Recently in Pope Benedict XVI Category

Pope Benedict's reflection from Last Sunday March 7 on conversion actually applies well to today's Gospel from Luke Chapter 15 -- the parable of the Prodigal Son.

When I wrote about the parable yesterday, I mentioned that after we stray from God, what often sends us back to Him is simply the desire for survival. We know that we cannot so much as have life without God. In order to get to that point though, some of us must hit what is called in modern vernacular "bottom," or "rock bottom." At that point only one of two things can happen: 1) despair, or 2) conversion.

Said the Holy Father on March 7:

God likewise shows himself in various ways in each of our lives. To be able to recognize his presence, however, we must approach him with an awareness of our wretchedness and with deep respect. Otherwise we would make ourselves incapable of encountering him and entering into communion with him.

Sometimes the way we get to a place like that, where we are aware of our wretchedness, is by hitting "bottom." And it is nothing that the Father directly wills. Hitting bottom is a natural consequence of seeking our happiness without Him.

He says later:

... God does not reveal himself to those in whom are entrenched self-sufficiency and frivolity but rather to those who are poor and humble before him.

And:

With regard to sin, God shows himself to be full of mercy and never fails to remind sinners to avoid evil, to grow in love for him and to offer practical help to our neighbour in need, to live the joy of grace and not to go towards eternal death.
However, the possibility of conversion demands that we learn to read the events of life in the perspective of faith, animated, that is, by holy fear of God. In the presence of suffering and bereavement, the true wisdom is to let ourselves be called into question by the precarious state of existence and to see human history with the eyes of God who, desiring always and only the good of his children, through an inscrutable design of his love sometimes permits us to be tried by suffering in order to lead us to a greater good.

God respects our decisions to depart from Him just as the father of the prodigal son did. Upon his experience of great suffering and bereavement after venturing far from home, the son did not blame his father for failing to intercede and protect him. The son rather recognized that his suffering was a result of his decisions and no one else's.

So with us. Only by ceasing to blame God and recognizing our own imperfections can we recognize our need for God. And He does not hold back when we do.

The Holy Father and other Church leaders last weekend concluded their Lenten retreat. Pope Benedict spoke of the prayer of Solomon, for "a heart that listens."

Solomon's prayer is from the First Book of Kings, Chapter 3 verse 9:

Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong. For who is able to govern this vast people of yours?

Said Pope Benedict:

It really seems to me that this sums up the whole of the Christian vision of the human being. In himself man is not perfect; he is a relational being. It is not his cogito [I think] that can cogitare [think] of the whole of reality. He needs listening, he needs to listen to the other and especially to the Other with a capital "O", to God. Only in this way does he know himself, only in this way does he become himself.
From my place here I could always see the Mother of the Redeemer, the Sedes Sapientiae, the living throne of wisdom with Wisdom incarnate on her lap. And, as we have seen, St Luke presents Mary precisely as a woman with a heart that listens, who is steeped in the word of God, who listens to the Word, meditates on it (synballein), composes it and preserves it, who cherishes it in her heart.
The Fathers of the Church say that at the moment of the conception of the eternal Word in the Virgin's womb, the Holy Spirit entered Mary through her ear. In listening she conceived the eternal Word, she gave flesh to this Word. And thus she tells us what it means to have a listening heart.
Here Mary is surrounded by the Fathers and Mothers of the Church, by the Communion of Saints. And thus, in these very days we have seen and understood precisely that it is not in the isolated "I" that we can truly listen to the Word but only in the "we" of the Communion of Saints.

I may try to unpack some of this as the week goes on.

Meantime, as we continue through Lent, let's pray for a heart that listens for God, and when it hears Him, listens to Him.

Good on ya!:

Australian Catholics were jubilant last night at the Vatican's announcement that Mary MacKillop has become the nation's first saint.

A consistory of cardinals and Pope Benedict XVI voted late last night, Melbourne time, to declare the founder of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart among the company of the saints.

A ''deeply pleased'' Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart said St Mary was a woman of holiness, a great educator, an advocate for the poor and a visionary of Christianity.

''It will be a great encouragement,'' he said. ''The nuns were loved by the people because they shared their battles and their poverty. She and her sisters have always been very close to the people.''

The formal canonisation ceremony will take place in Rome on October 17 to allow the expected thousands of Australian pilgrims and church leaders to plan to attend.

There will also be celebratory services in all Australian capital cities and most big Catholic churches, according to Australian Catholic Bishops Conference secretary Brian Lucas.

''It reminds us of the possibilities of heroes and heroines who can make a difference,'' he said. ''We often get cynical, and celebrities attract our attention - we don't often see virtue as attractive. That's what is special about Mary MacKillop.''

St Mary of the Cross, as she may be known from now on, founded her order in Penola, South Australia, in 1866. On her deathbed in 1909, Mary - earlier excommunicated by another Australian bishop - was hailed as a saint by the Sydney Archbishop, Cardinal Moran.

Pope Benedict's Lent 2010 Message.

I want to consider the meaning of the term "justice," which in common usage implies "to render to every man his due," according to the famous expression of Ulpian, a Roman jurist of the third century. In reality, however, this classical definition does not specify what "due" is to be rendered to each person. What man needs most cannot be guaranteed to him by law. In order to live life to the full, something more intimate is necessary that can be granted only as a gift: we could say that man lives by that love which only God can communicate since He created the human person in His image and likeness.

This reminds me of what I wrote a few days ago about the assertion I read that "You deserve love." But if something is inherently a gift, like love, then it is by definition given despite the fact that we have done nothing in particular to warrant receiving it. In the case of God's love, we have done quite the opposite. We have given Him reason to justly withhold His love from us.

And that is, in a most unsettling sense, what we really "deserve." So when it comes to love, it is not a question of what we deserve. It is a question of how we might escape what we deserve. The answer, simply, is we need God to save us. We don't deserve His saving love. We simply need it.