Homily: January 3, 2023, Tuesday, Christmas Weekday.

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 “If you Consider that God is righteous, you also know that everyone who act in righteousness is begotten by him.”  The church on earth is mourning the loss of her beloved shepherd Pope Benedict XVI. The church in heaven is rejoicing to welcome his soul into the saintly community of apostles.

Born Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict the XVI was a righteous man like St. Joseph. He was a man for jjustice, he stood firmly for what is right and defended the truth fearlessly. He was steadfast in upholding the doctrine of the church and never allowed anyone to water down the teachings. Many within church opposed him, but he stood his ground. Even in interreligious dialogues, he was never shy in proclaiming Jesus is the truth for the world, regardless of religion. He fought against secularism, relativism, and the culture of death.

In his speech at World Youth Day, Sydney 2008, he said, "Relativism, by indiscriminately giving value to practically everything, has made 'experience' all-important. Yet, experiences, detached from any consideration of what is good or true, can lead, not to genuine freedom, but to moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-respect, and even to despair."

Beneath his no-nonsense demeanor is a man who truly understood the God-man relationship.

In his encyclical Spe Salvi, 2007, he wrote, "God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us."

He is a true, begotten son of God who acted in righteousness. He has arrived at the Kingdom of God. As we bid farewell to this beloved pope and great theologian of our time, let us humbly ask God for the gift of fortitude to give witness to the Truth, to proclaim it fearlessly, and to attain genuine freedom from it. Amen.


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