Let us pray for the happy repose of his soul.
Speaking in 2012, he said:
“How should we Christians respond to the question of death? We respond with faith in God, with a gaze of firm hope founded on the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, death opens to life, to eternal life, which is not an infinite duplicate of the present time, but something completely new.
Faith tells us that the true immortality for which we hope is not an idea, a concept, but a relationship of full communion with the living God: it is resting in his hands, in his love, and becoming in him one with all the brothers and sisters that he has created and redeemed, with all Creation.
Our hope, then, lies in the love of God that shines resplendent from the Cross of Christ who lets Jesus’ words to the good thief: “Today you will be with me in Paradise” resound in our heart. This is life in its fullness: life in God; a life of which we now have only a glimpse as one sees blue sky through fog.”
O God, who in your wondrous providence
chose your servant Pope Benedict to preside over your Church,
grant, we pray,
that, having served as the Vicar of your Son on earth,
he may be welcomed by him into eternal glory.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
