The colours of his sky

Let us follow the traces of the Pope’s apostolic journey to Bavaria, from 8 to 14 September. For each day during his visit we have taken a passage from his homilies and speeches. During his visit, which had as its motto his often repeated exclamation, “Whoever believes, is never alone”, Benedict XVI travelled through the three dioceses in southern Bavaria in which he had lived and worked before being called to Rome. SATURDAY 9 SEPTEMBER. With journalists on the plane: “I am glad to be flying home. It’s great to be able at least once to see my homeland again, revisit the cities where I once lived. And I am flying home rejoicing in the fact that we will be celebrating a great feast of faith and that this will reinforce our reciprocity. … It’s said that when you go to Munich, you should also go to Berlin, but I’m an elderly man. I don’t know how much more time the Lord will grant me. I am the Pope of the universal Church. Now I am thinking especially of Constantinople and of Brazil as the goals of my next journeys. If I could visit Germany once more, I would be very happy to do so. I would interpret it as a gift of God”. SATURDAY 9 SEPTEMBER . Munich, Franz Joseph Strass Airport, Welcoming ceremony: “The contemporary social context is in many respects different from that of the past. I think however we are all united in the hope that the new generations may remain faithful to the spiritual heritage that has resisted through all the crises of history. My visit to the Land that gave me birth is also intended to be an encouragement in this sense: Bavaria is a part of Germany: belonging to the history of Germany in its high points and low points, it can with good reason be proud of the traditions inherited from the past. My hope is that all my compatriots in Bavaria and in Germany as a whole will play an active part in the transmission of the fundamental values of the Christian faith to the citizens of the future”. SATURDAY 9 SEPTEMBER. Munich, Marienplatz, Greetings before the Mariensäule [the Column of the Madonna]: “… I have found in Saint Corbinian’s bear a constant encouragement to carry out my ministry with confidence and joy – thirty years ago, as again now in my new task – and to say my daily ‘yes’ to God: I have become for you a beast of burden, but as such ‘I am always with you’. Saint Corbinian’s bear was set free in Rome. In my case, the ‘Master’ decided otherwise. And so I find myself once more at the foot of the Mariensäule , imploring intercession and blessing not only for the city of Munich and for my beloved Bavaria, but for the universal Church and for all men of good well”. SATURDAY 9 SEPTEMBER. Munich, Marienplatz, Prayer to the Mariensäule : “Teach us – great and small alike – to carry out our responsibilities in the same way. Help us to find the strength to offer reconciliation and forgiveness. Help us to become patient and humble, but also free and courageous, just as you were at the hour of the Cross”. SUNDAY 10 SEPTEMBER. Munich, outdoor site of the Neue Messe, Holy Mass: “The tolerance which we urgently need includes the fear of God – respect for what others hold sacred. This respect for what others hold sacred demands that we ourselves learn once more the fear of God. But this sense of respect can be reborn in the Western world only if faith in God is reborn, if God become once more present to us and in us. We do not impose our faith on anyone. Such proselytism is contrary to Christianity. Faith can develop only in freedom. But we do appeal to the freedom of man and woman to open their hearts to God, to seek him, to hear his voice”. SUNDAY 10 SEPTEMBER. Munich, outdoor site of the Neue Messe, Angelus: “… we have realized how necessary it is – both for the lives of individuals and for a serene and peaceful coexistence of all people – to see God as the centre of all there is and the centre of our personal lives. The supreme example of this attitude is Mary, Mother of the Lord”. SUNDAY 10 SEPTEMBER. Munich, Cathedral, Vespers: “Dear parents! I ask you to help your children to grow in faith, I ask you to accompany them in their journey towards First Communion, a journey which continues beyond that day, and to keep accompanying them as they make their way to Jesus and with Jesus”. “Dear catechists and teachers! I urge you to keep alive in the schools the search for God, for that God who in Jesus Christ has made himself visible to us”. “Dear priests and all who assist in the parishes! I urge you to do everything possible to make the parish a ‘spiritual community’ for people”. “These three places of education – the family, the school and the parish – go together, and they help to find the way that leads to the sources of life, to ‘life in abundance'”. MONDAY 11 SEPTEMBER. Altötting, square in front of the Sanctuary, Holy Mass: “Making the Lord great means giving him a place in the world, in our lives, and letting him enter into our lives and our activity: ultimately this is the essence of true prayer. Where God is made great, men and women are not made small: there too men and women become great and the world is filled with light”. MONDAY 11 SEPTEMBER. Altötting, Basilica of St. Anne, Vespers: “… the Lord has a plan for each of us, he calls each one of us by name. Our task is to learn how to listen, to perceive his call, to be courageous and faithful in following him and, when all is said and done, to be found trustworthy servants who have used well the gifts given to us”. TUESDAY 12 SEPTEMBER. Regensburg, Islinger Feld esplanade, Holy Mass: “Now that we know the pathologies and fatal diseases of religion and reason, the destruction of the image of God due to hatred and fanaticism, it is important to say clearly in what God we believe and to profess this human face of God with conviction. Only this will liberate us from the fear of God – a sentiment from which, in sum, modern atheism is born”. “Faith does not wish to make us afraid; rather, it wants – as surely it does – to call us to responsibility. We must not squander our life, or abuse it; nor must we keep it for ourselves; we must not remain indifferent to injustice, conniving with it or even becoming its accomplices. We must perceive our mission in history and seek to fulfil it”. TUESDAY 12 SEPTEMBER. Regensburg, University, To the representatives of science: “The West has long been threatened by this aversion to the fundamental questions of its reason, and in this way can only suffer great harm. The courage to open oneself to the magnitude of reason, not the rejection of its greatness – this is the programme with which a theology engaged in reflection on biblical faith should enter into disputation at the present time”. TUESDAY 12 SEPTEMBER. Regensburg, Cathedral, Vespers. “Being a witness of Jesus Christ means especially: being a witness of a particular way of life. In a world full of confusion, we must newly bear witness to the teachings that make life really worth living. This important task that is common to all believers we must tackle with great determination: it is the responsibility of Christians, at this time, to make visible those teachings of how to live a just life that were revealed to us in Jesus Christ”. WEDNESDAY 13 SEPTEMBER . Regensburg, Blessing of the new organ in the Alte Kapelle: “Just as in the organ an expert hand must always restore discords to the right consonance, so we too in the Church, in the variety of our gifts and charisms, must, through communion in the faith, constantly find harmony in praise of God and in brotherly love”. THURSDAY 14 sePTEMBER. Cathedral of Freising, meeting with priests permanent deacons of Bavaria. Abandoning his written text, the Pope spoke spontaneously: “God has a need of men and women who say ‘yes’, and who are ready to become his workers… My efforts are insufficient, (I must learn to) leave tasks to God and to his servants”. THURSDAY 14 SEPTEMBER. Freising, Cathedral, Meeting with priests and permanent deacons: “The generous self-giving for others is not possible without the discipline and constant recovery of a real interior life full of faith. The effectiveness of pastoral actions depends, in essence, on prayer; otherwise service would become activism. So the time spent in the immediate meeting with God in prayer can rightly be qualified as the pastoral priority par excellence : it is the breathing of the soul without which the priest necessarily remains ‘breathless’, deprived of the ‘oxygen’ of optimism and joy that we need to let ourselves be sent, day after day, as workers in the harvest of the Lord”. THURSDAY 14 SEPTEMBER. Munich, Airport, Departure ceremony: “With his words [those of the author of the anthem of the Bavarian people], which are also a prayer, I would also like to bequeath a wish to my homeland: ‘ May God be with you, Land of the Bavarians, German land, Homeland! / May his blessing hand rest over your huge territories! / May He protect your countryside and the buildings of your cities / and preserve for you the colours of his white and blue sky!’. A cordial ‘Aufwiedersehen’ to you all!”.