Sorry for the delay on posting the Pope's Wednesday's Audience. Had to get the tires changed and that became a SEVERAL hour affair. Thus we shall have to also catch up on the Louisiana Catholic Blogger update tomorrow. Anyway thanks to the Ratzinger Forum for the great pics and the translation of the Wednesday Audience
Dear brothers and sisters,
In the last catecheses on St. Paul, I spoke of his encounter with the Risen Christ, which profoundly changed his life, and then his relations with the twelve Apostles called by Jesus - particularly with James, Kephas/Peter and John - and his relation with the Church of Jerusalem.
Now there is the question of what Paul knew about the earthly Jesus, his life, his teachings, his passion. Before getting into this, it may be useful to bear in mind that St. Paul himself distinguishes two modes of knowing Jesus, and more generally, two modes of knowing a person. He writes in the Second Letter to the Corinthians: "From now on we regard no one according to the flesh; even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer" (5,16).
To know 'according to the flesh', in a physical way, means to know only in an exterior way, with exterior criteria: one can see a person several times, know his features and the different details of his behavior - how he talks, how he moves, etc. Nevertheless, even if we know another person in this way, we do not really know him, we do not know the nucleus of the person.
In fact, the Pharisees and the Sadducees knew Jesus in an exterior way, they learned his teaching, so many details about him, but they did not know him in his truth. There is an analogous distinction in a statement made by Jesus.
After the Transfiguration, he asks the apostles: "Who do people say I am?" and "Who will you say that I am?" The people knew him, but superficially; they knew many things about him, but they did not really know him. On the contrary, the Twelve, thanks to friendship that involves the heart, at least understood his essence and had started to know Jesus.
Even today there exist these two modes of knowledge. There are well-educated persons who know Jesus in many details, and simple persons who do not know these details, but have known him in his truth: "heart speaks to heart".
Paul wants to tell us he knew Jesus that way: with the heart, and in this way, to know the person essentially in his truth; only later, to get to know details. That said, the question remains: what did St. Paul know of the concrete life, the words, the passion, the miracles of Jesus? It seems certain that he never met him during his earthly life. Through the Apostles and the early Church, he surely learned of details about that life. In his Letters, we can find three forms of references to the pre-Paschal Jesus.
In the first place, there are explicit and direct references. Paul speaks of the Davidic ancestry of Jesus (cfr Rm 1,3); he knows the existence of his 'brothers' or blood relatives (1 Cor 9,5; Gal 1,19); he knows the events of the Last Supper (cfr 1 Cor 11,23); he knows other statements by Jesus, for example, about the indissolubility of matrimony (cfr 1 Cor 7,10; Mk 10,11-12); on the necessity that whoever announces the Gospel should be maintained by the community as a worker worthy of his keep (cfr 1 Cor 9,14); Lk 10,7).
Paul knows the words said by Jesus at the last Supper (cfr 1 Cor 11,24-25; Lk 22,19-20, and he even knows the Cross of Jesus.
These are direct references to the words and events in the life of Jesus. In the second place, we can see in some sentences of the Pauline letters various allusions to the tradition attested to by the synoptic Gospels. For example, the words which we read in the first Letter to the Thessalonians, according to which "the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night" (5,2), cannot be explained by referring to Old Testament prophecies, because the metaphor of the thief in the night is only found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, therefore it comes directly from synoptic tradition.
So, when we read that "God chose the foolish of the world..." (1 Cor 1,27-28), we hear the faithful echo of Jesus's teaching on the simple and the poor (cfr Mt 5,3; 11,25; 19,30). Then, there are the words pronounced by Jesus in Messianic rejoicing: "I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, because you have kept these hidden from the wise and to the intelligent, and have revealed them to the little ones".
Paul knows - it is his missionary experience - how true these words are, that it is the simple who have their hearts open to Jesus. Even the reference to Jesus being obedient 'unto death' that we read in Phil 2,8, cannot but hark back to the total willingness of the earthly Jesus to fulfill the will of his Father (cfr Mk 3,55; Jn 4,34).
Thus Paul knew about the Passion of Jesus, his Cross, the way he lived the last moments of his life, The Cross of Jesus and the tradition about the event on the Cross is at the center of the Pauline kerygma (announcement). Another pillar of Jesus's life that was known to St. Paul is the Sermon on the Mount, of which he cites some elements almost to the letter when he writes to the Romans: "Love one another... Blessed are those who are persecuted.. Live in peace with everyone.. Conquer evil with good..." So, in his letters, there is a faithful reflection of the Sermon on the Mount (cfr Mt 5-7).
Finally, it is possible to find a third way in which Jesus's words are present in the Letters of St. Paul: it is when he works a sort of transposition in the pre-paschal tradition and the situation after Easter. A typical case is the subject of the Kingdom of God. That is certainly in the center of the preaching of the historical Jesus (cfr Mt 3,2; Mk 1,15; Lc 4,43). In Paul we can see a transposition of this theme, because after the Resurrection, it is evident that Jesus in person, the Risen Jesus, is the Kingdom of God. Thus the Kingdom arrives wherever Jesus is. Thus necessarily, the subject of the Kingdom of God, in which the mystery of Christ was anticipated, is transformed to Christology [knowledge of Jesus].
Nonetheless, the very same conditions Christ stated for entering the Kingdom of God were exactly the same for Paul in justification through faith: both entrance into the Kingdom and justification require an attitude of great humility and willingness, free of presumptions, in order to receive the grace of God. For example, the parable of the Pharisee and the publican (cfr Lk 18,9014) imparts a teaching that is found as such in Paul, when he insists on the obligatory exclusion of any boasting before God. Even Jesus's statement on publicans and prostitutes, who were more willing to accept the Gospel (cfr Mt 21,31; Lk 7,36-50), and his choices to share a meal with them (cfr Mt 9,10-13; Lk 15,1-2), finds full correspondence in Paul's doctrine of God's merciful love towards sinners (cfr Rm 5,8-10; Eph 2,3-5).
Thus, the theme of the Kingdom of God is proposed in a new form, but always in complete faithfulness to the tradition of the historical Jesus. Another example of the faithful transformation of the doctrinal nucleus intended by Jesus is found in the 'titles' used to refer to him. Before Easter, he called himself the Son of Man; after Easter, it becomes evident that the Son of Man is also the Son of God. That is why the title preferred by Paul to define Jesus is Kýrios - Lord -(cfr Phil 2,9-11), which indicates the divinity of Jesus. On the Mount of Olives, at the moment of Jesus's supreme agony (cfr Mk 14,36), the disciples, before falling asleep, heard him speak to the Father, calling him 'Abba' - Father. It is a very informal term equivalent to our 'Papa', used only by children with their father.
Up till then, it was unthinkable that a Jew could use such a term for addressing God. But Jesus, being True Son, speaks thus at this hour of intimacy, and says "Abbà", Father. In the Letters of St. Paul to the Romans and to the Galatians, surprisingly this word Abba, which expresses the exclusivity of the Son-ship of Jesus, appears on the mouths of the baptized (cfr Rm 8,15; Gal 4,6), because they had received the 'Spirit of the Son' and therefore carried that Spirit within, and could speak, like Jesus and with Jesus, as true sons to their Father - they could say "Abbà" because they had become children in the Son. Finally, I wish to point out the salvific dimension of the death of Jesus, which we find in the Gospel passage that "the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mk 10,45); Mt 20,28).
The faithful reflection of this statement by Jesus appears in the Pauline doctrine about the death of Jesus as ransom (cfr 1 Cor 6,20), as redemption (cfr Rm 3,24), as liberation (cfr Gal 5,1) and as reconciliation (cfr Rm 5,10; 2 Cor 5,18-20). Here is the center of Pauline theology which is based on the words of Jesus. In conclusion, St. Paul did not think of Jesus as a historical figure, as a person of the past. He certainly knew the great tradition about the life, words, death and resurrection of Jesus, but he does not treat all this as a thing of the past. He proposes them as the reality of the living Christ. For Paul, the words and acts of Jesus do not belong to historic time, to the past. Jesus lives now and speaks to us now, and lives with us. This is the true way to know Jesus and to accept the tradition about him. Even we should learn to know Jesus not 'according to flesh', as a person of the past, but as our Lord and brother, who is with us today and who shows us how to live and how to die.
In English, he said:
Dear Brothers and Sisters, In our continuing catechesis on Saint Paul, we now consider Paul’s relationship to the so-called "historical" Jesus. In a celebrated passage Paul states that "even though we once knew Christ according to the flesh, we no longer know him in that way" (2 Cor 5:16). Here the Apostle does not claim that he knew Jesus during his earthly ministry, but rather that he once considered Jesus from a merely human standpoint. Significantly, Paul’s knowledge of Christ came from the preaching of the early Church.
Both his initial rejection of Jesus and – after his conversion on the road to Damascus – his preaching of the glorified Christ were based on the Gospel as proclaimed by the first Christian community. In his Letters, Paul refers explicitly to the facts of Jesus’s earthly life, as well as to his teaching. His Letters also reflect many central themes and images drawn from the preaching of Jesus.
Paul’s teaching on Jesus’s identity as the Son of the Father, in whom we receive redemption and adoptive sonship, is clearly derived from the Lord’s own experience and teaching. In a word, Paul’s knowledge of Jesus and his proclamation of the risen Lord as God’s Son and our Saviour, was grounded in the life and preaching of Jesus himself.
I warmly greet all the English-speaking pilgrims, and in a special way, diaconal candidates from the Pontifical North American College with their families: may the grace of Holy Orders enliven you to preach the Gospel of Christ with conviction and love! I also welcome pilgrims from the Diocese of Hamilton, members of Christ Teens Malaysia, ecumenical pilgrims from Norway, as well as visitors from Indonesia, China, Japan, Australia, Sweden, England, Scotland, Ireland, and the Netherlands. God bless you all!
He had special messages for the Italian pilgrims: ..
.I greet the faithful from the Diocese of Savona-Noli who have come with their Pastor, Mons. Vittorio Lupi, and with priests and civilian authorities, to return the visit that I had the joy of making last May, in the ever-living memory of the presence there of my illustrious predecessor Pius VII, to whom the Savonesi have constantly shown their affection. Dear friends, thank you once again for the hospitality that you extended to me. I call on you to continue being generous witnesses for Christ.
I likewise address a heartfelt thought to the participants of the pilgrimage promoted by the diocese of Vigevano and the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Queen of Peace, on the occasion of the beatification of the priest Francesco Pianzola. A wise preacher, he knew how to renew hearts with the light of the Gospel and the power of the Eucharist, from which he drew that ardor for charity which made him particularly attentive to the needs of young people, becoming their friend, brother and father. Dear friends, emulate the example of the new Blessed One and like him, be luminous signs of the presence of Christ, through a convincing faithfulness to the Church... Finally, I greet the young people, the sick and the newlyweds. Dear brothers and sisters, the month of October, dedicated to the Holy Rosary, is a precious occasion to appreciate this traditional Marian prayer.
I call on everyone to recite the Rosary every day, abandoning yourself trustingly in the hands of Mary.
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