Sustaining the spirit of Sydney

As we come to the end of summer and begin a new academic year, I would like to share with you some reflections Pope Benedict XVI shared with priests who gathered with him one afternoon last month during his vacation in the mountains of Northern Italy. The first reflection came from a question by a seminarian on some guidance to keep the fire of the Holy Spirit alive in the aftermath of this summer’s World Youth Day in Sidney, Australia. Our Holy Father’s observations should be especially helpful to students and teachers at the start of another year of study and work.

“You rightly said that it (World Youth Day) was a strong moment, from which we’ve carried home a little flame. In daily life, however, it’s often very difficult to perceive correctly the action of the Holy Spirit, or to be a means personally by which the Spirit can be present — so that the breath which dispenses with prejudices can do its work, the breath which creates light in the dark and makes us see that the faith not only has a future, but that it is the future. How can that be done?

“Certainly, by ourselves we can’t do it. In the end, it’s the Lord Who helps us, but we have to be willing instruments. I would say it simply: No one can give that which he doesn’t personally possess, which means we cannot transmit the Holy Spirit in an effective way, render the Spirit perceptible, if we ourselves aren’t close to the Spirit. Therefore, I think the most important thing is that we ourselves remain, so to speak, in the rays of the breath of the Spirit, in contact with the Spirit. Only if we are continually touched interiorly by the Holy Spirit, if the Spirit is present in us, only then can we also transmit the Spirit to others. The Spirit will then give us the fantasies, the creative ideas of how to do it; ideas that can’t be programmed but that are born from the situation itself, because it’s there that the Holy Spirit is at work. “Thus, the first point: We ourselves must remain in the rays of the breath of the Holy Spirit.”

In response to another question about the challenge in our times to engage those preparing for sacraments in the Church, Pope Benedict gives a clear and gentle reminder of the fact that the whole community of the Church is part of this effort, an effort that is first and foremost an undertaking of God’s grace.

“Well, I can’t give an infallible answer right now; I can only try to respond based on what I see. I have to say that I’ve followed a path similar to yours. When I was young, I was rather more severe. I said: the sacraments are the sacraments of the faith, and when the faith isn’t there, where there’s not practice of the faith, the sacraments can’t be conferred. When I was Archbishop of Munich I always discussed this with my pastors, and there, too, there were two factions, one severe and one more generous. I, too, in the course of time have realized that we have to follow instead the example of the Lord, Who was very open also with the people who were at the margins of Israel at that time. He was a Lord of mercy, too open — according to many of the official authorities — with sinners, welcoming them or allowing Himself to be welcomed by them at their dinners, drawing them to Himself in His communion.

“Thus I would say in essence that the sacraments are naturally sacraments of the faith. Where there is no element of faith, where First Communion would just be a party with a big lunch, nice clothes and nice gifts, then it can’t be a sacrament of the faith. But, on the other hand, if we can see even a tiny flame of desire for communion in the Church, a desire also from these children who want to enter into communion with Jesus, it seems right to me to be rather generous.

“Naturally, for sure, it must be part of our catechesis to make clear that Communion, First Communion, is not automatic, but it demands a continuity of friendship with Jesus, a path with Jesus. I know that children often have the intention and desire to go to Sunday Mass, but their parents don’t make it possible. If we see that the children want it, that they have the desire to go, it seems to me almost a sacrament of desire, the ‘vow’ of participation at Sunday Mass. In this sense we naturally should do everything possible in the context of sacramental preparation to also reach the parents and — let’s say — also awaken in them a sensibility for the path that their children are taking. They should help their children to follow their own desire to enter into friendship with Jesus, which is the form of life, of the future. If the parents have the desire that their children should make the First Communion, this somewhat social desire should be expanded into a religious desire to make possible a journey with Jesus.

“I would say, therefore, that in the context of catechism with children, the work with parents is always very important. It’s an occasion for meeting the parents, making the life of faith present also to the adults, so that they themselves can learn anew from the children — it seems to me — and to understand that this great solemnity makes sense only, and it’s true and authentic only if, it’s realized in the context of a journey with Jesus, in the context of a life of faith. “The challenge is to convince the parents a bit, through the children, of the necessity of a preparatory path, which reveals itself in participation in the mysteries and begins to foster love for those mysteries.”