In the final three paragraphs of the fascinating memoir he wrote while still Prefect of the Congregation, Cardinal Ratzinger explained the significance of the bear:
According to legend, on his way from Germany to Rome in the early 700s, St. Corbinian’s horse was torn to pieces by a bear. Corbinian reprimanded the bear, loaded onto it the pack the horse had been carrying, and made the bear haul that burden all the way to Rome. Only then did Corbinian release the bear.
Then Cardinal Ratzinger quotes Psalm 22 (“When my heart was bewildered, I was stupid and ignorant. I was like a dumb beast before You. I am always with You). He tells us that in those very words, St. Augustine spoke of the burdens he carried once he became bishop:
A draft animal am I before You . . . for You.
And this is precisely how I abide with You.
How often, continues Cardinal Ratzinger, writing the last paragraphs of his memoir . . .
did Augustine protest to heaven against all the trifles that continually blocked his path and kept him from the intellectual work he knew to be his deepest calling! But this is where the Psalm helps him avoid bitterness: ‘Yes, indeed, I am become a draft animal, a beast of burden, an ox — and yet this is just the way in which I abide with You, serving You, just the way in which You keep me in your hand.’
And then, years before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Ratzinger says:
The heavily laden bear that took the place of St. Corbinian’s horse, or rather donkey — the bear that became his donkey against its will: is this not an image of what I should do and of what I am?
