3 Quotes by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

Creation exists to be a place for the covenant that God wants to make with man. The goal of creation is the covenant, the love story of God and man.

Thus [the altar] brings heaven into the community assembled on earth, or rather it takes the community beyond itself into the communion of saints of all times and places. We might put it this way: the altar is the place where heaven is opened up.

The word “brotherhood" is, to be sure, a fine word, but we oughtn't to forget its ambiguity. The first pair of brothers in the history of the world were, according to the Bible, Cain and Abel, and the one murdered the other.