Today Holy Church enters the novemdiales, the nine days of mourning, because the night has fallen and we are already making our preparations for the Exequial Mass of Requiem for His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, tomorrow in Rome. The Church is in a state of mourning at the loss of the towering intellect of this gentle German Shepherd.  In the coming days and months, we will have the opportunity to revisit his extraordinary contributions to the life of the Church, both as professor and as pastor. Indeed, we will be able to celebrate a Month’s Mind Mass for him, as we did for Her Late Majesty on Wednesday, February 1st.

But tonight, perhaps, it is important for us to return to the manger of Bethlehem. We are still in the Christmas season, and it is in this Christmas season that the Lord called his friend home; a friend who spent his whole life kneeling at that crib. The faith of the man, Joseph Ratzinger was nurtured in a community not so different from this one, a small and rather humble town. His faith was not nurtured in lofty cathedrals with highbrow folks surrounded by prestigious universities and erudite books, although such an environment would come to predominate little Joseph’s later life, but instead his childhood was filled with the simplicity of the Christmas story and the traditions that captivated his imagination for the entirety of his life.

Published recently was a very beautiful reflection; a prayer in fact, that he wrote, aged 7. This prayer, addressed to the infant Christ, reveals so much about the young boy’s faith. This innocent joy but never change, but only evolve into the mature faith of the theologian. As a 7-year old, young Joseph prayed that the Lord should come, because so many children would rejoice at His coming, “Your coming will bring joy to many children“. And how true that is, and how beautiful that he recognized this truth at such a young age – but his concern was more for others than for himself. Already we see the hallmarks of one set aside for the priesthood.

At the Oratory, we have one altar server who looks a little bit like young Joseph.  When I see him serving the altar, especially since the Holy Father’s passing, I reflect on those first formative experiences of God in the Sacred Liturgy. How important it is for us to order our understanding of God through right worship! And perhaps that is the second golden thread underpinning his great intellect. He realized that all of that clever stuff stopped at the Sanctuary steps, where he approached ad Deum qui laetificat iuventutem meum – to the God who gives joy to my youth. We all must come to the Altar with a simple childlike wonder at the Incarnation; a wonder that God should deign to stoop so low as to want to be my friend.

Benedict XVI was also a prophet, always rising above the maelstrom to see the Christchild so clearly. He was never afraid to challenge lazy assumptions, but always in an elegant and deferential way. This modus operandi was most keenly felt by liturgists and ecumenists: liturgists, because in their clever understanding of the rites and the prayers, they sometimes forget that they facilitate an encounter with the living God; with ecumenists breaking the impasse of turgid dialogue with concrete gestures against the advice of timid professionals.

Later in his life, Benedict described heaven as something similar to what he experienced as a boy attending Holy Mass. Unencumbered by the baggage of pride, such a vision leaves our hearts full to bursting.  So let us join little Joseph at this crib tonight – where Christ is once again given to us through the promise of Himself in the Eucharist: the God who gives joy to my youth.