Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller discesses
Pope’s trilogy on Jesus
With the Foreword to the Infancy Narratives, Joseph Ratzinger
Benedict XVI has completed his trilogy on Jesus of Nazareth, whom the Church
professes as the one mediator between God and men (cf. 1 Tim 2:5). The first
volume treats Jesus' journey “From the Baptism in the Jordan to the
Transfiguration”, whereas the second leads the reader “From the Entrance
into Jerusalem to the Resurrection”.
It is certainly worth studying this extraordinary
work of about 900 pages. Anyone who wishes to know what to expect of God and
what man's situation is must pass through Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus, in fact is
not merely one of the determinative figures of human history, but rather the
only man to be the measure for all. Through him God came to us, in him he
accepted us and revealed to every person his highest calling. It is the only
name under heaven by which we shall be saved (cf. Acts, 4:12). For this reason
the Church believes that “the key, the centre and the purpose of the whole of
man's history” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 10) is to be found in Christ.
Whenever some sceptic asks me if I truly believe that the Only-Begotten
Son of God was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin
Mary without a man's contribution, I answer with conviction and without
hesitation: yes, because I believe in God to whom nothing is impossible.
Creation does not flee from God's hand. The eternal Word can become flesh in a
Virgin. Faith in God and in his boundless possibility for action are
reasonable. Conversely it would be contrary to reason to limit God's saving plan
and action in history to what the human being considers possible.
In his Foreword the Pope describes his book on the Infancy Narratives as
“a sort of small 'antechamber' to the two earlier volumes on the figure and the
message of Jesus of Nazareth”, fully aware of the theological and historical
problems that arise in the study of Sacred Scripture: “the question regarding
the here and now of things past is undeniably included in the task of
exegesis”. Since, according to our faith, God is the author of the testimony to
his salvific action, through Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit, ultimately
scientific exegesis does not serve to elucidate what once existed but the One
who is the Word, who became man and dwelled among us. Through his new book, the
Pope seeks to show us what the fact that Jesus is Emmanuel, God-with-us,
actually means (cf. Matthew, 1:23).
Source: Osservatore Romano
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