#pope benedict xvi

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On this day last year, I cried in my car on the way to school as I contemplated the news of the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. Today, on the anniversary of his retirement, in an effort to further explain my (admittedly unusual) love for our Pope Emeritus, I wanted to share with you this slightly-edited version of a letter that I sent to him in October via my landlord, Dr. Schindler, who had the privilege of meeting with him and personally giving it to him. Yes, that’s right: Pope Benedict XVI, one of my favorite people in the entire world, received my letter personally. Dreams do come true, friends. (No, he didn’t write me back, but I didn’t really think he would. I *did* get a blessed rosary in the mail, courtesy of his secretary, so I can’t complain.)

Dearest Holy Father,

I hardly know how to begin this letter, as it is a dream come true to even have the opportunity to write it. I’ve long wanted to write to you, but the fact that you probably would never actually see a letter I sent through the mail kept me from doing so. When Dr. Schindler, my good friend and landlord, told me of his impending visit with you and offered to carry my letter to you, I was overjoyed. That you will read my letter personally is the answer to a prayer held deep within my heart; a prayer I was almost afraid to utter for fear of being disappointed. What a gift it is to be loved in such a particular way by the Father! Thank you for the honor of reading my letter, and for your prayers, which I know I’ve long enjoyed even if you did not know me by name.

My name is Christina Grace and I teach Scripture, Christology, and Ecclesiology at a Catholic high school in Washington, DC. While I studied theology at the University of Notre Dame, most of what I do each day with my students could be categorized as basic evangelization and remedial catechesis. I feel profoundly unworthy of this task, but am indebted to the Lord for elevating you to the Chair of Peter during my senior year of college, thus giving me such a wonderful guide in the practice of “intellectual charity.” I can’t imagine my post-graduate theological education or my teaching career or my life of faith without the constant witness of your faith and the ways in which you taught me so clearly that “Man lives on truth and on being loved: on being loved by the truth” (Jesus of Nazareth).

When I read something–anything–that you’ve written, I am always led closer to the Truth. Concepts that were once shrouded in darkness become clear for the first time. The significance of the precepts of the faith impresses itself upon me with a new gravity. The face of Christ becomes clearer. HIs love becomes more tangible. I am not exaggerating when I say that the way in which your writings have and continue to lead me to the Truth is a small taste of the beatific vision, when we will all stand before the Fullness of the Truth with our eyes free from the darkening effect of sin. Thank you for being Christ’s instrument of Truth in my life, and by extension, in the lives of the hundreds of students I’ve taught in the past seven years.

As I was preparing for a talk recently, I re-read the homily from your inaugural Mass in 2005 and was struck by the closing exhortation:

“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. Amen.”

I began to cry while reading these beautiful lines…because Christ speaks so clearly through you and touches not only my mind, but my heart in a way that no other theologian, pope, or even Saint does. You have taught me how to let go of my fear and dare with God. Your witness moves me to share the Gospel with more zeal and to cherish the beauty of my faith–which no one can take away from me–with deeper gratitude than I thought possible. Your pontificate taught me anew the value of the gift of Apostolic Succession. Your humility and lack of concern for safeguarding your own personal legacy convicts me of my own pride. The closeness to you which I feel, inexplicable from a natural standpoint, continues to confirm the truth of what you once said: “there is no great distance between Christians, for all share the same fundamental reality: Christ within us.”

Dearest Holy Father, thank you for being my most important teacher and spiritual father. Because of you and your faithfulness to Christ, my faith is deeper and stronger and my love for Christ is truer. I know that I am not unique in having this experience; you have probably received thousands of letters like mine. I also know that I could have waited to tell you all of this when we embrace at the eternal Wedding Feast, but I couldn’t wait until then to tell you of my deep, abiding love for and gratitude to you. Know that you will always be in my daily thoughts and prayers, and that for whatever it is worth, a 29-year-old high school religion teacher in the United States appreciates the suffering you endured to be her Shepherd for eight years….

Thank you, Holy Father, for loving me without even knowing me, and for being one of the clearest signs of Christ’s love for me that I have encountered in my young life.

Your loving daughter, sister, and fellow Christian,

Christina Grace 

St. Mary Magdalene, El Greco

Yesterday was the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, one of my all-time favorite human beings. I rediscovered this beautiful excerpt from an Easter homily of Pope Benedict’s and had to share it, if only because it dovetails so nicely with yesterday’s post. If you haven’t encountered Christ in a concrete way in your life, ask for that grace! It is only in the encounter with Him that we can truly begin to trust in His love. St. Mary Magdalene, teach us the love of Christ! 

Every Christian relieves the experience of Mary Magdalene.  It involves an encounter which changes our lives: the encounter with a unique man who lets us experience all God’s goodness and truth, who frees us from evil not in a superficial and fleeting way, but sets us free radically, heals us completely and restores our dignity. This is why Mary Magdalene calls Jesus “my hope”: he was the one who allowed her to be reborn, who gave her a new future, a life of goodness and freedom from evil. “Christ my hope” means that all my yearnings for goodness find in him a real possibility of fulfillment: with him I can hope for a life that is good, full, and eternal, for God himself has drawn near to us, even sharing our humanity.  

But Mary Magdalene, like the other disciples, was to see Jesus rejected by the leaders of the people, arrested, scourged, condemned to death and crucified.  It must have been unbearable to see Goodness in person subjected to human malice, truth derided by falsehood, mercy abused by vengeance.  With Jesus’ death, the hope of all those who had put their trust in him seemed doomed. But that faith never completely failed: especially in the heart of the Virgin Mary, Jesus’ Mother, its flame burned even in the dark of night.  In this world, hope cannot avoid confronting the harshness of evil. It is not thwarted by the wall of death alone, but even more by the barbs of envy and pride, falsehood and violence.  Jesus passed through this mortal mesh in order to open a path to the kingdom of life.  For a moment Jesus seemed vanquished: darkness had invaded the land, the silence of God was complete, hope a seemingly empty word.  

     And lo, on the dawn of the day after the Sabbath, the tomb is found empty.  Jesus then shows himself to Mary Magdalene, to the other women, to his disciples.  Faith is born anew, more alive and strong than ever, now invincible since it is based on a decisive experience…

     If Jesus is risen, then–and only then–has something truly new happened, something that changes the state of humanity and the world.  Then he, Jesus, is someone in whom we can put absolute trust; we can put our trust not only in his message but in Jesus himself, for the Risen One does not belong to the past, but is present today, alive.  

–Pope Benedict XVI

Just as there were only women standing by the Cross – apart from the beloved disciple – so too the first encounter with the risen Lord was destined to be for them. The Church’s juridical structure is founded on Peter and the Eleven, but in the day-to-day life of the Church it is the women who are constantly opening the door to the Lord and accompanying him to the Cross, and so it is they who come to experience the Risen One.

Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (2011)

Pope Benedict’s Stance on Pedophilia.

In Christian tradition, the word “liturgy” means the participation of the People of God in the work of God…

Where the gaze on God is not decisive, everything becomes disoriented. The fundamental criterion for the liturgy is that it should be oriented towards God, in order to ensure we participate in His work.

Pope Benedict XVI