Gentlemen cardinals, venerated brother in the episcopado one and the priesthood, brother brother beloveds and: I direct to all my warm greeting with the words of the Apostle next to whose tomb we were: “abundant grace and peace” (1Pe 1, 2). Greeting, in particular, to the Members of the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarcado of Costantinopla and to the numerous Metropolitans who today receive the Pallium. In the collection of this solemn day, we asked the Gentleman “who the Church always follows the education of the Apostles from who it has received the first announcement of the faith”. The request that we directed to God questions to us at the same time same: Follow we them lessons of the great Apostles founders? We know them truly? In the Paulino Year that concluded yesterday we have tried to listen to him of new way him, the “teacher of the gentile ones”, and to again learn thus the alphabet of the faith. We have tried to recognize with Pablo and by means of Pablo Christ and to find therefore the way of the straight Christian way. In the Canon of the New Testament, besides Letters of San Pablo, there are also two Letters under the name of San Pedro. First of them he concludes explicitly with a greeting from Rome, that nevertheless appears under the apocalyptic nickname of Babylon: “He greets the one to You that is in Babylon, chosen like you” (5, 13). Calling to the Church of “Co-chosen” Rome he places, it in the great community of all the local Churches, in the community of all those that God has congregated, so that in the “Babylon” of the time of this world they construct his Town and they make enter God history. The First Letter of San Pedro is a greeting directed from Rome to the whole cristiandad for all time. It invites to us to listen to “the education of the Apostles” that indicates the way to us towards the life.
This Letter is a text riquísimo, that comes from the heart and that touches the heart. Its center is -how it could be of another way? - the figure of Christ, who is presented/displayed like that suffers and whom he loves, like Crucified and Revived: “the one that to the insulted being, did not respond with insults; when suffering, it did not threaten… from whose wounded you have been cured” (1Pe 2, 23s). Starting off of the center that is Christ, the Letter also constitutes an introduction to the fundamental Christian Sacraments of the Baptism and the Eucaristía and a speech directed to the priests, in whom Pedro muestraa like Co-presbítero with them. He speaks to the Shepherds of all the generations like which he has been ordered personally by the Gentleman to feed his ewes and that a sacerdotal mandate has that received particular way. Therefore, what indeed says san to us Pedro - in the Sacerdotal Year on the task of the priest? First of all, it totally includes the sacerdotal ministry from Christ. Llama to Christ the “shepherd and guardian of your souls” (2, 25). Where the Italian translation speech of “guardian”, in epíscopos the Greek text is the word (bishop). A little advanced more, Christ is called Supreme Shepherd: they archipoimen (5, 4). It surprises that Pedro bishop of the souls calls to the own Christ bishop -. What means with this? In the Greek word “episcopos” the verb is contained “to see”; by this guardian”, that is to say, “watchman” has been translated like “. But certainly he is not understood like an external monitoring, like talking about perhaps to a guardian jailer. He is understood rather like seeing from the stop, to see from the height of God. To see in the prospect of God it is a vision of the love that wants to serve the other, wants to help it to totally get to be he himself. Christ is the “bishop of the souls”, says Pedro to us. This means: It sees us from the point of view of God. Watching from God, a joint vision is had, the dangers are also seen and the hopes and the possibilities. In the prospect of God the essence is seen, is seen the inner man. If Christ is the bishop of the souls, the objective is to avoid that the soul of the man becomes miserable, is to avoid that the man loses his essence, the capacity for the truth and the love. To cause that it gets to know God; that it is not lost in impasses; that it is not lost in the isolation, but remains open to the others. Jesus, the “bishop of the souls” is the prototype of all episcopal and sacerdotal ministry. To be bishop, to be priest means, in this perspective, to assume the position of Christ. To think, to see and to act from its high position. From Him, to be at the disposal of the men, so that they find the life.
Thus, the word “bishop” approaches much the term “shepherd”; it is more, both concepts are interchangeable. The task of the shepherd is to feed and to keep the flock and to lead it to the suitable grass. To feed the flock means to have well-taken care of that the ewes find the food adapted, satiates its hunger and its thirst goes out. Beyond the metaphor, this means: the word of God is the food del that the man has necessity. To do every time presents/displays again the word of God and to feed the men thus is the task of the good Shepherd. And he must know how to resist the enemies, to the wolves. He must go ahead, indicate the way, conserve the unit of the flock. Pedro, in its speech to the presbíteros, shows a very important thing. It is not enough with speaking. The shepherds must be “models for the flock” (5, 3). The word of God is brought from the past to the present, when it is lived. He is wonderful to see how the saints the Word of God becomes a Word directed to our time. Figures like San Francisco and again like Pío Father and so many others, Christ becomes truly contemporary of his generation, leaves the past and enters the present. This means to be Shepherd, model of the flock: to live the word now, in the great community of santa Iglesia.
It would still very briefly want to draw attention on other two affirmations of the First Letter of San Pedro, that they have to do of special way with us, with our time. It is first of all the phrase open pie today again, on the basis of which the medieval theologians included their task, the task of the theologian: “you give cult to the Gentleman, Christ, in your hearts, always arranged to give answer to which it requests reason to you of your hope” (3, 15). The Christian faith is hope. It lays the way towards the future. And it is a hope that is reasonable; a hope whose reason we can and we must expose. The faith comes from the eternal Reason that it has entered our world and it has shown to us the true God. It goes beyond the own capacity of our reason, as well as the love goes beyond simple intelligence. But the faith speaks to the reason and in the dialectic confrontation it can stay still on before the reason. It does not contradict it, but it goes to the passage with her and, at the same time, it leads beyond her - it introduces in the greatest Reason of God. Like Shepherds of our time, we must have to be first in including/understanding the reasons of the faith. The task of not letting remain it in a mere tradition, but recognizing it as answer our questions. The faith demands our rational participation, that is deepened and it is purified in sharing the love. Form leaves from our duties like shepherds to penetrate the faith with the thought to be able to show to the reason of our hope in the discussion of nuetsro time. However, thinking - still so necessary by itself it is not enough. In its baptismal and eucharistic catechesis in the second chapter of its letter, Pedro alludes to the Psalm used in the old Church in the context of the communion, to the versicle that says: “if you have liked that the Gentleman is good” (Salt 34 [33], 9; 1 EP 2, 3). Only liking takes when seeing. We think about the disciples of Emaús: only in the communion coexisted with Jesus, only in the fraction of the bread their eyes are abren. Only in the communion with the experienced Gentleman truly they are able to see. This bond for all we: beyond thinking and to speak, we needed the experience of the faith; of the vital relation with Jesus Christ. The faith cannot remain in theories: it must be life. If we found to the Gentleman in the Sacrament; if in the oration we spoke with Him; if in the daily decisions we adhered to Christ, then “we see more and more” how good is He. Then we experimented that it is good for being with Him. From this lived certainty it also derives the capacity to communicate the faith to the others of credible form. Cura de Ars was not a great thinker. But it “liked” the Gentleman. He lived with Him until in minucias on the day to day more than in the great exigencies of the pastoral ministry. In this way one became “one that sees”. He had liked, and for that reason he knew that the Gentleman is good. We pray to the Gentleman, so that give we this to like and we thus pruned to turn to us into credible witnesses of the hope that is in us.
Finally, it would want to make also notice a small but important word of san Pedro. Indeed at the beginning of the Letter, he says to us that the goal of our faith is the salvation of the souls (cfr 1, 9). In the world of the language and the thought of the present cristiandad, this one is a strange affirmation, for some even scandalous. The word “soul” has fallen in disrepute. One says that this would take to a division of the man in spirit and physicist, soul and body, whereas in fact it would be an indivisible unit. In addition, “the salvation of the souls” as it puts of the faith seems to indicate an individualistic Christianity, a loss of responsibility towards the world as a whole, in its corporeidad and its materiality. But of all this is nothing in the Letter of san Pedro. The fervor by the testimony in favor of the hope and the responsibility towards the others characterizes to all the text. In order to include/understand the word on the salvation of the souls as it puts of the faith, we must start off from another side. It continues being certain that the negligence of the souls, the misery of the inner man, does not destroy only the individual, but threatens the destiny of the humanity as a whole. Without treatment of the souls, without treatment of the man from within, it cannot have salvation for the humanity. The true disease of the souls, San Pedro, for our surprise, considers the ignorance, that is to say, ignorance of God. Who does not know God, that does not look for it at least sincerely, it remains outside the true life (cfr 1 EP 1, 14). Still another word of the Letter can be useful to understand better the formula to us “salvation of the souls”: “You purify your souls with obedience to the truth” (cfr 1, 22). It is obedience to the truth the one that purifies the soul. And he is to coexist with the lie the one contaminates that it. The obedicencia to the truth begins with the small daily truths, that often can be fatigosas and painful. This obedience extends finally to obedience without reserves against the same Truth that is Christ. This obedience us makes mainly also free thus not only pure, but for the service to Christ and for the salvation of the world, that always begins by the obedient purification of the own soul by means of the truth. We can only indicate the way towards the truth if we ourself - with obedience and patience we let ourselves purify by the truth.
And now I go, brother beloveds in the episcopado one, who now you will receive from my hand the Pallium. It has been woven with the wool of the lambs that the Pope blesses in the celebration of santa Ines. In this way, this one remembers the lambs and the ewes of Christ, who the revived Gentleman has trusting to Pedro with the task of feeding them (cfr Jn 21, 15-18). The flock of Jesus Christ remembers, to whom you, brother beloveds, must feed in communion with Pedro. It remembers us to the same Christ, who as Good Shepherd has taken on his shoulders the lost ewe, humanidda, to give back it to house. It remembers to us the fact that He, the supreme Shepherd, has wanted to become He himself Lamb, to load from within with the destiny of all we; in order to take to us and to cure to us from within. We want to pray to the Gentleman, so that it grants to us to follow its tracks like right shepherds, “not by obligation, but willingly, as it pleases to God… with generous spirit… models of the flock” (1 EP 5, 2s). Amen. [Original Translation of Italian by Inma Alvarez
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