He Who Loves His Life, Loses It

Without the twists and turns of the Concord Pastor Comments, Pope Benedict explains the citation from Scripture.

...Universality is always an overcoming of ourselves, a renunciation of something that is ours. Universality and the cross go together. Only in this way can peace be created.

The saying about the dead grain of wheat is part of Jesus' answer to the Greeks, it is his answer. Then, however, he formulates once again the fundamental law of human existence: "He who loves his life will lose it and he who hates his life in this world will save it for eternal life" (John 12:25). He who wants to have his life for himself, live only for himself, squeeze out everything for himself and exploit all the possibilities -- he is the one who lose his life. It becomes boring and empty. Only in abandoning ourselves, only in the disinterested gift of the "I" in favor of the "Thou," only in the "Yes" to the greater life, precisely the life of God, our life too becomes full and more spacious. Thus, this fundamental principle that the Lord establishes is, in the final analysis, simply identical with the principle of love. Love, in fact, means leaving yourself behind, giving yourself, not wanting to hold on to yourself, but becoming free from yourself: not getting preoccupied with yourself -- what will become of me -- but looking ahead, toward the other - toward God and the people whom he sends to me. It is this principle of love that defines man's journey, it is once again identical with the mystery of the cross, with the mystery of death and resurrection that we encounter in Christ.

Dear friends, perhaps it is relatively easy to accept this grand fundamental vision of life. In concrete reality, however, it is not just a simple matter of recognizing a principle, but of living its truth, the truth of the cross and the resurrection. And for this, once again, just one big decision is not enough. It is surely important at some point to dare to make a fundamental decision, to dare the great "Yes" that the Lord asks of us at a certain moment in our life. But the great "Yes" of the decisive moment in our life -- the "Yes" to the truth that the Lord places before us -- must then be daily re-conquered in the everyday situations in which, again and again, we must abandon our "I," make ourselves available, when, at bottom, we just want to hang on to that "I." Sacrifice, renunciation, also belongs to an upright life. He who permits himself a life without this ever renewed gift of self, deceives people. There is no successful life without sacrifice. If I cast a retrospective glance on my own life, I must say that precisely those moments in which I said "Yes" to renunciation were the great and important moments of my life.

The Synoptic Gospels put this request in this way: "Not my will but your will be done!" (Luke 22:42). In the end, God's glory, his lordship, his will is always more important and more true than my thoughts and my will. And this is what is essential in our prayer and in our life: understanding this right order of reality, accepting it interiorly; trusting in God and believing that he is doing the right thing; understanding that his will is the truth and is love; understanding that my life will be a good life if I can learn how to conform to this order. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus are the guarantee that we can truly entrust ourselves to God. It is in this way that his kingdom is realized.

Dear friends, at the end of this liturgy, the young people from Australia will give the World Youth Day Cross to the young people of Spain. The Cross is on its way from one side of the world to the other, from sea to sea. And we accompany it. Let us go forth with it along this road and, in this way, find our road. When we touch the cross, indeed, when we carry it, we touch the mystery of God, the mystery of Jesus Christ. The mystery that God so loved the world -- us -- that he gave his only-begotten Son for us (cf. John 3:16). We touch the marvelous mystery of God's love, the only truth that is really redemptive. But we also touch the fundamental law, the constitutive norm of our life, that is, that without the "Yes" of the cross, without walking in communion with Christ day after day, life can never be a success.

The more that, for the love of the great truth and the great love -- for love of the truth and love of God -- we can make some sacrifice, the greater and richer our life will become. He who wants to keep his life for himself will lose it. He who gives his life away -- daily in small gestures, that are part of the great decision -- will find it. This is the exigent truth, a truth that is also deeply beautiful and liberating, in which we want to enter, step by step, on the cross' journey over the continents. May the Lord bless this journey. Amen.