One thing is for certain: one should not look to this Pope seeking sound bites. This Encyclical, Caritas in Veritate - Charity in Truth, is a very dense 30,000 words. I have some initial reactions to the first half of the Encyclical:

The first thing that struck me, not related to the content but rather to the way he has situated this, is his defense of Paul VI and the Second Vatican Council as a continuation of Church Tradition. The Holy Father has consistently stated, to the chagrin of traditionalists and progressives alike, that Vatican II is only properly interpreted through a hermeneutic of continuity. In reference to Pope Paul VI's great Encyclical, Populorum Progressio - On the Development of Peoples, which serves as the backdrop of this current Encyclical, the Holy Father writes that it can only properly be interpreted through "the Tradition of the apostolic faith[13], a patrimony both ancient and new, outside of which Populorum Progressio would be a document without roots." Paul VI's Encyclical is situated in continuity with Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum - On Capital and Labor, in continuity with the Second Vatican Council, and in continuity with the historical development of the apostolic faith. Concerning the Second Vatican Council the Holy Father writes, "The Council probed more deeply what had always belonged to the truth of the faith, namely that the Church, being at God's service, is at the service of the world in terms of love and truth."

"Truth and love are originally identical; where they are completely realized they are not two parallels or even opposing realities but one, the one and only absolute." Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity

"God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:23)

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life." (John 14:6)

There is an insidious seduction of the modern world, the seduction of relativism, which causes man to buy into the lie that truth and love are somehow separable. I say it is insidious because it is a lie, but it is an attractive one. The truth is difficult and much more likely to cause conflict, and our human nature is such that we prefer to shy away from conflict. It is difficult to find someone who does not agree with the ideal of love, and so we look at love as the common bond which can unite us. But love that is not in the service of truth is vapid and meaningless, it is merely a sentiment with no substantial value. When love forsakes its responsibility to truth, it is not love at all, but is a sentimental lie.

Breakthroughs do indeed happen. These can, however, be quickly followed by moodiness, irritability, struggling once again with demons we thought had been dealt with long ago. This ego backlash is fairly common at this point in one's practice and not all that complicated. The ego is accustomed to keeping a tight grip on things and always having the last word. Any growth in contemplation is going to loosen the ego's grip, and the encounter with silence will for once leave it speechless. Sometimes the ego reacts by tightening its grip again, and, after taking a step forward, we're left with the impression of having taken three steps back. It's best to become comfortable with the sense of always being a beginner.

--Fr. Martin Laird, OSA, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, p. 87

One of the fruits of contemplative practice in the beginning can often feel more like a curse. It is the fruit of self-awareness. This takes on three distinct manifestations. One, we develop a hyper-awareness of our faults and sins; two, this awareness brings to the surface hidden anger, fear, resentment, pain, and the like; finally, the silence with which we begin to encounter all loosens the grip of the ego, and the ego does not like this one bit, for it is in the ego's nature to dominate and control. The attack of the ego attempting to regain control produces an internal battle that often makes us irritable, angry, moodiness, depression. In all three cases it feels as if we are actually regressing in the spiritual life, when in fact the opposite is occurring. We are being purified, like gold tried in fire. These impurities, these pains, these afflictions, these sins, are all passing through the furnace of Christ's Sacred Heart, and this process is painful, but produces great humility and great purity.

Truly I have set my soul
In silence and peace
As a child has rest in its mother's arms,
even so my soul.
--Psalm 131

The discursive mind, the ability to think and to reason, is one of the great gifts of humanity. It is an essential component of what makes us human. There is the tendency, however, to allow it to dominate our soul in such a way that denies us the opportunity to cultivate another and even greater component of our humanity, which is the art of silence.

Union with God is not something we acquire by a technique but the grounding truth of our lives that engenders the very search for God. Because God is the ground of our being, the relationship between creature and Creator is such that, by sheer grace, separation is not possible. God does not know how to be absent. The fact that most of us experience throughout most of our lives a sense of absence or distance from God is the great illusion that we are caught up in; it is the human condition. This illusion of separation is generated by the mind and is sustained by the riveting of our attention to the interior soap opera, the constant chatter of the cocktail party going on in our heads. For most of us this is what normal is, and we are good at coming up with ways of coping with this perceived separation (our consumer-driven entertainment culture takes care of much of it). But some of us are not so good at coping, and so we drink ourselves into oblivion or cut or burn ourselves "so that the pain will be in a different place and on the outside."

--Fr. Martin Laird, O.S.A., Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation

The great common illusion of our human experience is that we are somehow separated from God, that God is absent from us, that He is distant. There exist any number of reasons why this distance is perceived, but the reality is that we as humans are built for contemplation. We are created with a God-given capacity for knowledge of God's nearness, for the intimate experience of God's indwelling within us, as the very ground of our being.

On Priestly Identity

"One Who Prays Is Not Afraid; One Who Prays Is Never Alone"

VATICAN CITY, JULY 1, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience in St. Peter's Square. He continued with the theme he took up last week: the Year for Priests.

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Dear brothers and sisters:

As you know, with the celebration of First Vespers for the solemnity of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, the Pauline Year has come to a close -- the year that marked the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of the Apostle to the Gentiles. Let us give thanks to the Lord for the spiritual fruits that this important initiative has brought to so many Christian communities.

As a precious her itage of the Pauline Year, we can reap the Apostle's invitation to go deeper into the knowledge of the mystery of Christ, so that he becomes the heart and center of our personal and social realities.

This is, in fact, the indispensable condition for a true spiritual and ecclesial renewal. As I already emphasized during the first Eucharistic celebration in the Sistine Chapel after my election as the Successor of the Apostle St. Peter, it is precisely from that full communion with Christ that "flows every other element of the Church's life: first of all, communion among all the faithful, the commitment to proclaiming and witnessing to the Gospel, the ardor of love for all, especially the poorest and lowliest" (1st Message at the End of the Eucharistic Concelebration With the Members of the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, April 20, 2005).
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I have been thinking recently about this vocation to celibacy – not specifically the vocation to priesthood, but the vocation to celibacy itself. It is not uncommon to hear one argue against it, on the basis that sexuality is only natural and to deny it thus must be unnatural. This, however, is a false tautology. What we must ask is what is it about sexuality that makes it truly a gift from God?

The reason that Christianity teaches that the sexual union is a gift used perfectly when it is between a husband and a wife is because of what the sexual union itself represents. Sexuality is designed by God as a means to achieve a union of love which leads both to an ecstatic experience as well as the giving of life. It is given to humans in this way because it is a type of what is to come, that union with God experience by the soul after death. The soul in heaven is perfectly united to God in love in an eternal ecstasy in which the soul also experiences an abundance of life, as promised by Christ. The sexual union, then, is but a foretaste of eternity with God.

This vision of the sexual union is important when attempting to understand the vocation of celibacy. The celibate is called to foreshadow this union with God in a radically different way – through contemplation. Though contemplation is certainly not limited to celibates, celibacy better enables a soul to prepare for it and be drawn into it. Contemplation in a Christian sense has nothing to do with thinking or meditating – though meditation is a means of preparation, it is not contemplation itself. Contemplation is the communication of God's very Being to the soul – it is the deepest awareness of the soul's union with God, and the soul in contemplation experiences even more profoundly than in the sexual union of husband and wife that experience of ecstatic love and the abundance of life.

The reality is that every human being is in union with God. As Creator God is the ground of our very being, and so there is no such thing as "separation" from Him. There is, however, a darkening of the awareness of that union, and this darkening leads us farther and farther astray from our predestination, which is eternal life with God. It is sad then that more priests and religious and celibates of every kind do not recognize their call also to contemplation, because it is through this call that they are best able to foreshadow the life to come. Through so many varied ways does God bless human beings, all so that we may better experience His love and witness to that love by loving our neighbor, and insofar as we all, married or celibate, recognize the true depths of our vocation, only then may we best bring a glimpse of heaven here to earth.