RADIO VATICANA REPORT: Pope Benedict XVI presided over Mass yesterday with the Ratzinger Schülerkreis – the group of former students who did their doctoral work with the then-Professor Joseph Ratzinger.
The Mass took place at the Mariapolis Center in Castel Gandolfo, and marked the end of the traditional Summer gathering, which this year took place against the thematic backdrop of the new evangelization.
Briefly introducing the Eucharistic celebration, Pope Benedict said the words of the Psalm of the day, Psalm 62, which sings of the soul that thirsts for the LORD thirsts for you my soul, offers an occasion and an impetus to pray for those who seek to satisfy their thirst elsewhere: “Let us pray,” he said, “that God reveal to all that He is the living water, and that He does not allow the lives of men and their thirst for great things to suffocate and drown the ephemeral.”
The Pope prayed especially for young people in this regard, before going on to say, “We who have known God since we were young, must ask forgiveness, because we bring people so little of the light of His visage, because from us comes so little certainty that He is, the He is there, and that He is the Great One, whom we all attend.”
The homilist for the Mass, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, spoke of the total and complete renunciation of self that must accompany radical Christian discipleship.
“Only by not conforming ourselves to this world,” said Cardinal Schönborn, “can we recognize the will of God and make it the foundation of our lives.”
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