LES COMBES, Italy (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI said the Vatican and Italian police who watched over him while he was on vacation in the Italian Alps were like “guardian angels, discreet and efficient.”
But he was not quite so sure what his own guardian angel was up to.
“Unfortunately, my guardian angel — certainly following orders from above — did not prevent my accident,” he said, referring to the fact that he tripped in the dark July 17 and broke his wrist.
The Pope here had the perfect opportunity to invoke St. Teresa of Avila’s famous line said to God “If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them”
Though I guess you could say the Pope’s Guardian Angel was falling down on the job. But maybe the Pope’s accident is a sermon on Genesis. It both illustrates Genesis 1:3 and the fall.
Still referring to his broken right wrist, the right-handed pope told them, “Perhaps the Lord wanted to teach me greater patience and humility, and give me more time for prayer and meditation.”
The pope said he had spent the past 16 days immersed in a “heavenly peace,” with the silence interrupted only by the songs of birds, rain falling on the grass and the wind blowing through the trees.
He told the dozens of security officers, “Angels are invisible, but efficient at the same time. And you were the same — invisible, but efficient.”
“I enjoyed a heavenly peace here. No disturbance could enter. But many good things — both material and immaterial — got in. Many cakes, cheeses, wines,” he said. [reference]
4 comments
“Many cakes, cheeses, wines.”
I like his list of good things. ;^p
Bless him.
Hehe, some good has come of it– my husband, who has a bit of an issue with organized religion and authority– grinned and agreed that the Pope is one heck of a tough old guy to take a fall, hurt his arm, say Mass and only THEN go get it worked on.
Can’t buy that kind of a respect boost.
Well, I hated breaking my arm, but it really did have some spiritual advantages. (If only for the few minutes when I actually managed to do the offering-up thing right, and to make me more grateful for help and less afraid of pain and trouble.) It’s not the worst thing that can happen.
The Pope, being far more advanced in prayer life than I, probably does need huge amounts of patience, especially since that’s the basis of his long, here-and-there “Marshall Plan”. So apparently God put him on an increased exercise plan for patience and sanctity. I mean, yeah, more fun than being spiritually dry, and a good sign that God thinks you’re making progress and can handle more (in his case — not so much in mine, which was probably shock treatment).
But he definitely has my sympathetic prayers.
I don’t know where you get this stuff. St. Theresa of Avila never said, “If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them”, in referring to God. This is a variation on a quote from Oscar Wilde when he commented, after his release, on his treatment in prison for sodomy. He was referring to Queen Victoria when he was quoted as saying, “If this is the way Her Majesty treats her prisoners, then she doesn’t deserve to have any.” I doubt very seriously that Mr. Wilde would even have been remotely interested in reading the writings of Teresa of Avila and thus been tempted to paraphrase her.