Desire to encounter Christ - Believe in the victory of love

Angelus: August 11, 2013

In the Angelus message on August 11, 2013, Pope Francis emphasized the desire that all of us have, sometimes hidden deep within us, to encounter Christ.  The Gospel passage that prompted his reflections is Luke 12, 32-48, the key line being: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

"In this passage, Jesus is walking towards Jerusalem with his disciples.  The context is important, because Jesus is also walking towards his own Passion and Death on the cross.  During this journey, Jesus is teaching his disciples what his own interior thoughts are.  As he approaches his impending condemnation and death, he is emphasizing detachment from earthly good, trust in God's providence, and interior vigilance--the waiting and working that belongs to the Kingdom of God.  For Jesus, this waiting is his return to the Father...for us, it is waiting for Christ himself.  He will come to take us and bring us to the joy of heaven which never ends.

So, this Gospel is telling us that a Christian is someone who carries within himself a great and profound desire: to meet the Lord.  And where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.  Our heart is what desires, and all of us desire something.  For us Christians, our desire to meet the Lord is also a desire for life, for joy, and for happiness, because Christ is and always will be all those things.

Do you have a heart that desires?  Think about this and respond in silence, in your own heart.  Do you have a desiring heart, or is your heart closed, asleep, or anesthetized? The second question is: Where is your treasure?  What is the most important reality for you, the most precious thing, what attracts you more than anything else?  Is it the love of God, to do goodness, to live for the Lord and for your brothers and sisters?  Each of us must respond in his or her heart.

Someone may say to me, "But Father, I work all the time, I have a family--those are the most important things for me."  Of course, yes, it's true that our family is important.  But, what is it that keeps a family united?  Isn't it love?  And isn't God the one who sows love in our hearts?  And the love of God is precisely what gives meaning to the daily, little sacrifices we make...and helps us to face the big ones.

This is the true treasure.  But the "love of God"--what is it?  It is not something vague, some generic sentiment.  The love of God has a name and face: Jesus Christ.  Jesus.  The love of God is made manifest in Jesus.  Because we cannot love air, can we?  Do we love air?  Do we love everything?  No, you can't do it!  We love people, and the person we love is Jesus.  This love gives value and beauty to everything else; this is what makes our family strong, our work, our study, our friendships and art--all our human activities--it gives meaning to them.  Our love for Jesus also gives meaning to the negative experiences because it--this love--allows us to go beyond the experience and not remain a prisoner of evil.  The love of God opens us up to hope, to the final horizon of our pilgrimage.  So the hard times and our falls, our sins, also have a meaning.  God's love for us forgives us.  He loves us so much he always forgives us."

HOLY MASS ON THE SOLEMNITY
OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

Castel Gandolfo, 15 August 2013

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

At the end of its Constitution on the Church, the Second Vatican Council left us a very beautiful meditation on Mary Most Holy. Let me just recall the words referring to the mystery we celebrate today: “the immaculate Virgin preserved free from all stain of original sin, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things” (no. 59). Then towards the end, there is: “the Mother of Jesus in the glory which she possesses in body and soul in heaven is the image and the beginning of the church as it is to be perfected in the world to come. Likewise, she shines forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come” (no. 68). In the light of this most beautiful image of our Mother, we are able to see the message of the biblical readings that we have just heard. We can focus on three key words: struggle, resurrection, hope.  

The passage from Revelation presents the vision of the struggle between the woman and the dragon. The figure of the woman, representing the Church, is, on the one hand, glorious and triumphant and yet, on the other, still in travail. And the Church is like that: if in heaven she is already associated in some way with the glory of her Lord, in history she continually lives through the trials and challenges which the conflict between God and the evil one, the perennial enemy, brings. And in the struggle which the disciples must confront – all of us, all the disciples of Jesus, we must face this struggle - Mary does not leave them alone: the Mother of Christ and of the Church is always with us. She walks with us always, she is with us. And in a way, Mary shares this dual condition. She has of course already entered, once and for all, into heavenly glory. But this does not mean that she is distant or detached from us; rather Mary accompanies us, struggles with us, sustains Christians in their fight against the forces of evil. Prayer with Mary, especially the rosary – but listen carefully: the Rosary. Do you pray the Rosary every day? But I’m not sure you do [the people shout “Yes!”]… Really? Well, prayer with Mary, especially the Rosary, has this “suffering” dimension, that is of struggle, a sustaining prayer in the battle against the evil one and his accomplices. The Rosary also sustains us in the battle.  

The second reading speaks to us of resurrection. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, insists that being Christian means believing that Christ is truly risen from the dead. Our whole faith is based upon this fundamental truth which is not an idea but an event. Even the mystery of Mary’s Assumption body and soul is fully inscribed in the resurrection of Christ. The Mother’s humanity is “attracted” by the Son in his own passage from death to life….

Mary also experienced the martyrdom of the Cross: the martyrdom of her heart, the martyrdom of her soul. She lived her Son’s Passion to the depths of her soul. She was fully united to him in his death, and so she was given the gift of resurrection. Christ is the first fruits from the dead and Mary is the first of the redeemed, the first of “those who are in Christ”. [...]

The Gospel suggests to us the third word: hope. Hope is the virtue of those who, experiencing conflict – the struggle between life and death, good and evil – believe in the resurrection of Christ, in the victory of love. We heard the Song of Mary, the Magnificat: it is the song of hope, it is the song of the People of God walking through history. It is the song many saints, men and women, some famous, and very many others unknown to us but known to God: mums, dads, catechists, missionaries, priests, sisters, young people, even children and grandparents: these have faced the struggle of life while carrying in their heart the hope of the little and the humble. […] For us Christians, wherever the Cross is, there is hope, always. If there is no hope, we are not Christian. That is why I like to say: do not allow yourselves to be robbed of hope. […] And Mary is always there, near those communities, our brothers and sisters, she accompanies them, suffers with them, and sings the Magnificat of hope with them.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, with all our heart let us too unite ourselves to this song of patience and victory, of struggle and joy, that unites the triumphant Church with the pilgrim one, earth with heaven, and that joins our lives to the eternity towards which we journey. Amen.

(cited on August 20^th, 2013 from

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130815_omelia-assunzione_en.html)