Pope Benedict XVI, RIP

I woke up early Saturday morning December 31 because I intended to go to daily Mass for the seventh day of the Christmas Octave and the last day of the year 2022 and heard the BBC announce Pope Benedict XVI's death. My Facebook feed was filling up with posts about his death before and after I attended Mass at Saint Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, where we prayed for the repose of his soul and witnessed a young boy receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation (thus, sotto voce renewing my Baptismal Promises!! as he did). I saw a friend who looked most disconsolate, but later saw his Facebook post to friends, mentioning that it was hard in a way to reconcile this grief at Benedict XVI's death with the grief he'd felt on February 11, 2013, when Pope Benedict resigned.

And that reminded me of that day, when I was all set to talk to Brian Patrick (then the host of the show)on the Son Rise Morning Show about Shrovetide, Confession, pancakes and pancake races. Then producer Matt Swaim emailed me with a change in topic: we would instead discuss Pope Benedict and the English Reformation, highlighting the September 2010 visit to Scotland and England, the establishment of the Anglican Ordinariate, and the beatification of John Henry Newman--all the ways Benedict had tried to heal the wounds of the sixteenth century. 

Memories!

Later on Saturday, December 31, 2022, I attended the 4:00 p.m. Vigil Mass at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church (my home parish since April of 1991), which was a special Mass for the closing of our diocesan year of Eucharistic Revival. Blessed Sacrament had been the designated pilgrimage church/shrine for the diocese throughout 2022. A portrait of Pope Benedict had been placed, most appropriately, beside the Saint Joseph shrine (with the three kings still prepared to visit Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the Nativity Scene in front of the shrine to the Madonna).

Bishop Carl Kemme offered the Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and of course mentioned Pope Benedict's death, offered prayers for the repose of his soul, etc. In the midst of his sermon, Bishop Kemme reviewed his efforts, through exhortations to the priests and the faithful of the diocese, to renew our knowledge and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament during the past year. In the course of his sermon, he exhorted us to read or re-read Pope Benedict XVI's Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of February 22, 2007, Sacramentum Caritatis, to the Bishops, Clergy, Consecrated Persons and the Lay Faithful On the Eucharist as the Source and Summit of the Church's Life and Mission.

So I'm searching for my copy today!

Eternal rest grant unto to him, O Lord, and let the Perpetual Light shine upon him. May the soul of Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, and all the souls of the faithful departed, rest in peace. May he rest in peace. Amen.