TEOLOGIA DELLA LITURGIA. OPERA OMNIA VOL. 11

The seventh volume of the Opera omnia by Joseph Ratzinger collects the texts which he dedicated to the Second Vatican Council, divided into two parts. The first one, namely the first tome of the volume, collects what Joseph Ratzinger wrote in the period between the announcement of the Council, on 25 January 1959, and the first years after its closing, up to7 December 1963, going through everything he produced during the Council itself: both as conciliar peritus and member of various commissions, and as counselor to cardinal Joseph Frings who even as Pope, he would define “a father”. On the basis of this strong friendship and of the familiarity between the young theologian and the old archbishop of Cologne, the last part of the first tome of the volume 7 collects all of Joseph Ratzinger’s writings in honour of cardinal Frings. The second tome is on the other hand dedicated to the reception and to the hermeneutic of the Council until the eve of the election of Ratzinger to Peter's pontifical throne. It was already an accessible language, rich in images and episodes, engaging and profound, used not only to describe the protagonists and themes concerning the so important event of which he is witness, but within which he is also making history. Thus a fundamental feature of the volume, but also of the person and of the theologian, emerges; a feature which he will never lose throughout his intellectual and human journey: since the very beginning, Joseph Ratzinger’s language is not educational, as he is not interested in educational matters and he is not addressing scholars in the first place. It is, from the very beginning, a “lively” language for everyone, thanks to him being “today's man in his world's reality” and because his words are “his constant point of reference, as the positive proposition of faith is the basis for each of his thoughts: meditating and expressing Christ's Gospel in a way comprehensible to the modern man, in order to understand Christ in his modernity. This is for him being updated and modern. Ratzinger comes across as a “child of the Council”, starting from his language.