Nick Ripatrazone explores the jaunty, theologically-rich ride of Sonnez Les Matines, a verse play by JC Scharl.
At the start of Lent in 1983, Pope Benedict XVI – then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – gave a retreat in the Vatican for Pope John Paul II and the Roman Curia. “The central mystery of our vocation,” he affirmed, “is the same as that to which Lent is leading; the death and the Resurrection of the Lord.”
That same year, in Cologne, Germany, Ratzinger spoke at the 50th anniversary of the ordination of Cardinal Joseph Höffner, articulating a meditation on the priesthood. “We ought to find the courage again,” he said, “to return to the sacral, the courage to look in Christian reality, not to set limits but to transform, to be truly dynamic.” He then quoted a rather surprising source: the playwright Eugène Ionesco.
