HOMILY OF HOLY FATHER FRANCIS
Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 13 October 2013
Sunday, 13 October 2013
In the Psalm we said: “Sing to the Lord a new
song, for he has done marvelous things” (Ps 98:1).
Today we consider one of the marvelous things
which the Lord has done: Mary! A lowly and weak creature like ourselves, she
was chosen to be the Mother of God, the Mother of her Creator.
Considering Mary in the light of the readings
we have just heard, I would like to reflect with you on three things: first, God
surprises us, second, God asks us to be faithful, and third, God
is our strength.
1. First: God surprises us. The story of
Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram, is remarkable. In order
to be healed of leprosy, he turns to the prophet of God, Elisha, who does not
perform magic or demand anything unusual of him, but asks him simply to trust
in God and to wash in the waters of the river. […] There it is: God surprises
us. It is precisely in poverty, in weakness and in humility that he reveals
himself and grants us his love, which saves us, heals us and gives us strength.
He asks us only to obey his word and to trust in him.
This was the experience of the Virgin Mary. At
the message of the angel, she does not hide her surprise. […] “Here I am, the
servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Lk
1:38). That was her answer. God constantly surprises us, he bursts our
categories, he wreaks havoc with our plans. And he tells us: Trust me, do not
be afraid, let yourself be surprised, leave yourself behind and follow me!
Today let us all ask ourselves whether we are
afraid of what God might ask, or of what he does ask. Do I let myself be
surprised by God, as Mary was, or do I remain caught up in my own safety zone:
in forms of material, intellectual or ideological security, taking refuge in my
own projects and plans? Do I truly let God into my life? How do I answer him?
2. In the passage from Saint Paul which we have
heard, the Apostle tells his disciple Timothy: Remember Jesus Christ; if we
persevere with him, we will also reign with him (cf. 2 Tim 2:8-13). This
is the second thing: to remember Christ always – to be mindful of Jesus Christ
– and thus to persevere in faith. God surprises us with his love, but he
demands that we be faithful in following him. We can be unfaithful, but he
cannot: he is “the faithful one” and he demands of us that same fidelity. Think
of all the times when we were excited about something or other, some
initiative, some task, but afterwards, at the first sign of difficulty, we
threw in the towel. Sadly, this also happens in the case of fundamental
decisions, such as marriage. It is the difficulty of remaining steadfast,
faithful to decisions we have made and to commitments we have made. Often it is
easy enough to say “yes”, but then we fail to repeat this “yes” each and every
day. We fail to be faithful.
Mary said her “yes” to God: a “yes” which threw
her simple life in Nazareth into turmoil, and not only once. Any number of
times she had to utter a heartfelt “yes” at moments of joy and sorrow,
culminating in the “yes” she spoke at the foot of the Cross. Here today there
are many mothers present; think of the full extent of Mary’s faithfulness to
God: seeing her only Son hanging on the Cross. The faithful woman, still
standing, utterly heartbroken, yet faithful and strong. […] Faith is ultimate
fidelity, like that of Mary.
3. The last thing: God is our strength.
I think of the ten lepers in the Gospel who were healed by Jesus. They approach
him and, keeping their distance, they call out: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on
us!” (Lk 17:13). They are sick, they need love and strength, and they
are looking for someone to heal them. Jesus responds by freeing them from their
disease. Strikingly, however, only one of them comes back, praising God and
thanking him in a loud voice. […]
Take Mary. After the Annunciation, her first
act is one of charity towards her elderly kinswoman Elizabeth. Her first words
are: “My soul magnifies the Lord”, in other words, a song of praise and
thanksgiving to God not only for what he did for her, but for what he had done
throughout the history of salvation. Everything is his gift. If we can realize
that everything is God’s gift, how happy will our hearts be! Everything is his
gift. He is our strength! Saying “thank you” is such an easy thing, and yet so
hard! How often do we say “thank you” to one another in our families? These are
essential words for our life in common. “Sorry”, “excuse me”, “thank you”. If
families can say these three things, they will be fine. “Sorry”, “excuse me”,
“thank you”. How often do we say “thank you” in our families? How often do we
say “thank you” to those who help us, those close to us, those at our side
throughout life? All too often we take everything for granted! This happens
with God too. It is easy to approach the Lord to ask for something, but to go
and thank him: “Well, I don’t need to”.
As we continue our celebration of the
Eucharist, let us invoke Mary’s intercession. May she help us to be open to
God’s surprises, to be faithful to him each and every day, and to praise and
thank him, for he is our strength. Amen.
At 5 p.m. on October 12, 2013 in St. Peter’s
Square, the Marian Day was celebrated as part of the Year of Faith. The event
began with a procession around the square of the original statue of the Virgin
of Fatima, which had been transported by air from Portugal and which Pope
Francis welcomed at the entrance of the Basilica. More than one hundred
thousand people attended the event.
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ADDRESS OF HOLY
FATHER FRANCIS
Saint Peter's
Square
Saturday, 12 October 2013
Saturday, 12 October 2013
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This event of the Year of Faith is
devoted to Mary, the Mother of Christ and the Mother of the Church, our Mother.
The statue of Our Lady which has come from Fatima helps us to feel her presence
in our midst. It is a fact: Mary always brings us to Jesus. She is a woman of
faith, a true believer. But we can ask: What was Mary’s faith like?
1. The first aspect of her faith is this: Mary’s
faith unties the knot of sin (cf. Lumen
Gentium, 56). What does that mean? The Fathers of the Second Vatican
Council took up a phrase of Saint Irenaeus, who states that “the knot of Eve’s
disobedience was untied by the obedience of Mary; what the virgin Eve bound by
her unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosened by her faith” (Adversus Haereses,
III, 22, 4).
The “knot” of disobedience, the “knot” of unbelief. When
children disobey their parents, we can say that a little “knot” is created.
This happens if the child acts with an awareness of what he or she is doing,
especially if there is a lie involved. At that moment, they break trust with
their parents. You know how frequently this happens! Then the relationship with
their parents needs to be purified of this fault; the child has to ask
forgiveness so that harmony and trust can be restored. Something of the same
sort happens in our relationship with God. When we do not listen to him, when
we do not follow his will, we do concrete things that demonstrate our lack of
trust in him – for that is what sin is – and a kind of knot is created deep
within us. These knots take away our peace and serenity. They are dangerous,
since many knots can form a tangle which gets more and more painful and
difficult to undo.
But we know one thing: nothing is impossible for God’s mercy!
Even the most tangled knots are loosened by his grace. And Mary, whose “yes”
opened the door for God to undo the knot of the ancient disobedience, is the
Mother who patiently and lovingly brings us to God, so that he can untangle the
knots of our soul by his fatherly mercy. We all have some of these knots and we
can ask in our heart of hearts: What are the knots in my life? “Father, my
knots cannot be undone!” It is a mistake to say anything of the sort! All the
knots of our heart, every knot of our conscience, can be undone. Do I ask Mary
to help me trust in God’s mercy, to undo those knots, to change? She, as a
woman of faith, will surely tell you: “Get up, go to the Lord: he understands
you”. And she leads us by the hand as a Mother, our Mother, to the embrace of
our Father, the Father of mercies.
2. A second aspect is that Mary’s faith gave human
flesh to Jesus. As the Council says: “Through her faith and obedience, she
gave birth on earth to the very Son of the Father, without knowing man but by
the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit” (Lumen
Gentium, 63). This was a point on which the Fathers of the Church
greatly insisted: Mary first conceived Jesus in faith and then in
the flesh, when she said “yes” to the message God gave her through the
angel. What does this mean? It means that God did not want to become man by
bypassing our freedom; he wanted to pass through Mary’s free assent, through
her “yes”. He asked her: “Are you prepared to do this?” And she replied: “Yes”.
But what took place most singularly in the Virgin Mary also
takes place within us, spiritually, when we receive the word of God with a good
and sincere heart and put it into practice. It is as if God takes flesh within
us; he comes to dwell in us, for he dwells in all who love him and keep his
word. It is not easy to understand this, but really, it is easy to feel it in
our heart.
Do we think that Jesus’ incarnation is simply a past event
which has nothing to do with us personally? Believing in Jesus means giving him
our flesh with the humility and courage of Mary, so that he can continue to
dwell in our midst. It means giving him our hands, to caress the little ones
and the poor; our feet, to go forth and meet our brothers and sisters; our
arms, to hold up the weak and to work in the Lord’s vineyard, our minds, to
think and act in the light of the Gospel; and especially to offer our hearts to
love and to make choices in accordance with God’s will. All this happens thanks
to the working of the Holy Spirit. And in this way we become instruments in
God’s hands, so that Jesus can act in the world through us.
3. The third aspect is Mary’s faith as a journey.
The Council says that Mary “advanced in her pilgrimage of faith” (ibid.,
58). In this way she precedes us on this pilgrimage, she
accompanies and sustains us.
How was Mary’s faith a journey? In the sense that her entire
life was to follow her Son: he – Jesus – is the way, he is the path! To press
forward in faith, to advance in the spiritual pilgrimage which is faith, is
nothing other than to follow Jesus; to listen to him and be guided by his
words; to see how he acts and to follow in his footsteps; to have his same
sentiments. And what are these sentiments of Jesus? Humility, mercy, closeness
to others, but also a firm rejection of hypocrisy, duplicity and idolatry. The
way of Jesus is the way of a love which is faithful to the end, even unto
sacrificing one’s life; it is the way of the cross. The journey of faith thus
passes through the cross. Mary understood this from the beginning, when Herod
sought to kill the newborn Jesus. But then this experience of the cross became
deeper when Jesus was rejected. Mary was always with Jesus, she followed Jesus
in the midst of the crowds and she heard all the gossip and the nastiness of
those who opposed the Lord. And she carried this cross! Mary’s faith
encountered misunderstanding and contempt. When Jesus’ “hour” came, the hour of
his passion, when Mary’s faith was a little flame burning in the night, a
little light flickering in the darkness. Through the night of Holy Saturday,
Mary kept watch. Her flame, small but bright, remained burning until the dawn
of the resurrection. And when she received word that the tomb was empty, her
heart was filled with the joy of faith: Christian faith in the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Faith always brings us to joy, and Mary is the
Mother of joy! May she teach us to take the path of joy, to experience this
joy! That was the high point – this joy, this meeting of Jesus and Mary, and we
can imagine what it was like. Their meeting was the high point of Mary’s
journey of faith, and that of the whole Church. What is our faith like? Like Mary,
do we keep it burning even at times of difficulty, in moments of darkness? Do I
feel the joy of faith?
This evening, Mother, we thank you for our faith, the faith
of a strong and humble woman; we renew our entrustment to you, Mother of our
faith. Amen.
A mini translation of last Wednesday's audience (October 9, 2013):
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
In the Creed, we profess that the Church is “catholic”; in
other words, she is universal. We can understand this catholicity in three
ways. First, the Church is catholic because she proclaims the apostolic faith
in its entirety; she is the place where we meet Christ in his sacraments and
receive the spiritual gifts needed to grow in holiness together with our brothers
and sisters. The Church is also catholic because her communion embraces the
whole human race, and she is sent to bring to the entire world the joy of
salvation and the truth of the Gospel. Finally, the Church is catholic because
she reconciles the wonderful diversity of God’s gifts to build up his People in
unity and harmony. Let us ask the Lord to make us more catholic – to enable us,
like a great family, to grow together in faith and love, to draw others to
Jesus in the communion of the Church, and to welcome the gifts and
contributions of everyone, in order to create a joyful symphony of praise to
God for his goodness, his grace, and his redemptive love.
HOLY MASS
HOMILY OF HOLY FATHER FRANCIS
Saint Francis Square, Assisi
Friday, 4 October 2013
Friday, 4 October 2013
“I give you thanks, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and
understanding, and revealed them to babes” (Mt 11:25).
Peace and all good to each and
every one of you! With this Franciscan greeting I thank you for being here, in
this Square so full of history and faith, to pray together.
Today, I too have come, like
countless other pilgrims, to give thanks to the Father for all that he wished
to reveal to one of the “little ones” mentioned in today’s Gospel: Francis, the
son of a wealthy merchant of Assisi. His encounter with Jesus led him to strip
himself of an easy and carefree life in order to espouse “Lady Poverty” and to
live as a true son of our heavenly Father. […]
What does Saint Francis’s
witness tell us today? What does he have to say to us, not merely with words –
that is easy enough – but by his life?
1. The first thing he tells us
is this: that being a Christian means having a living relationship with the
person of Jesus; it means putting on Christ, being conformed to him.
Where did Francis’s journey to
Christ begin? It began with the gaze of the crucified Jesus. With
letting Jesus look at us at the very moment that he gives his life for us and
draws us to himself. Francis experienced this in a special way in the Church of
San Damiano, as he prayed before the cross which I too will have an opportunity
to venerate. On that cross, Jesus is depicted not as dead, but alive! Blood is
flowing from his wounded hands, feet and side, but that blood speaks of life.
Jesus’ eyes are not closed but open, wide open: he looks at us in a way that
touches our hearts. The cross does not speak to us about defeat and failure;
paradoxically, it speaks to us about a death which is life, a death which gives
life, for it speaks to us of love, the love of God incarnate, a love which does
not die, but triumphs over evil and death. When we let the crucified Jesus gaze
upon us, we are re-created, we become “a new creation”. We turn to you,
Francis, and we ask you: Teach us to remain before the cross, to let the
crucified Christ gaze upon us, to let ourselves be forgiven, and recreated by
his love.
2. In today’s Gospel we heard
these words: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in
heart” (Mt 11:28-29).
This is the second witness
that Francis gives us: that everyone who follows Christ receives true peace,
the peace that Christ alone can give, a peace which the world cannot give. […]
It is the peace of Christ, which is born of the greatest love of all, the love
of the cross. It is the peace which the Risen Jesus gave to his disciples when
he stood in their midst (cf. Jn 20:19-20). […] The peace of Saint
Francis is the peace of Christ, and it is found by those who “take up” their
“yoke”, namely, Christ’s commandment: Love one another as I have loved you (cf.
Jn 13:34; 15:12). […] We turn to you, Francis, and we ask you: Teach us
to be “instruments of peace”, of that peace which has its source in God, the
peace which Jesus has brought us.
3. Francis began the Canticle
of the Creatures with these words: “Praised may you be, Most High, All-powerful
God, good Lord… by all your creatures (FF, 1820). Love for all creation,
for its harmony. Saint Francis of Assisi bears witness to the need to respect
all that God has created and as he created it, without manipulating and
destroying creation; rather to help it grow, to become more beautiful and more
like what God created it to be. And above all, Saint Francis witnesses to
respect for everyone, he testifies that each of us is called to protect our
neighbour, that the human person is at the centre of creation, at the place
where God – our creator – willed that we should be. […]From this City of Peace,
I repeat with all the strength and the meekness of love: Let us respect
creation, let us not be instruments of destruction! Let us respect each human
being. May there be an end to armed conflicts which cover the earth with blood;
may the clash of arms be silenced; and everywhere may hatred yield to love,
injury to pardon, and discord to unity. Let us listen to the cry of all those
who are weeping, who are suffering and who are dying because of violence,
terrorism or war, in the Holy Land, so dear to Saint Francis, in Syria, throughout
the Middle East and everywhere in the world.
We turn to you, Francis, and
we ask you: Obtain for us God’s gift of harmony, peace and respect for
creation! […]
I make my own the prayer of
Saint Francis for Assisi, for Italy and for the world: “I pray to you, Lord
Jesus Christ, Father of mercies: Do not look upon our ingratitude, but always
keep in mind the surpassing goodness which you have shown to this City. Grant
that it may always be the home of men and women who know you in truth and who
glorify your most holy and glorious name, now and for all ages. Amen.”
(The Mirror of Perfection, 124: FF, 1824).
And, finally, from the general audience on October 2, 2013:
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!
In the Creed, after professing: “I believe in
one Church”, we add the adjective “holy”; we affirm the sanctity of the Church,
and this is a characteristic that has been present from the beginning in the
consciousness of early Christians, who were simply called “the holy people”
(cf. Acts 9:13, 32, 41; Rom 8:27; 1 Cor 6:1), because they were
certain that it is the action of God, the Holy Spirit that sanctifies the
Church.
But in what sense is the Church holy if we see that the
historical Church, on her long journey through the centuries, has had so many
difficulties, problems, dark moments? How can a Church consisting of human
beings, of sinners, be holy? Sinful men, sinful women, sinful priests, sinful
sisters, sinful bishops, sinful cardinals, a sinful pope? Everyone. How can
such a Church be holy?
1. To respond to this question I would like to be led by a
passage from the Letter of St Paul to the Christians of Ephesus. The Apostle,
taking as an example family relationships, states that “Christ loved the Church
and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her” (5:25-26). Christ
loved the Church, by giving himself on the Cross. And this means that the
Church is holy because she comes from God who is holy, he is faithful to her
and does not abandon her to the power of death and of evil (cf. Mt 16:18). She
is holy because Jesus Christ, the Holy One of God (cf. Mk 1:24), is indissolubly
united to her (cf. Mt 28:20); She is holy because she is guided by the Holy
Spirit who purifies, transforms, renews. She is not holy by her own merits, but
because God makes her holy, it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and of his
gifts. It is not we who make her holy. It is God, the Holy Spirit, who in his
love makes the Church holy.
2. You could say to me: but the Church is made up of
sinners, we see them everyday. And this is true: we
are a Church of sinners;
and we sinners are called to let ourselves be transformed, renewed, sanctified
by God. There has been in history the temptation for some to say: the Church is
only the Church of the pure, the perfectly consistent, and expels all the rest.
This is not true! This is heresy! The Church, that is holy, does not reject
sinners; she does not reject us all; she does not reject because she calls
everyone, welcomes them, is open even to those furthest from her, she calls
everyone to allow themselves to be enfolded by the mercy, the tenderness and the
forgiveness of the Father, who offers everyone the possibility of meeting him,
of journeying toward sanctity. “Well! Father, I am a sinner, I have tremendous
sins, how can I possibly feel part of the Church? Dear brother, dear sister,
this is exactly what the Lord wants, that you say to him: “Lord, here I am,
with my sins”. Is one of you here without sin? Anyone? No one, not one of us.
We all carry our sins with us. But the Lord wants to hear us say to him:
“Forgive me, help me to walk, change my heart!”. And the Lord can change your
heart. In the Church, the God we encounter is not a merciless judge, but like
the Father in the Gospel parable. You may be like the son who left home, who
sank to the depths, farthest from the Gospel. When you have the strength to
say: I want to come home, you will find the door open. God 
3. A final question: what can I, a weak fragile sinner, do?
God says to you: do not be afraid of holiness, do not be afraid to aim high, to
let yourself be loved and purified by God, do not be afraid to let yourself be
guided by the Holy Spirit. Let us be infected by the holiness of God. Every
Christian is called to sanctity (cf. Dogmatic Constitution Lumen
Gentium, nn. 19-42); and sanctity does not consist especially in doing
extraordinary things, but in allowing God to act. It is the meeting of our
weakness with the strength of his grace, it is having faith in his action that
allows us to live in charity, to do everything with joy and humility, for the
glory of God and as a service to our neighbour. There is a celebrated saying by
the French writer Léon Bloy, who in the last moments of his life, said: “The
only real sadness in life is not becoming a saint”. Let us not lose the hope of
holiness, let us follow this path. Do we want to be saints? The Lord awaits us,
with open arms; he waits to accompany us on the path to sanctity. Let us live
in the joy of our faith, let us allow ourselves to be loved by the Lord... let
us ask for this gift from God in prayer, for ourselves and for others.
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