Jesus of Nazareth

For your ‘summer reading’, I offer the following. The title is: “Jesus of Nazareth”. The author is Pope Benedict XVI.

This is a very readable text that will inform and challenge and inspire us all in our own understanding of Jesus. This is not an official text published as a teaching from the Vatican.

As Pope Benedict writes in the foreword, “…It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the Magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search ‘for the face of the Lord’ (cf. Psalm 27:8). Everyone is free, then, to contradict me. I would only ask my readers for that initial goodwill without which there can be no understanding…”

Particularly notable to me was this statement from Pope Benedict in his reflection on the Transfiguration. He writes “… the great events of Jesus’ life are inwardly connected with the Jewish festival calendar. They are, as it were, liturgical events in which the liturgy, with its remembrance and expectation, becomes reality – becomes life. This life then leads back to the liturgy and from the liturgy seeks to become life again…”