The life of the believer is like
the biblical episode of Jacob's struggle with God at the ford of
Jabbok.
This is how Benedict XVI presented the meaning of the passage
from Genesis chosen for the general audience Wednesday.
''Our whole life is
like this long night of struggle and prayer, to be consumed with the
desire and search for God’s blessing that can not be torn or won by
counting on our own strength, but must be received from him with
humility, as a free gift that allows us, finally, to recognize the face
of the Lord.''
"God is not man’s adversary or enemy”, rather man " wins the
moment he surrenders to God's merciful love," said Benedict XVI in his
catechesis held today in St. Peter's Square in front of about fifteen
thousand pilgrims, among them some wounded U.S. troops.
The passage chosen by Pope Benedict is not easy to interpret,
''and the explanations that biblical exegesis can give about this
passage are many'' but ''when these elements are taken on by the sacred
authors and incorporated into the biblical account, they change their
meaning and the text opens up to wider dimensions'.'
Benedict XVI explained that ''the story of the battle at Jabbok
offers itself to believer as a paradigmatic text in which the people of
Israel speak of their origins, and outline the features of a particular
relationship between God and man.''
Accordingly, "the spiritual
tradition of the Church saw in this story a symbol of prayer as a battle
of faith and victory of perseverance.''
The biblical text "speaks of the long night of searching for
God, the struggle to learn his name and see his face, it is the night of
prayer that with tenacity and perseverance asks for God's blessing and a
new name, a new result of conversion and forgiveness. "
For this
reason, Benedict XVI added, the struggle of Jacob becomes a point of
reference for understanding the relationship with God that finds its
highest expression in prayer. Prayer requires trust, closeness, an
almost symbolic struggle, not with an adversarial God, but with a Lord
who is full of blessing and who always remains mysterious, always seems
unattainable. "
The Pope concluded: "And if the object of desire is the
relationship with God, His blessing and His love, then the fight can
only culminate in the gift of oneself to God, recognizing our own
weakness, which we defeat at the very moment we surrender ourselves to
God's merciful love''.