I also have N.T. Wright's Surprised By Hope, recommended to me by many as well. I had started the Wright, but then thought...no, let's start with Ratzinger (originally written in 1977),
then move to Wright and compare the two. So no full report until I read both, but until then...
People often ask - if they want to start reading Ratzinger/Benedict, where should they, indeed start. I generally recommend the interview books - Salt of the Earth, God and the World, and The Ratzinger Report , as well as others - I just think the interview books - especially the first two - really are helpful in breaking down the "God's Rottweiler" stereotype.
I'm adding this one to the list.
Even thought the title indicates it is concerned with a rather narrow dimension of theology, it actually is not - for when you think about it, death and what happens after, as well as the fate of Creation, is not a narrow topic at all. Underneath all the ephemera upon which we spend our time, it is what truly concerns us, if we are honest.
What is all this for?
What's to become of me?
Where did he go?
I would also recommend it because it is a beautiful expression of the Ratzinger method. When Joseph Ratzinger does theology, there is a graciousness, beauty, cohesiveness and, yes, delight that is hard to miss. He pulls insights from everywhere, digs deeply into the sources, is unafraid of paradox or the unknown...and then brings it all around to Christ. Every time. It is Christ.
As I said, I will write more about this later, but for now, just a couple of quotes - first of all, his treatment of Psalm 73 almost brought me to tears in its profundity and depth. But apart from that, a taste:
What he brings out so clearly in this book is the distinctiveness of Christian hope. It is not in a place or time. It is in Christ. Life is identified with a Person, Jesus Christ. Our lives:
What this means is that Christian hope is not some news item about tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. We might put it this way: hope is now personalized. Its focus is not space and time, the question of "Where?" and "When?," but relationship with Christ's person and longing for him to come close. ( 8)
Christ does not die in the noble detachment of the philosopher. He dies in tears. On his lips was the bitter taste of abandonment and isolation in all its horror. Here the hubris that would be the equal of God is contrasted with an acceptance of the cup of being human, down to its last dregs. (102)
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I'm well over my allotment of comments per one thread but this post reminds me of something in the new Christopher Buckley memoir.
Turns out WFB was sorely tempted to commit suicide, going so far to Jesuitically explore how he could kill himself without culpability.
But I remind myself that there is no sin in temptation. It's part of the human condition. To be "disappointed" in WFB for wanting to take a pill to end it makes about as much sense as being "disappointed" in Christ for feeling forsaken by his Father or for longing for food at the end of his forty day fast in the desert. Christ came in part to offer us his solidarity.
TSO
Perhaps sermon 148 was about the same time in his life that Augustine was getting a bit more merciful to the unbaptized infants...lol. So if we accept Augustine on Ananias et al, then the early Christian community was in part fooled by a pretend disaster into fear of the Lord since the actors in the play merely left this life but passed into glory. I'm not ruling it out but Augustine should have cleaned up the sermon therefore to include there being some great recompense within purgatory prior to Ananias' glory otherwise we have a Protestant once saved always saved moment herein...no wonder the counter Reformation had Church experts go over Augustine's works when the Protestants and later the Jansenists showed love for him.
So had Augustine been standing in the church when Ananias and his wife were killed and buried without space for repentance, Augustine would have been less fearful than everyone else...in fact it seems he would have smiled at their glory whereas the passage says that the community took fear.
Bill, not saying I disagree with you on the substance, more on your depiction of Augustine as not in continuity with current thinking. That sermon would seem to show that the idea of trying to make things sound more palatable goes back a lot longer than you suggest.
TSO
Got it..now. I was thinking more of him as relates Judas where his sermon does place Judas in hell. So your sermon 148 is even more interesting in light of his position on Judas: he is severe with Judas as is called for by Christ's words and yet he is lenient on Ananias and Sapphira/ in the Judas case there is text to support severity yet in the Ananias case, there is no text to support leniency so therein he was on his own.
Gerard, I second your comments and add a sincere "Thank You God for the Gift of Ratzinger" every time I open one of his books. His ability to take complex truths and transmit them so that we, the laity, can understand them is refreshing. Also, he can seem as if he's going astray than -- Bam -- he brings it right back to his original thought. A perpetual student of life's delight!