Aug 11, 2010 / 04:24 am
Christians are asked to dedicate their lives to the Lord in the same way as the martyrs, taught Pope Benedict on Wednesday. While it may not be their vocation to literally give up their lives, he said, Christians are called to an always greater love of God and neighbor, "to transform our world."
Hosting Wednesday's audience in the interior courtyard at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, the Holy Father greeted the faithful in eight different languages. In his Polish greeting, he asked for "generous and efficient aid" for the victims of recent flooding in Pope John Paul II's homeland, which was already recovering from being swamped by high water levels just last spring.
During a catechesis centered on martyrdom because of the frequency of feasts for martyrs in the month of August, Pope Benedict taught that the foundation of martyrdom is really quite simple. It's based, he said, "on the death of Jesus, on his supreme sacrifice of love, consumated on the Cross so that we might have life."
It follows the same logic as that of the grain of wheat that dies and produces much fruit, said Benedict XVI. "Jesus is the grain of divine wheat, which allowed itself to fall to the earth, that allowed itself to split, to break in death and, in this way, opens itself and thus can produce fruit in the vastness of the world."