Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger - Dogma and Preaching

DOGMA AND PREACHING

Benedict XVI
Joseph Ratzinger

Applying Christian Doctrine
to Daily Life

UNABRIDGED EDITION

Translated by Michael J. Miller
and Matthew J. OConnell

Edited by Michael J. Miller

IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO

From the fourth edition of the German original:
Dogma und Verkndigung
2005 by Erich Wewel Verlag, Donauwrth

Front cover art:
Saint Peter , detail from the facade. 1160-1180. Romanesque.
St. Trophime, Arles, France
Andrea Jemolo / Scala / Art Resource, New York

Back cover photograph of Pope Benedict XVI by Stefano Spaziani

Cover design by Roxanne Mei Lum

2011 Ignatius Press, San Francisco
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-58617-327-2
Library of Congress Control Number 2011905247
Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to Hans Urs von Balthasar with respect and gratitude

The path from dogma to preaching has become very difficult. There are no longer any patterns of thought and assumptions that carry the content of dogma into everyday life; it is too much to demand of the individual preacher, however, that he himself should figure out each time the entire path from the doctrinal formula to its core and from there back to contemporary language. Should we not instead leave out dogma entirely? With such a radical cure, which appears to many today to be the only way out, preaching becomes speaking in ones own name and loses all objective interest whatsoever, as Erik Peterson has strikingly and incontestably demonstrated from the painful experiences of crumbling liberal theology ( Was ist Theologie ? [Bonn, 1926]). The inner tension of preaching depends on the objective arch spanning and upheld by the pillars: Dogma-Scripture-Church-Today; not one of them can be taken away without the whole thing eventually collapsing.

If that is how matters stand, theology cannot be satisfied with reflecting on the faith in the Elysian fields of academe while otherwise leaving the preacher to his own devices. It has to provide everyday life with signposts and find paradigms for translating reflection into proclamation; thought is proved only when it can be expressed. This volume seeks to serve as a contribution to the development of a material kerygma. The fragmentary writings of which it is composed grew out of discussions with pastors or from my own attempt to speak pastorally in homilies, on radio, and in newspapers. This resulted in its structure: fundamental reflections on the path of proclamation, essays on particular subject areas, and attempts at practical application. This could amount to no more than an initial approach to a large task; still, perhaps the realism of the situations from which the whole thing grew may compensate somewhat for the lack of systematic method and completeness.

I am grateful to Miss Karin Bommes for preparing the index of names and biblical citations.

Regensburg, February 1973
Joseph Ratzinger

PART ONE
Toward a Theory of Preaching

PART TWO
Some Major Themes of Preaching

PART THREE
Meditations and Sermons

PART ONE
Toward a Theory of Preaching

1. Church as the Place of Preaching

Talking about the crisis in preaching has already become commonplace today. The What, How, and Where of preaching have become, as it were, questionable; various kinds of attempts at reform are offered, from flight into strict biblicism to unadulterated congregational conversation in which those present merely exchange their opinions and possibly seek guidelines for action in common based on opinions they have worked out together. The central fact behind all this is the crisis of ecclesial consciousness. Whereas formerly no one doubted that Church was the standard and locus of preaching, now she stands almost as an obstacle to it: preaching, it seems, must become a critical corrective to Church instead of being subordinate to her and allowing her to be normative. In this situation it might be necessary to inquire into the historical and material point of departure of Christian preaching in general, so as to reestablish its coherence on that basis. How, then, does preaching come about? What are its origin and its purpose?

1. The Development of the Basic
Types of Preaching in the Old Testament

No sooner do we ask this question than it takes us back beyond the New Testament into the Old, for without the historical path of the latter, the New Testament message remains inexplicable. In the Old Testament, if I am looking at it correctly, we can find three principal roots of preaching. The first is found in the area of the Torah, Israels ordinances for worship and living. The classical Old Testament liturgy, as portrayed paradigmatically in Exodus 24:5-8, includes two aspects: the burnt offering and the reading from the book of the covenant, the proclamation of the divine law for Israel. The saying about Levi in Deuteronomy 33:8ff. presupposes the same thing: the priests present the offerings and teach Israel Gods law. Here preaching as instruction for a life according to the ways of Yahweh is one part of the priestly ministry included in the form of divine worship that is shaped by Gods law itself. The worship of God in Israel never has a merely cultic-sacrificial character; it is aimed at man as a covenant partner. Only in his living justice is service to Yahweh performed and worship complete. Preaching, as guiding all of life into the covenant and in terms of the covenant, is part of divine worship; it is divine worship. And conversely: divine worship takes place precisely in the act of bringing Gods will to bear upon man, in the word that becomes for man the way.

In view of the extensive failure of priestly preaching, a second ministry of proclamation becomes increasingly prominent: that of the prophet who has been called and aroused by God himself, the prophet who inculcates precisely this character of word and reality of faith in Yahweh. Although the spontaneous and charismatic element becomes quite important here in comparison to the institutional element, the prophet nonetheless does not stand autonomous and aloof with regard to Israels faith history. Prophecy, too, has a sort of institutional character; what really identifies it, however, is that it stands in the continuity of Israels faith and sternly and unrelentingly asserts just this original covenant faith for Israel against all sorts of aggiornamento . Therefore even the prophet does not act outside of Israel but, rather, brings the true Israel to bear, as it is manifest in the faith of the fathers, against the distorted Israel of this or that present moment, and precisely thereby he upholds Israels faith as something open to the future.

We find a third component in the so-called vow psalms, for which we can regard Psalm 22 (21) as a model. The sorely oppressed righteous man pours out all his despair in the sight of Yahweh and begs him to rescue him. The psalm, which begins with the cry of distress of a man who has been forsaken by God and cast down already to the netherworld, then ends according to form with the promise to proclaim Yahwehs mighty deed in the midst of the congregation. That is at first quite an anthropomorphic reason to urge Yahweh to grant his prayer: It is worthwhile, so to speak, for God to save the man, for if he should perish, that would mean the loss of a worshipper (the dead do not praise you), whereas in the case of a rescue, the saved man will proclaim Yahwehs might everywhere and continue to extol and spread abroad his glory. This anthropomorphic beginning then leads to a deeper meaning: the experience of Gods benevolent might urges us to proclaim it, urges us to make a return. Like great good fortune, one cannot keep it to oneself. It urges one to give thanks by way of proclamation. One gives thanks to Yahwehs might by proclaiming it; man passes on the experience of his indebtedness and thus makes it possible for others, too, by adding their thanks, to become sharers in the saving power of Yahweh, to rejoice with him in Yahwehs might. Preaching as thanksgiving ( eucharistia !) meshes here with the worship of God; as testimony to Gods saving power, it is itself divine worship, and by its testimony it calls man into divine worship and yet at the same time gives him therein salvation and redemption.