“Count on coming away with a new insight, a new way of experiencing “the fire of Christ’s love” for you—personally.”
—From the foreword by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan

Raniero Cantalamessa This book is a collection of meditations on the Gospel beatitudes given to the papal household in the presence of Pope Benedict XVI during Advent of 2006 and Lent of 2007.

The beatitudes, even within the New Testament, underwent a development of different applications according to the theology of the particular Gospel writer and of the needs of the community for which he was writing. Exegetes have distinguished three successive phases in this process: the initial phase, consisting of the beatitudes as we assume they were originally formulated by Jesus during his life; the intermediate phase, represented by the oral traditions that preceded the writing of the Gospels, in which an initial interpretation was already underway; and the last phase, the final versions of the beatitudes that have reached us in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, which are laid out in parallel following this preface. Jacques Dupont takes this approach in his monumental study on the beatitudes, and I will have an opportunity to present-and occasionally to discuss-his chief conclusions during the course of these meditations.

In keeping with the developing nature of applications for the beatitudes, we will also read the beatitudes in light of the new situations in which we find ourselves today, with the difference, of course, that the interpretations of the Gospel writers are inspired and are thus normative for everyone at all times, while today’s interpretations do not share this special privilege.

What Saint Gregory the Great says of all of Scripture applies to the beatitudes as well, namely, “Cum legentibus crescit, ” “It grows with [the] persons reading … it. “I Scripture always reveals new implications and richer content, according to the new needs and questions with which it is read. It is in this spirit that I intend to reflect on the beatitudes, attempting thereby to illumine our lives from the perspective of the beatitudes and to shed light on the beatitudes from our experiences. According to Matthew, Jesus climbed a mountain in order to proclaim the beatitudes, and we will do the same to meditate on them. Each meditation will be like another step upward in the effort to scale this “eight-storey” mountain.

Raniero Cantalamessa This book contains a series of meditations given at the papal household during Advent of 2000, the jubilee Year, and in Lent of 2001, the first year of the new millennium. This completes the series of books on the mysteries of Christ in the life of the church, which includes the mystery of the nativity, the baptism of Christ, the transfiguration, the word of God, Easter, and Pentecost. The Trinity is also a mystery “of Christ” in that he was the one who revealed it to us and is himself part of it.

In his apostolic letter Novo millennio ineunte, Pope John Paul II speaks of a “high standard” for Christian holiness, and I have attempted to demonstrate how the Trinity itself is that high standard. I have applied the exciting invitation that resounds in that letter-Duc in altum, “launch out into the deep”-to the Trinity, because I am convinced of the need for a breath of fresh air, a new perspective on Christian life, that is more clearly trinitarian. The Trinity is the “bottomless sea without shores” in which Christ invites us to immerse ourselves in everything he continually says about the Father and the Spirit in the gospel.

I was encouraged to take these reflections out of the halls of the papal household by the kindness of the supreme pontiff, who heard these reflections and often asked me to give him the texts to reread. I was also moved by the conviction some cardinals expressed to me that these reflections could help develop a trinitarian spirituality, which the church sees a growing need for, among laypeople as well. All important events and acts of Christianity begin in the name of the Trinity, so it is appropriate for the new millennium to begin this way: in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Given my frequent references to a few famous artistic representations of the Trinity, four colored illustrations have been included to encourage the contemplation of the mystery, as is the nature of icons.

Raniero Cantalamessa In this book of meditations Father Raniero Cantalamessa reflects on Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection from four distinct starting points. First presented as a Lenten retreat in Rome, together with the Good Friday homily in St. Peter’s Basilica, the result is a rich and multifaceted exploration of this central mystery of the Christian faith.

Christ’s journey to Easter is such an immensely rich source that homilists, liturgists, and every believer who wants to plumb its depths know the challenge is not about lack of content, but rather where to begin. Like an experienced guide who knows the territory and its many paths well, Father Cantalamessa helps readers reach the spiritual center.

His varying points of departure become stirring reflections on Easter. They culminate in a powerful meditation on the Servant Song in the light of the Passion narratives-and the message of the victorious Christ.

Raniero Cantalamessa This short volume contains four reflections of lectio divina that I gave to the papal household during Lent of 2003. The final chapter was offered to a different audience and concerns the family as the “domestic Church.”

The main characteristic of lectio divina, as compared to other forms of meditation, is that its foundation is Scripture. Here Scripture does not serve as an example, nor does it function as a part of the meditation in order to illustrate a given theme. Rather, Scripture itself constitutes the theme from which everything begins and to which everything returns.

Another noteworthy characteristic of lectio divina is that it is usually a continuous reading of a particular book of the Bible. Both of these characteristics are visible in the reflections in this volume. Each is based on an excerpt from the Letter to the Ephesians, and the reflections follow the order in which the excerpts appear in Scripture.

As always with reflections given to the papal household, the first part provides some essential theological considerations about the issue at hand. The second part then presents the practical implications for the spiritual life that spring forth from those considerations. Some of these practical applications, such as those in Chapter Three on the spirituality of service to the Chair of Peter, are meant for the audience to which they were originally addressed. I keep them in the book since indirectly they may interest everyone.

Following the progression in Ephesians, we contemplate the Church under the four classical images of building, body, bride and mother. In Chapter Four, I make an observation concerning the necessity and urgency of new reflections on the mystery of the Church:

“It was predicted at the beginning of the twentieth century that that would be the century of the Church, the century in which the Church would become newly aware of its importance after the long silence of the liberal enlightenment period. This certainly happened at the theological level. There were countless studies on the nature of the Church. Karl Barth called his study Church Dogmatics. The Second Vatican Council made his work a focal point. There was also the Ecclesiam suam of Paul VI. But did love for the Church grow proportionately?”

One cannot read the affirmation of Ephesians 5:25, “Christ loved the Church,” without asking the question, “And I? Do I love the Church?”

Raniero Cantalamessa This book is a collection of teachings and meditations given at national and international meetings of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. The only exception is the last chapter (“We Were All Made to Drink of One Spirit”) which was a meditation delivered to Pope John Paul II’s Pontifical Household and the Roman Curia.

The chapters relate to different phases of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal from its beginnings to the present, which explains the varying tones and some unavoidable repetitions of the same theme.

I dedicate this book first and foremost to my brothers and sisters in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal because much of it was born of their prayer and their inspiring love for the Word of God. “The charismatic renewal,” or, as we say in Italy, “the renewal in the Spirit,” describes the special grace diffused in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council. More significantly, it also describes the path of salvation presented in Scripture to the whole Church and to every believer: “He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

Because of that, the reflections in this book are not intended for just one particular ecclesial group but for all those who feel a need to open their lives more fully to the powerful breath of the Spirit which is blowing through the Church today “as in a new Pentecost.”

I am grateful to St. Anthony Messenger Press and to Servant Books for the opportunity to share these reflections with my brothers and sisters in the United States and in other English-speaking countries with whom I have shared so many times of deep prayer and joyful proclamation of the gospel. I am also glad to share these reflections because I am indebted to them: it was in the United States-New Jersey, to be precise-that in 1977 I myself received the grace of “the baptism of the Spirit.”

Eucharistic reflections inspired by Adoro te devote and Ave verum Raniero Cantalamessa

INTRODUCTION

This book is a collection of meditations on the Eucharist, which I gave at the Pontifical Household, during Advent and Lent in the Year of the Eucharist 2004-2005. The first Eucharistic Year, proclaimed by John Paul II in 1985, offered me the occasion to write the series of meditations entitled “The Eucharist, Our Sanctification”; this second Eucharistic Year has given me the opportunity to offer this new series of meditations based on a commentary on two of the most well-known and venerated Eucharistic hymns of the Latin Church: the Adoro Te Devote and the Ave Verum.

They are the last meditations that I had the honor and grace to be able to hold in the presence of the Holy Father John Paul II. During the sermons preached in Lent 2005, he was repeatedly hospitalized in conditions of health that the whole world followed with trepidation, and which ended with his holy death. And yet, even in these conditions he wished to follow, through a special television connection, the reflections of a simple priest of his Church, giving all, and above all the preacher, an example of humility and of extraordinary love of the Eucharist. I consider the letter that the Holy Father wrote me, at the conclusion of the cycle of meditations, the best recompense for my 25 years of service as Pontifical Household preacher.

In a poem written in his youth Karol Wojtya praised the vocation of being a “Eucharistic I”; as Pope he realized this calling before the Church and the world. In the penultimate chapter of this book there is a description of the edifying death of a great lover of the Eucharist, St. Thomas Aquinas. John Paul II’s death was no different. It is comforting to think that for him what is written in the last stanza of the Adoro Te Devote is now a reality:

Jesus! Whom for the present veil’d I see,
What I so thirst for, O vouchsafe to me:
That I may see Thy countenance unfolding,
And may be blest Thy glory in beholding.

Translated by Denis and Marlene Barrett.