Benedict XVI’s reflection of at the end of the week of spiritual exercises. The "it is good" with which God looks at the creation "is constantly contradicted by the evil in this world, by suffering, by corruption." He thanks the Curia, "even though our outward visible communion now ends - as Cardinal Ravasi said – our spiritual closeness remains a profound communion in prayer remains."

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Evil is at work to put in the shade, to soil the beauty of God. But faith helps us to emerge from the darkness and mud, it is the compass that helps us find, in the darkness, the hand of God, to rediscover love and truth. Benedict XVI's reflections, this morning, at the end of the week of spiritual exercises was also an opportunity for a farewell to those members of the Roman Curia, who also took part in the spiritual exercises: "In the end - he tells them - dear friends, I would like to thank you all and not only for this week, but for the past eight years, in which you have brought with me, with great skill, affection, love and faith, the weight of the Petrine ministry. This gratitude will stay with me and even though our outward visible communion now ends - as Cardinal Ravasi said - our spiritual closeness remains a profound communion in prayer remains. With this certainty we go forward, confident in the victory of God, sure of the truth of beauty and love".

Apart from the words of thanks to those who worked with him eight years at the helm of the Church, the Pope reflected on the theme of the exercises, led by Card. Gianfranco Ravasi, on "The Art of believing, the art of praying."

"It came to mind - he said - the fact that the medieval theologians translated the word "logos" not only with "verbum", but also with "ars": "verbum" and "ars" are interchangeable. Only in using the two together does the whole meaning of the word "logos" appear to medieval theologians. The "logos" is not just mathematical reason: the "Logos" has a heart, "Logos" is also love. Truth is beautiful, truth and beauty go together: beauty is the seal of truth.

And yet you, starting from the Psalms and from our everyday experience, have also strongly emphasized that the "it is good" on the sixth day - expressed by the Creator - is permanently challenged, in this world, by evil, suffering and corruption. It almost seems that the devil wants to permanently contaminate Creation, to contradict God and render truth and beauty unrecognisable. In a world marked by evil also, the "logos," the eternal beauty and the eternal "ars", must appear as "caput cruentatum." The incarnate Son, the "logos" made flesh, crowned with a crown of thorns, and yet in that, in this figure the suffering of the Son of God, we begin to see the most profound beauty of our Creator and Redeemer, we can, in the silence of the "dark night", hear the Word. Believing is touching the hand of God in the darkness of the world, and so, in silence, listening to the Word, seeing Love. "

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