Pope Benedict XVI Quotes The Divine Poet Dante Alighieri In Speech to Members of Symposium on International Year of Astronomy


1 'Virgin Mother, daughter of your Son,
2 more humble and exalted than any other creature,
3 fixed goal of the eternal plan,
4 'you are the one who so ennobled human nature
5 that He, who made it first, did not disdain
6 to make Himself of its own making.
7 'Your womb relit the flame of love --
8 its heat has made this blossom seed
9 and flower in eternal peace.
10 'To us you are a noonday torch of charity,
11 while down below, among those still in flesh,
12 you are the living fountainhead of hope.
13 'Lady, you are so great and so prevail above,
14 should he who longs for grace not turn to you,
15 his longing would be doomed to wingless flight.
16 'Your loving kindness does not only aid
17 whoever seeks it, but many times
18 gives freely what has yet to be implored.
19 'In you clemency, in you compassion,
20 in you munificence, in you are joined
21 all virtues found in any creature.
22 'This man who, from within the deepest pit
23 the universe contains up to these heights
24 has seen the disembodied spirits, one by one,
25 'now begs you, by your grace, to grant such power
26 that, by lifting up his eyes,
27 he may rise higher toward his ultimate salvation.
28 'And I, who never burned for my own seeing
29 more than now I burn for his, offer all my prayers,
30 and pray that they may not fall short,
31 'so that your prayers disperse on his behalf
32 all clouds of his mortality and let
33 the highest beauty be displayed to him.
34 'This too, my Queen, I ask of you, who can achieve
35 whatever you desire, that you help him preserve,
36 after such vision, the purity of his affections.
37 'Let your protection rule his mortal passions.
38 See Beatrice, with so many of the blessed,
39 palms pressed together, joining me in prayer.'
40 Those eyes belovèd and revered by God,
41 fixed on him who prayed, made clear to us
42 how dear to her all true devotion is.
43 Then she turned her gaze to the eternal Light.
44 It is incorrect to think that any living being
45 can penetrate that brightness with such unblinking eyes.
46 And, as I neared the end of all desire,
47 I extended to its limit, as was right,
48 the ardor of the longing in my soul.
49 With his smile, Bernard signaled
50 that I look upward, but of my own accord
51 I was already doing what he wished,
52 for my sight, becoming pure,
53 rose higher and higher through the ray
54 of the exalted light that in itself is true.
55 From that time on my power of sight exceeded
56 that of speech, which fails at such a vision,
57 as memory fails at such abundance.
58 Just as the dreamer, after he awakens,
59 still stirred by feelings that the dream evoked,
60 cannot bring the rest of it to mind,
61 such am I, my vision almost faded from my mind,
62 while in my heart there still endures
63 the sweetness that was born of it.
64 Thus the sun unseals an imprint in the snow.
65 Thus the Sibyl's oracles, on weightless leaves,
66 lifted by the wind, were swept away.
67 O Light exalted beyond mortal thought,
68 grant that in memory I see again
69 but one small part of how you then appeared
70 and grant my tongue sufficient power
71 that it may leave behind a single spark
72 of glory for the people yet to come,
73 since, if you return but briefly to my mind
74 and then resound but softly in these lines,
75 the better will your victory be conceived.
76 I believe, from the keenness of the living ray
77 that I endured, I would have been undone
78 had I withdrawn my eyes from it.
79 And I remember that, on this account,
80 I grew more bold and thus sustained my gaze
81 until I reached the Goodness that is infinite.
82 O plenitude of grace, by which I could presume
83 to fix my eyes upon eternal Light
84 until my sight was spent on it!
85 In its depth I saw contained,
86 by love into a single volume bound,
87 the pages scattered through the universe:
88 substances, accidents, and the interplay between them,
89 as though they were conflated in such ways
90 that what I tell is but a simple light.
91 I believe I understood the universal form
92 of this dense knot because I feel my joy expand,
93 rejoicing as I speak of it.
94 My memory of that moment is more lost
95 than five and twenty centuries make dim that enterprise
96 when, in wonder, Neptune at the Argo's shadow stared.
97 Thus all my mind, absorbed,
98 was gazing, fixed, unmoving and intent,
99 becoming more enraptured in its gazing.
100 He who beholds that Light is so enthralled
101 that he would never willingly consent
102 to turn away from it for any other sight,
103 because the good that is the object of the will
104 is held and gathered in perfection there
105 that elsewhere would imperfect show.
106 Now my words will come far short
107 of what I still remember, like a babe's
108 who at his mother's breast still wets his tongue.
109 Not that the living Light at which I gazed
110 took on other than a single aspect --
111 for It is always what It was before --
112 but that my sight was gaining strength, even as I gazed
113 at that sole semblance and, as I changed,
114 it too was being, in my eyes, transformed.
115 In the deep, transparent essence of the lofty Light
116 there appeared to me three circles
117 having three colors but the same extent,
118 and each one seemed reflected by the other
119 as rainbow is by rainbow, while the third one seemed fire,
120 equally breathed forth by one and by the other.
121 O how scant is speech, too weak to frame my thoughts.
122 Compared to what I still recall my words are faint --
123 to call them little is to praise them much.
124 O eternal Light, abiding in yourself alone,
125 knowing yourself alone, and, known to yourself
126 and knowing, loving and smiling on yourself!
127 That circling which, thus conceived,
128 appeared in you as light's reflection,
129 once my eyes had gazed on it a while, seemed,
130 within itself and in its very color,
131 to be painted with our likeness,
132 so that my sight was all absorbed in it.
133 Like the geometer who fully applies himself
134 to square the circle and, for all his thought,
135 cannot discover the principle he lacks,
136 such was I at that strange new sight.
137 I tried to see how the image fit the circle
138 and how it found its where in it.
139 But my wings had not sufficed for that
140 had not my mind been struck by a bolt
141 of lightning that granted what I asked.
142 Here my exalted vision lost its power.
143 But now my will and my desire, like wheels revolving
144 with an even motion, were turning with
145 the Love that moves the sun and all the other stars.
Paradiso XXXIII

Full Text of Pope Benedict XVI's Speech to Members of Symposium on International Year of Astronomy

Your Eminence,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased to greet this assembly of distinguished astronomers from throughout the world meeting in the Vatican for the celebration of the International Year of Astronomy, and I thank Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo for his kind words of introduction. This celebration, which marks the four hundredth anniversary of Galileo Galilei’s first observations of the heavens by telescope, invites us to consider the immense progress of scientific knowledge in the modern age and, in a particular way, to turn our gaze anew to the heavens in a spirit of wonder, contemplation and commitment to the pursuit of truth, wherever it is to be found.
Your meeting also coincides with the inauguration of the new facilities of the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo. As you know, the history of the Observatory is in a very real way linked to the figure of Galileo, the controversies which surrounded his research, and the Church’s attempt to attain a correct and fruitful understanding of the relationship between science and religion. I take this occasion to express my gratitude not only for the careful studies which have clarified the precise historical context of Galileo’s condemnation, but also for the efforts of all those committed to ongoing dialogue and reflection on the complementarity of faith and reason in the service of an integral understanding of man and his place in the universe. I am particularly grateful to the staff of the Observatory, and to the friends and benefactors of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, for their efforts to promote research, educational opportunities and dialogue between the Church and the world of science.
The International Year of Astronomy is meant not least to recapture for people throughout our world the extraordinary wonder and amazement which characterized the great age of discovery in the sixteenth century. I think, for example, of the exultation felt by the scientists of the Roman College who just a few steps from here carried out the observations and calculations which led to the worldwide adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Our own age, poised at the edge of perhaps even greater and more far-ranging scientific discoveries, would benefit from that same sense of awe and the desire to attain a truly humanistic synthesis of knowledge which inspired the fathers of modern science. Who can deny that responsibility for the future of humanity, and indeed respect for nature and the world around us, demand – today as much as ever – the careful observation, critical judgement, patience and discipline which are essential to the modern scientific method? At the same time, the great scientists of the age of discovery remind us also that true knowledge is always directed to wisdom, and, rather than restricting the eyes of the mind, it invites us to lift our gaze to the higher realm of the spirit.
Knowledge, in a word, must be understood and pursued in all its liberating breadth. It can certainly be reduced to calculation and experiment, yet if it aspires to be wisdom, capable of directing man in the light of his first beginnings and his final ends, it must be committed to the pursuit of that ultimate truth which, while ever beyond our complete grasp, is nonetheless the key to our authentic happiness and freedom (cf. Jn 8:32), the measure of our true humanity, and the criterion for a just relationship with the physical world and with our brothers and sisters in the great human family.
Dear friends, modern cosmology has shown us that neither we, nor the earth we stand on, is the centre of our universe, composed of billions of galaxies, each of them with myriads of stars and planets. Yet, as we seek to respond to the challenge of this Year – to lift up our eyes to the heavens in order to rediscover our place in the universe – how can we not be caught up in the marvel expressed by the Psalmist so long ago? Contemplating the starry sky, he cried out with wonder to the Lord: “When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place, what is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man, that you should care for him?” (Ps 8:4-5). It is my hope that the wonder and exaltation which are meant to be the fruits of this International Year of Astronomy will lead beyond the contemplation of the marvels of creation to the contemplation of the Creator, and of that Love which is the underlying motive of his creation – the Love which, in the words of Dante Alighieri, “moves the sun and the other stars” (Paradiso XXXIII, 145). Revelation tells us that, in the fullness of time, the Word through whom all things were made came to dwell among us. In Christ, the new Adam, we acknowledge the true centre of the universe and all history, and in him, the incarnate Logos, we see the fullest measure of our grandeur as human beings, endowed with reason and called to an eternal destiny.
With these reflections, dear friends, I greet all of you with respect and esteem, and I offer prayerful good wishes for your research and teaching. Upon you, your families and dear ones I cordially invoke Almighty God’s blessings of wisdom, joy, and peace.

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