What if...Light, Life and Love was Pope Benedict XVI's departing legacy?

J.M.J. + O.B.T. + M.G.R.*

In Pope Benedict XVI's final address (to the Cardinals) as our beloved Holy Father, he offered the following while beginning a recap of the pontificate:

“In these eight years we have lived with faith beautiful moments of radiant light in the path of the Church, along with times when a few clouds have formed in the sky. We have tried to serve Christ and his Church with deep and total love, which is the soul of our ministry...”

What if... he had added this farewell gift to the Church universal:

Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity (age 26)—her final recorded words on Nov. 9, 1906  were a summation of her heroic call to holiness as she climbed Mt. Carmel:  "I go to Light, to Love, to Life."

http://www.kilmacudcarmel.ie/elizabeth.html

Blessed Chiara Badano (age 18)—the legacy of her short, intensely lived earthly existence are appropriately:  Life, Love, Light  

 http://www.chiaraluce.org/en/Home/Index

What are the lives of these two holy young women telling us today? 

Late last night, while striking a three-finger G-major chord on my piano, I listened to a singularly beautiful sound that too soon faded to silence. I sat there stunned. In that brief suspended moment I grasped a truth that has eluded me these past 85 years:  Light, Life, Love (in German Licht, Leben, Lebe) are now to be properly ordered and bound together to reflect the Truth of all that was, is, and is yet to come. 

My brothers and sisters in Christ, we must begin our constant prayer, our constant song as God did, when at the dawn of creation He spoke the words, "Let there be light".

God's Light is His singular glory independent of creation. In this—the Father's pure unapproachable Light, we see Light; in this Light we seek the Truth who is a person, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; in this Light we are guided by the Holy Spirit from the passing here and now to eternity.  We must next move to ponder His Life which, both One and Three, is in communio with creation for in the eternally glorified living humanity of Jesus Christ, the faithful have been raised into mystical union with the God-head. In the gift of the Holy Eucharist we abide in His Life  in both time and eternity. Finally, we are presented His Love  and it is altogether fitting that Love is the coda. The same Love that the Father bestowed when He sacrificed His Beloved Son, the Love that Jesus Christ willingly witnessed on Calvary is the gift of the Holy Spirit that remains when faith and hope are but distant chords. 

Remember: in communio
Light, Life, Love
This triple chord
is hard to break!

I pray we see each other
on the high ground!

All in Jesus and Mary,

Benedictus PP XVI  
 ______________________________

Sincerely yours in Jesus and Mary,
Mike Rizzio

Imitate Mary
Become like Jesus
Live for the Triune God

Seek the Light of Our Lord Jesus Christ
See you on the High Ground!

* - J.M.J. + O.B.T. + M.G.R. stands for:
Jesus, Mary and Joseph;
O Beata Trinitas;
St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael