The Genius of Joseph Ratzinger

''This oratio - the Eucharistic Prayer, the 'Canon' - is really more than speech; it is actio in the highest sense of the word. For what happens in it is that the human actio (as performed hitherto by the priests in the various religions of the world) steps back and makes way for the actio divina, the action of God. In this oratio the priest speaks the I of the Lord - 'This is My Body', 'This is My Blood'. He knows that he is not now speaking from his own resources but in virtue of the Sacrament that he has received, he has become the voice of Someone Else, who is now speaking and acting. This action of God, which takes place through human speech, is the real 'action' for which all of creation is in expectation'' - The Spirit of the Liturgy.

The Genius of Joseph Ratzinger

'Only Christ gives meaning to the whole of our life...Christianity is not an intellectual system, a packet of dogmas, a moralism. Christianity is rather an encounter, a love story; it is an event. This love affair with Christ, this love story which is the whole of his life was however far from every superficial enthusiasm, from every vague romanticism. Really seeing Christ, he (Don Luigi Giusanni) knew that to encounter Christ means to follow Christ. This encounter is a road, a journey, a journey that passes also - as we heard in the psalm - through the 'valley of darkness'. In the Gospel, we heard of the last darkness of Christ's suffering, of the apparent absence of God, when the world's Sun was eclipsed. He knew that to follow is to pass through a 'valley of darkness' to take the way of the Cross, and to live all the same in true joy'.