The Divine Lamp

It was foretold that the struggle between humanity and the serpent, that is, between man and the forces of evil and death, would continue throughout history.  It was also foretold, however, that the “offspring” of the woman would one day triumph and crush the head of the serpent to death; it was foretold that the offspring of the woman- and in this offspring the woman and the mother herself- would be victorious and thus, through man, God would triumph.  The human being does not trust God.  Tempted by the serpent he harbors the suspicion that, in the end, God takes something away from his life, that God is a rival who curtails our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we have cast him aside; in brief, that only in this way can we acheive our freedom.  the human beings lives in the suspicion that God’s love creates a dependence and that he must rid himself of this dependency if he is to be fully himself.  Man does not want to receive his existence and the fulness of his life from God.  He himslef wants to obtain from the tree of knowledge the power to shape the world, to make himself a god, raising himself to God’s level, and to overcome death and darkness with his own efforts.  He does not want to rely on love that to him seems untrustworthy; he relies soley on his own knowledge since it confers power upon him.  Rather than love, he sets his sights on power, with which he desires to take his own life autonomously in hand.  And in doing so, he trusts in deceit rather than in truth and thereby sinks with his life into emptiness, into death. -Pope Benedict XVI Cappela Papale Homily