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                                  VIS-Press releases   
      
   MASS FOR DECEASED CARDINALS AND BISHOPS   
      
   VATICAN CITY, 4 NOV 2010 (VIS) - This morning in the Vatican Basilica the Pope   
   presided at the traditional November Mass for the souls of cardinals and   
   bishops who died over the course of the year. Members of the College of   
   Cardinals concelebrated with the Holy Father.   
      
   At the beginning of his homily, Benedict XVI recalled the names of the   
   cardinals who passed away during the last twelve months - Peter Seiichi   
   Shirayanagi, Cahal Brendan Daly, Armand Gaetan Razafindratandra, Tomas Spidlik   
   S.J., Paul Augustin Mayer O.S.B. and Luigi Poggi - expressing his affection for   
   them and for all the other archbishops and bishops who died this year.   
      
   "We wish to remember these our venerable brothers as zealous pastors whose   
   ministry was always inscribed in that eschatological horizon, which encourages   
   hope in the unblemished happiness we have been promised after this life, as   
   witnesses of the Gospel, ... as Christians, animated by profound faith and by   
   the living desire to conform ourselves to Jesus".   
      
   The Holy Father then went on to observe that the term "eternal life" designates   
   "the divine gift granted to humankind; i.e., communion with God in this world   
   and its fullness in the next. Eternal life was opened to us by Christ's Paschal   
   Mystery and faith is the way to attain it". Referring then to Jesus'   
   conversation with Nicodemus, as recounted in today's Gospel, the Pope explained   
   how in this exchange Jesus "reveals the most profound meaning of the event of   
   salvation: ... The Son of man must be raised on the wood of the cross so that   
   those who believe in Him might have life. ... The cross, paradoxically, from   
   being a sign of condemnation, death and failure, becomes a sign of redemption,   
   life and victory in which, with the eyes of faith, we can see the fruits of   
   salvation".   
      
   The salvific significance of the cross "consists in the immense love of God and   
   in the gift of His only-begotten Son. ... The verbs 'to love' and 'to give'   
   indicate a decisive and definitive action expressing the radical way in which   
   God approached man in love, even unto the total giving of self, ... lowering   
   Himself into the abyss of our utter abandonment, and crossing the portal of   
   death. The object and beneficiary of divine Love is the world, in other words   
   humanity. This completely cancels the idea of a distant God divorced from man's   
   journey, and reveals His true face". God "loves without measure. He does not   
   show His omnipotence in punishment, but in mercy and forgiveness".   
      
   The Holy Father concluded his homily: "Jesus came to save, not to condemn. With   
   the sacrifice of the cross, He revealed the face of God's love. And it is   
   precisely because of our faith in the superabundant love Jesus Christ gave us   
   that we know that even the smallest effort of love is greater that the most   
   powerful destructive force and can transform the world. And because of this   
   same faith we have a 'sure hope': in eternal live and in the resurrection of   
   the flesh".   
   HML/VIS 20101104 (520)   
      
   SUMMARY   
      
   --- MPost/386 v1.21   
    * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS =Meridian, MS= bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)