The "silent light of the truth, of the goodness of God" leads to true change in the world, said the Pope at Mass on Dec. 12.
Benedict XVI traveled outside Vatican walls for Mass at St. Maximilian Kolbe parish in an outer suburb of Rome.
In his homily the Pope recalled John the Baptist's expectation that
the Son of God would bring about dramatic change in the world.
The
baptist sent disciples to ask Christ if he is the one who came to bring
about radical change or if they should continue to wait for another.
Benedict XVI said Christ gives a response to John the Baptist's
question by saying, "Look at what I have done. I have not made a bloody
revolution, I have not changed the world with force, but I have lit many
lights that make ... a great path of light in the millennia."
"So many" false prophets, ideologues and dictators have said that it
was they themselves and not Christ who have brought change to the world,
the Pope explained.
He admitted that they have succeeded in changing the world through
empires, dictatorships and totalitarian rule.
But, he added, "today we
know that all that has remained of these great promises is great
emptiness and great destruction.”
St. Kolbe, the parish's patron saint, showed this "light" in his
life, said the Pope. He offered his life to guards in the place of a
father of a family who was to be killed in the Nazi concentration camp
of Auschwitz.
In doing so, he "encouraged others to give themselves, to be close to the suffering, to the oppressed," said Pope Benedict XVI.
St. Kolbe was declared a martyr of charity when he was recognized as a saint in 1982 by Pope John Paul II.
Pope Benedict added that other Christians such as St. Damian of
Molokai who worked with lepers and Mother Teresa of Calcutta who
assisted the poor lived in a similar way.
In looking to these figures, it continues to be seen that it is not
"violent revolutions or "great promises" that change the world, rather
it is "the silent light of the truth, of the goodness of God" that does
so,” he continued.
The Pope then invited everyone to bring light to the world, to pray
to become a light for others. He asked that Christians live Advent daily
in all aspects of life by being ever more open to God in order to "have
light amidst so many shadows, so many daily fatigues."
The Pope closed by urging fidelity in marriage, communion in parishes
between families of all backgrounds, and greater involvement of young
people in the life of parishes.
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