Monday, June 27 : Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI]

We should remember that Jesus’ essential attribute and the one that most calls forth his dignity is that of ‘Son’… His life’s orientation, the purpose for which he came and the end that gave them shape are expressed in a single word: “Abba, beloved Father”. Jesus knew he was never alone and, right up to his final cry on the cross, he obeyed him whom he called Father, submitting his whole being to him. It is this alone that allows us to explain why he refused at the last to call himself king or lord or attribute to himself any other title of power but had recourse to a word that we might well translate as ‘child’. Thus we could say what follows: if, in Jesus’ preaching, childhood occupies such an extraordinarily significant place, it is because it corresponds the most profoundly to the mystery that was most personal to him, to his sonship. His highest dignity, that which refers us back to his divinity, does not consist in the end in any power he might have disposed of but was founded on his being orientated towards the other: God, the Father. The German exegete, Joachim Jeremias, has well said that to be a child in Jesus’ sense means to learn to say “Father”.
maronite readings – rosary,team