Pope Benedict- "a little Summa"

In addition to reading my humble and, by comparison at least, amateurish words on this week's daily readings as I conduct weekday Communion services at the request of a vacationing pastor (masses on Sundays), you can easily follow Pope Benedict's pilgrimage to his Bavarian homeland by linking to Rocco Palmo's wonderful blog, Whispers in the Loggia. It is to Rocco that I owe the link to the Holy Father's homily for yesterday's Mass in Regensburg, his adopted Bavarian home, where he taught theology up until Pope Paul VI elevated him to the See of Munich-Freising in 1977 and created him a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church later that same year.

As in all the words of this learned, humble, and deeply spiritual man, we hear an echo of the voice of the Master. Let us thank God that such a worthy man today walks in the shoes of the Galilean fisherman as Christ's Vicar on Earth! Let us pray for him and with him daily. Here is a snippet to whet your appetite:


"We are gathered here for a celebration of faith. But the question immediately arises: What do we believe? What does it mean to have faith? Is it still something possible in the modern world? When we look at the great Summae of theology compiled in the Middle Ages, or we think of the number of books written each day for or against faith, we might lose heart and think it is all too complicated. In the end, we can no longer see th forest for the trees. True enough: faith's vision embraces heaven and earth; past, present, and future; eternity- and so it can never be fully exhausted. And yet, deep down, it is quite simple. The Lord tells us so when he says to the Father: 'you have revealed these things to the simple - to those able to see with their hearts' (cf Matt 11, 25). The Church, for her part, has given us a little Summa in which everything essential is expressed. It is the so-called 'Apostles' Creed' . . . "