Perhaps few popes, throughout the troubled and glorious history of the Church, have experienced a historical conjuncture as unusual and incomprehensible as the present one.
Newsroom (03/01/2023 9:52 AM, Gaudium Press) The news about Benedict XVI, of course, has multiplied. As soon as his passage into eternity was confirmed, the biographical summaries of his life were disseminated on the internet; he became the target of all the news agencies and the most outstanding traits of his personality were the matter with which this remarkable year of 2022 ends.
And it could not be otherwise: throughout the troubled and glorious history of the Church, there are few popes who have lived through a historical junction as unusual and – if I may say so – incomprehensible as the current one.
To confirm this, it is enough to mention the following: since St. Peter’s until our days, when has there been a recently deceased pope whose funeral was presided over by (another) pope? In other words, the situation in which the Church currently lives is, at least, unique in history.
The curious thing is that, in the course of events, there are certain years that seem to mark a providential isthmus. On the one hand, because many events of great magnitude, at a worldwide level, remain inexplicable to men at the moment they are happening – as is the case of Benedict XVI and his enigmatic and mysterious resignation. On the other hand, because a series of other facts, linked to these important events, seem to be building up to the point of wanting to overflow or break through the supporting wall, giving us the impression that everything will drift away.
Now, it is precisely in those moments of greater incomprehension of the facts, of inextricable solutions to so many problems inside and outside the Church, that the most beautiful rainbows appear, foreshadowing that God is the guide and conductor of history.
The reader should remember that, months ago, when the world heard the first news about the precarious state of health of the late Queen Elizabeth II, in Buckinghan, this same symbol of God’s alliance with mankind was drawn in the firmament, despite the cloudy London sky.
Would it be pointless, then, to correlate this fact with another one, of a similar transcendent character, that occurred in Lourdes, on the 28th of last month, when a beautiful rainbow appeared over the skies of the grotto of Massabielle, while the Vatican issued the first note about the worrying health situation of Benedict XVI?
Such “coincidences” lead us to think that, in this very year of 2022, God has called these two eminent persons who had a very important mission, in order to establish a new regime of graces, both in the spiritual and in the temporal sphere, with a view to a future that will be characterized by the unraveling in a number of sectors of society, starting with the Church itself.
And if we speak of signs, why not see this also through the Liturgy? Indeed, if God bequeathed the Liturgy of the Church to us men as a means of reliving the transcendental events which aim to obtain our salvation and, to a large extent, a foretaste of the supernatural truths, we need to pay attention between the lines, interpreting it in the light of the present facts.
Therefore, today’s liturgy, quoting the words of the Apostle John in the first reading of the Mass, affirms: “Little children, this is the last hour” (1 Jn 18:27). In fact, these are the last hours of a year; the last hours for the change of the world panoramas; and, the last hours of the transit of that most beloved soul of God, who was Benedict XVI.
Dear reader, the fact is that a man of the magnitude of mission and gifts as Benedict XVI could only be the end of something, but of something that goes far beyond a simple calendar year; of something that our faith affirms as the end of a troubled era for the Church, of which he himself was a symbol, in having to spend years in seclusion and silence. But above all a symbol of the long and painful years during which his inner struggle was gestating the foreshadowing of a new era of grace for the Church, bought about – who knows? – by the fidelity of which saints, in this immense Mystical Body of Christ?!
So, turning the handle of this 2022 and crossing the threshold of 2023, let us turn to the Mother of God, whose solemnity we celebrate today, so that she, from heaven, like a Mother of Mercy, will welcome into her arms the soul of Benedict XVI, a man as chosen as he is mysterious, so that the Church may be endowed with new gifts and new graces, as she herself promised in Fatima.
In fact, this is the last hour: the isthmus of 2022 has been crossed!
