Cardinal Kurt Koch, Vatican Minister for the Promotion of Christian Unity, celebrated mass in the Vatican catacombs on the morning of December 31 to mark the third anniversary of the death of Pope Benedict XVI. “Let us ask God, as the Pope did, to make our lives complete in his eternal presence.”
Daniele Piccini – Vatican City
“If eternal life lies in communion with God, then it is right for us to prepare for eternal life in our lives on earth, just as Pope Joseph Ratzinger (the secular name of Pope Benedict XVI) passionately pursued throughout his life.” Cardinal Kurt Koch, Vatican Minister for the Promotion of Christian Unity, recalled the ultimate goal of Christian life that Pope Ratzinger exemplified through his own life during a homily at a Mass held in the Vatican Caves catacombs to mark the third anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s death on the morning of December 31. That is, cultivating our relationship with God and preparing ourselves for union with him.
Finding God’s Face
Cardinal Koch said that Bavarian Pope Benedict “For in him God revealed himself and showed his true face.” Cardinal Koch recalled that Pope Benedict
Christ turns the end into a new beginning
At the beginning of his homily, the Cardinal said that on the last day of the year, the Church’s liturgy reads the Gospel reading from the Gospel of John, which begins with the words, “In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It was then explained as follows. “I think it is very beautiful and touching that the Christian faith opens the way to a completely new beginning on the last day of the year, with its promise that the end of a person’s life on earth is not at all the end but a new beginning, and that the last day of a person’s life on earth is the beginning of a new life, the beginning of eternal life with God.”
Cardinal Koch cited Pope Benedict In fact, the Pope is said to have claimed: “The destruction of love and friendship is truly the most tragic fact of the experience of death.” However, Cardinal Koch explained, “Only in these places of complete abandonment is God’s love, and only his love can provide a new beginning.” “A new beginning is possible if only God himself, with his love, joins us in this place where human relationships are completely deprived and absolute solitude hovers.” Pope Ratzinger emphasized in his meditation in front of the Shroud of Turin on May 2, 2010, “Love has permeated even hell.” Cardinal Koch said this was “a promise linked to the Holy Saturday liturgy.” “Christ brings God’s love to the place of death, gives life in the midst of death, and opens a new beginning at the end of earthly life.”
Salvation is achieved within each person.
Cardinal Koch once again emphasized this: “The work of salvation is carried out even in the death of each individual. Just as Christ entered the kingdom of death and, with the fire of his love, breathed life into its rigid stagnation, so today he breaks the isolation of death by bringing his love into human death and infusing it with a new communion, communion with God.” This is the eternity that God gave to humans. “We enjoy eternal life thanks to God’s indestructible loving relationship with us,” Cardinal Koch said.
Cardinal Koch concluded his homily by saying that just as Christ, in his farewell prayer from the Gospel of John, asks the Father to glorify his name, “clearly in eternal life, Pope Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict At the end of his homily, Cardinal Koch invited those attending Mass to recite this prayer as their own.
Translated by Lee Chang-wook
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