The saints aren't just people to
turn to when something is lost or a situation seems hopeless; they are
examples to follow in prayer and in efforts to reform and renew the
church, said the priest who was preaching Pope Benedict XVI's Lenten
retreat.
Carmelite Father Francois-Marie Lethel, secretary of the Pontifical
Academy of Theology, led the pope and his top aides in their Lenten
reflections March 13-19.
He said his 17 talks during the week would focus on the saints and Pope John Paul II.
In addition to helping Pope Benedict and Vatican officials prepare for
Easter, Father Lethel said he wanted to help them prepare for the
beatification May 1 of Pope John Paul.
"This beatification, which will be an event of immense importance for
the church and the entire world, requires deep spiritual preparation
involving the entire people of God and, in a particular way, the Holy
Father and his closest collaborators," Father Lethel wrote in the
introduction to the retreat program handed out to participants.
The tradition of having weeklong, preached "spiritual exercises" for the
pope and members of the papal household began with Pope Pius XI in
1925. But for more than 35 years it was an Advent, not a Lenten retreat.
Pope John XXIII broke the Advent tradition in 1962 when he spent a week
in September on retreat to prepare for the Second Vatican Council. His
successor, Pope Paul VI, made the retreats a Lenten staple in 1964 and
hugely broadened the list of preachers, who almost always had been
Jesuits.
Father Lethel is the first Carmelite to be chosen to preach the pope's
retreat, and three famous Carmelites figured prominently in his
meditations: Sts. Therese of Lisieux, Teresa of Avila and John of the
Cross.
The three were chosen, though, not because they were Carmelites, but
because of their influence on Pope John Paul, Father Lethel said in an
interview with L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.
He told the newspaper that the late pope is both an example of holiness
and a reminder of how much Catholics today need the courage of the
saints.
In the booklet for participants, Father Lethel wrote that two of the
profiles in courage he would offer them would be St. Catherine of Siena
and St. Joan of Arc.
"Catherine, with her commitment to the reform of the church profoundly
wounded by the sin of its members, and Joan, in her passion and death
caused in part by priests and theologians" who disagreed with her
politically and so helped her be condemned as a heretic, "give us a
profound lesson on the mystery of the church that is always holy and
always in need of purification," he wrote.
"With their voices, which are strong and dramatic, yet also sweet and
maternal," the two women saints would point retreatants toward "the
urgency of conversion and holiness," Father Lethel wrote.
The Carmelite noted that in January, Pope Benedict himself pointed to
Sts. Catherine and Joan of Arc as "examples of 'strong women' in the
midst of great suffering and crises for the church and society."
"With these saints, the light of Christ comes to face the darkness of
sin -- found even within the church -- to purify it, to reform it.
Obviously this is very relevant today," he said in an interview
published March 16 in the Vatican newspaper.
While the Second Vatican Council emphasized how every single Catholic is
called to holiness, he said, it was Pope John Paul who really made
Catholics -- and others -- aware of the fact that people in every
culture and walk of life have answered and continue to answer that call.
During the more than 26 years he was pontiff, Pope John Paul beatified 1,338 individuals and canonized 482.
The number of saints he proclaimed exceeded the total number of saints
created by all his predecessors together since 1588 when the modern
sainthood process began.
"The beatification of John Paul II is the crowning of an extraordinary
pontificate carried out under the sign of holiness," the Carmelite said.
For the cover of the retreat booklets, Father Lethel chose a detail from
Fra Angelico's "Last Judgment." The selected scene, sometimes described
as "the dance of the saints," shows the holy ones holding hands and
moving up toward heaven.
He said Pope John Paul's pontificate was filled with reminders that "the
saints give each other and give us a hand to guide us on the path of
holiness. This is the meaning of Lenten conversion: to commit ourselves
even more to engaging in this 'dance of the saints.'"