Wednesday, July 9 : Benedict XVI

CALENDARIUM ROMANUM FORMA ORDINARIA, MEDITATIO, THE DAILY GOSPEL MEDITATIO, Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar

The Lord founded the Church by calling together the Twelve, who were to represent the future People of God. Faithful to the Lord’s mandate, after his Ascension…, the Twelve continued to involve others in the duties entrusted to them so that they might continue their ministry. The Risen Lord himself called Paul (cf. Gal 1: 1)… This is the way in which this ministry, known from the second generation as the episcopal ministry, episcope, was to be continued… In this way, succession in the role of Bishop is presented as the continuity of the Apostolic ministry, a guarantee of the permanence of the Apostolic Tradition, word and life, entrusted to us by the Lord. The link between the College of Bishops and the original community of the Apostles is understood above all in the line of historical continuity. As we have seen, first Matthias, then Paul, then Barnabas joined the Twelve, then others, until, in the second and third generations, the Bishop’s ministry took shape… And in the continuity of the succession lies the guarantee of the permanence, in the Ecclesial Community, of the Apostolic College that Christ had gathered around him. This continuity, however, should also be understood in a spiritual sense, because Apostolic Succession in the ministry is considered a privileged place for the action and transmission of the Holy Spirit. We find these convictions clearly echoed in the following text, for example, by Irenaeus of Lyons: “It is within the power of all… in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the Apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to count those who were by the Apostles instituted Bishops in the Churches and… the succession of these men to our own times…. [The Apostles] were desirous that these men, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, should be very perfect and blameless in all things, delivering up their own place of government to these men.”
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team