The discussion regarding Pope Benedict's new book, Light of the World, will doubtless be engaged at many levels over the coming weeks. In the up-till-now most cited passsage, the part that I found particularly typical of the Pope was this:

this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants.

Reading it, one of the thoughts that struck me was that moral theology needs to be intimately connected with spirituality: that living the Christian life depends on an ongoing intimate relation with Christ. But this is a never-completed journey in spiritual maturation -- at least while we are "in statu viatoris."I was further reminded of this when I re-read today a chapter from Pope Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth. In chapter five, reflecting upon "The Lord's Prayer," Benedict writes:

We are not ready-made children of God from the start, but we are meant to become so increasingly by growing more and more deeply in communion with Jesus. Our sonship turns out to be identical with following Christ. To name God as Father thus becomes a summons to us: to live as a "child," as a son or daughter.

Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, is a longtime Commonweal contributor.

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