"They soon realized the interior desert that is born when man — thinking himself the architect of his own nature and destiny — finds himself lacking that which is fundamental to everything." —Benedict XVI, on the strange contradiction which emerges from the "freedom" brought by modern secular humanism: it sets aside all belief in God only to create an interior desert; writing in the document constituting the newest Vatican dicastery, the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, published today, October 12, 2010, in Rome As I write in Rome, it is long after midnight. There is a light rain falling, and the occasional vehicles in the streets below make sweeping sounds as they roll over the rain-drenched streets.
So it is difficult to think of deserts while the rain falls.
But the Pope is thinking about deserts, and so let us follow him.
The deserts the Pope is thinking about are not literal ones of sand, and wind, and rock, and scorpions.
No, the deserts he is thinking about are far worse, and drier, and more lonely by far.
He is thinking about interior deserts — the deserts of the human heart.
Of the human soul.
And if a great promise of modern technology is to make a physical desert bloom — if it is the great vaunt, the great glory, of the civil engineers and agriculturalists of Israel that they, with great effort and skill, have caused the deserts of the Holy Land to bloom into gardens, and vineyards, using deep wells and drip irrigation to bring water to the roots of thirsty plants and vines -- it is the great promise of the God of Israel, who is also the God of Christians, that He will cause another more intractable and more important desert to be irrigated with a word of hope, forgiveness and peace, and so made fruitful.
That more intractable, more important desert is the desert of the human heart.
Hearts of all men and women, and therefore also, the hearts of Israeli and Palestinians as well.
The Pope referred to that "interior desert" in the very first homily he gave as Pope, on April 24, 2005. (Here is a link to the entire text of that homily.
For Benedict, in fact, the word "desert" is of central important; he returns to it again and again and again.
"There are so many kinds of desert," Benedict said on the first day of his pontificate, in front of 200,000 people in St. Peter's Square. (I too was there, and that is why I remember these words, because at that moment it seemed clear to me that they were key to understanding correctly the Pope's mind and heart.)
"There is the desert of poverty," he said, "the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love."
(I remember thinking, when he spoke those words, "Yes.")
"There is the desert of God’s darkness," he continued, "the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life.
"The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast.
"Therefore the earth’s treasures no longer serve to build God’s garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction.
"The Church as a whole and all her Pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance."
This is the profound reason the Pope called the Synod on the Middle East: because, as beautiful as it is to make deserts bloom with oranges and apricots, and grapes, and olives, it is more beautiful still to make the deserts of the human heart bloom with faith, and hope, and love.
Which then bring forth peace.
And this is also the profound reason why the Pope decided to create an entirely new bureaucracy in the Roman Curia, his first such act of governance (though some wonder if there is truly any need for one more Vatican office among so many already existing).
Because, despite the fact that apostles and martyrs have been preaching and witnessing to the Gospel for nearly 2,000 years, many nations, many lands which were once "irrigated" with the hope brought by the news of the Resurrection, which is the news of the defeat of sin and death, have once again become dry, infertile, desert-like.
And so the Pope today announced an new Vatican office to try to "re-irrigate" the deserts of societies, of nations, especially in the West, which once were marked by Christian hope and faith, and by Christian laws and customs, so that human rights and the right to life were enshrined in noble laws, and families cherished and protected, and workers' rights safeguarded.
The Christian vision is a vision in which human is able to flourish and prosper like a garden in a wasteland when it is protected by walls against rough winds, and irrigated by water brought from far streams and rivers.
SIC: SN/INT'L