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A large collection of homilies by the late Pope Benedict XVI will soon be published by the Ratzinger Foundation. The release has been long awaited – first announced in 2023 – and will include some 130 homilies that Pope Benedict XVI gave at private Masses throughout his pontificate.
In a video announcement from the Archdiocese of Sydney, Fr. Frederico Lombardi, president of the Joseph Ratzinger Foundation, explained that Pope Benedict was an enthusiastic preacher who would prepare a homily even if he was celebrating Mass with just one other person present:
“Benedict XVI delivered a well-prepared homily every Sunday, even when he did not have to celebrate Mass in public; even during his travels or during the great ceremonies in St Peter’s; even when he was in his private chapel with members of his family, with the secretary and the nuns who lived with him; or even with a few invited friends,” said Fr. Lombardi.
A first, last year
In 2023, one of these homilies on St. Joseph, geared to the Christmas season, was reproduced in a German newspaper, but this is the only of the collection that has been released.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) provided segments of the homily in 2023. In it, Pope Benedict considers the biblical description of Joseph as a “just man,” which signified that he was a follower of the Torah, the law of Israel.
“The danger is that if the word of God is essentially law, it can be regarded as a sum of prescriptions and prohibitions, a package of norms, and the attitude therefore would be to observe the norms and thus be correct,” Pope Benedict said in the homily.
He went on to muse that if religion was just the following of laws it would preclude a personal relationship with God. The late pope instructed that the coming of Jesus changed our perceptions of the laws of Israel, turning them from a series of regulations to be followed into a means of understanding God’s will to form a relationship.
“A truly righteous person like St. Joseph is like this: for him the law is not simply the observance of rules, but presents itself as a word of love, an invitation to dialogue,” the homily continues. The dialogue leads one to discover “that all these norms do not apply for their own sake, but are rules of love, they serve so that love grows in me.”
There are over 100 homilies filled with the rich introspective Catholic tradition of thought from Pope Benedict XVI just waiting to be perused. Look for more news on the upcoming publishing of Pope Benedict XVI’s homilies at the Ratzinger Foundation in Spring 2025.
And today we celebrate...