Book Review: Pope Benedict wanted us to look on the face of Christ

 

For a child like me of the 60s, whose understanding of the Second World War is through the lens of the post-war era, the theological perspective of Benedict, a German who lived in and through Nazism, gave an entirely different understanding of the freedom for which so many died and to whom we should always be thankful and prayerful. It shows again in our time the danger of ideology. On his visit to Auschwitz, Benedict said: ‘To speak in this place of horror ... where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man, is almost impossible .... those vicious criminals, by wiping out this people [of Israel], wanted to kill the God who called Abraham, who spoke on Sinai and laid down principles to serve as a guide for mankind ... That God finally had to die and power had to belong to man alone’ (p.38).

 

 

This, then, drives us back to the raison d’être of Benedict’s papacy, articulated in the encyclical Spes Salvi with ideas familiar to us in FAITH: ‘It is not the elemental spirits of the universe, the laws of matter, which ultimately govern the world and mankind, but a personal God governs the stars, that is, the universe; it is not the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but reason, will, love - a Person.’ Here we might recall the question posed by Fr. Holloway: How much is matter, how much is Mind? ‘Matter is that which is controlled and directed, Mind is that which controls and directs, and that Mind, that Supreme Mind, we call God!’

 

‘Jesus took “the encounter with the living God” into the world ... But if the encounter with this person is merely “informative” and not “performative” the Pope assures us, then it has not taken place at all’ (p.100). We begin to discover that the life of this apparently ‘bookish’ theologian is completely centred on the person of Jesus Christ, not simply as a manifestation of God become Man, but the very face of Christ, which reminds us of the phrase oft used by the evangelist: ‘Jesus looked at him/her ...’. What does Benedict want for us? He wants us to look at the face of Christ, he want us to allow Christ to gaze upon our face.

 

 

Inevitably, observing the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, the sins of the Church cannot be avoided, but Badde again gives the Holy Father’s spiritual context to such scandal in his Good Friday prayer and meditation on the Way of the Cross, in which is presented that call to constant conversion on our part and that of Christ, the Good Shepherd, who seeks after each and every one of us.

 

In his editorial note, Badde makes clear his concern is the Pontificate of Benedict XVI and not a biography of Joseph Ratzinger, and we must be grateful to Prof Stefan Heid for asking Badde to compile his articles as a book so that they are not lost as ‘documents on contemporary events’. Apart from the need for an index, we are presented with a positive encouragement, whether as priest or people, to seek the face of Christ, since, to cite Benedict quoting John Henry Newman, ‘God created everyone for a very particular task ... He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.’ (p.169)