When in 1944 an SS officer asked him point-blank what he wanted to be "when he grew up," the young "volunteer" in the forced-labor camp answered, "a parish priest in a village. Everyone present laughed at him, but this gesture of Joseph's prevented others from enlisting in the SS and the other seminarians remained faithful to their vocation. Seven years later, on June 29, 1951, Joseph Ratzinger was ordained a priest together with his brother Georg, in the monumental cathedral of Freising. A black-and-white film of the moment captures the occasion. Those were the early post-war years, in which there was a spiritual flowering and an abundance of vocations.

Then came the council and the post-conciliar period, the university lectures and the episcopate in the same diocese where he was ordained. Seventy years have passed since then and, at that moment, feeling weak, he received security. A lark that sang at the moment of the laying on of hands seemed to him a good omen... It was a symbol of the power of the Spirit that every priest receives at his ordination: "When I said "yes" at priestly ordination - he recalled already as pope - I may have had my own idea about the future, but I also knew: "I have placed myself in the hands of the bishop and, ultimately written request of the Lord. I cannot seek for myself what I want. In the end I have to let myself go". Letting himself be led is perhaps Benedict XVI's greatest merit: from the moment he placed himself at God's disposal, he tried to direct his steps where he did not want to go.

To go and serve: this is the destiny of all ministers of the Church. "On the vigil of my priestly ordination, fifty-eight years ago, I opened the Sacred Scripture - I recalled also as pope in a very Augustinian way - because I still wanted to receive a word from the Lord, for that day and for my future path as a priest. My gaze stopped on the passage: "Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth". Then I knew: the Lord is speaking about me and he is speaking to me. Precisely the same thing will happen to me tomorrow." "Consecrate them in the truth" (Jn 17:11) is the summary of a whole ministry, because "the truth makes free" (Jn 8:31). It was also the motto that he placed on his episcopal coat of arms: "collaborators of the truth" (3Jn 1:8), which is Jesus Christ himself: the truth incarnate, dead and risen for love.

This was the bequest that he gave us as priest, bishop and pope, increasingly valued. He has continued to serve us in every way, with his prayer, his work, his silence. Like a monk, he repeats. At the press conference celebrated on his return from the trip to Armenia, on June 27, 2016, Pope Francis said of him, "He is for me the pope emeritus, the wise grandfather, the man who has my back with his prayer. I do not forget that speech he gave us cardinals, on February 28 [2013]: 'Among you for sure is my successor. I promise obedience" and he has done so. [...] He is a man of his word, an upright, upright, upright man." Joseph Ratzinger was Full Professor of theology for 25 years; 5 years as Archbishop of Munich and Freising; 23 years as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, collaborating with St. John Paul II; 8 years as Bishop of Rome. But above all he has been a priest during all this time. We accompany him today with gratitude and prayer.