By Catholic News Service
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) — When attending Mass and receiving the Eucharist, Catholics must be filled with gratitude for God’s great gifts, Pope Benedict XVI told a group of his former students.
“Despite the fact that we have nothing to give in return and we are full of faults,” the pope said, Jesus “invites us to his table and wants to be with us.”
The pope presided at a Mass Aug. 29 in Castel Gandolfo during his annual meeting with students who did their doctorates with him when he was a professor in Germany.
Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, a regular participant in the “Ratzinger Schulerkreis” (Ratzinger student circle), gave the homily at the Mass, but the pope made remarks at the beginning of the liturgy.
The Vatican released the text of the pope’s remarks Aug. 31.
Introducing the penitential rite, Pope Benedict said: “In today’s Gospel the Lord makes us see how, in reality, we continue to live like the pagans do. We extend invitations only to those who can invite us. We give only to those who can give back.”
In the day’s Gospel passage from Luke, Jesus tells his disciples not to invite the rich to dinner “in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
The pope told his former students that “God’s style” of inviting people is clear in the gift of the Eucharist.
“Before him we are crippled, blind and deaf; he invites us even though we have nothing to give him,” the pope said.
Pope Benedict said Catholics must experience gratitude before such a generous God.
But in addition, he said, we must “feel guilt for detaching ourselves so slightly from the pagan style, for living so slightly in the new way, God’s way.”
Pope Benedict chose Archbishop Kurt Koch, the former bishop of Basel, Switzerland, to lead the formal discussions of the “schulerkreis” this year. Archbishop Koch is the new president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
The discussions, held behind closed doors, focused on understanding the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the balance it tried to strike between reforming the church and maintaining tradition, reported L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.
Archbishop Koch gave two lectures: “The Second Vatican Council: Between Tradition and Innovation,” and another on the council’s document on the liturgy and on the liturgical reforms it launched.
The lectures were followed by discussion among the participants, including the pope.
Summarizing the discussion for L’Osservatore Romano Aug. 31, Archbishop Koch said, “Faithfulness to tradition, openness to the future: That is the most correct interpretation of the Second Vatican Council, which remains the Magna Carta of the church, including in the third millennium.”
The archbishop said the discussions of his two lectures lasted more than an hour each and were “concrete, lively and positive.”
He said he told the meeting participants that the council’s documents must be read through the lens of “reform with a fundamental continuity,” but always giving priority to the spiritual dimension of Christian life.
The basic approach to the council as a whole will be reflected in the approach to the liturgical reforms called for by the council, he said.
Archbishop Koch said his second talk focused on “the principle of the active participation of all the faithful in the liturgy and the principle of making the rites easier to understand and simpler,” but also about the need for a “reform of the reform,” which would emphasize Christ as the center of the liturgy.
The archbishop had a private audience with the pope Aug. 30, which, he said, was more focused on his new position as the Vatican’s chief ecumenist than on his presentations.
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