Catechesis With Pope Benedict Xvi

Pope Benedict XVI: "These reflections, characteristic of a lover of Jesus and Mary like St Bernard, in a salutary way provoke still today not only theologians, but all believers. Sometimes one pretends to have resolved the fundamental questions about God, about man and about the world with the sole forces of reason. Instead St Bernard, solidly founded on the Bible and the Fathers of the Church, reminds us that without a profound faith in God, nourished by prayer and contemplation, by an intimate relationship with the Lord, our reflections on the divine mysteries risk becoming a vain intellectual exercise, and lose their credibility. Theology refers to the "science of the saints", to their intuition of the mysteries of the living God, to their wisdom, gift of the Holy Spirit, which become a point of reference for theological thought. Together with Bernard of Clairvaux, we too must recognize that man better seeks and more easily finds God "with prayer than with discussion". In the end, the truest figure of a th