Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year
Overview
Cardinal Ratzinger offers selected passages from his profound spiritual and theological writings as meditations for each day of the year. He picked the title of this book from verse 8 in the third letter of St. John, which he also adapted for his coat of arms: “Co-Workers of the Truth.” Just as these words signify for St. John the participation of all the faithful in the service of the Gospel, which includes the faithful extending hospitality to all who come as messengers of faith, so too Ratzinger shows the importance of our uniting charity with truth to make possible the proclamation of the Gospel. Through his meditations here, he hopes to help awaken in each reader the courage and generosity to become coworkers with the Gospel, which is the truth of Jesus Christ.
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- Preface by the author
- Bibliographical references
Top Highlights
“We know a saint by the fact that he knows he is a sinner. The failure of modern man to experience God is reflected today in his failure to experience sin, and vice versa, his failure to acquire this knowledge draws him away from God.” (Page 65)
“But the individual who thus makes himself lord of the truth deceives himself, for truth shuns the arrogant and reveals itself only to those who approach it in an attitude of reverence, of respectful humility.” (Page 167)
“Conversion—the first word of Christianity—can be preached only by one who has himself had personal experience of its necessity and has, in consequence, comprehended the greatness of grace.” (Page 66)
“When we place our own will, our own pride, our own comfort above the demands of truth, it is inevitable that everything will fall ultimately into decay.” (Page 213)
“Our difficulties in prayer stem largely from the fact that each of us wants to conceive of and reach God for ourselves” (Page 313)
Man cannot be truly free but through love, the supreme love of God and the love of men, brethren, neighbors, countrymen. . . . This is what Christ, whose love knew no bounds, teaches us.
—Pope John Paul II
- Title: Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year
- Author: Joseph Ratzinger
- Editor: Sister Irene Grassl
- Translators: Sister Mary Frances McCarthy and Reverend Lothar Krauth
- Publisher: Ignatius
- Publication Date: 1992
- Pages: 414
Joseph Ratzinger, better known as Pope Benedict XVI, is one of our time’s most revered Catholic prelates, scholars, theologians, teachers, and authors. He has spoken on many crucial subjects, including sexual consumerism, modern gender roles, marriage, the priesthood, and the future. As a teenager, he studied classical languages and, in 1939, entered the minor seminary in Traunstein. Though he was drafted into the German antiaircraft corps in 1943, he reentered the seminary in 1945, when World War II ended. On June 29, 1951, Joseph Ratzinger was ordained to the priesthood in the Cathedral of Freising on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. He received his doctorate in theology in 1953, from the University of Munich. Starting in 1959, Ratzinger taught theology at the University of Bonn.
At 35, Joseph Ratzinger was appointed chief theological advisor to the archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joseph Frings, and he maintained that title for four years. After many years of teaching at several German universities, Ratzinger was appointed by Pope Paul VI as archbishop of Munich and Freising in March 1977 and, in June 1977, was elevated to cardinal. In November 1981, Ratzinger was summoned by Pope John Paul II to Rome, where he was named prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and president of the International Theological Commission.
On April 19, 2005, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was elected to be the 265th pope. He took the name Benedict XVI, after St. Benedict of Nursia. Since that time, he has continued to receive worldwide respect and has been a spiritual influence to Christians and non-Christians alike.