Sacrament

Eerste en laatste regels van de prachtige, in zijn geheel te lezen preek (hier in het Engels, hier in het Duits en hier in het Nederlands) van Benedictus XVI tijdens de Chrismamis, gisterenmorgen in de St.Pieter:

At the centre of the Church’s worship is the notion of "sacrament". This means that it is not primarily we who act, but God comes first to meet us through his action, he looks upon us and he leads us to himself. Another striking feature is this: God touches us through material things, through gifts of creation that he takes up into his service, making them instruments of the encounter between us and himself.
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Let us pray that [God's] gladness may pervade us ever more deeply and that we may be capable of bringing it anew to a world in such urgent need of the joy that has its source in truth. Amen.