Pope’s
Lenten retreat: cardinal reflects on liturgy, history
H.E. Card. Gianfranco Ravasi is leading the Lenten retreat for the Pope and the Roman Curia
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, who is
leading the annual Lenten retreat for the Pope and leaders of the Roman Curia,
preached on the afternoon of February 18 on God’s revelation in the liturgy.
Cardinal Ravasi reflected on “the
need for a deeper analysis of the heart, so that worship does not become a
merely external rite, as the prophet Isaiah notes when he says that God hates
offerings and sacrifices,” according to a Vatican Radio summary of his
meditation. “The vertical gaze towards God and the horizontal gaze towards our
brethren” are two dimensions of the liturgy that must be kept in balance, the
summary added.
The following morning, Cardinal
Ravasi, citing Psalms 136 and 117, preached on God’s revelation in history.
“History is and should always be our favoured place to meet our Lord, our God,
although it is a land of scandal, even if it is a land in which we often see
maybe even the silence of God or apostasy of men,” he said.
“Through hope, we are certain that
we are not at the mercy of fate, an imponderable fate,” he added. “Our God is
defined in Exodus 3 with the first person pronoun ‘I’ and the fundamental verb
‘I am.’ So He is a Person who acts, who enters into events and that’s why our
relationship with God is a relationship of trust, dialogue, contact. Yes, our
hope springs from the belief that history is not a succession of events without
meaning.”
Source: Catholic World News
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