A Love Letter From Rome

Clare Lazzuri

Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical has arrived. Everything you have heard or will hear about it can be addressed in two words: Read it.


It’s no secret that when Josef Cardinal Ratzinger was chosen to be pope last April, it was not without a few raised eyebrows. Some of those eyebrows were raised in pleasant surprise, others in disbelieving protest. But for all of us who have any stake at all in this papacy (that would be any Catholic) the least we can do is take the time to read our new pope’s first letter to us. And in more ways than one, this encyclical is a particularly poignant love letter.

Entitled Deus Caritas Est, or God Is Love, this topic may not be what some expected from the man who has been labeled a strict authoritarian. Perhaps something more doctrinal was thought to be coming from the pen of the former "watchdog" of the Church. But, not so, and this is not without significance. Of all the topics pertaining to faith and morals, Pope Benedict has chosen to expound on the meaning of Christian love. Why? Because if we could only get love right, pretty much everything else will fall into place. But, to get love right, we need to understand it.

The encyclical is broken into two parts. Part one deals with "The Unity of Love in Creation and in Salvation History" and "Caritas: The Practice of Love by the Church as a ‘Community of Believers.’" While the topic of Christian love is not new, the first half of the letter gives real insight into the depths of love. In this section the pope explores the types of love as defined in the terms "eros" and "agape" and how they are lacking when not allowed to complement each other. He asks and carefully answers the question of whether or not the Church, "with all her commandments and prohibitions, turns to bitterness the most precious thing in life? Doesn’t she blow the whistle just when the joy which is the Creator’s gift offers us a happiness which is itself a certain foretaste of the Divine?"

The answer, of course, is no. But the journey to that answer on which Pope Benedict takes us — through pagan, Old Testament and New Testament examples — is worthy of deep reflection and response. His treatment of the love of God, through the sacrifice of Christ, is especially poignant and offers the ultimate example of Christian love. The love that is God, along with the love that God has for man, is so great, says the pope, that it caused God to sacrifice Himself to restore unity between God and man. "His death on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against Himself in which He gives Himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most radical form," he writes.

It is this radical love of Christ, found in the Cross and in the Eucharist, that leads us to imitate Christ’s example and offers us a new way of loving, especially through a love of our neighbor, which has been personalized and uplifted through Christ. There can be no loving of God without love of neighbor, Pope Benedict tells us.

"Love of neighbor is thus shown to be possible in the way proclaimed by the Bible, by Jesus. It consists in the very fact that, in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or even know," said Pope Benedict.

He goes on to say, "Then I learn to look on this other person not simply with my eyes and my feelings, but from the perspective of Jesus Christ. His friend is my friend.... Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave."

The beauty of the pope’s words continues for each reader to digest and contemplate on his or her own. This encyclical is not a lofty theological discourse of interest only to priests and professors. It’s for everyone, everywhere. It seems clear that Pope Benedict is keenly aware of what the Church, and the world, is in dire need of: love. Without love there is nothing. With love there is everything.

To our new pope: Thanks for the love letter.


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• Lazzuri is founding editor of The Atlantic Catholic in Nova Scotia.
  
  (This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
  

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