"We must do everything possible" for
Syria, "because one day it may be too late."
This is the heartfelt
appeal launched today by Pope Benedict XVI who, at the end of the
general audience announced that from today to November 10, Cardinal
Robert Sarah, President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum is in Lebanon
on a mission ordered by Pope.
He "will visit a number of refugees from that country and will chair a
meeting of Catholic charitable agencies to coordinate efforts, as the
Holy See has urgently requested, to provide assistance to the Syrian
people, within and outside the country".
Card. Sarah's mission replaces that of sending a Synod delegation
which "a variety of circumstances and developments" has rendered
impossible in a country " where the fighting has not ceased and each day
the toll of victims rises, accompanied by the untold suffering of many
civilians, especially those who have been forced to abandon their
homes".
"As I make my prayer to God, - concluded the Pope - I renew my
invitation to the parties in conflict, and to all those who have the
good of Syria at heart, to spare no effort in the search for peace and
to pursue through dialogue the path to a just coexistence, in view of a
suitable political solution of the conflict. It is never too late to
work for peace!".
Previously speaking to the 30 thousand present in St Peter's Square,
Benedict XVI spoke of the "desire for God", the "spark which still
exists in our time" which "for large sectors of society " "God is no
longer desired, expected, but rather a reality that leaves some
indifferent and not even worth wasting one's breath over".
The Pope began with the "meaningful" affirmation of the Catechism of
the Catholic Church "the desire for God is written in the human heart,
because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw
man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he
never stops searching for".
"Such a statement, which even today in many
cultural contexts seems quite acceptable, almost obvious, might instead
appear as a provocation in the sphere of secularized Western culture.
Many of our contemporaries could, in fact, argue that they do not feel
such a desire for God at all", but, in reality, makes us "fellow
travellers" even with those who doe not believe, but is searching for
the truth and the good.
In reality, "desire for God has not completely disappeared and still
today, in many ways, appears in the heart of man. Human desire always
tends towards certain tangible assets, which are often far from
spiritual, and yet it is still faced with the question of what "the"
good really is and as a result confront itself with something other than
itself, something that man cannot create, but is called upon to
recognize".
The question of "what really satisfies man's desire" was discussed,
as the Pope recalled, in Deus caritas est, where he examines desire
starting from the experience of human love.
"Through love, men and women
experience in a new way, thanks to one another, the grandeur and beauty
of life and of reality. If what I experience is not a mere illusion, if
I really want the good of the other as a path towards my own good, then
I must be willing to de-centralize myself, to put myself at the service
of the other to the point of surrendering myself. The answer to the
question about the meaning of the experience of love thus passes through
the cleansing and healing of the will, which is required by the very
good we want for the other. We have to practise, train and even correct
ourselves so that that good may be truly wanted. The initial ecstasy
translates thus becomes a pilgrimage, ".
But "not even your loved one, in fact, is able to satiate the desire
that dwells in the human heart, indeed, the more authentic the love for
each other is, the more the question of its origin, its destiny and its
chances of lasting forever emerges. Therefore, the human experience of
love has a dynamism that draws us beyond ourselves, it is an experience
of a good that leads us beyond ourselves faces us with the mystery that
surrounds all existence".
Similar considerations can be made for each good that man experiences
"every wish of the human heart is echoed by a fundamental desire that
is never fully satisfied."
"We therefore must believe that even in our era, seemingly reluctant
to the transcendent dimension, that it is possible to open a path toward
an authentic religious meaning of life, showing how the gift of faith
is not absurd, it is not irrational".
In that regard, he proposed the "great benefit" of "a type of
pedagogy of desire, both for the journey of those who still do not
believe and for those who have already received the gift of faith. A
pedagogy that includes at least two aspects. First, learning or
relearning an authentic taste for the joys of life" like " family,
friendship, solidarity with those who suffer, renouncing of oneself to
serve others, love for knowledge, for art, for the beauty of nature
"-and" leaving aside or rejecting all that while seemingly attractive,
turns out to be rather tasteless, a source of addiction, not freedom.
And this fosters that desire of God that we're talking about".
The second aspect "is never settling for what has been achieved. The
truest joys are able to free in us that healthy restlessness that leads
us to be more demanding - to want a higher, deeper good - and also to
perceive with increasing clarity that nothing finite can ever fill our
hearts. In this way we will learn to reach out, unarmed, towards that
good that we cannot build or provide ourselves with by our strengths; to
not be discouraged by fatigue or by obstacles born of our sins".
Because "even in the abyss of sin that spark is still alive in human
hearts that enables man to recognize the true good, to savour it, and
set out again on the upward climb, on which God, with the gift of His
grace, never fails to help. All of us need to tread a path of
purification and healing of desire. We are pilgrims on the journey
toward our Heavenly homeland, towards that full, eternal good, that
nothing can every take from us. It is not a question of suffocating the
desire that is in the human heart, but of freeing it, so that it can
reach its true height. When desire is open to God, this is already a
sign of the presence of faith in the soul, faith that is a grace of
God".