As they reached the hut in Bethlehem, the three Wise Men completed their "outward walk", they e "reached their destination. But at that point, a new walk began for then, an inward pilgrimage that changed all their lives". Benedict XVI’s reflection on the esplanade of Marienfeld, near Cologne, tonight, for the vigil with the boys and girls of the WYD, took its cue from the page of Matthew’s Gospel, which tells of the visit of the three Wise Men from the East to Jesus. "The new King, in front of whom they had prostrated themselves in adoration continued the Pope -, was very different from what they had expected. So, they had to learn that God is different from the way we usually picture Him. Their inward walk started there". "They had to change their ideas on power, on God and on man, and, in doing this, they also had to change themselves". Actually, "God’s ways are different from what we think they are". God, explained Pope Ratzinger, "in this world does not compete with the earthly forms of power, he does not oppose His divisions to the other divisions". Instead, He "opposes the noisy and overbearing power of this world with the harmless power of love, which surrenders on the cross and then again all through history , yet becomes the new thing, the divine thing, which then opposes to injustice and establishes the Reign of God". The three Wise Men, therefore, "now learn that they have to donate themselves", "they have to become men of truth, of right, of goodness, of forgiveness, of mercy". (to be continued)
