I have been asked to say a few words this evening about Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est. Although it was made public toward the end of January, it is actually dated, Christmas, 2005, a rather apt date given its content. For a good number of people, the encyclical was a surprise. It surprised them by its topic as well as by its remarkably positive tone. Given some of the publications, speeches and sermons of Cardinal Ratzinger while he was president of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, some assumed that his first encyclical would contain a more or less critical overview of the contemporary world and of the challenges that it represents for the church.

It was not the first time that this pope surprised people. I remember how he first surprised me. I happened to be live on a Winnipeg radio programme at the very moment that the announcement was made from the balcony of St. Peter's that we had a new pope, that it was Cardinal Ratzinger, and that he had chosen the name Benedict XVI. The choice of the name was perhaps more of a surprise than the simple fact of his election. It was a pleasant surprise. Instead of choosing the name of any of his immediate predecessors, the cardinal reached back to a man who had become pope at the beginning of the first world war and who is remembered as a man of peace. Benedict XV is also remembered for his efforts to bring peace to the inner life of the church after the modernist crisis and the anti-modernist reaction it provoked. The name Benedict evokes another figure, Saint Benedict, the father of western monasticism and one of the patrons of Europe. His name is evocative of the positive relationship that existed for centuries in Europe between Christianity and culture. It seemed to me that in choosing the name that he did, the pope was making a statement about his pontificate. His first encyclical is very much a part of that statement.

Before looking more closely at the encyclical, I would like to begin by briefly contrasting it with the first encyclical of John Paul II. Published in March of 1979, some five months after his election, it was addressed to Catholics - bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful - but also to all people of good will. In many ways it laid out a program for his pontificate, certainly, as it turned out, for the first 10 years or so of it. He situated himself vis-à-vis Vatican II and recalled some of its major teaching in regard to the church, ecumenism, interreligious dialogue and some of the issues related to social justice. He spelled out to some degree where he thought the church was at that moment in regard to these areas and how he believed it should move forward.

John Paul's encyclical was called Redemptor hominis, the redeemer of humanity. The phrase made clear the pope's intention of placing the human person at the centre of his pontificate, a person created in God's image and likeness and, as such, endowed with an inalienable dignity and value, a person redeemed by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Word made flesh.

Benedict XVI's first encyclical is addressed not to the world at large, but to believers. It speaks out of faith and to faith. In the somewhat austere and yet elegant style of one of the great prose writers of theological German, the pope invites us to reflect on, and deepen our appreciation of, what he calls the heart or centre of Christian faith. This involves the distinctively biblical image of God and the resulting image of humankind and of the journey, the way, that we are called to walk.

Encyclicals, like conciliar documents, are usually known by the first two or three words of their Latin version. Because of this, the opening words of such documents are carefully chosen. That is very much the case here. The first words of Benedict's encyclical are part of a quotation from the first letter of John, Deus Caritas est “…God is love and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” (1Jo 4:16) The document also bears a title “On Christian Love” (De Christiano Amore).

The encyclical is divided into two parts. The first is entitled “The Unity of Love in Creation and in Salvation History”. As the phrase suggests, it is a meditation on love, on human love and on the love of God revealed in the story of Israel and in the person of Jesus, and on the relationship that exists between these two loves.

The second part of the encyclical is of a more practical nature. Entitled “The Practice of Love by the Church as a Community of Love”, it draws out some of the implications of the first part. If God is love and if as creatures made in God's image we are called to be people of love, then we have to act accordingly and we have to do so not only as individuals but also as a community of faith. The Church, precisely because it has been called into existence by the mystery of God's love revealed in Christ, must bear witness to that love in corporate acts of love and service.

The encyclical's brief introduction reveals the kind of theological framework within which the pope intends to develop his reflections. It can be described most simply as Johannine. It is an approach that is different from the approaches of both the synoptic gospels with their emphasis on the kingdom and Paul with his focus on the paschal mystery, the mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The key word for John is love. God so loved the world, he says, that he sent his Son to redeem us. Jesus so loved us that he gave himself for our salvation. His commandment is that we love one another as he loved us. The first letter of John sums all this up with the affirmation, God is love.

The introduction offers a second insight into the pope's perspective. “In acknowledging”, he says, “the centrality of love, Christian faith has retained the core of Israel's faith, while at the same time giving it new depth and breadth”. What is said here is developed at greater length in the course of the encyclical. The pope clearly wants to underline the continuity that exists between the first and second covenants, between the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, between the various phases of God's one plan for human salvation.

The first part of the encyclical begins with a reflection on language. The word “love”, today as in the past, is used in many ways and in a variety of contexts. We speak of love of country, love of work, love of family and friends, love of beauty and goodness, love of neighbour, love between a man and a woman, love of God. How do all these loves relate, the pope asks - are they radically different from one another or is there some underlying unity among them?

In developing his answer to this question, the pope focuses on two loves, the love of a couple for one another and the kind of love of God and neighbour called for by the biblical tradition. What is said in the encyclical about these loves throws light on all human love.

Historically two different words have been used for these two types of love. Eros is a Greek word; it suggests desire, longing. Although we tend to think of it primarily in relation to love that includes a sexual dimension, erotic love, traditionally it was used for desire of almost every kind, including the desire for truth and beauty and God.

In the New Testament the ordinary word for love is agape. Here the great model of love is Jesus who loves us and gives himself for us. This is the word that is used in 1 John when it says that God is love, and that Jesus uses in summing up the commandments in the twofold love of God and love of neighbour. To simplify: eros suggests desire and longing, while agape points to self-forgetful and self-giving love.

Historically, some Christians have tended to oppose eros and agape. They have seen eros as selfish and agape as selfless. Others, including secularized Western philosophers, have claimed that Christianity destroys eros in its pursuit of an impossible ideal of spiritual, self-giving love.

The pope disagrees with both these views. Christianity, he says, does not reject or undermine eros. It recognizes it as a profound human reality, as part of the embodied nature of human life, as integral to God's good creation.

Although the pope's argument focuses on the eros that draws a couple to one another, it applies, I have suggested, to all dimensions of human life, to family and friendship, to the arts and science, to economic and social life. His basic point is that Christian revelation and Christian life are not opposed to such things nor are they meant to devalue them. They are intended rather to help them grow and develop and become all that, in God's mind, they are meant to be.

Eros can be destructive. It almost always begins with the self and its pleasures and with its longing for fulfilment. It can, however, mature and move beyond the self and focus more and more on the other. To do that, it needs to be purified and disciplined. “Love”, the pope says, “now becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it (simply) self-seeking …instead it seeks the good of the beloved; it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing for sacrifice”. Love involves ecstasy, not simply in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but “as a journey, an on-going exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God.” “Such love”, the pope adds, “tends to exclusivity, to a definitive self-giving to one person, for ever”.

Agape is not opposed to such love, it helps in fact to strengthen and deepen it. It opens it to new dimensions of reality.

A major part of the encyclical focuses on the new dimensions of human life and human love opened up by biblical faith. These, the pope says, have to do with two fundamental realities, the image of God and the image of humanity.

The two great affirmations about God in the Bible are first of all that God is one and that, as the one God, he is the creator of all that is, and, secondly, that God loves human beings, that he is close to and involved in human life, that he has a purpose and a goal in calling us into existence, and that this purpose is ultimately to share his life with us.

In developing what he has to say here as well as earlier in the document, the pope turns first of all to the OT. He insists on the continuity between God's revelation in the story of Israel and in Jesus. In fact, at one point he affirms that “the real novelty of the NT lies not so much in new ideas as in the figure of Christ himself”.

The pope appeals to the Song of Songs and to the teaching of Hosea and of Ezekiel who, in their different ways, compare God's love for us to the love of a man for a woman. God's love is both eros and agape. It is a passionate love; God wants to be in relationship with us and wants us to be in relationship with him. His love is passionate, self-giving and, given the reality of human life, forgiving.

In developing briefly what is distinctive about the biblical view of human life, the pope focuses not on mind and intelligence and on our ability to know the truth but rather on our capacity for love. If God is love and if we are made in God's image, then obviously love must be at the centre of our identity. The story of Genesis brings this out in its account of the creation of the first couple. The woman is taken from the man and is recognized by him as flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. For that reason, the text goes on to say, a man leaves his mother and father and becomes one with his wife. What is suggested here, the pope says, is that the individual “is somehow incomplete, driven by nature to seek in another the part that can make him whole; …only in communion with the opposite sex can he become complete”.

What all this reveals is that eros is rooted in our very nature. In its drive “toward marriage – to a bond that is unique and definitive”, it becomes, in the pope's words, “the icon (the image) of the relationship between God and his people and vice-versa. God's way of loving becomes the measure of human love”.

The depths of the mystery of God's self-giving love take on visible form in a new and definitive way in the life and destiny of Jesus and especially in his self-giving unto death. The conviction of 1 John that “God is love” arises from a contemplation of the pierced side of Christ. “It is from there”, the pope says, “that our definition of love must begin”.

This brief reflection on Jesus and especially on the meaning of his death in terms of self-giving love leads the pope to develop a somewhat longer reflection on the eucharist. It is, in a special way, the sacrament of love. In it Jesus gives himself to us as food for our souls. ”The Eucharist”, the pope affirms ”draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation. More than just statically receiving the Incarnate Logos, we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving”. ”This is my body, my person, given for you”. This is my life blood which is poured out for your salvation. At the heart of the eucharist is what the pope calls a mysticism of love.

The love that the eucharist expresses and fosters is not simply between ourselves and Christ but also among all of us who share in it. The love to which God calls us from the beginning of Genesis, through the life of Israel, and in the story of Jesus, is a social love. “I cannot possess Christ just for myself”, the pope affirms, ”I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own”. Here love of God and love of neighbour are truly one. Here, too, worship of God and an ethics of love join and form a unity. “A Eucharist”, the pope states, “which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented”, is not what it is supposed to be.

In the eucharist we are brought to understand that the love commandment is not simply a commandment. It is a response to a prior gift. The more we open ourselves to God's gift of love, the more will we become people of love.

The love to which we are called by nature and grace embraces both God and neighbour. These two loves are in the end inseparable. Love of neighbour is in fact a privileged way to come to love of God. We cannot see God, as I John reminds us, but we can see our neighbours and their needs. “Love of neighbour”, the pope says, “is a path that leads to the encounter with God; closing our eyes to our neighbour blinds us to God”.

The pope describes the Bible as above all a love story between God and humanity. The initiative in the story belongs with God. “He has loved us first and continues to do so; we, too, then, can respond with love. …He loves us, he makes us see and experience his love, and since he has 'loved us first', love can also blossom as a response within us”.

This love-story is on-going; it is never finished and complete as long as we are alive. Our love grows and develops; we become more and more in tune with God and God's will. We no longer experience it as something alien to us but as something in us, something with which we identify, something that brings peace and joy.

Our love for God cannot help but deepen our love for one another. It enables us to recognize one another as made in God's image and likeness; it helps us to discern his presence in one another. On the other hand, an openness towards our neighbour makes us sensitive to God. “Love grows through love” the pope says. “Love is 'divine' because it comes from God and unites us to God; through this unifying process it makes us a 'we' which transcends our divisions and makes us one, until in the end God is all in all”. (1 Cor 15:28)

With these reflections the pope completes the first half of the letter. It is, as he said it would be, a meditation on love, on our capacity for love, on God's love for us, on Jesus as the embodiment of that love, on the eucharist as the sacrament of love, on the two fold commandment of love of God and love of neighbour and on how we are able to fulfill it because of God's prior gift of love.

The second part of the encyclical is entitled “The Practice of Love by the Church as a Community of Love”. What is said in the first part has implications for the whole of human life. It ought to make a difference in every aspect of it - family life, personal relations, work, attitudes to art, culture and science, social life, justice, peace; it ought to make a difference in everything that we do and are and become involved in. The focus in the second part of the encyclical is more narrow. It has to do with the traditional works of charity and how these are to be practiced in the world today. The intent of the pope in this section is to encourage Catholic charitable activities and organizations on every level of church life - the parish, the diocese, the universal church.

His basic point is that if everything affirmed in the first part of the document is true, then we must act in loving ways, we must come to the help of people in need. We have to do this as individuals, but also as communities of faith. We need to do such things not only in order to relieve the suffering of people, but also to give witness in the world to the mystery of love revealed in Christ.

The pope begins the section by evoking the history of Christian charitable activity. The classic starting point is the Acts of the Apostles and its description of the early community in Jerusalem where, we are told, things were put in common and to each was given according to his or her need. That practice, although it seems to have been quite local and to have lasted only a brief period of time, has been over the centuries an enormous inspiration not only for various types of monastic life, but also for different forms of charitable activity on the part of the church and of church members.

The pope suggests that three things define the life of the church: word, sacrament and diakonia or service. The last one, he says, is every bit as important as the other two. It is the one that he emphasizes in this letter.

The question of charity and of charitable organizations has been much debated in Western culture over the last two hundred years or more. Marxism in particular has seen charity as a covering over of the real ills of society. Let people suffer, it says, so that the injustices of society become more evident and people realize the need for radical change. There is some truth in this, the pope says, but it is far from being the whole truth. Here, as in his treatment of the relation between eros and agape, the pope is anxious to show his awareness of the kind of critiques that traditional Christian convictions and practices are exposed to in post-Enlightenment Western culture. He wants to speak to these critiques because he understands the extent to which they have undermined the convictions of individuals and of whole societies in regard to Christian faith and Christian values.

Such critiques force the pope to deal with the issue of justice and love. These two realities are obviously not to be played off against one another. In this regard the pope briefly recalls the social doctrine of the church from Rerum novarum of Leo XIII through the encyclicals of John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II. This teaching is essential and with it the church tries to make its contribution to the necessary pursuit of justice by challenging leaders in politics and business to be sensitive to the ethical issues involved in social, political and economic life.

The concrete development of a just society, the pope says, is not the direct responsibility of the church as church, i.e. as an organized and structured religious community. It is the responsibility of the state. In it individual church people are called to play a creative and active role. At the same time, the social teaching of the church is there to challenge political and other leaders especially when they undermine or disregard the fundamental dignity and basic rights of people.

Alongside the search for justice, the pope says, there remains enormous scope for charitable activity. We have seen that in recent years on a large scale with the tsunami, various earthquakes, hurricane Katrina and a host of other natural disasters. But we can also see it on a smaller scale all around us. Many people in our own city experience need in various forms. It could be the elderly and the chronically ill, it could be people mourning the loss of a family member, or a single mother struggling with difficult children. All these things can be met to some degree by social programs and institutions, but they also all represent human dramas that cry out for a human touch, a human face, for the supportive, helpful presence of loving people.

“Love”, the pope says, “will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate humanity”.

The pope talks of the complex structures that exist in our society for helping people in need. Here the church and church organizations are encouraged to collaborate with other Christians, with people from all the great religious traditions of the world, as well as with secular organizations.

This kind of work demands professionally trained people. At the same time Christian charitable organizations must not lose their distinctive identity. Those who work in them must have not only professional training but also “formation of the heart”. “They need to be led”, as the pope puts it, “to that encounter with God in Christ which awakens their love and opens their spirits to others”.

Christian charitable activity is neither a way of changing the world ideologically nor a tool of proselytism. It is a way of making present here and now the love that humans always need. “The best defense”, the pope adds, in our world “of God and of humanity consists precisely in love”.

The pope calls Paul's great hymn to love in his first letter to the Corinthians the magna carta of all ecclesial service. It sums up, he says, all the reflections on love that he has offered in the encyclical. Paraphrasing its conclusion, he ends this section with the following paragraph:

Faith, hope and charity go together. Hope is practiced through the virtue of patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and through the virtue of humility, which accepts God's mystery and trusts him even at times of darkness. Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes and gives us the victorious certainty …God is love. …Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the Cross, gives rise to love. Love is the light  – and in the end, the only light –  that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working. …To experience love and in this way to allow the light of God to enter into the world – this is the invitation I would like to extend with the present Encyclical.

The pope's message from the beginning to the end of the encyclical is love: our need and capacity for love and God's love for us, a love revealed initially in the act of creation itself and then in a definitive manner in the life and destiny of Jesus. All this takes us to the centre of Christian faith and Christian life. It is a message that is both old and new.

Why did Benedict XVI choose to make this message the focus of in his first encyclical? In what sense does it offer a program for his pontificate?

Apparently John Paul II had himself begun or had asked others to begin a document that would deal with various issues related to Catholic charities as these exist at the different levels of the life of the Church. Three of his most important encyclicals had dealt with issues of justice and the responsibilities of political and other leaders to work toward it. Here, without denying anything that he had said in those documents, he wanted to say something about the continuing need for charitable activity and organizations.

Benedict XVI took the idea and made it his own. Above all he prefaced his remarks on charitable organizations with a reflection, both traditional and personal, on the heart and centre of Christian faith, the mystery of God as a mystery of love turned to us in Christ, healing the brokenness of our lives and enabling us to be people of love.

Such a theme, he says at the beginning of the letter, is not irrelevant in a world “where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence”. It is a theme that underlines the enormously positive view of human life and reality that is at the heart of Christianity. As such, it invites us to renew our faith and our commitment. It encourages us to find again the joy of love, of a love that is both divine and human, a love that comes as a gift and that declares the value of, and strengthens our loves and gives them eternal significance.

People know that aspects of traditional Catholic moral teaching are at odds with widespread attitudes and practices in contemporary Western culture. Because these things are emphasized as much as they are in the media, people tend to think of them in isolation from the deep theological truths and realities in which they are rooted and which alone make them believable and liveable. The result is a one-sided view of Christianity that at times can even undermine the enthusiasm and commitment of believers themselves.