The Pope's Birthday
Posted on April 15, 2009, 3:49 PM | Irene Lagan

Pope Benedict will celebrate his 82nd birthday tomorrow. The pope was born on Holy Saturday, April 16, 1927, and was the first baby baptized a few short hours later at the Easter liturgy. He has always regarded his Easter entry into the world as something special. Here is a short excerpt from Salt of the Earth, an interview by Peter Seewold with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

The Easter vigil was not yet celebrated in those days, so that the Resurrection was celebrated in the morning, with the blessing of the water, which then served throughout the whole year as the baptismal water. And, because the baptismal liturgy was consequently taking place in the Church, my parents said, ‘Well, the boy’s already here’ so its natural that he be baptized too at this liturgical point in time, which is when the Church baptizes. And the coincidence that I was born at the very moment when the Church was preparing her baptismal water, so that I was the first person baptized with the new water, does indeed mean something to me. Because it situates me particularly in the context of Easter and also binds birth and baptism in a very suggestive way.

In this interview, the pope then goes on to talk about the happy memories of growing up in a close family of modest means, where the simple joys of life were not crowded out by too much stuff.

I often think back on how wonderful it was that we could be happy over the smallest things and how we also tried to do things for one another. How this very modest, sometimes financially difficult situation gave rise to an inner solidarity that bound us deeply together.

I wonder if Pope Benedict, ever in his wildest dreams, could have imagined that he'd one day be greeted by thousands wishing him happy birthday in St Peter's square.