Let us never lose this vision of faith, which is the only true vision of the
Church and the world. In our heart, in the heart of each of you, may there
always be the joyous certainty that the Lord is near us, he does not abandon
us, he is near us and surrounds us with his love. Thank you!”
[Translation by
Peter Waymel/ZENIT News Agency]