Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, born Joseph Ratzinger, passed away today at the age of 95.
There will be many words spoken about him in the coming days; I think Brandon treads a measured line in his assessment of Benedict's life and papacy. It's only fitting, at the death of such a prolific and gracious academic, to quote his own words. Here is a passage from Introduction to Christianity, about Christ's descent into Hell, which was a lifeline to me at a time when I was struggling:
...In truth -- one thing is certain: there exists a night into which solitude no voice reaches; there is a door through which we can only walk alone -- the door of death. In the last analysis all the fear in the world is fear of this loneliness. From this point of view, it is possible to understand why the Old Testament has only one word for hell and death, the word sheol; it regards them as ultimately identical. Death is absolute loneliness. But the loneliness into which love can no longer advance is -- hell.
That brings us back to our starting point, the article of the Creed that speaks of the descent into hell. This article thus asserts that Christ strode through the gate of our final loneliness, that in his Passion he went down into the abyss of our abandonment. Where no voice can reach us any longer, there is he. Hell is thereby overcome, or, to be more accurate, death, which was previously hell, is hell no longer. Neither is the same any longer because there is life in the midst of death, because love dwells in it. Now only deliberate self-enclosure is hell or, as the Bible calls it, the second death (Rev. 20:14, for example). But death is no longer the path into icy solitude; the gates of sheol have been opened. From this angle, I think, one can understand the images -- which at first look so mythological -- of the Fathers, who speak of fetching up the dead, of the opening of the gates. The apparently mythical passage in St. Matthew's Gospel becomes comprehensible, too, the passage that says that at the death of Jesus tombs opened ant the bodies of the saints were raised (Mt. 27:52). The door of death stands open since life -- love -- has dwelt in death.
1 comment:
I love this reflection on death so much.
Especially this bit: "death, which was previously hell, is hell no longer. Neither is the same any longer because there is life in the midst of death, because love dwells in it."
Love dwells in it. Some years ago I wrote a meditation prompted by very young Bella and Sophie playing a game of being "in the tomb with Jesus". And in visual imagery that suggested itself was the tomb as a warm place, and the surprising comparison of it being like a hobbit hole. A hobbit hole is the very opposite of the barrow of the barrow wights, which is a cold, dank, haunted place. The hobbit hole is a place where love dwells. And so Pope Benedict unpacks my imagery for me. The tomb has become a place where love dwells. It is therefore a home, a habitation, a dwelling, a place of hospitality. A place one might want to visit, indeed, if such a Person is dwelling there.
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