Pope Benedict XVI Blog

Pray for the Pope--he stands as "Petra," the foundation stone upon which Jesus built His Church

Hat tip to St. Peter's Helpers via Antonia, for this thought-provoking quote from St. Josemaria Escriva concerning our role within the Petrine ministry of the Pope, as Bishop of Rome. As St. Escriva advises--as we love, venerate, pray and mortify ourselves for Jesus, we should do the same for the Pope who stands in His stead as head of the Church on earth, the "Petra" (Rock) upon which Christ built His Church.

You must love, venerate, pray and mortify yourself for the Pope, and do so with greater affection each day. For he is the foundation stone of the Church and, throughout the centuries, right to the end of time, he carries out among men that task of sanctifying and governing which Jesus entrusted to Peter. – St. Josemaria Escriva, The Forge, #134

St. Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, is especially helpful to all of us as believers. He formulated his apostolic mission to help Christians do ministry for Christ as they go about doing their work and daily tasks. Below are some excellent sites dedicated to disseminating his insights:

Josemaria Escriva - A Website Dedicated to the Writings of Opus Dei founder

Josemaria Escriva - Founder of Opus Dei

Opus Dei - Finding God in daily life

Romana Bulletin--Bulletin of the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei

St. Josemaria Institute--Finding God in Everyday Life

In the same vein, on "Opus Dei - Finding God in daily life," some pertinent excerpts were posted on August 16, 2006 from the Pope's interview with the media on August 5, 2006--excerpts that stress our need to make our Christian life visible as we live out our daily lives:

"All this is clearer if you say it first in a positive way."

On August 5, 2006 Pope Benedict XVI was interviewed for the first time by media professionals. The interview was transmitted by Vatican Radio and made available by the Vatican Information Service. Excerpts follow.

The basic theme [of the upcoming trip to Bavaria] is that we have to rediscover God--not just any God, but the God who has a human face. For when we see Jesus Christ we see God. Starting here we must find the way to meet each other in the family, among generations, and then among cultures and peoples. We must find the way to reconciliation and to peaceful coexistence in this world, the ways that lead to the future. We won’t find these ways if we don’t receive light from above....This basic message of faith naturally finds its place in the everyday reality where we seek, above all, cooperation among peoples and ways that can lead to reconciliation and peace.

In the western world today we are experiencing a wave of new and drastic secularization. It has become more difficult to believe because the world in which we find ourselves is completely made up of ourselves; God doesn’t appear directly anymore. We don’t drink from the source anymore; humanity has rebuilt the world by itself....Along with that, the West is being strongly influenced by other cultures in which the original religious element is very powerful. These cultures are horrified when they experience the West’s coldness towards God. This "presence of the sacred" in other cultures, even if often veiled, touches the western world; it touches us at the crossroads of so many cultures. The quest for "something bigger" wells up again from the depths of western people. We see how in young people there is a search for something "more"; we see how the religious phenomenon is returning, even if that search is rather indefinite. But with all this the Church is present once more, and faith is offered as the answer. This visit, like the visit to Cologne, is an opportunity to help people see that believing is beautiful, that the joy of a huge universal community possesses a transcendent strength, that behind this belief lies something important, and that together with the new movements there are also new outlets in the search for the faith that lead us from one to the other. These are positive developments for society as a whole.

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posted by Dr. Denice Hanley, DPM, M.Div. @ 7:24 AM