So I can’t sleep and decided I’d continue reading Pope Benedict (then Ratzinger)’s book Principles of Catholic Theology. It is, as one would expect, chock full of wonderful statements to reflect on. Here’s another one, concerning the Sacrament of Baptism:
The historicity of faith signifies at the same time its communality and its power to transcend time: to unite yesterday, today and tomorrow by trust in one and the same God. Hence it can also be said that the word introduces the factor of time into our relationship with God just as the material element introduces the cosmic sphere. And, with time, it also brings in other persons who, in this word, express their common faith and experience the nearness of God. Here, too, the sacramental structure corrects an attitude that is typical of the modern age: the tendency to confine religion not just to the purely spiritual but also to the purely individual. As though we ourselves had invented God, we erect a contradiction that is ultimately fatal between tradition and reason, between tradition and truth. Without tradition, without the context of a living history, the human individual is without roots, is striving for an autonomy that is in conflict with his nature.
Those words ring out even to this day. Truly God’d Providence has provided us with this Pope, at a time when contemplation and reflection have been needed as never before. Deo gratias.
