"There are another two aspects" to serving, highlighted Benedict XVI. First and foremost, "no one is so close to his master as the servant who has access to the most private dimension of his life. In this sense, ‘serving’ means closeness, requires familiarity", but "such familiarity also involves a danger: that the sacred that we encounter all the time may become a habit for us". "Against this inurement to an extraordinary reality, against the indifference of the heart stated the Pope , we must fight relentlessly, acknowledging over and over again our inadequacy and the grace that is in the fact He surrenders Himself like this into our hands. Serving means closeness, but above all it means obedience too". The temptation of mankind, went on the Pontiff, "is always to be wanting to be completely self-sufficient, to follow only one’s will and think that only thus shall we be free; that only through such unlimited freedom would man be completely a man, would he become divine". But, he warned, "just in doing this, we go against the truth. Because the truth is that we must share our freedom with the others and we can only be free when we are in communion with them". (continued)
