Pope Benedict XVI
was born on April 16, 1927.
Parents Joseph Alois Ratzinger In
Marktl am Inn, Germany,
he was the youngest of three
children to Joseph and Maria
Ratzinger.
Pope Benedict XVI went to be
with Our Lord Jesus on
December 31, 2022+++
He was the head of the Catholic
Church and sovereign of the
Vatican City State from April 19, 2005
until his resignation on
February 28, 2013+++
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: last words
"Lord, I love you."
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note: there are videos at the bottom
of post.
1) "If you follow the will of God, you
know that in spite of all the terrible
things that happen to you, you will
never lose a final refuge. You know
that the foundation of the world is
love, so that even when no human
being can or will help you, you may
go on trusting in the One that loves
you."
2)"Truth is not determined by a
majority vote."
3)"The world offers you comfort. But
you were not made for comfort. You
were made for greatness."
4) "We are not some casual and
meaningless product of evolution.
Each of us is the result of a thought
of God."
5) "Each of us is the result of a thought
of God. Each of us is willed. Each of
us is loved. Each of us is necessary."
6) " To have Christian hope means to
know about evil and yet to go to
meet the future with confidence. The
core of faith rests upon accepting being
loved by God, and therefore to believe
is to say Yes, not only to him,
but to creation, to creatures, above all,
to me, to try to see the image of God
in each person and thereby to become
a lover. That's not easy, but
the basic Yes, the conviction that God
has created men, that he stands
behind them, that they aren't simply
negative, gives love a reference
point that enables it to ground hope
on the basis of faith.
7) "Are we not perhaps all afraid in
some way? If we let Christ enter
fully into our lives, if we open
ourselves totally to him, are we not
afraid to give up something
significant, something unique,
something that makes life so
beautiful? Do we not then risk
ending up diminished and deprived
of our freedom?... No! If we let
Christ into our lives, we lose
nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing
of what makes life free, beautiful
and great. No! Only in this
friendship is the great potential of human
existence truly revealed. Only in this
friendship so we experience beauty
and liberation. And so, today, with
great strength and great conviction,
on the basis of long personal
experience of life, I say to you, dear
young people: Do not be afraid of
Christ! He takes nothing away, and
he gives you everything. When we
give ourselves to him, we receive a
hundredfold in return. Yes, open,
open wide the doors to Christ-and
you will find true life. Amen"
8) "Something I constantly notice is that
unembarrassed joy has become
rarer. Joy today is increasingly
saddled with moral and ideological
burdens, so to speak. When someone
rejoices, he is afraid of offending
against solidarity with the many
people who suffer. I don't have any
right to rejoice, people think, in a
world where there is so much
misery, so much injustice.
I can understand that. Ther is a
moral attitude at work here. But this
attitude is nonetheless wrong. The
loss of joy does not make the world
better-and, conversely, refusing joy
for the sake of suffering does not
help those who suffer. The contrary
is true. The world needs people who
discover the good, who rejoice in it
and thereby derive the impetus and
courage to do good. Joy, then, does
not break with solidarity. When it is
the right kind of joy, when it is not
egotistic, when it comes from the
perception of the good, then it wants
to communicate itself, and it gets
passed on. In this connection, it
always strikes me that in the poor
neighborhoods of, say South
America, one sees many more
laughing happy people that among
us. Obviously, despite all their
misery, they still have the
perception of the good to which they
cling and in which they can find
encouragement and strength.
In this sense we have a new need for
that primordial trust which
ultimately only faith can give. That
the world is basically good, that God
is there and is good. That it is good to
live and to be a human being. This
results, then, in the courage to
rejoice, which in turn becomes
commitment to making sure that
other people, too, can rejoice and
receive good news."
9) "Evil draws its power from
indecision and concern for what
other people think."
10) "Purity of heart is what enables us to
see."
11) "The aim of all Christian education,
moreover, is to train the believer in
an adult faith that can make him a
"new creation", capable of bearing
witness in his surroundings to the
Christian hope that inspires him."
12) "Wherever politics tries to be
redemptive, it is promising too
much. Where it wishes to do the
work of God, it becomes not divine,
but demonic."
13) "The fundamental human right, the
presupposition of every other right,
is the right to life itself. This is true
of life from the moment of
conception until its natural end.
Abortion, consequently, cannot be a
human right-it is the very
opposite. It is a deep wound in
society."
{Presupposition: a thing tacitly, assumed
beforehand at the beginning of a line
of argument or course of action.}
14) "One who has hope lives differently."
15) "It is not by sidestepping or fleeing
from suffering that we are healed,
but rather by our capacity for
accepting it, maturing through it and
finding meaning through union with
Christ, who suffered with infinite
love."
16) " Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can
give to others much more that their
outward necessities: I can give them
the look of love which they crave.
17) " The human person finds his
perfection "in seeking and loving
what is true and good."
18) "It is when we attempt to avoid
suffering by withdrawing from
anything that might involve hurt,
when we try to spare ourselves the
effort and pain of pursuing truth,
love, and goodness, that we drift into
a life of emptiness, in which there
may be almost not pain, but the dark
sensation of meaninglessness and
abandonment is all the greater."
19) "Beauty, then is not mere decoration,
but rather an essential element of
the liturgical action, since it is an
attribute of God himself and his
revelation. These considerations
should make us realize the care
which is needed, if the liturgical
action is to reflect its innate
splendor."
{Liturgical: relating to liturgy or
public worship}
20) "Knowing is not simply a material
act, since the object that is known
always conceals something beyond
the empirical datum. All our
knowledge, even the most simple, is
always a minor miracle, since it can
never be fully explained by the
material instruments that we apply
it. In every truth there is
something more than we would
have expected, in the love that we
receive there is always an element
that surprises us."
{Empirical: based on, concerned with,
or verifiable by observation or
experience rather than theory
or pure logic.}
{Datum: A piece of information}
note: you can find this post underneath
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How Beautiful (you will love this video)
You Are a Priest Forever(beautiful)
Mary goes to Jesus (my favorite)
Angel's (sing with the Angels)
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