Today, the Pope offered Mass in St. Peter’s, preached, and had a few words at the Angelus afterwards. No full texts in English available yet, but here’s the AsiaNews report on Mass:

The second improvisation came as the pope was talking about the Beatitudes, the Gospel of today’s Mass. The Gospel of the Beatitudes is often used by some theologians to present a Christianity “of values” (poverty, hunger, justice, peace workers and so on), detached from the person of Jesus. The pope was clear: “In reality, the Blessed one par excellence is only Him, Jesus. It is He, in fact, who is truly poor in spirit, afflicted, meek, the one who hungers and thirsts for justice, merciful, pure in heart, and a peace worker. It is He who is persecuted in the cause of right”. And spontaneously he added: “The Beatitudes show us the mystery of death and resurrection, which is the mystery of Jesus.” He continued: “With the Beatitudes, Jesus points out to us how to follow him and to imitate him. In the measure that we welcome his invitation and seek to follow it, we too can participate in his Beatitudes.”

Thus, the emphasis of Benedict XVI corrects a confused concept that makes holiness a sort of “religion of civic values”, without testifying to the Christian roots. At the same time, he opens a door to dialogue with the Protestant world, which is often critical about the saints and devotion to them: holiness is following Christ, not divinization operated by man. The pope said: “Holiness calls for constant effort, but it is possible for all because, more than the work of man, it is above all a gift of God, three times Holy… With Him [with Christ] the impossible becomes possible and even a camel can pass through the eye of a needle (cfr Mk 10:25). With his help, only with his help, is given to us to become perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect (cfr Mt 5:48).”

Benedict XVI recalled that a constant in the lives of the saints is the passage through the cross: “The experience of the Church shows that all forms of holiness, although following different paths, always pass the way of the cross. But history shows that there is no obstacle or difficulty that can stop the journey of the Christian committed to following the footsteps of Jesus. The biographies of the saints describe men and women who – docile to divine will – at times faced indescribable suffering and trials, persecution and martyrdom.” In the Eucharist, he continued, the “communion of the pilgrim church in the world with the church triumphant in glory” becomes ever closer. The pope ended by inviting all to invoke the saints, “because they help us to imitate them and to commit ourselves to responding with generosity, as they did, to the divine call. We invoke especially Mary, Mother of the Lord and reflection of all holiness. She, the All Holy, makes us faithful disciples of her son Jesus Christ!”

The Angelus:

Sometimes Christians, too, seem to view “eternal life” as something quantitative, as “a life that lasts forever”. In fact, it is “a new quality of life, fully immersed in God’s love, one that frees us from evil and death and places us in endless communion with our brothers and sisters who partake in the same Love”.

In this sense, the Pope added, “eternity . . . can already be at the centre of one’s life here and now, when the soul, through grace, connects with God, its ultimate foundation. Everything passes / God never changes. One Psalm says: ‘Though my flesh and my heart fail, God is the rock of my heart, my portion forever’" (Psalm, 73: 26). All Christians, who are called to holiness, are men and women who live solidly anchored to this “Rock”, well grounded but with the heart already in heaven, the ultimate home of God’s friends.”

“Eternal life” is therefore not something detached from everyday life and in the end useless. It is instead “our ultimate and final destiny, which gives meaning to everyday situations”.

Benedict XVI ended his reflections on a plea. “Let us revive the joyous feeling of communion with the saints and let us be drawn by them towards the goal of our existence, which is to meet God face to face. Let us pray that this is the inheritance of all dearly departed, not only our own, but also of every soul, especially of those who have been forgotten and need divine mercy. May the Holy Virgin Mary, Queen of All Saints, guide us in our choice of eternal life in each moment of “the life of the world to come”, as the Credo says, a world already inaugurated by the resurrection of Christ, whose advent we can bring forward through our sincere conversion and our acts of charity”.

The AsiaNews story didn’t note this, but AGI did:

The indissoluble link between the Church and sainthood was remembered today by Benedict XVI in a quotation by Alessandro Manzoni. "Today," said the pope in the words of the author of the novel ‘The Betrothed’, "the Church is celebrating its dignity as mother of saints, the image of the supernal city," and added: "it manifests its beauty as the immaculate spouse of Christ, source and model of every saintliness."