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Letter #49, 2016: Again, Russia....[2016-07-29][Engleză]Earthen Vessels...."But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves." 2 Corinthians 4:7 "As light was the beginning of the first creation; so, in the new creation, the light of the Spirit is his first work upon the soul. The treasure of Gospel light and grace is put into earthen vessels. The ministers of the Gospel are subject to the same passions and weaknesses as other men. God could have sent angels to make known the glorious doctrine of the Gospel, or could have sent the most admired sons of men to teach the nations, but he chose humbler, weaker vessels, that his power might be more glorified in upholding them, and in the blessed change wrought by their ministry." Matthew Henry Commentary on 2 Corinthians 4:7 (link) =========================== I left off these letters two months ago, in Letter #48, with the recollection of a meeting with the late Cardinal Loris Capovilla, the private secretary of Pope John XXIII, who died in May at the age of 100, ending with a "to be continued." But I did not continue. I had in mind to describe a long car drive, from Rome up to northern Italy, to Bergamo and to the village of Sotto il Monte ("Under the Mountain"), the birthplace of John XXIII, where Capovilla lived. I had in mind to describe the hills and mountains of Italy, hot cappucinos from the autogrills along the highway, the grey mists of Milan, and then the generous smile of Capovilla, opening the door for us, and welcoming us into his home. Capovilla had received me years before in the same place. We had spoken for an hour of the vision of John XXIII of a world at peace -- not threatened by the use of nuclear weapons as in October 1962 (when Pope John helped to negotiate between John Kennedy and Nikita Kruschev) or by terrorism, like the knife slicing the throat of a martyr priest in Rouen, France, Father Jacques Hamel, 84, who died at 9:43 a.m. on July 26, three days ago. (A nun, who identified herself as Sister Danielle, said she was in the church at the time. "They forced (Father Hamel) to his knees. They did a sort of sermon around the altar, in Arabic. It's a horror." She said she managed to flee as they were preparing to kill Father Jacques.) (Here is an image of Father Jacques, who died a martyr on July 26) In May, I had in mind to narrate how Capovilla on my second visit had spoken at length to me of the secret of Fatima: of how John XXIII, while at Castel Gandolfo in August of 1959, had asked to see the text of the secret, and read it; how an envelope had been brought to him from Rome; how a Portuguese monsignor was also summoned from Rome to help with the reading; and how John had then turned to Capovilla and had instructed him to put the secret back into its envelope and to write on the outside that the Pope had read the secret on that day in August, and had decided not to reveal the contents to the world, but to leave that decision to one of his successors, who might decide whether to reveal the secret at their own discretion, at some future time. And I had in mind to write how Capovilla, when I had asked him whether he had written those words on the envelope in pencil (which could have been erased) or in pen, had told me, "In pen" (so, not eraseable). And I had in mind to write how, when I had asked Capovilla why none of the envelopes containing the Third Secret of Fatima which had been shown on Italian television by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone had contained the words that he had written that day, Capovilla had told me, a bit enigmatically, "Perhaps there was a second envelope." But I stopped there. For Capovilla on that day had not clarified for me the matter of the Third Secret of Fatima. He had left it open, mysterious. And he had clearly intended to leave it so. He had intentionally led me to believe that there was something not clear about the publication of the secret or secrets that there might even have been two different letters, with two different envelopes, with two distinct texts. But, at the same time, he had left me in the dark about what that something might be. He had clearly had some hesitation about speaking definitively on the subject of the letter, as if he had been asked not to do so by some higher authority. As I had understood him, he was hinting to me that there did exist some other version of the Third Secret, a version different from the one that was revealed and published, but he would not say so clearly and categorically. And so, as the days passed, I did not write what I had intended to write. It all seemed too uncertain. And so in this way the days passed into weeks. In June -- because this June was the 65th anniversary of the priestly ordination of Father Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) -- together with my friend Dr. Michael Hesemann, author of a book with Pope Benedict's brother Father Georg Ratzinger, Inside the Vatican organized a pilgrimage "in the footsteps of Pope Benedict XVI." We started in Rome, then went to Bavaria, in southern Germany, to the place of Benedict's birth and baptism, then to the places where he had lived as a boy: to the Marian shrine at Altoetting where he had often gone as a child with his mother, brother and sister; to Traunstein nd Tittmoning; to the church in Freising where he had been ordained with his brother in 1951, not far from Munich. In Regensburg we met briefly with Father Georg Ratzinger, the brother of the Emeritus Pope. As the journey continued, as I looked at the photographs of Joseph as a child, and as a young man, as I observed him (as it were) through those pictures grow from an infant to a boy to a young man, to a priest, to a theologian-professor, to a bishop, to a cardinal, to a Pope and to a Pope Emeritus, I began to reflect on the passage in St. Paul which refers to believers as "earthen vessels," "vessels of clay" humans born under the doom of mortality and fallibility. This dark-haired youth has become a white-haired old man. This active theologian, bustling about the world, attending Vatican II, lecturing in cities around the world, has become a silent figure in prayer in the Vatican Gardens. As I traveled, I grew tired. One evening, in a rainstorm -- the night of the soccer match between Germany and Italy, which Italy lost by penalty kicks -- I got soaked, and caught a slight chill. I began to cough. I had a second pilgrimage scheduled immediately after the one to Germany, to Russia, Ukraine, and Vatican City. I flew to Moscow. The days were lovely. The city seemed at peace. Young couples with their children strolled in Red Square. In a number of Orthodox churches we were invited to visit, men and women and children prayed during long liturgies of great solemnity, asking for the Lord to have mercy on their own fragility ("Gospodin palmilnu," "Lord have mercy). We had a pleasant meeting in the Danilovsky monastery with Metropolitan Hilarion, the head of the External Relations Department of the Russian Orthodox Church. He told us he has just completed a 6-volume study of the life and work of Jesus, partly in imitation of and out of respect for the 3-volume work on Jesus by Pope Benedict XVI. We wished Hilarion a happy coming birthday: he would turn 50 on July 24. (Here is a link to an account of our visit on the Russian Orthodox Church website). In the Catholic cathedral of Moscow, Sunday Masses in Russian, Polish, Spanish, English and even other languages, were less evidently solemn, but not less Christo-centric. The Catholic bishop there, an Italian, Paolo Pezzi, graciously received us. Valiantly he sought the right English words to express his understanding of his central mission in Russia and in life: to bear witness to Jesus Christ, to preach the "Good News" of Christ to all. Everything was to proclaim Christ, to center our thought and lives on Christ, he said. Earthen vessels... In Kiev, capital of Ukraine, we met with Dr. Constantin Sigov of the St. Clement's Center and other Orthodox intellectuals. We saw the beautiful St. Sophia, and we discussed the country and its future over simple but splendid dinners. In Rome, we had meetings in the Vatican, and related what we had seen and heard. On the last day of the pilgrimage, an attack of asthma made it difficult for me to breathe. I ended up in the Santo Spirito hospital on a respirator. So in these nine weeks, I wrote nothing at all. Still, in Rome during June and July, I did have conversations which touched on the Third Secret of Fatima. Those conversations persuaded me that there is an ambiguity and a lack of transparency about the way the texts have been presented to the world. I do not know what the ambiguity or lack of transparency is, but it seems, from what Capovilla told me, and from what I heard in Rome, that something is imperfect, or incomplete, in the way the secret has been published. ========================= A Voice from the East Then, today, I spotted an interview with Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion on a Russian website (link). This extraordinary interview gives a glimpse into the life and soul of one of the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church today. It contains several moving photographs of Hilarion as a young boy and man. Again, as in the photos of Joseph Ratzinger, these photos of Hilarion can move us to compassion for the nobility and fragility of human beings, called to proclaim a transcendent message, but doomed to do so in bodies of clay. Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com Contor Accesări: 876, Ultimul acces: 2026-08-07 05:24:55
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