Advent, the 'rona, and Benedict

 

Happy Advent everyone! This advent, as has happened to me so many times in recent years, is panning out to be quite different than expected. Mostly I feel I stumble into each season without expectations but I suspect what really happens is I expect peaceful, smooth, and healthy sailing. Ah....if only. It is, whatever my condition when the season does arrive, one of my favourite times of the year. 

Now, in the life of someone attached to Oxford or Cambridge, the formal becomes a part of life and you don't quite come to appreciate what it is until you leave or until you come back after graduation and recognise the mind-opening event it can be.  One interesting formal happens during the start of Advent, which frames the curiosity that is Oxmas or Bridgemas (if you're at the other place), the anticipated Christmas celebrations at each university because the term ends at the end of November. This past week (and before the 'rona caught up with me for the first time ever) I had the joy of being at both an Oxmas and Bridgemas celebration. The beauty of formal is that most of the time if you don't go with friends, you get to sit down next to someone that you may otherwise have never met. On many occasions this has allowed me to hear about research I didn't even know was happening or about some life story that would otherwise have remained hidden but the immediate friendliness that can be born around a dinner table allowed for it to appear.

So it was last Thursday as I sat at dinner that I discovered that there was someone else who admired Ratzinger the theologian. This is usually a rare thing amongst even most theologians and here was a medievalist who like me admired him as the solid and clear-thinking intellectual that he is. Benedict's time as prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith gave him the unfair reputation of being someone who shut down debate. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only is his writing clear but whether or not you agree with him his writings lead to further thinking. 

I have the privilege to read him in original and his German is that rare occurrence of academic language that is both clear and poetic. His autobiography, Aus meinem Leben has some passages that are beautiful in their mastery of language as well as the content. In recent years theology professors such as John Cavadini at Notre Dame have done quite a bit to recover the writings of Benedict the theologian who, as the introduction to the anthology I am currently reading makes clear, continued to publish privately his own theological writings. As a historian, I have long appreciated his ability to connect the history of a question or problem to systematic theology as well as contemporary philosophy and concerns. As a theologian in training, I appreciate that he keeps his eyes firmly on Him who is the centre of all theological study rather than on in-debates. 

I highly recommend it for anyone wanting an intro or a refresher to his writings, it is in English, The Essential Pope Benedict XVI. It is keeping me going as I await the passage of the plague. It starts with a look at his Introduction to Christianity followed by every section possible, he really has been a prolific writer: a few homilies, The Church, The Liturgy, Theology (this one is a curious title as the entire book is Theology but oh well, sometimes authors and publishers are curious people) Scripture, The Priesthood, Morality, and his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est.

My dinner companion had spent some time researching at the Vatican and had been in the library when the then Pope Benedict had slipped down quietly to work, not unnoticed by fellow scholars, but allowed the space to do one of the things that he clearly enjoys the most: studying, reading, contemplating the Truth, and passing on the fruits of this contemplation.