Evangelization

The Church cannot be merely “a babysitter who cares for the child just to get him to sleep”. If she were this, hers would be a “slumbering Church”. Whoever knows Jesus has the strength and the courage to proclaim him. And whoever has received Baptism has the strength to walk, to go forward, to evangelize and “when we do this the Church becomes a mother who generates children” capable of bringing Christ to the world.

During persecutions in Japan in the early 17th century, Catholic missionaries were expelled and communities were left for 200 years without priests. On their return, the missionaries found “all communities in place, everyone baptized, everyone catechized, all married in the Church” — and this thanks to the work of the baptized.

It is our great responsibility, as baptized persons, to proclaim Christ, to carry the Church — this fruitful motherhood of the Church — forward. Mary, during the persecution of the first Christians, “prayed so much” and moved those who had been baptized to go forward with courage.

Let us ask the Lord, for the grace to become baptized persons who are brave and sure that the Holy Spirit who is in us, received at Baptism, always moves us to proclaim Jesus Christ with our life, our testimony and even with our words. 

17.04.13

Paul in the Areopagus (Acts 17:15-22, 18-1) proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ among the worshipers of idols. It is the way in which he did this, that is so important: “He did not say: Idolaters! You will go to hell... ”. No, he “tried to reach their hearts”; he did not condemn from the outset but sought dialogue. “Paul is a Pope, a builder of bridges. He did not want to become a builder of walls”. Building bridges to proclaim the Gospel, “this was the Paul’s outlook in Athens: build a bridge to their hearts, and then take a step further and proclaim Jesus Christ”. Paul followed the attitude of Jesus, who spoke to everyone, “he heard the Samaritan woman... ate with the Pharisees, with sinners, with publicans, with doctors of the law. Jesus listened to everyone and when he said a word of condemnation, it was at the end, when there was nothing left to do”. But Paul, too, was “aware that he must evangelize, not proselytize”. The Church “does not grow by proselytizing, as Benedict XVI has told us, but grows by attracting people, by its witness, and by its preaching”. Ultimately, “Paul acted because he was sure, sure of Jesus Christ. He had no doubt of his Lord”.

Paul teaches what the path of evangelization should be, to follow with courage. And “when the Church loses this apostolic courage, she becomes a lifeless Church. Orderly, perhaps — nice, very nice — but barren, because she has lost the courage to go to the outskirts, where there are so many people who are victims of idolatry, worldliness, and weak thought”. In order to curb the fear of making a mistake, you have to realize that you can rise and continue to move forward. “Those who do not walk for fear of making a mistake make the most serious mistake.” 

08.05.13

Dear Brothers and Sisters,   

On this Seventh Sunday of Easter we gather together in joy to celebrate a feast of holiness. Let us give thanks to God who made his glory, the glory of Love, shine on the Martyrs of Otranto, on Mother Laura Montoya and on Mother María Guadalupe García Zavala. I greet all of you who have come for this celebration — from Italy, Colombia, Mexico and other countries — and I thank you! Let us look at the new saints in the light of the word of God proclaimed. It is a word that has invited us to be faithful to Christ, even to martyrdom; it has reminded us of the urgency and beauty of bringing Christ and his Gospel to everyone; and it has spoken to us of the testimony of charity, without which even martyrdom and the mission lose their Christian savour.

1. When the Acts of the Apostles tell us about the Deacon Stephen, the Proto-Martyr, it is written that he was a man “filled with the Holy Spirit” (6:5; 7:55). What does this mean? It means that he was filled with the Love of God, that his whole self, his life, was inspired by the Spirit of the Risen Christ so that he followed Jesus with total fidelity, to the point of giving up himself.

Today the Church holds up for our veneration an array of martyrs who in 1480 were called to bear the highest witness to the Gospel together. About 800 people, who had survived the siege and invasion of Otranto, were beheaded in the environs of that city. They refused to deny their faith and died professing the Risen Christ. Where did they find the strength to stay faithful? In the faith itself, which enables us to see beyond the limits of our human sight, beyond the boundaries of earthly life. It grants us to contemplate “the heavens opened”, as St Stephen says, and the living Christ at God’s right hand. Dear friends, let us keep the faith we have received and which is our true treasure, let us renew our faithfulness to the Lord, even in the midst of obstacles and misunderstanding. God will never let us lack strength and calmness. While we venerate the Martyrs of Otranto, let us ask God to sustain all the Christians who still suffer violence today in these very times and in so many parts of the world and to give them the courage to stay faithful and to respond to evil with goodness.

2. We might take the second idea from the words of Jesus which we heard in the Gospel: “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us” (Jn 17:20). St Laura Montoya was an instrument of evangelization, first as a teacher and later as a spiritual mother of the indigenous in whom she instilled hope, welcoming them with this love that she had learned from God and bringing them to him with an effective pedagogy that respected their culture and was not in opposition to it. In her work of evangelization Mother Laura truly made herself all things to all people, to borrow St Paul’s words (cf. 1 Cor 9:22). Today too, like a vanguard of the Church, her spiritual daughters live in and take the Gospel to the furthest and most needy places.

This first saint, born in the beautiful country of Colombia, teaches us to be generous to God and not to live our faith in solitude — as if it were possible to live the faith alone! — but to communicate it and to make the joy of the Gospel shine out in our words and in the witness of our life wherever we meet others. Wherever we may happen to be, to radiate this life of the Gospel. She teaches us to see Jesus’ face reflected in others and to get the better of the indifference and individualism that corrode Christian communities and eat away our heart itself. She also teaches us to accept everyone without prejudice, without discrimination and without reticence, but rather with sincere love, giving them the very best of ourselves and, especially, sharing with them our most worthwhile possession; this is not one of our institutions or organizations, no. The most worthwhile thing we possess is Christ and his Gospel.

3. Lastly, a third idea. In today’s Gospel, Jesus prays to the Father with these words: “I made known to them your name, and I will make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (Jn 17:26). The martyr’s fidelity event to the death and the proclamation of the Gospel to all people are rooted, have their roots, in God’s love, which was poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 5:5), and in the witness we must bear in our life to this love.

St Guadalupe García Zavala was well aware of this. By renouncing a comfortable life — what great harm an easy life and well-being cause; the adoption of a bourgeois heart paralyzes us — by renouncing an easy life in order to follow Jesus’ call she taught people how to love poverty, how to feel greater love for the poor and for the sick. Mother Lupita would kneel on the hospital floor, before the sick, before the abandoned, in order to serve them with tenderness and compassion. And this is called “touching the flesh of Christ”. The poor, the abandoned, the sick and the marginalized are the flesh of Christ. And Mother Lupita touched the flesh of Christ and taught us this behaviour: not to feel ashamed, not to fear, not to find “touching Christ’s flesh” repugnant. Mother Lupita had realized what “touching Christ’s flesh” actually means. Today too her spiritual daughters try to mirror God’s love in works of charity, unsparing in sacrifices and facing every obstacle with docility and with apostolic perseverance (hypomon?), bearing it with courage.

This new Mexican saint invites us to love as Jesus loved us. This does not entail withdrawal into ourselves, into our own problems, into our own ideas, into our own interests, into this small world that is so harmful to us; but rather to come out of ourselves and care for those who are in need of attention, understanding and help, to bring them the warm closeness of God’s love through tangible actions of sensitivity, of sincere affection and of love.

Faithfulness to Christ and to his Gospel, in order to proclaim them with our words and our life, witnessing to God’s love with our own love and with our charity to all: these are the luminous examples and teachings that the saints canonized today offer us but they call into question our Christian life: how am I faithful to Christ? Let us take this question with us, to think about it during the day: how am I faithful to Christ? Am I able to “make my faith seen with respect, but also with courage? Am I attentive to others, do I notice who is in need, do I see everyone as brothers and sisters to love? Let us ask the Lord, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the new saints, to fill our life with the joy of his love. So may it be.

12.05.13

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

In the Creed, immediately after professing our faith in the Holy Spirit, we say: “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church”. There is a profound connection between these two realities of faith: indeed it is the Holy Spirit who gives life to the Church, who guides her steps. Without the constant presence and action of the Holy Spirit the Church could not live and could not carry out the task that the Risen Jesus entrusted to her: to go and make disciples of all nations (cf. Mt 28:19). 

Evangelizing is the Church’s mission. It is not the mission of only a few, but it is mine, yours and our mission. The Apostle Paul exclaimed: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). We must all be evangelizers, especially with our life! Paul VI stressed that “Evangelizing is... the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 14).

Who is the real driving force of evangelization in our life and in the Church? Paul VI wrote clearly: “it is the Holy Spirit who today, just as at the beginning of the Church, acts in every evangelizer who allows himself to be possessed and led by him. The Holy Spirit places on his lips the words which he could not find by himself, and at the same time the Holy Spirit predisposes the soul of the hearer to be open and receptive to the Good News and to the Kingdom being proclaimed (ibid., n. 75). To evangelize, therefore, it is necessary to open ourselves once again to the horizon of God’s Spirit, without being afraid of what he asks us or of where he leads us. Let us entrust ourselves to him! He will enable us to live out and bear witness to our faith, and will illuminate the heart of those we meet. 

This was the experience at Pentecost. “There appeared” to the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room with Mary, “tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:3-4). In coming down upon the Apostles the Holy Spirit makes them leave the room they had locked themselves into out of fear, he prompts them to step out of themselves and transforms them into heralds and witnesses of the “mighty works of God” (v. 11). Moreover this transformation brought about by the Holy Spirit reverberated in the multitude that had arrived “from every nation under heaven” (v. 5) for each one heard the Apostles’ words as if they had been “speaking in his own language” (v. 6). 

This is one of the first important effects of the action of the Holy Spirit who guides and brings to life the proclamation of the Gospel: unity, communion. It was in Babel, according to the Biblical account, that the dispersion of people and the confusion of languages had begun, the results of the act of pride and conceit of man who wanted to build with his efforts alone, without God, “a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens” (Gen 11:4). At Pentecost these divisions were overcome. There was no longer conceit with regard to God, nor the closure of some people to others; instead, there was openness to God, there was going out to proclaim his word: a new language, that of love which the Holy Spirit pours out into our hearts (cf. Rom 5:5); a language that all can understand and that, once received, can be expressed in every life and every culture. The language of the Spirit, the language of the Gospel, is the language of communion which invites us to get the better of closedness and indifference, division and antagonization. 

We must all ask ourselves: how do I let myself be guided by the Holy Spirit in such a way that my life and my witness of faith is both unity and communion? Do I convey the word of reconciliation and of love, which is the Gospel, to the milieus in which I live. At times it seems that we are repeating today what happened at Babel: division, the incapacity to understand one another, rivalry, envy, egoism. What do I do with my life? Do I create unity around me? Or do I cause division, by gossip, criticism or envy? What do I do? Let us think about this. 

Spreading the Gospel means that we are the first to proclaim and live the reconciliation, forgiveness, peace, unity and love which the Holy Spirit gives us. Let us remember Jesus’ words: “by this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13: 34-35). 

A second element is the day of Pentecost. Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit and standing “with the eleven”, “lifted up his voice” (Acts 2:14) and “confidently” (v. 29), proclaimed the Good News of Jesus, who gave his life for our salvation and who God raised from the dead. This is another effect of the Holy Spirit’s action: the courage to proclaim the newness of the Gospel of Jesus to all, confidently, (with parrhesia) in a loud voice, in every time and in every place. 

Today too this happens for the Church and for each one of us: the fire of Pentecost, from the action of the Holy Spirit, releases an ever new energy for mission, new ways in which to proclaim the message of salvation, new courage for evangelizing. Let us never close ourselves to this action! Let us live the Gospel humbly and courageously! 

Let us witness to the newness, hope and joy that the Lord brings to life. Let us feel within us “the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing” (Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi, n, 80). Because evangelizing, proclaiming Jesus, gives us joy. Instead, egoism makes us bitter, sad, and depresses us. Evangelizing uplifts us.

I will only mention a third element, which, however, is particularly important: a new evangelization, a Church which evangelizes, must always start with prayer, with asking, like the Apostles in the Upper Room, for the fire of the Holy Spirit. Only a faithful and intense relationship with God makes it possible to get out of our own closedness and proclaim the Gospel with parrhesia. Without prayer our acts are empty, and our proclamation has no soul, it is not inspired by the Spirit.

Dear friends, as Benedict XVI said, today the Church “feels the wind of the Holy Spirit who helps us, who shows us the right road; and so, we are on our way, it seems to me, with new enthusiasm, and we thank the Lord” (Address to the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, 27 October 2012). Let us renew every day our trust in the Holy Spirit’s action, the trust that he acts within us, that he is within us, that he gives us apostolic zeal, peace and joy. Let us allow him to lead us. May we be men and women of prayer who witness to the Gospel with courage, becoming in our world instruments of unity and of communion with God. Thank you.

22.05.13

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Dear Young Friends,

“Go and make disciples of all nations”. With these words, Jesus is speaking to each one of us, saying: “It was wonderful to take part in World Youth Day, to live the faith together with young people from the four corners of the earth, but now you must go, now you must pass on this experience to others.” Jesus is calling you to be a disciple with a mission! Today, in the light of the word of God that we have heard, what is the Lord saying to us? What is the Lord saying to us? Three simple ideas: Go, do not be afraid, and serve.

1. Go. During these days here in Rio, you have been able to enjoy the wonderful experience of meeting Jesus, meeting him together with others, and you have sensed the joy of faith. But the experience of this encounter must not remain locked up in your life or in the small group of your parish, your movement, or your community. That would be like withholding oxygen from a flame that was burning strongly. Faith is a flame that grows stronger the more it is shared and passed on, so that everyone may know, love and confess Jesus Christ, the Lord of life and history (cf. Rom 10:9).

Careful, though! Jesus did not say: “go, if you would like to, if you have the time”, but he said: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Sharing the experience of faith, bearing witness to the faith, proclaiming the Gospel: this is a command that the Lord entrusts to the whole Church, and that includes you; but it is a command that is born not from a desire for domination, from the desire for power, but from the force of love, from the fact that Jesus first came into our midst and did not give us just a part of himself, but he gave us the whole of himself, he gave his life in order to save us and to show us the love and mercy of God. Jesus does not treat us as slaves, but as people who are free , as friends, as brothers and sisters; and he not only sends us, he accompanies us, he is always beside us in our mission of love.

Where does Jesus send us? There are no borders, no limits: he sends us to everyone. The Gospel is for everyone, not just for some. It is not only for those who seem closer to us, more receptive, more welcoming. It is for everyone. Do not be afraid to go and to bring Christ into every area of life, to the fringes of society, even to those who seem farthest away, most indifferent. The Lord seeks all, he wants everyone to feel the warmth of his mercy and his love.

In particular, I would like Christ’s command: “Go” to resonate in you young people from the Church in Latin America, engaged in the continental mission promoted by the Bishops. Brazil, Latin America, the whole world needs Christ! Saint Paul says: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). This continent has received the proclamation of the Gospel which has marked its history and borne much fruit. Now this proclamation is entrusted also to you, that it may resound with fresh power. The Church needs you, your enthusiasm, your creativity and the joy that is so characteristic of you. A great Apostle of Brazil, Blessed José de Anchieta, set off on the mission when he was only nineteen years old. Do you know what the best tool is for evangelizing the young? Another young person. This is the path for all of you to follow!

2. Do not be afraid. Some people might think: “I have no particular preparation, how can I go and proclaim the Gospel?” My dear friend, your fear is not so very different from that of Jeremiah, as we have just heard in the reading, when he was called by God to be a prophet. “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth”. God says the same thing to you as he said to Jeremiah: “Be not afraid ... for I am with you to deliver you” (Jer 1:7,8). He is with us!

“Do not be afraid!” When we go to proclaim Christ, it is he himself who goes before us and guides us. When he sent his disciples on mission, he promised: “I am with you always” (Mt 28:20). And this is also true for us! Jesus never leaves anyone alone! He always accompanies us .

And then, Jesus did not say: “One of you go”, but “All of you go”: we are sent together. Dear young friends, be aware of the companionship of the whole Church and also the communion of the saints on this mission. When we face challenges together, then we are strong, we discover resources we did not know we had. Jesus did not call the Apostles to live in isolation, he called them to form a group, a community. I would like to address you, dear priests concelebrating with me at this Eucharist: you have come to accompany your young people, and this is wonderful, to share this experience of faith with them! Certainly he has rejuvenated all of you. The young make everyone feel young. But this experience is only a stage on the journey. Please, continue to accompany them with generosity and joy, help them to become actively engaged in the Church; never let them feel alone! And here I wish to thank from the heart the youth ministry teams from the movements and new communities that are accompanying the young people in their experience of being Church, in such a creative and bold way. Go forth and don’t be afraid!

3. The final word: serve. The opening words of the psalm that we proclaimed are: “Sing to the Lord a new song” (Psalm 95:1). What is this new song? It does not consist of words, it is not a melody, it is the song of your life, it is allowing our life to be identified with that of Jesus, it is sharing his sentiments, his thoughts, his actions. And the life of Jesus is a life for others. The life of Jesus is a life for others. It is a life of service.

In our Second Reading today, Saint Paul says: “I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more” (1 Cor 9:19). In order to proclaim Jesus, Paul made himself “a slave to all”. Evangelizing means bearing personal witness to the love of God, it is overcoming our selfishness, it is serving by bending down to wash the feet of our brethren, as Jesus did.

Three ideas: Go, do not be afraid, and serve. Go, do not be afraid, and serve. If you follow these three ideas, you will experience that the one who evangelizes is evangelized, the one who transmits the joy of faith receives more joy. Dear young friends, as you return to your homes, do not be afraid to be generous with Christ, to bear witness to his Gospel. In the first Reading, when God sends the prophet Jeremiah, he gives him the power to “pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (1:10). It is the same for you. Bringing the Gospel is bringing God’s power to pluck up and break down evil and violence, to destroy and overthrow the barriers of selfishness, intolerance and hatred, so as to build a new world. Dear young friends, Jesus Christ is counting on you! The Church is counting on you! The Pope is counting on you! May Mary, Mother of Jesus and our Mother, always accompany you with her tenderness: “Go and make disciples of all nations”. Amen.

28.07.13

“The Lord will shower down blessings, and our land will yield its increase”. These are the words of the Psalm. We are invited to celebrate this mysterious communion between God and his People, between God and us. The rain is a sign of his presence, in the earth tilled by our hands. It reminds us that our communion with God always brings forth fruit, always gives life. This confidence is born of faith, from knowing that we depend on grace, which will always transform and nourish our land.

It is a confidence which is learned, which is taught. A confidence nurtured within a community, in the life of a family. A confidence which radiates from the faces of all those people who encourage us to follow Jesus, to be disciples of the One who can never deceive. A disciple knows that he or she is called to have this confidence; we feel Jesus’s invitation to be his friend, to share his lot, his very life. “No longer do I call you servants... but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you”. The disciples are those who learn how to live trusting in the friendship offered by Jesus.

The Gospel speaks to us of this kind of discipleship. It shows us the identity card of the Christian. Our calling card, our credentials.

Jesus calls his disciples and sends them out, giving them clear and precise instructions. He challenges them to take on a whole range of attitudes and ways of acting. Sometimes these can strike us as exaggerated or even absurd. It would be easier to interpret these attitudes symbolically or “spiritually”. But Jesus is quite precise, very clear. He doesn’t tell them simply to do whatever they think they can.

Let us think about some of these attitudes: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money...” “When you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place” (cf. Mk 6:8-11). All this might seem quite unrealistic.

We could concentrate on the words, “bread”, “money”, “bag”, “staff”, “sandals” and “tunic”. And this would be fine. But it strikes me that one key word can easily pass unnoticed among the challenging words I have just listed. It is a word at the heart of Christian spirituality, of our experience of discipleship: “welcome”. Jesus as the good master, the good teacher, sends them out to be welcomed, to experience hospitality. He says to them: “Where you enter a house, stay there”. He sends them out to learn one of the hallmarks of the community of believers. We might say that a Christian is someone who has learned to welcome others, who has learned to show hospitality.

Jesus does not send them out as men of influence, landlords, officials armed with rules and regulations. Instead, he makes them see that the Christian journey is simply about changing hearts. One’s own heart first all, and then helping to transform the hearts of others. It is about learning to live differently, under a different law, with different rules. It is about turning from the path of selfishness, conflict, division and superiority, and taking instead the path of life, generosity and love. It is about passing from a mentality which domineers, stifles and manipulates to a mentality which welcomes, accepts and cares.

These are two contrasting mentalities, two ways of approaching our life and our mission.

How many times do we see mission in terms of plans and programs. How many times do we see evangelization as involving any number of strategies, tactics, manoeuvres, techniques, as if we could convert people on the basis of our own arguments. Today the Lord says to us quite clearly: in the mentality of the Gospel, you do not convince people with arguments, strategies or tactics. You convince them by simply learning how to welcome them.

The Church is a mother with an open heart. She knows how to welcome and accept, especially those in need of greater care, those in greater difficulty. The Church, as desired by Jesus, is the home of hospitality. And how much good we can do, if only we try to speak this language of hospitality, this language of receiving and welcoming. How much pain can be soothed, how much despair can be allayed in a place where we feel at home! This requires open doors, especially the doors of our heart. Welcoming the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner (Mt 25:34-37), the leper and the paralytic. Welcoming those who do not think as we do, who do not have faith or who have lost it. And sometimes, we are to blame. Welcoming the persecuted, the unemployed. Welcoming the different cultures, of which our earth is so richly blessed. Welcoming sinners, because each one of us is also a sinner.

So often we forget that there is an evil underlying our sins, that precedes our sins. There is a bitter root which causes damage, great damage, and silently destroys so many lives. There is an evil which, bit by bit, finds a place in our hearts and eats away at our life: it is isolation. Isolation which can have many roots, many causes. How much it destroys our life and how much harm it does us. It makes us turn our back on others, God, the community. It makes us closed in on ourselves. From here we see that the real work of the Church, our mother, should not be mainly about managing works and projects, but rather about learning to experience fraternity with others. A welcome-filled fraternity is the best witness that God is our Father, for “by this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35).

In this way, Jesus teaches us a new way of thinking. He opens before us a horizon brimming with life, beauty, truth and fulfilment.

God never closes off horizons; he is never unconcerned about the lives and sufferings of his children. God never allows himself to be outdone in generosity. So he sends us his Son, he gives him to us, he hands him over, he shares him... so that we can learn the way of fraternity, of self-giving. In a definitive way, he opens up a new horizon; he is a new word which sheds light on so many situations of exclusion, disintegration, loneliness and isolation. He is a word which breaks the silence of loneliness.

And when we are weary or worn down by our efforts to evangelize, it is good to remember that the life which Jesus holds out to us responds to the deepest needs of people. “We were created for what the Gospel offers us: friendship with Jesus and love of our brothers and sisters” (Evangelii Gaudium, 265).

On thing is sure: we cannot force anyone to receive us, to welcome us; this is itself part of our poverty and freedom. But neither can anyone force us not to be welcoming, hospitable in the lives of our people. No one can tell us not to accept and embrace the lives of our brothers and sisters, especially those who have lost hope and zest for life. How good it would be to think of our parishes, communities, chapels, wherever there are Christians, with open doors, true centres of encounter between ourselves and God.

The Church is a mother, like Mary. In her, we have a model. We too must provide a home, like Mary, who did not lord it over the word of God, but rather welcomed that word, bore it in her womb and gave it to others.

We too must provide a home, like the earth, which does not choke the seed, but receives it, nourishes it and makes it grow.

That is how we want to be Christians, that is how we want to live the faith on this Paraguayan soil, like Mary, accepting and welcoming God’s life in our brothers and sisters, in confidence and with the certainty that “the Lord will shower down blessings, and our land will yield its increase”. May it be so. 

12.07.15

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

In today’s Gospel, before presenting Jesus’ programmatic speech in Nazareth, Luke the Evangelist briefly recounts the work of evangelization. It is an activity that Jesus carries out with the power of the Holy Spirit: his Word is original because it reveals the meaning of the Scriptures; it is an authoritative Word because he commands even impure spirits with authority, and they obey him (cf. Mk 1:27). Jesus is different from the teachers of his time. For example, he doesn’t open a law school but rather goes around preaching and teaching everywhere: in the synagogues, on the streets, in houses, always moving about! Jesus is also different from John the Baptist, who proclaims God’s imminent judgment. Instead Jesus announces God’s fatherly forgiveness.

Now let us imagine that we too enter the synagogue of Nazareth, the village where Jesus has grown up, until he is about 30 years old. What happens is an important event, which delineates Jesus’ mission. He stands up to read the Sacred Scripture. He opens the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah and takes up the passage where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor” (Lk 4:18). Then, after a moment of silence filled with expectation on the part of everyone, he says, in the midst of their general amazement: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21).

Evangelizing the poor: this is Jesus’ mission. According to what he says, this is also the mission of the Church, and of every person baptized in the Church. Being a Christian is the same thing as being a missionary. Proclaiming the Gospel with one’s word, and even before, with one’s life, is the primary aim of the Christian community and of each of its members. It is noted here that Jesus addresses the Good News to all, excluding no one, indeed favouring those who are distant, suffering sick, cast out by society.

Let us ask ourselves: what does it mean to evangelize the poor? It means first of all drawing close to them, it means having the joy of serving them, of freeing them from their oppression, and all of this in the name of and with the Spirit of Christ, because he is the Gospel of God, he is the Mercy of God, he is the liberation of God, he is the One who became poor so as to enrich us with his poverty. The text of Isaiah, reinforced with little adaptations introduced by Jesus, indicates that the messianic announcement of the Kingdom of God come among us is addressed in a preferential way to the marginalized, to captives, to the oppressed.

In Jesus’ time these people probably were not at the centre of the community of faith. Let us ask ourselves: today, in our parish communities, in our associations, in our movements, are we faithful to Christ’s plan? Is the priority evangelizing the poor, bringing them the joyful Good News? Pay heed: it does not only involve doing social assistance, much less political activity. It involves offering the strength of the Gospel of God, who converts hearts, heals wounds, transforms human and social relationships according to the logic of love. The poor are indeed at the centre of the Gospel.

May the Virgin Mary, Mother of evangelizers, help us to strongly perceive the hunger and thirst for the Gospel that there is in the world, especially in the hearts and the flesh of the poor. May she enable each of us and every Christian community to tangibly bear witness to the mercy, the great mercy that Christ has given us.

24.01.16

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

Today’s Gospel passage (cf. Mt 4:12-23) recounts the beginning of Jesus’ preaching in Galilee. He leaves Nazareth, a village in the mountains, and settles in Capernaum, an important centre on the lakeshore, inhabited largely by pagans, a crossroads between the Mediterranean and the Mesopotamian inland. This choice indicates that the beneficiaries of his preaching are not only his compatriots, but those who arrive in the cosmopolitan “Galilee of the Gentiles” (v. 15, cf. Is 9:1): that’s what it was called. Seen from the capital Jerusalem, that land is geographically peripheral and religiously impure because it was full of pagans, having mixed with those who did not belong to Israel. Great things were not expected from Galilee for the history of salvation. Instead, right from there — precisely from there — radiated that “light” on which we meditated in recent Sundays: the light of Christ. It radiated right from the periphery.

Jesus’ message reiterates that of the Baptist, announcing the “kingdom of heaven” (v. 17). This kingdom does not involve the establishment of a new political power, but the fulfilment of the Covenant between God and his people, which inaugurates a season of peace and justice. To secure this covenant pact with God, each one is called to convert, transforming his or her way of thinking and living. This is important: converting is not only changing the way of life but also the way of thinking. It is a transformation of thought. It is not a matter of changing clothing, but habits! What differentiates Jesus from John the Baptist is the way and manner. Jesus chooses to be an itinerant prophet. He doesn’t stay and await people, but goes to encounter them. Jesus is always on the road! His first missionary appearances take place along the lake of Galilee, in contact with the multitude, in particular with the fishermen. There Jesus does not only proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God, but seeks companions to join in his salvific mission. In this very place he meets two pairs of brothers: Simon and Andrew, James and John. He calls them, saying: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (v. 19). The call reaches them in the middle of their daily activity: the Lord reveals himself to us not in an extraordinary or impressive way, but in the everyday circumstances of our life. There we must discover the Lord; and there he reveals himself, makes his love felt in our heart; and there — with this dialogue with him in the everyday circumstances of life — he changes our heart. The response of the four fishermen is immediate and willing: “Immediately they left their nets and followed him” (v. 20). We know, in fact, that they were disciples of the Baptist and that, thanks to his witness, they had already begun to believe in Jesus as the Messiah (cf. Jn 1:35-42).

We, today’s Christians, have the joy of proclaiming and witnessing to our faith because there was that first announcement, because there were those humble and courageous men who responded generously to Jesus’ call. On the shores of the lake, in an inconceivable land, the first community of disciples of Christ was born. May the knowledge of these beginnings give rise in us to the desire to bear Jesus’ word, love and tenderness in every context, even the most difficult and resistant. To carry the Word to all the peripheries! All the spaces of human living are soil on which to cast the seeds of the Gospel, so they may bear the fruit of salvation.

May the Virgin Mary help us with her maternal intercession to respond joyfully to Jesus’ call, and to place ourselves at the service of the Kingdom of God.

22.01.17

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good Morning!

In today’s Gospel (cf. Mt 10:26-33) the Lord Jesus, after having called and sent the disciples on mission, teaches them and prepares them to face the trials and persecutions they will have to endure. Going on mission is not like tourism, and Jesus cautions them: “you will find persecutions”. So he exhorts them: “have no fear of them; for nothing is covered that will not be revealed.... What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light.... And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (vv. 26-28). They can only kill the body; they do not have the power to kill souls: do not fear this. Jesus’ dispatch [of the disciples] on mission does not guarantee their success, just as it does not protect them from failure and suffering. They have to take into account both the possibility of rejection and that of persecution. This is somewhat frightening but it is the truth.

The disciple is called to conform his life to Christ who was persecuted by men, knew rejection, abandonment and death on the cross. There is no Christian mission marked by tranquillity! Difficulties and tribulations are part of the work of evangelization and we are called to find in them the opportunity to test the authenticity of our faith and of our relationship with Jesus. We must consider these difficulties as the opportunity to be even more missionary and to grow in that trust toward God, our Father who does not abandon his children during the storm. Amid the difficulties of Christian witness in the world, we are not forgotten but always assisted by the attentive concern of the Father. For this reason, in today’s Gospel, a good three times Jesus reassures the disciples, saying: “Do not fear!”.

Even in our day, brothers and sisters, persecution against Christians is present. We pray for our brothers and sisters who are persecuted and we praise God because, in spite of this, they continue to bear witness to their faith with courage and faithfulness. Their example helps us to not hesitate in taking the position in favour of Christ, bearing witness bravely in everyday situations, even in apparently peaceful contexts. In effect, a form of trial can also be the absence of hostility and tribulation. Besides [sending us out] as “sheep in the midst of wolves”, the Lord even in our times sends us out as sentinels in the midst of people who do not want to be woken from their worldly lethargy which ignores the Gospel’s words of Truth, building for themselves their own ephemeral truths. And if we go to or live in these contexts, and we proclaim the Words of the Gospel, this is bothersome and they will look at us unkindly.

But in all this, the Lord continues to tell us, as he did to the disciples of his time: “Do not fear!”. Let us not forget these words: always, when we experience any tribulation, any persecution, anything that causes us to suffer, let us listen to the voice of Jesus in our hearts: “Do not fear! Do not fear! Go Forth! I am with you!”. Do not fear those who mock you and mistreat you and do not fear those who ignore you or respect you “to your face”, but fight the Gospel “behind your back”. There are so many who smile to our face, but fight the Gospel behind our backs. We all know them. Jesus does not leave us all alone, because we are precious to him. That is why he does not leave us all alone. Each one of us is precious to Jesus and he accompanies us.

May the Virgin Mary, example of humility and courageous adherence to the Word of God, help us to understand that success does not count in the witness of faith, but rather faithfulness, faithfulness to Christ, recognizing in any circumstance even the most problematic, the inestimable gift of being his missionary disciples.

25.06.17

Evangelization has three fundamental dimensions: proclamation,    service and gratuitousness.

The readings for the Memorial of St Barnabas (Acts 11:21-26; 12: 1-3 and Matthew 10:7-13) demonstrate that the Holy Spirit is the “protagonist” of the Gospel proclamation. That proclamation is unlike other types of communication. Due to the action of the Holy Spirit, it has the power to change hearts. There have been pastoral plans that seem to be perfect. They were incapable of changing hearts because they were ends in themselves. They were not instruments of evangelization.

It is not with an entrepreneurial attitude that Jesus sends us…. No, it is with the Holy Spirit. This is courage. The true courage behind evangelization is not human stubbornness. No, it is the Spirit who gives us courage and who carries you forward.

Service is the second dimension of evangelization. In fact, pursuing a career or success in the Church is a sure sign that someone doesn’t know what evangelization is…for the one who commands must be the one who serves.

We can say good things but without service it is not proclamation. It may seem to be, but it is not, because the Spirit not only carries you forward to proclaim the truths of the Lord and the life of the Lord, but He also brings you to the service of the brothers and sisters, even in small things. It’s awful when you find evangelizers who make others serve them and who live to be served. They are like the princes of evangelization – how awful.

Gratuitousness is the third aspect of evangelization because no one can be redeemed by his or her own merit. The Lord reminds us, “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give” (Matthew 10:8).

All of us have been saved gratuitously by Jesus Christ. Therefore, we must give gratuitously. Those who carry out the pastoral work of evangelization must learn this. Their life must be gratuitous, given in service, proclamation, borne by the Spirit. Their personal poverty forces them to open themselves up to the Spirit. 

11.06.18

Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning!

The Gospel's journey in the world, which St. Luke recounts in the Acts of the Apostles, is accompanied by the high creativity of God's who is manifested in a surprising way. God wants His children to overcome every particularism in order to open themselves to the universality of salvation. This is the purpose: to overcome particularisms and to open oneself up to the universality of salvation, because God wants to save everyone. All who are reborn from water and spirit – the baptized – are called to go out of themselves and open themselves to others, to live in proximity, the lifestyle of together, which transforms every interpersonal relationship into an experience of fraternity (cf. Esort. ap. Evangelii gaudium,87).

Testimony to this process of "fraternization" that the Spirit wants to trigger in history is Peter, protagonist in the Acts of the Apostles together with Paul. Peter lives an event that marks a decisive turning point for his existence. While he is praying, he receives a vision that acts as a divine "provocation", to arouse in him a change of mentality. He sees a great tablecloth coming down from on high, containing various animals: quadrupeds, reptiles and birds, and hears a voice inviting him to eat of those meats. As a good Jew, he reacts by claiming that he has never eaten anything impure, as required by the Law of the Lord (cf. Lev 11). Then the voice comes back forcefully: "What God has purified, you should not call profane"(Acts 10:15).

With this fact the Lord wants Peter to no longer evaluate events and people according to the categories of pure and impure, but to learn to go further, to look at the person and the intentions of his heart. What makes man unclean, in fact, does not come from outside but only from within, from the heart (cf. Mark 7:21). Jesus made it clear.

After that vision, God sends Peter to the home of an uncircumcised foreigner, Cornelius, "centurion of the cohort called Italica, who is religious and God-fearing, and he makes a lot of alms and always prays to God (cf. Acts 10:1-2), but he was not Jewish.

In that house of pagans, Peter preaches Christ the crucified and risen and he forgives the sins of anyone who believes in him. And as Peter speaks, the Holy Spirit descends over Cornelius and his family. And Peter baptizes them in the name of Jesus Christ (cf. Acts 10:48).

This extraordinary fact – this is the first time such a thing has happened – becomes renowned in Jerusalem, where the brothers, scandalized by Peter's behaviour, reproach him harshly (cf. Acts 11:1-3). Peter did something that went beyond custom, beyond the law, and for this they rebuke him. But after meeting Cornelius, Peter is more free from himself and more in communion with God and with others, because he has seen God's will in the action of the Holy Spirit. He can therefore understand that the election of Israel is not the reward for merit, but the sign of the gratuitous call to be mediating the divine blessing among pagan peoples.

Dear brothers and sisters, from the prince of the Apostles let us learn that an evangelizer cannot be an impediment to God's creative work, who "wants all men to be saved"(1Tim 2:4), but one who favours a heartfelt encounter with the Lord. And how do we behave with our brothers and sisters, especially those who are not Christians? Are we an impediment to their encounter with God? Do we hinder their encounter with the Father or facilitate it?

Let us ask for the grace to be astonished by God's surprises, to not hinder his creativity, but to recognize and favour ever new ways through which the Risen One can spread his Spirit into the world and attract hearts by making himself known as the "Lord of all" (Acts 10:36). Thank you. 

16.10.19

Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning!

Reading the Acts of the Apostles, we can see how the Holy Spirit is the protagonist of the Church's mission: it is He who guides the path of the evangelizers by showing them the way forward.

We see this clearly when the Apostle Paul, who has arrived in Troas, receives a vision. A Macedonian begs him: "Come to Macedonia and help us!" (Acts 16:9). The people of Northern Macedonia are proud of this, they are so proud to have called Paul for Paul to announce Jesus Christ. I remember so well the beautiful people who welcomed me with such warmth: that conserves the faith that Paul preached to them! The Apostle did not hesitate and left for Macedonia, sure that it is God who sends him, and arrives at Philippi, "Roman colony" (Acts 16:12) on the Via Ignatia, to preach the Gospel. Paul stops there for several days. There are three events that characterize his stay in Philippi, in these three days: three important events. 1) The evangelization and baptism of Lydia and her family; 2) his arrest, along with Silas, after exorcizing a slave exploited by her owners; 3) the conversion and baptism of his prison warden and his family. Let's look at these three episodes in Paul's life.

The power of the Gospel is addressed, above all, to the women of Philippi, in particular to Lidia, a merchant of purple cloth, in the city of Thyatira, she is a believer in God in whom the Lord opens his heart "to adhere to Paul's words"(Acts 16:14). Lydia, in fact, welcomes Christ, receives Baptism with her family and welcomes those who are of Christ, giving a home to Paul and Silas in her home. Here we have the testimony of the arrival of Christianity in Europe: the beginning of a process of inculturation that has lasted until today. It entered through Macedonia.

After the warmth experienced at Lydia's house, Paul and Silas then find themselves dealing with the harshness of prison: they go from the consolation of this conversion of Lydia and her family, to the desolation of the prison, where they are thrown for having freed in the name of Jesus "a slave who had a spirit of divination" and "provided much profit for her masters" as a fortune-teller (Acts 16:16). Her masters made a lot of money, and this poor slave did what fortune-tellers do: she saw the future, she read hands – as the song says, "take this hand, gypsy", and that's why people paid. Even today, dear brothers and sisters, there are people who pay for it. I remember in my diocese, a large park, there were more than 60 tables where the fortune-tellers would sit men and women and they would read the palms of hands and people believed these things! And they paid. And this also happened in the time of St Paul. Her owners, in retaliation, reported Paul and lead the Apostles before the magistrates on charges of public disorder.

What happens? Paul is in prison and during his captivity a surprising thing happens. There is desolation, but instead of complaining, Paul and Silas sing praise to God and this praise releases a power that frees them: during the prayer an earthquake shakes the foundations of the prison, opens the doors and the chains fall off of everyone (cf. 16:25-26). As the prayer of Pentecost, the prayer made in prison also has prodigious effects.

The prison warden, believing that the prisoners had escaped, was about to commit suicide, because the prison wardens paid with their own lives if a prisoner escaped; but Paul shouts to him: "We are all here!" (Acts 16:27-28). Then he asks, "What do I have to do to be saved?" (see 30). The answer is: "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your family will be saved" (v. 31). At this point a change happens: in the middle of the night, the prison warden listens to the word of the Lord together with his family, welcomes the apostles, he washes their wounds – because they had been beaten – and together with his family they receive Baptism. Then, "and with his family he rejoiced at having come to faith in God" (v. 34), he prepared a banquet and invited Paul and Silas to stay with them: the moment of consolation! In the middle of the night of this anonymous prison warden, the light of Christ shines and defeats the darkness: the chains of the heart fall and blossom in him and his family and they experience a joy they have never experienced. That is the Holy Spirit who is carrying out the mission: from the beginning, from Pentecost onwards the Holy Spirit instils the mission. And he carries us forward, we must be faithful to the vocation that the Holy Spirit moves us to do. To bring the gospel.

Let us today also ask the Holy Spirit for an open heart, sensitive to God and hospitable to our brothers and sisters, like that of Lydia, and a bold faith, like that of Paul and Silas, and also an openness of heart, like that of the prison warden who is touched by the Holy Spirit. 

30.10.19

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

We continue our "journey" with the book of the Acts of the Apostles. After the trials in Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Paul arrives in Athens, right in the heart of Greece (cf. Acts 17:15). This city, which lived in the shadow of the ancient glories despite the political decadence, still guarded the panacea of culture. Here the Apostle "trembles within himself to see the city full of idols"(Acts 17:16). This "impact" with paganism, however, instead of making him flee, pushes him to create a bridge to talk with that culture.

Paul chooses to become familiar with the city and thus begins to frequent the most significant places and people. He goes to the synagogue, a symbol of the life of faith; goes to the square, symbol of city life; and goes to the Areopagus, a symbol of political and cultural life. Meet Jews, epicurean and stoic philosophers, and many others. He meets all the people, he doesn't close himself, he goes to talk to all the people. In this way Paul observes the culture of Athens, starting from a contemplative outlook that discovers that God dwells in his homes, in his streets and in his squares"(Evangelii gaudium,71). Paul does not look at the city of Athens and the pagan world with hostility but with the eyes of faith. And this makes us wonder about our way of looking at our cities: do we observe them with indifference? With contempt? Or with the faith that recognizes God's children in the midst of anonymous crowds?

Paul chooses an outlook that urges him to build a bridge between the Gospel and the pagan world. In the heart of one of the most famous institutions of the ancient world, the Areopagus, he realizes an extraordinary example of enculture of the message of faith: he proclaims Jesus Christ to the worshippers of idols, and does not attack them, but makes himself "a Pope, a builder of bridges"(Homily in Santa Marta, May 8, 2013).

Paul takes his cue from the altar of the city dedicated to "an unknown god" (Acts 17:23) - there was an altar with "to the Unknown God"; no image, nothing, just that inscription. Starting from that "devotion" to the Unknown God, to empathize with his listeners proclaims that God "lives among the citizens"(Evangelii gaudium,71) and "does not hide from those who seek him with a sincere heart, " ( ibid.). It is precisely this presence that Paul seeks to reveal: "What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you"(Acts 17:23).

To reveal the identity of the god that the Athenians worship, the Apostle starts from creation, that is, from the biblical faith in the God of revelation, to arrive at redemption and judgment, that is, to the strictly Christian message. He shows the disproportion between the greatness of the Creator and the temples built by man, and explains that the Creator is always looking so that everyone can find him. In this way Paul, according to a beautiful expression of Pope Benedict XVI, "announces The One whom men ignore, yet know: the Unknown-Known" (Blessed XVI, Meeting with the world of culture at the Collège des Bernardins, 12 Sept. 2008) . Then, he invites everyone to go beyond "the times of ignorance" and to decide for conversion in view of the impending judgment. Paul thus arrives at the kerygma and alludes to Christ, without mentioning him, defining him as the "man that God has appointed, giving a sure proof to all by raising him from the dead"(Acts 17:31).

And here, there's the problem. The word of Paul, who until now had held the interlocutors in suspense – because it was an interesting discovery – finds a rock: the death and resurrection of Christ appears "foolish" (1Cor 1:23) and arouses ridicule and derision. Paul then departs: his attempt seems to have failed, but instead some adhere to his word and open themselves to the faith. Among them a man, Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, and a woman, Damaris. Even in Athens, the Gospel takes root and can run with two voices: that of man and that of women!

Today let us also ask the Holy Spirit to teach us to build bridges with culture, with those who do not believe or with those who have a different belief from our own. Always build bridges, always the outstretched hand, no aggression. Let us ask him for the ability to delicately enculturate the message of faith, placing on those in Christ's ignorance a contemplative look, moved by a love that warms even the most hardened hearts. 

06.11.19

Tonight, in this celebration of dedication, I would like to take three verses from the Word of God and offer them to you, so that you can meditate and pray over them.

The first I feel is addressed to everyone, to the entire diocesan community of Rome. It is the verse of the Psalm: "A river and its streams gladden the city of God" (46:5). The Christians who live in this city are like the river that flows from the temple: they bring a Word of life and hope capable of fertilizing the deserts of hearts, as the stream described in the vision of Ezekiel (cf. 47) that fertilizes the desert of Araba and restores the salty and lifeless waters of the Dead Sea. The important thing is that the stream comes out of the temple and flows to hostile-looking lands. The city can only rejoice when it sees Christians become joyful announcers, determined to share with others the treasures of God's Word and to work for the common good. The land that seemed destined to remain dry forever, reveals an extraordinary potential: it becomes a garden with evergreen trees and leaves and fruits with healing power. Ezekiel explains the reason for so much fertility: "Their waters flow from the sanctuary" (47:12). God is the secret of this new life force!

May the Lord rejoice at seeing us on the move, ready to listen with our hearts to His poor who cry out to Him. May the Mother Church of Rome experience the consolation of seeing once again the obedience and courage of her children, full of enthusiasm for this new season of evangelization. Meeting others, entering into dialogue with them, listening to them with humility, graciousness and poverty of heart... I invite you to live all this not as something stressful, but with spiritual ease: instead of getting caught up in performance anxieties, it is more important to broaden our perception in order to grasp God's presence and action in the city. It is a contemplation born of love.

To you priests I want to dedicate a verse of the second Reading, of the First Letter to the Corinthians: "No-one can lay a foundation other than the one that is already there, which is Jesus Christ"(3:11). This is your task, the heart of your ministry: to help the community be always at the Lord's feet listening to His Word; to keep it away from all worldliness, from bad compromises; to guard the foundation and blessed roots of the spiritual building; to defend it from rapacious wolves, from those who would like to divert it from the way of the Gospel. Like Paul, you too are "wise architects" (cf. 3:10), wise because you are well aware that any other idea or reality we wanted to place at the base of the Church instead of the Gospel, might perhaps guarantee us more success, perhaps more immediate gratification, but it would inevitably lead to the collapse, the collapse of the whole spiritual building!

Since I have been Bishop of Rome, I have come to know many of you priests more closely: I have admired your faith and love for the Lord, your closeness to the people and generosity in caring for the poor. You know the city's neighbourhoods like no other and keep in your heart the faces, smiles and tears of so many people. You have set aside ideological differences and personal ambition to make room for what God asks of you. The realism of those who have their feet on the ground and know "how things are in this world" has not prevented you from flying high with the Lord and dreaming big. God bless you. May the joy of intimacy with Him be the truest reward for all the good you do on a daily basis.

And finally a verse for you, members of the pastoral teams, who are here to receive a special mandate from the Bishop. I could only choose him from the Gospel(John 2:13-22), where Jesus behaves in a divinely provocative way. In order to shake the dullness of people and induce them to radical changes, sometimes Jesus chooses to take strong action, to break through the situation. With his action Jesus wants to produce a change of pace, a turnaround. Many saints had acted in the same way: some of their actions, incomprehensible by human logic, were the result of insights that came from the Spirit and were intended to provoke their contemporaries and help them understand that "my thoughts are not your thoughts," as God says through the prophet Isaiah (55:8).

In order to understand todays Gospel passage, we need to stress an important detail. The merchants were in the courtyard of the pagans, the place accessible to non-Jews. This very courtyard had been turned into a market. But God wants his temple to be a house of prayer for all peoples (cf. Is 56,7). Hence Jesus' decision to overturn the tables of the money changers and drive out the animals. This purification of the sanctuary was necessary for Israel to rediscover its vocation: to be light for all people, a small nation chosen to serve to the salvation that God wants to give to everyone. Jesus knows that this provocation will cost him dearly. And when they ask him, "What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this ?" (v. 18), the Lord responds by saying, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it"( v. 19).

And tonight this is exactly the verse that I want to give to you, pastoral teams. You are entrusted with the task of helping your communities and pastoral workers reach all the inhabitants of the city, finding new ways to meet those who are far from the faith and the Church. But, in fulfilling this service, you carry within yourselves this awareness, this trust: that there is no human heart in which Christ does not want to be and cannot be reborn. In our lives as sinners, we often turn away from the Lord and extinguish the Spirit. We destroy the temple of God that is in each of us. Yet this is never a definitive situation: it takes the Lord three days to rebuild his temple within us!

No one, no matter how wounded by evil, is condemned to be separated from God on this earth forever. In a way that is often mysterious but real, the Lord opens new cracks in our hearts, the desire for truth, goodness and beauty, which make room for evangelization. We may sometimes encounter mistrust and hostility: but we must not allow ourselves to be blocked, rather to hold onto the belief that it takes God three days to raise His Son in someone's heart. It is also the story of some of us: profound conversions resulting from the unpredictable action of grace! I think of the Second Vatican Council: "Christ has died for all and since the ultimate vocation of humanity is in fact one, the divine one; therefore we must believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to everyone the possibility of being associated with the Easter mystery" (Cost. past. Gaudium et spes, 22).

May the Lord let us experience this in all our evangelizing action. May we can grow in faith in the Easter Mystery and be associated with His "zeal" for our house. And may you be blessed on your journey!

09.11.19

Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning!

This audience is happening in two groups: the sick are in the Paul VI Hall - I have been with them, I have greeted them and blessed them. There they will be more comfortable because of the rain – and we are here. But they're looking at us on the big screen. Let's say hello to both groups with a round of applause.

The Acts of the Apostles tell us that Paul, as a tireless evangelizer, as he is, after his stay in Athens, continues the journey of the Gospel in the world. A new stop on his missionary journey is Corinth, capital of the Roman province of Achaea, a commercial and cosmopolitan city, thanks to the presence of two important ports.

As we read in chapter 18 of the Acts, Paul finds hospitality with a married couple, Aquila and Priscilla , forced to move from Rome to Corinth after Emperor Claudius ordered the expulsion of the Jews (cf. Acts 18:2). I'd like to do a parenthesis. The Jewish people have suffered so much in history. They were kicked out, persecuted ... And, in the last century, we have seen so many, so many brutalities that they have done to the Jewish people and we were all convinced that this was over. But today, the habit of persecuting Jews begins to be reborn here and there. Brothers and sisters, this is neither human nor Christian. The Jews are our brothers! And they should not be persecuted. Understand? These spouses demonstrate that they have a heart full of faith in God and generosity to others, able to make room for those who, like them, experience the strangers. This sensitivity leads them to decentralise themselves to practice the Christian art of hospitality (cf. Rom 12:13; Eb 13:2) and open the doors of their home to welcome the Apostle Paul. Thus they welcome not only the evangelizer, but also the proclamation he brings with him: the Gospel of Christ who is "God's power for the salvation of all who ever believe"(Rm 1.16). And from that moment their home is imbued with the scent of the living Word (Eb 4:12) that enlivens hearts.

Aquila and Priscilla also share with Paul the professional activity, that is, the construction of tents. Paul greatly valued manual labour and considered it a privileged space for Christian witness (cf. 1 Cor 4:12), as well as a just way to maintain himself without being a weight to others (cf. 1Ts 2.9; 2Ts 3.8) or the community.

The house of Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth opens its doors not only to the Apostle but also to other brothers and sisters in Christ. Paul, in fact, can speak of the "community that gathers in their home"(1 Cor 16:19), which becomes a "house of the Church", a "domus ecclesiae", a place of listening to the Word of God and celebration of the Eucharist. Even today in some countries where there is no religious freedom and there is no freedom of Christians, Christians gather in a house, somewhat hidden, to pray and celebrate the Eucharist. Even today there are these houses, these families that become a temple for the Eucharist.

After a year and a half of stay in Corinth, Paul leaves that city together with Aquila and Priscilla, who stop in Ephesus. Even there their house becomes a place of catechesis (cf. Acts 18:26). Finally, the spouses will return to Rome and will be the recipients of a splendid eulogy that the Apostle inserts in the letter to the Romans. He had a grateful heart, and so Paul wrote about these two spouses in the letter to the Romans. Saying: "Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my collaborators in Christ Jesus. To save my life, they risked their lives, and I am not only grateful to them, but all the Churches of the pagan world." How many families in times of persecution risk their lives to keep the persecuted hidden! This is the first example: a welcome family, even in bad times.

Among the many collaborators of Paul, Aquila and Priscilla emerge as "models of a married life responsibly committed to the service of the whole Christian community" and remind us that, thanks to the faith and commitment to the evangelization of so many lay people like them, Christianity has come to us. In fact, "to take root in the land of the people, to develop strongly, the commitment of these families was necessary. But think that Christianity from the beginning was preached by the lay people. You, too, are responsible by your Baptism for carrying on the faith. It was the commitment of so many families, of these spouses, of these Christian communities, of the lay faithful who offered the "humus" to the growth of the faith" (Blessed XVI, Catechesi,7 February 2007). This phrase by Pope Benedict XVI is beautiful: the lay people give the humus to the growth of faith.

We ask the Father, who has chosen to make the spouses his "real living sculpture" (Esort. ap. Amoris laetitia, 11) - I believe that here are the new spouses: listen to your vocation, you must be the true living sculpture - to spread its Spirit on all Christian couples so that, following the example of Aquila and Priscilla, may they know how to open the doors of their hearts to Christ and their brothers and transform their homes into domestic churches. Beautiful word: a house is a domestic church, where to live communion and offer life lived with faith, hope and charity. We must pray to these two Saints Aquila and Prisca, to teach our families to be like them: a domestic church where there is humus, for faith to grow.

13.11.19

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

The Gospel's journey through the world continues unabated in the Book of Acts of the Apostles, and crosses the city of Ephesus manifesting its full saving power. Thanks to Paul, about twelve men receive baptism in the name of Jesus and experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that regenerates them (cf. Acts 19:1-7). There are also several wonders that take place through the Apostle: the sick are healed and the obsessed are freed (cf. Acts 19:11-12). This happens because the disciple remembers his Master (cf. Lc 6.40) and makes him present by communicating to his brothers and sisters the same new life that he has received from him. In fact every evangelizer is aware that with His person and His action He is a mission on this land and to be branded by fire by the mission of enlightening, blessing, enlivening, lifting, healing and freeing.

The power of God that bursts into Ephesus unmasks those who want to use the name of Jesus to perform exorcisms but without having the spiritual authority to do so (cf. Acts 19:13-17), and reveals the weakness of the magical arts, which are abandoned by a large number of people who choose Christ (cf. Acts 19:18-19). A real reversal for a city, like Ephesus, which was a famous centre for the practice of magic! Luke thus emphasizes the incompatibility between faith in Christ and magic. If you choose Christ, you cannot resort to the magician: faith is trusting abandonment in the hands of a reliable God who makes himself known not through occult practices but by revelation and with free love. Perhaps some of you will say to me: "Ah, yes, this magic is an ancient thing: today, with Christian civilization this does not happen". But be careful! I ask you: how many of you go to tarot, how many of you go to get your hands read by palm readers or go to to card readers? Even today in the great cities practicing Christians do these things. And to the question: "But why, if you believe in Jesus Christ, go to the magician, to the future teller, to all these people?", they answer: "I believe in Jesus Christ but for palm reading I also go to them". Please: magic is not Christian! These things that you do to guess the future or guess so many things or change life situations, are not Christian. Christ's grace brings you everything: pray and trust the Lord.

The spread of the Gospel in Ephesus damages the trade of silversmiths – another problem – who made the statues of the goddess Artemis, making a religious practice a real bargain. I ask you to think about this. Seeing the activity that yielded a lot of money diminish, the silversmiths organized a riot against Paul, and Christians are accused of having put into crisis the category of craftsmen, the sanctuary of Artemis and the worship of this goddess (cf. Acts 19:23-28).

Paul then departs from Ephesus bound for Jerusalem and arrives at Miletus (cf. Acts 20:1-16). Here he sends a call to the elders of the Church of Ephesus – the priests: they would be priests – to make a "pastoral" handover (cf. Acts 20:17-35). We are at the final bars of Paul's apostolic ministry and Luke presents us with his farewell address, a kind of spiritual testament that the Apostle addresses to those who, after his departure, will have to lead the community of Epheus. And this is one of the most beautiful pages of the Book of Acts of the Apostles: I advise you to take today the New Testament, the Bible, chapter 20 and read this passage from Paul to the priests of Ephesus, and he does so in Miletus. It is a way of understanding how the Apostle says farewell and also how priests today must take leave and also how all Christians must take leave. It's a beautiful page.

In this autobiographical part with its retrospective look at his mission in Asia Minor Paul looks at the past and the total investment of himself, of his humble service, of the proofs that are his. He never spared himself to lead others to faith. In addition he sees the new time that awaits him, a future marked by trusting the Holy Spirit who leads him.

In the exhortation part, Paul encourages community leaders, who he knows he sees for the last time. And what does it tell them? "Watch over yourself and the whole flock." This is the work of the pastor: to watch, to watch over himself and the flock. The pastor must watch, the parish priest must watch, make a vigil, the priests must watch, the Bishops, the Pope must watch. Make a vigil to cherish the flock, and also to watch over yourself, examine your conscience and see how you fulfil this duty to watch. "Watch over yourself and the whole flock, in the midst of which the Holy Spirit has established you as guardians to be pastors of the Church of God, who has bought himself with the blood of his Own Son"(Acts 20:28): so says St. Paul. A future marked by trusting the Holy Spirit who leads him, and his master and Lord to Jerusalem. The episcopoles are asked to be close to the flock, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and the readiness to defend Him from "wolves" who threaten the healthy doctrine and ecclesial communion (v. 29). The Bishops must be very close to the people in order to guard them, to defend them; not detached from the people. After entrusting this task to the leaders of Ephesus, Paul puts them in God's hands and entrusts them to the "word of His grace" (v. 32), the ferment of all growth and path of holiness in the Church, inviting them to work with their own hands, like him, so as not to be of weight to others, to help the weak, and to experience that "one is more blessed in giving than in receiving."

Dear brothers and sisters, we ask the Lord to renew in us the love for the Church and for the deposit of the faith which it preserves, and to make us all responsible in the custody of the flock, supporting in prayer the shepherds so that they may manifest the firmness and the tenderness of the Divine Shepherd.

04.12.19

Dear brothers and sisters good morning!

As we read the Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel's journey through the world continues, and St. Paul's testimony is increasingly marked by the seal of suffering. But this is something that grows with time in Paul's life. Paul is not only an evangelist full of ardour, the intrepid missionary among the pagans who gives birth to new Christian communities, but is also the suffering witness of the Risen One (cf. Acts 9:15-16).

The arrival of the Apostle in Jerusalem, described in chapter 21 of the Acts, unleashes a fierce hatred towards him, and he is confronted: "But, he was a persecutor! Don't trust him!" As it was for Jesus, Jerusalem is also a hostile city for him. He went to the temple and was recognized, and led out to be lynched but was rescued by Roman soldiers. Accused of teaching against the Law in the Temple, he is arrested and begins his pilgrimage as a prisoner, first before the Sanhedrin, then before the Roman prosecutor at Caesarea, and finally before King Agrippa. Luke highlights the similarity between Paul and Jesus, both hated by adversaries, publicly accused and recognized as innocent by the imperial authorities; and so Paul is associated with his Master's passion, and his passion becomes a living Gospel. I have come from St. Peter's Basilica and there I had a first audience, this morning, with Ukrainian pilgrims, of a Ukrainian diocese. How persecuted these people have been; how much they have suffered for the Gospel! But they didn't negotiate their faith. Today in the world, in Europe, many Christians are persecuted and give their lives for their faith, or are persecuted with white gloves, that is, left aside, marginalized ... Martyrdom is the air of the life of a Christian, of a Christian community. There will always be martyrs among us: this is the sign that we are going on the path of Jesus. It is a blessing of the Lord, that among the people of God, some will bear this witness of martyrdom.

Paul is called to defend himself against accusations, and in the end, in the presence of King Agrippa II, his apology changes into effective testimony of faith (cf. Acts 26,1-23).

Then Paul recounts his conversion: the risen Christ made him a Christian and entrusted him with the mission among the people, "to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may obtain forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been consecrated by faith in Christ (v. 18). Paul obeyed this assignment and did nothing but show how the prophets and Moses foretold what he now announces: that "Christ must suffer and that, as the first to rise from the dead, he would announce the light to both our people and to the Gentiles" (v. 23). Paul's passionate testimony touches the heart of King Agrippa, who is only missing the decisive step. And so the king says: "Convince me a little more to make me a Christian!" (see 28). Paul is declared innocent, but he cannot be released because he appealed to Caesar. Thus continues the unstoppable journey of the Word of God to Rome. Paul, chained, will end up here in Rome.

From this moment on, Paul's portrait is that of the prisoner whose chains are a sign of his fidelity to the Gospel and of his witness to the Risen One.

The chains are certainly a humiliating ordeal for the Apostle, who appears in the eyes of the world as an "evildoer" (2Tm 2.9). But his love for Christ is so strong that even these chains are seen through the eyes of faith; faith that for Paul is not "a theory, or an opinion about God and the world", but "the impact of God's love on his heart, [...] it is love for Jesus Christ" (Blessed XVI, Homily on the occasion of the Pauline Year,28 June 2008).

Dear brothers and sisters, Paul teaches us perseverance in trials and the ability to read everything through the eyes of faith. Today we ask the Lord, through the Intercession of the Apostle, to rekindle our faith and help us to be faithful to the end of our vocation as Christians, disciples of the Lord, missionaries.

11.12.19

Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning!

The book of the Acts of the Apostles, in the final part, tells us that the Gospel continues its journey not only by land but by sea, on a ship that leads Paul, who is a prisoner, from Caesarea to Rome (cf. Acts 27:1 –28:16), in the heart of the Empire, so that the word of the Risen One may be realized: "You will be my witnesses [...] to the ends of the earth"(Acts 1:8). Read the Book of Acts of the Apostles and you will see how the Gospel, with the strength of the Holy Spirit, reaches all peoples, is universal. Take it. Read it.

Navigation encounters unfavourable conditions from the outset. The journey gets dangerous. And they are forced to disembark at Myra and board another ship and skirt the southern side of the island of Crete. Paul advises not to continue sailing, but the centurion does not give him credit and relies on the pilot and the owner. The journey continues and a wind is so furious that the crew loses control and lets the ship drift.

When death seems near and despair pervades everyone, Paul intervenes he is the man of faith and knows that even the danger of death will not separate him from the Lord, by the love of Christ and the commission that he has received. He reassures his companions by saying what we have heard: "Last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood by me said: "Don't be afraid, Paul; you are destined to appear before Caesar, and behold, for your sake, God has granted safety to all who are sailing with you "(Acts 27:23-24). Even in the trial, Paul never ceases to be the guardian of the lives of others and an animator of their hope.

 Luke thus shows us that the design that guides Paul to Rome saves not only the Apostle, but also his fellow travellers, and the shipwreck, from a situation of misfortune, changes into a providential opportunity for the proclamation of the Gospel. It is an immersion in the waters that recalls the baptismal experience, the death and resurrection and that makes ones experience of Gods care and powerful salvation. 

The shipwreck is followed by a landing on the island of Malta, whose inhabitants show a thoughtful welcome. Maltese are good, they are mild, they are welcoming since that time. It's raining and cold and they light a bonfire to give the castaways some warmth and relief. Here, too, Paul, as a true disciple of Christ, sets out to fuel the fire with some branches. During these operations he is bitten by a viper but does not suffer any damage: people, looking at this, say: "But this must be a great evildoer because he saves himself from a shipwreck and ends up bitten by a viper!" They waited for him to fall dead, but he did not suffer any damage and they were even mistaking him for a deity – instead of an evildoer . In fact, that benefit comes from the Risen Lord who assists him, according to the promise he made before he ascended to heaven and addressed to believers: "They will take snakes in their hands and, if they drink some poison, it will not harm them; they will lay the hands on the sick and they will be healed"(Mark 16:18). History has been told that since then there have been no vipers in Malta: this is God's blessing for the welcome of this good people.

In fact, the stay in Malta becomes a good opportunity for Paul to give "meat" to the word that he announces and thus exercise a ministry of compassion in the healing of the sick. And this is a law of the Gospel: when a believer experiences salvation, he does not hold it back for himself, but puts it into his blood stream. "The good always tends to communicate. Every experience of truth and beauty seeks for itself its expansion, and every person who experiences a profound liberation acquires greater sensitivity before the needs of others" (Exorsive. Ap. Evangelii gaudium, 9). A Christian who has been tried can certainly become closer to those who suffer because he knows what suffering is, and make his heart open and sensitive to solidarity with others.

Paul teaches us to live out our trials by clinging to Christ, to mature the conviction that God can act under any circumstances, even in the midst of apparent failures and the "certainty that those who offer and give themselves to God for love will surely be fruitful"(ibid.. . 279). Love is always fruitful, love to God is always fruitful, and if you allow yourself to take it from the Lord and you receive the Lord's gifts, it will allow you to give them to others. It always goes beyond love to God.

Today let us ask the Lord to help us live every trial sustained by the energy of faith; and to be sensitive to the many castaways of history who arrive exhausted on our shores, because we too know how to welcome them with that fraternal love that comes from the encounter with Jesus. This is what saves us from the frost of indifference and inhumanity.

08.01.20

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

Today we conclude the catechesis on the Acts of the Apostles, with the last missionary stage of St. Paul: that is, Rome (cf. Acts 28:14).

Paul's journey, which was one with that of the Gospel, is proof that the routes of men, if lived in faith, can become a transit space of God's salvation, through the Word of faith which is an active ferment in history , capable of transforming situations and opening new paths.

With the arrival of Paul in the heart of the Empire ends the account of the Acts of the Apostles, which does not end with the martyrdom of Paul, but with the abundant sowing of the Word. The end of Luke's story, centred on the journey of the Gospel in the world, contains and summarizes all the dynamism of the Word of God, an unstoppable word that wants to run to communicate salvation to all.

In Rome, Paul first meets his brothers in Christ, who welcome him and give him courage (cf. Acts 28:15) and whose warm hospitality suggests how much he was expected and desired for his arrival. He is then allowed to live on his own in military custody, that is, with a soldier guarding him, he was under house arrest. Despite his status as a prisoner, Paul can meet with the notable Jews to explain why he was forced to appeal to Caesar and to speak to them about the kingdom of God. He tries to convince them about Jesus, starting from the scriptures and showing the continuity between the newness of Christ and the "hope of Israel"(Acts 28:20). Paul recognizes himself deeply Jewish and sees in the Gospel that he preaches, that is, in the proclamation of Christ dead and risen, the fulfilment of the promises made to the chosen people.

After this first informal meeting that finds the Jews willing, a more official one follows during which, for a whole day, Paul announces the kingdom of God and tries to open his interlocutors to the faith in Jesus, starting "from the law of Moses and the Prophets"(Acts 28:23). Since not everyone is convinced, he denounces the hardening of the heart of God's people, the cause of his condemnation (cf. Is 6:9-10), and passionately celebrates the salvation of nations that are instead sensitive to God and capable of listening to the Word of the Gospel of life (cf. Acts 28:28).

At this point in the narrative, Luke concludes his work by showing us not the death of Paul but the dynamism of his sermon, of a Word that "is not chained" (2Tim 2:9) – Paul does not have the freedom to move but is free to speak because the Word is not chained - it is a Word ready to let itself be sown in full by the Apostle. Paul does so "with all frankness and without impediment"(Acts 28:31), in a house where he welcomes those who want to receive the proclamation of the kingdom of God and know Christ. This house open to all hearts in search is the image of the Church, which, although persecuted, misunderstood and chained, never tires of welcoming with a maternal heart every man and woman to announce to them the love of the Father who has made himself visible in Jesus.

Dear brothers and sisters, at the end of this journey, lived together following the course of the Gospel in the world, the Spirit revives in each of us the call to be courageous and joyful evangelizers. Let us, like Paul, be able to imbue our houses with the Gospel and make them upper rooms of fraternity, where we welcome the living Christ, who "comes to meet us in every man and at all times" (cf. I I Preface of Advent).

15.01.20

The first Reading today, taken from the second book of Samuel, speaks of David and all the people of Israel celebrating the return of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem following its capture.

The Ark had been captured and its return is a great joy for the people. The people felt that God was close to them and celebrated. And King David was with them, he put himself at the head of the procession, and made a sacrifice of an ox and a fat ram. He joined the people shouting, singing and dancing "with all his might". 

It was a celebration: the joy of God's people was because God was with them. And David? Danced. He dances before the people, expresses his joy without embarrassed; it is the spiritual joy of meeting the Lord: God has returned to the people, and this gives them so much joy. David does not think that he is the king and that the king must be detached from the people, his majesty, with the distance ... David loves the Lord, he is happy for this event to bring back the ark of the Lord. He expresses this happiness, this joy, dancing and even singing like all the people.

It happens to us, we feel this joy when we are with the Lord and, perhaps in the parish or in our villages, we celebrate. There was another episode in the history of Israel, when the book of the law was found at the time of Nehemiah and even then the people wept with joy, continuing home to celebrate. 

The text of the prophet Samuel goes on to describe David's return to his home where he finds one of his wives, Michal, Saul's daughter. She welcomes him with contempt. Seeing the king dance she was ashamed of him and scolded him by saying: "But were you dancing shamelessly like a common person, like one of the people?"

It is the contempt for genuine religiosity, of the spontaneity of joy of being with the Lord. And David explains to her: "But look, this was a source of joy. Joy in the Lord, because we brought the Ark home!" But she despises him. And the Bible says that this lady – her name was Michal – had no children for this. The Lord punished her. When joy is lacking in a Christian, that Christian is not fruitful; when joy is lacking in our hearts, there is no fruitfulness.

Celebration is not only expressed spiritually, but becomes sharing. David, that day, after the blessing, had distributed "a loaf of bread for each person, a portion of roasted meat and a cake of raisins", so that everyone could celebrate in their own home. The Word of God is not ashamed of celebration. It is true, sometimes the danger of joy is to go further and believe that this is everything. No: this is the festive air. St. Paul VI in his Apostolic Exhortation "Evangelii Nuntiandi" speaks of this aspect and exhorts joy. "The Church will not go forward, the Gospel will not go forward with boring, embittered evangelizers. It will only go forward with joyful evangelizers, full of life. The joy in receiving the Word of God, the joy of being Christians, the joy of moving forward, the ability to celebrate without shame and not be like this lady, Michal, formal Christians, Christian prisoners of formalities." 

28.01.20

Beneath the Cross of Jesus, stood Mary and John. The Mother who had given birth to the Son of God mourned his death, even as darkness enveloped the world. The beloved disciple, who had left everything to follow him, now stood silent at the feet of the crucified Master. Everything seemed lost, finished, forever. Taking upon himself the woundedness of our humanity, Jesus prayed: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34). This is also our prayer at times of suffering. It is the heartfelt prayer, Sandi and Domenico, which you make to God every day. Thank you for your persevering love, thank you for your witness of faith!

Yet Jesus’ “hour”, which in John’s Gospel is the hour of his death on the cross, does not represent the end of the story. Rather, it signals the beginning of a new life. Standing before the cross, we contemplate the merciful love of Christ, who opens wide his arms to embrace us and, by his death, invites us to the joy of eternal life. At that last hour, new life opens before us; from that hour of death, another hour, full of life, is born. It is the time of the Church. Starting with those two people standing beneath the cross, the Lord was to gather a people that continues to tread the winding paths of history, bearing in their hearts the consolation of the Spirit, with which to dry the tears of humanity.

Brothers and sisters, from this sanctuary of Ta’ Pinu we can contemplate together the new beginning that took place in the “hour” of Jesus. Here, in place of the splendid edifice we see today, there stood only a tiny chapel in a state of disrepair. Its demolition was decreed: it seemed to be the end. Yet a series of events would turn things around, as if the Lord wanted to say to this people too: “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight is in her, and your land Married” (Is 62:4). That little church became the national shrine, a destination for pilgrims and a source of new life. Jennifer, you reminded us of this: here, many people entrust their sufferings and their joys to Our Lady and all feel at home. Saint John Paul II – today is the anniversary of his death – also came here as a pilgrim. A place that once seemed forsaken now revitalizes faith and hope within the People of God.

In light of this, let us try to appreciate the meaning of Jesus’ “hour” for our own lives. That hour of salvation tells us that, in order to renew our faith and our common mission, we are called to return to the origins, to the nascent Church that we see beneath the cross in the persons of Mary and John. What does it mean to go back to those origins? What does it mean to go back to the beginning?

First, it means rediscovering the essentials of our faith. Going back to the early Church does not mean looking back and trying to replicate the ecclesial model of the first Christian community. We cannot “skip over history”, as if the Lord never said or accomplished great things in the life of the Church in later centuries. Nor does it mean being excessively idealistic, thinking that there were no difficulties in that community; on the contrary, we read that the disciples argued and even quarrelled among themselves, and that they did not always understand the Lord’s teachings. Going back to the origins means, instead, recovering the spirit of the first Christian community, returning to the heart and rediscovering the core of the faith: our relationship with Jesus and the preaching of his Gospel to the whole world. Those are the essentials! This is the joy of the Church: to evangelize.

Indeed, after the “hour” of Jesus’ death, the first disciples, like Mary Magdalene and John, after seeing the empty tomb, with great excitement rushed back to proclaim the good news of the Resurrection. Their grief at the cross turned into joy as they proclaimed Christ risen. I think too of the Apostles, about whom it was written: “Every day in the temple and at home they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (Acts 5:42). The chief concern of Jesus’ disciples was not the prestige of the community or its ministers, its social standing or the fine points of its worship. No. They were impelled to preach and bear witness to the Gospel of Christ (cf. Rom 1:1), for the joy of the Church is to evangelize.

Brothers and sisters, the Maltese Church can vaunt a rich history from which great spiritual and pastoral treasures can be drawn. However, the life of the Church – let us always keep this in mind – is never merely “a past to remember”, but a “great future to build”, always in docility to God’s plans. A faith made up of received traditions, solemn celebrations, popular festivals and powerful and emotional moments cannot be enough; we need a faith built upon and constantly renewed in the personal encounter with Christ, in daily listening to his word, in active participation in the life of the Church and in authentic popular piety.

The crisis of faith, apathy in religious practice, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, and indifference shown by many young people towards the presence of God: these are not issues that we should “sugarcoat”, thinking that, all things considered, a certain religious spirit still endures, no. At times, structures can be religious, yet beneath outward appearances, faith is fading. An elegant repertoire of religious traditions does not always correspond to a vibrant faith marked by zeal for evangelization. We need to ensure that religious practices do not get reduced to relics from the past, but remain the expression of a living, open faith that spreads the joy of the Gospel, for the joy of the Church is to evangelize.

I know that, with the Synod, you have undertaken a process of renewal and I thank you for this. Brothers and sisters, now is the time to go back to the beginning, to stand beneath the cross and to look to the early Christian community. The time to be a Church concerned about friendship with Jesus and the preaching of his Gospel, not about importance and image. To be a Church centred on witness, and not certain religious customs. To be a Church that seeks to go out to meet everyone with the burning lamp of the Gospel, not to be a closed circle. Do not be afraid to set out, as you have already done, on new paths, perhaps even risky paths, of evangelization and proclamation that change lives, for the joy of the Church is to evangelize.

So let us look once more to the origins, to Mary and John at the foot of the cross. At the very source of the Church is the act of their entrustment to one another. The Lord entrusts each of them to the care of the other: John to Mary and Mary to John, with the result that, “from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (Jn 19:27). Going back to the beginning also means developing the art of welcoming. Jesus’ words from the cross, spoken to his Mother and to John, summon us to make welcome the hallmark of our discipleship. Indeed, this was no simple act of piety, whereby Jesus entrusted his Mother to John so that she would not remain alone after his death. Instead, John’s welcoming of Mary into his home was a concrete sign of how we should live the supreme commandment of love. The worship of God takes place through closeness to our brothers and sisters.

How important in the Church is fraternal love and the welcome we show to our neighbour! The Lord reminds us of this at the “hour” of the cross, in entrusting Mary and John to each other’s care. He urges the Christian community of every age not to lose sight of this priority: “Behold, your son”, “Behold, your Mother” (vv. 26.27). It is as if he said, “You have been saved by the same blood, you are one family, so welcome each other, love one another, heal each other’s wounds”. Leaving behind suspicions, divisions, rumours, gossip and mistrust. Brothers and sisters, be a “synod”, in other words, “journey together”. For God is present wherever love reigns!

Dear brothers and sisters, mutual welcome, not out of pure formality but in the name of Christ, remains a perpetual challenge. A challenge, first for our ecclesial relationships, since our mission will bear fruit if we work together in friendship and fraternal communion. You are two beautiful communities, Malta and Gozo – I don’t know which is the most important or the first – just as Mary and John were two! May the words of Jesus on the cross, then, be the polar star guiding you to welcome one another, to foster familiarity and to work in communion! Go forward, always together! Go forward, always evangelizing, for the joy of the Church is to evangelize.

Welcome is also the litmus test for assessing to what extend the Church is truly evangelical. Mary and John accept one another not in the comfortable shelter of the Upper Room, but at the foot of the cross, in that grim place where people were condemned and crucified as criminals. Nor can we accept each other only in the shelter of our beautiful churches, while outside so many of our brothers and sisters suffer, crucified by pain, poverty and violence. Yours is a crucial geographical position, overlooking the Mediterranean; you are like a magnet and port of salvation for people buffeted by the tempests of life who, for various reasons, land on your shores. It is Christ himself, who appears to you in the faces of these poor men and women. That was the experience of the Apostle Paul who, after a terrible shipwreck, was kindly welcomed by your ancestors. As we read in the Acts of the Apostles, “the natives… kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold” (Acts 28:2).

This is the Gospel we are called to put into practice: welcoming others, being “experts in humanity” and kindling fires of tender love for those who know the pain and harshness of life. In Paul’s case too, something important was born of that dramatic experience, for here Paul preached the Gospel and thereafter many preachers, priests, missionaries and witnesses followed in his footsteps. They were moved by the Holy Spirit to evangelize and to promote the joy of the Church, which is to evangelize. I want to add a special word of gratitude to them: to the many Maltese missionaries who spread the joy of the Gospel throughout the world, to the many priests, women and men religious, and to all of you. As Bishop Teuma said, you are a small island, but one with a great heart. You are a treasure in the Church and for the Church. I repeat: You are a treasure in the Church and for the Church. To preserve that treasure, you must return to the essence of Christianity: the love of God, the driving force of our joy, which sends us forth to the world; and the love of our neighbour, which is the simplest and most attractive witness we can give before the world. In this way, you keep going forward in the journey of life, for the joy of the Church is to evangelize.

May the Lord accompany you on this path and the Holy Virgin guide your steps. May Our Lady, who asked us to pray three “Hail Marys” to remind ourselves of her maternal heart, rekindle in us, her children, the fire of mission and the desire to care for one another. May Our Lady protect and support you in the work of evangelization.

02.04.22 pm

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

Today we begin a new cycle of catechesis, dedicated to an urgent and decisive theme for Christian life: the passion for evangelisation, that is, apostolic zeal. It is a vital dimension for the Church: the community of Jesus' disciples is in fact born apostolic, born missionary, not proselytizing. And from the start we have to distinguish: being missionary, being apostolic, evangelizing, is not the same as proselytizing, they have nothing to do with one another. It concerns a vital dimension for the Church. The community of the disciples of Jesus is born apostolic and missionary. The Holy Spirit moulds it outwardly – the Church moves out, that goes out – so that it is not closed in on itself, but turned outward, a contagious witness of Jesus – the faith is also contagious – reaching out to radiate His light to the ends of the earth. It can happen, however, that the apostolic ardour, the desire to reach others with the good news of the Gospel, diminishes, becomes tepid. Sometimes it seems to be eclipsed; there are “closed-off” Christians, they don’t think of others. But when Christian life loses sight of the horizon of evangelization, horizon of proclamation, it grows sick: it closes in on itself, becomes self-referential, it becomes atrophied. Without apostolic zeal, faith withers. Mission, on the other hand, is the oxygen of Christian life: it invigorates and purifies it. Let us embark, then, on a process of rediscovering the evangelising passion, starting with the Scriptures and the Church's teaching, to draw apostolic zeal from its sources. Then we will approach some living sources, some witnesses who have rekindled within the Church the passion for the Gospel, so that they may help us to rekindle the fire that the Holy Spirit wants to keep burning within us.

And today I would like to begin with a somewhat emblematic Gospel episode; we just heard it, the call of the Apostle Matthew. And he himself tells the story in his Gospel, which we have heard (cf. 9:9-13).

It all begins with Jesus, who, the text says, “sees a man.” Few people saw Matthew as he was: they knew him as the one who was “sitting at the tax booth” (v. 9). He was, in fact, a tax collector: that is, someone who collected taxes on behalf of the Roman empire that occupied Palestine. In other words, he was a collaborator, a traitor to the people. We can imagine the contempt the people felt for him: he was a “publican,” as they were called. But in the eyes of Jesus, Matthew is a man, with both his miseries and his greatness. Be aware of this: Jesus does not stop at the adjective – Jesus always seeks out the noun. “This person is a sinner, he’s that kind of person…” these are adjectives: Jesus goes to the person, to the heart, “This is a person, this is a man, this is a woman.” Jesus goes to the subject, the noun, never the adjective, He leaves aside the adjectives. And while there is distance between Matthew and his people – because they see the adjective, “publican” – Jesus draws near to Him, because every man is loved by God. “Even this wretch?” Yes, even this wretch. Indeed, the Gospel says He came for this very wretch: “I have come for sinners, not for the righteous.” This gaze of Jesus is really beautiful. It sees the other, whoever he may be, as the recipient of love, is the beginning of the evangelising passion. Everything starts from this gaze, which we learn from Jesus.

We can ask ourselves: how do we look upon others? How often do we see their faults and not their needs; how often do we label people according to what they do or what they think! Even as Christians we say to ourselves: is he one of us or not? This is not the gaze of Jesus: He always looks at each person with mercy and indeed with predilection. And Christians are called to do as Christ did, looking like Him especially at the so-called “distant ones.” Indeed, Matthew's account of the call ends with Jesus saying, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (v. 13). And if any one of us considers themselves righteous, Jesus is far away. He draws near to our limitations, to our miseries, to heal them.

It all starts, then, with the gaze of Jesus. “He sees a man,” Matthew. This is followed - second step - by a movement. First the gaze: Jesus sees. Second, movement. Matthew was sitting at the tax office; Jesus said to him: “Follow me.” And “ he rose and followed Him” (v. 9). We note that the text emphasises that “he rose.” Why is this detail so important? Because in those days he who was seated had authority over the others, who stood before him to listen to him or, as in that case, to pay tribute. He who sat, in short, had power. The first thing Jesus does is to detach Matthew from power: from sitting to receive others, He sets him in motion towards others, not receiving, no: he goes out to others. He makes him leave a position of supremacy in order to put him on an equal footing with his brothers and sisters and open to him the horizons of service. This is what Christ does, and this is fundamental for Christians: do we disciples of Jesus, we Church, sit around waiting for people to come, or do we know how to get up, to set out with others, to seek others? Saying, “But let them come to me, I am here, let them come,” is a non-Christian position. No, you go to seek them out, you take the first step.

A look – Jesus sees; a movement – “he rose”; and third, a destination. After getting up and following Jesus, where will Matthew go? We might imagine that, having changed the man’s life, the Master would lead him to new encounters, new spiritual experiences. No, or at least not immediately. First, Jesus goes to his home; there Matthew prepares “a great feast” for Him, in which “a large crowd of tax collectors” – that is, people like him – takes part (Lk 5:29). Matthew returns to his environment, but he returns there changed and with Jesus. His apostolic zeal does not begin in a new, pure, place, an ideal place, far away, but instead he begins there where he lives, with the people he knows. Here is the message for us: we do not have to wait until we are perfect and have come a long way following Jesus to bear witness to Him, no. Our proclamation begins today, there where we live. And it does not begin by trying to convince others, no, not to convince: by bearing every day to the beauty of the Love that has looked upon us and lifted us up. And it is this beauty, communicating this beauty that will convince people – not communicating ourselves but the Lord Himself. We are the ones who proclaim the Lord, we don’t proclaim ourselves, we don’t proclaim a political party, an ideology. No: we proclaim Jesus. We need to put Jesus in contact with the people, without convincing them but allowing the Lord do the convincing. For as Pope Benedict taught us, “The Church does not engage in proselytism. Instead, she grows by ‘attraction’” (Homily at the Mass for the Inauguration of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, Aparecida, 13 May 2007). Don’t forget this: when you see Christians proselytising, making a list of people to come... these are not Christians, they are pagans disguised as Christians, but the heart is pagan. The Church grows not by proselytism, it grows by attraction.

I remember once, in a hospital in Buenos Aires, the women religious who worked there left because they were too few, and they couldn’t run the hospital. And a community of sisters from Korea came. And they arrived, let's say on a Monday for example (I don't remember the day). They took possession of the sisters’ house in the hospital and on Tuesday they came down to visit the sick in the hospital, but they didn't speak a word of Spanish. They only spoke Korean and the patients were happy, because they commented: “Well done! These nuns, bravo, bravo!” “But what did the sister say to you?” “Nothing, but with her gaze she spoke to me, they communicated Jesus,” not themselves, with their gaze, with their gestures. To communicate Jesus, not ourselves: This is attraction, the opposite of proselytism.

This attractive witness, this joyful witness is the goal to which Jesus leads us with His loving gaze and with the outgoing movement that His Spirit raises up in our hearts. And we can consider whether our gaze resembles that of Jesus, to attract the people, to bring them closer to the Church. Let’s think about that.

11.01.23

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

Last Wednesday we began a cycle of catechesis on the passion of evangelization, on that apostolic zeal that should enliven the Church and every Christian. Today, let us look at the unsurpassable model of evangelization: Jesus. The Christmas Gospel defines him as the “Word of God” (cf. Jn 1:1). The fact that he is the Logos, that is, the Word, highlights an essential aspect of Jesus: He is always in relation, outgoing, never isolated, always in relation, outgoing. The word, in fact, exists to be transmitted, communicated. So it is with Jesus, the Eternal Word of the Father, reaching out to us, communicated to us. Christ not only has words of life, but makes his life a Word, a message: that is, he lives always turned toward the Father and toward us. He is always looking at his Father who sent him and looking at us to whom he was sent.

Indeed, if we look at his days as described in the Gospels, we see that intimacy with his Father – prayer – occupies first place. This is why Jesus gets up early, when it is still dark, and goes into deserted areas to pray (cf. Mk 1:35; Lk 4:42), to speak with his Father. He makes all of his decisions and most important choices after having prayed (cf. Lk 6:12; 9:18). Specifically, within this relationship, in prayer which connects him to the Father in the Spirit, Jesus discovers the meaning of his being human, of his existence in the world because he is on a mission to us, sent by the Father to us.

It is thus interesting to note the first public act that he accomplishes after the years of his hidden life in Nazareth. Jesus does not work a great wonder, he does not send an effective message, but he mingles with the people who were going to be baptized by John. In this way, he offers us the key by which he acts in the world: spending himself for sinners, he puts himself in solidarity with us without distance, in a total sharing of life. In fact, speaking about his mission, he will say that he did not come “to be served, but to serve and give his own life” (cf. Mk 10:45). Every day after praying, Jesus dedicates his entire day to the proclamation of the Kingdom of God and  dedicates it to people, above all to the poorest and weakness, to the sinners and to the sick (cf. Mk 1:32-39). So, Jesus is in contact with the Father in prayer and then he is in contact with all the people through his mission, through catechesis, by teaching the path to the Kingdom of God.

Now, should we want to represent his style of life with an image, it would not be difficult for us to find it: Jesus himself offers it, we have heard it, speaking of himself as the Good Shepherd, the one, he says, who “lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn 10:11). This is Jesus. In reality, to be a shepherd was not just a job, but it required time and a lot of dedication. It was a true and proper way of life: twenty-four hours a day, living with the flock, accompanying them to pasture, sleeping among the sheep, taking care of those who were weakest. In other words, Jesus does not do something for us, but he gives everything, he gives his life for us. He has a pastoral heart (cf. Ez 34:15). He is a shepherd for all of us.

Indeed, to sum up the action of the Church in one word, the specific term “pastoral” is used. And to evaluate our “pastoralness” we need to confront ourselves with the model, confront ourselves with Jesus the Good Shepherd. Above all, we can ask ourselves: do we imitate him, drinking from the wells of prayer so that our heart might be in harmony with his? Intimacy with Him is, as a beautiful volume by Abate Chautard suggested, “the soul of every apostolate”. Jesus himself clearly said to his disciples, “Without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). By staying with Jesus, we discover that his pastoral heart always beats for the person who is confused, lost, far away. And ours? How many times do we express our attitude about people who are a bit difficult or with whom we have a bit of difficulty: “But it’s their problem, let them work it out….” But Jesus never said this, never. He himself always went to meet all the marginalized, sinners. He was accused of this – of being with sinners so that he might bring God’s salvation precisely to them.

We have heard the parable of the lost sheep found in chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke (cf. vv. 4-7). Jesus speaks about the lost coin as well as about the prodigal son there. If we want to train our apostolic zeal, we should always have chapter 15 of Luke before our eyes. Read it often. We can understand there what apostolic zeal is. There we discover that God does not remain contemplating the sheep pen, nor does he threaten them so they won’t leave. Rather, if one leaves and gets lost, he does not abandon that sheep, but goes in search of it. He does not say, “You got up and left – it’s your fault – that’s your business!” His pastoral heart reacts in another way: the pastoral heart suffers and the pastoral heart takes risks. It suffers: yes, God suffers for those who leave and, while he mourns over them, he loves even more. The Lord suffers when we distance ourselves from his heart. He suffers for all who do not know the beauty of his love and the warmth of his embrace. But, in response to this suffering, he does not withdraw, rather he takes a risk. He leaves the ninety-nine sheep who are safe and ventures out for the lost one, thus doing something both risky and unreasonable, but consonant with his pastoral heart which misses the one who left, the longing for someone who has gone away – this is something consistent in Jesus. And when we hear that someone has left the Church, what do we want to say? “Let them work it out?” No. Jesus teaches us to have nostalgia for those who have left. Jesus does not feel anger or resentment but pure longing for us. Jesus feels nostalgic for us and this is God’s zeal.

And I wonder – we, do we have similar sentiments? Perhaps we see those who have left the flock as adversaries or enemies. “And this person? Hasn’t he gone to the other side? She lost her faith…. They are going to hell…” and we are serene. When we meet them at school, at work, on the streets of our city, why don’t we think instead that we have a beautiful opportunity to witness to them the joy of a Father who loves them and has never forgotten them? Not to proselytize, no! But that the Word of the Father might reach them so we can walk together. To evangelize is not to proselytize. To proselytize is something pagan, it is neither religious nor evangelical. There is a good word for those who have left the flock and we have the honour and the burden of being the ones to speak that word. Because the Word, Jesus, asks this of us – to always draw near to everyone with an open heart because he is like that. Perhaps we have been following and loving Jesus for some time and have never wondered if we share his feelings, if we suffer and we take risks in harmony with Jesus’s heart, with this pastoral heart, close to Jesus’s pastoral heart! This is not about proselytism, as I said, so that others become “one of us” – no, this is not Christian. It is about loving so that they might be happy children of God. In prayer, let us ask the grace of a pastoral heart, an open heart that draws near to everyone, so as to bear the Lord’s message as well as to feel Christ’s longing for them. For without this love that suffers and takes risks, our lives do not go well. If we Christians do not have this love that suffers and takes risks, we risk pasturing only ourselves. Shepherds who are shepherds of themselves, instead of being shepherds of the flock, are people who comb “exquisite” sheep. We do not need to be shepherds of ourselves, but shepherds for everyone.

18.01.23

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning,

Last Wednesday we reflected on Jesus model of proclamation, on his pastoral heart always reaching out to others. Today we look to Him as a teacher of proclamation. Model of proclamation. Today, the teacher of proclamation Let us be guided by the episode in which He preaches in the synagogue of His village, Nazareth. Jesus reads a passage from the prophet Isaiah (cf. 61:1-2) and then surprises everyone with a very short “sermon” of just one sentence, just one sentence. And He speaks thus, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk. 4:21). This was Jesus’ sermon: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. This means that for Jesus that prophetic passage contains the essence of what He wants to say about Himself. So, whenever we talk about Jesus, we should go back to that first announcement of His. Let us see, then, what it consists of. Five essential elements can be identified.

The first element is joy. Jesus proclaims, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; [...] He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor” (v. 18), that is, a proclamation of gladness, of joy. Good news: one cannot speak of Jesus without joy, because faith is a wonderful love story to be shared. Bearing witness to Jesus, doing something for others in His name, to have received “between the lines” of one’s life, so beautiful a gift that no words suffice to express it. Instead, when joy is lacking, the Gospel does not come through, because – it’s the very meaning of the word – is good news, and “Gospel” means “good news,” a proclamation of joy. A sad Christian can talk about beautiful things, but it is all in vain if the news he conveys is not joyful. A thinker once said, “A Christian who is sad is a sad Christian.” Don’t forget this.

We come to the second aspect: deliverance. Jesus says He was sent “release to the captives” (ibid.). This means that one who proclaims God cannot proselytize, no, cannot pressure others, no, but relieve them: not impose burdens, but take them away; bearing peace, not bearing guilt. Of course, following Jesus involves asceticism, involves sacrifices; after all, if every good thing requires these things, how much more the decisive reality of life! However, those who witness to Christ show the beauty of the goal rather than the toil of the journey. We may have happened to tell someone about a beautiful trip we took: for example, we would have spoken about the beauty of the places, what we saw and experienced, not about the time to get there and the queues at the airport, no! So, any announcement worthy of the Redeemer must communicate liberation. Like that of Jesus. Today there is joy, because I have come to liberate.

The third aspect: light. Jesus says He came to bring “sight to the blind” (ibid.). It is striking that throughout the Bible, before Christ, the healing of a blind man never appears, never. It was indeed a promised sign that would come with the Messiah. But here it is not just about physical sight, but a light that makes one see the life of a new world, and also life in a new way. There is a “coming into the light,” a rebirth that happens only with Jesus. If we think about it, that is how Christian life began for us: with Baptism, which in ancient times was called precisely “enlightenment.” And what light does Jesus give us? He brings us the light of sonship: He is the beloved Son of the Father, living forever; with Him we too are children of God loved forever, despite our mistakes and faults. So life is no longer a blind advance toward nothingness, no; it is not a matter of fate or luck, no. It is not something that depends on chance or the stars, no, or even on health or finances, no. Life depends on love, on the love of the Father, Who cares for us, His beloved children. How wonderful to share this light with others! Has it occurred to you that the life of each of us – my life, your life, our life – is an act of love? And an invitation to love? This is wonderful! But so many times we forget this, in the face of difficulties, in the face of bad news, even in the face of – and this is bad – worldliness, the worldly way of life.

The fourth aspect of the proclamation: healing. Jesus says He came “to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (ibid.). The oppressed are those in life who feel crushed by something that happens: sickness, labors, burdens on the heart, guilt, mistakes, vices, sins... Oppressed by this. We think of the sense of guilt, for example. How many of us have suffered this? We think a little bit about the sense of guilt for this or that....  What is oppressing us above all is precisely that evil that no medicine or human remedy can heal: sin. And if someone has a sense of guilt, it is for something they have done, and that feels bad. But the good news is that with Jesus, this ancient evil, sin, which seems invincible, no longer has the last word.

I can sin because I am weak. Each of us can do it, but that is not the last word. The last word is Jesus’ outstretched hand that lifts you up from sin. “And Father, when do you do this? Once?” No. “Twice?” No. “Three time?” No. Always. Whenever you are sick, the Lord always has His hand outstretched. Only He wants us (to) hold on and let Him carry you. The good news is that with Jesus this ancient evil no longer has the last word: the last word is Jesus' outstretched hand that carries you forward.

Jesus heals us from sin, always. And how much do I have to pay for this healing? Nothing. He heals us always and gratuitously. He invites those who “labour and are heavy laden”  -- He says it in the Gospel – invites them to come to Him (cf. Mt 11:28). And so to accompany someone to an encounter with Jesus is to bring them to the doctor of the heart, Who lifts up life. That is to say, “Brother, sister, I don't have answers to so many of your problems, but Jesus knows you, Jesus loves you and can heal and soothe your heart. Go and leave them with Jesus.”

Those who carry burdens need a caress for the past. So many times we hear, “But I would need to heal my past...I need a caress for that past that weighs so heavily on me...”  He needs forgiveness. And those who believe in Jesus have just that to give to others: the power of forgiveness, which frees the soul from all debt. Brothers, sisters, do not forget: God forgets everything. How so? Yes, He forgets all our sins. That He forgets. That’s why He has no memory. God forgives everything because He forgets our sins. Only He wants us to draw near to the Lord and He forgives us everything. Think of something from the Gospel, from the one who began to speak, “Lord I have sinned!” That son... And the father puts his hand on his mouth. “No, it's okay, it’s nothing...” He doesn't let him finish... And that's good. Jesus is waiting for us to forgive us, to restore us. And how often? Once? Twice? No. Always. “But Father, I do the same things always...” And He will always do His same thing! Forgiving you, embracing you. Please, let us not distrust this. This is the way to love the Lord. Those who carry burdens and need a caress for the past need forgiveness, and Jesus does that. And that's what Jesus gives: to free the soul from all debt. In the Bible it talks about a year when one was freed from the burden of debt: the Jubilee, the year of grace. As if it were the ultimate point of the proclamation.

In fact, Jesus says He came “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:19). It was not a scheduled jubilee, like the ones we have now, where everything is planned and you think about how to do it and how not to do it. No. But with Christ the grace that makes life new always arrives and amazes. Christ is the Jubilee of every day, every hour, drawing you near, to caress you, to forgive you. And the proclamation of Jesus must always bring the amazement of grace. This amazement… “No, I can’t believe it! I have been forgiven.” But this is how great our God is. Because it is not we who do great things, but rather the grace of the Lord who, even through us, accomplishes unexpected things. And these are the surprises of God. God is the master of surprises. He always surprises us, is always waiting, waits for us. We arrive, and He has been expecting us. Always. The Gospel comes with a sense of wonder and newness that has a name: Jesus.

May He help us to proclaim it as He desires, communicating joy, deliverance, light, healing, and wonder. This is how one communicates about Jesus.

The last thing: This good news, which the Gospel says is addressed “to the poor” (v. 18). We often forget about them, yet they are the recipients explicitly mentioned, because they are God’s beloved. Let us remember them, and let us remember that, in order to welcome the Lord, each of us must make him- or herself “poor within.” It’s not sufficient like this, no: [you have to be] “poor within.” With that poverty… “Lord, I am in need, I am in need of forgiveness, I am in need of help, I am in need of strength. This poverty that we all have: making oneself poor interiorly. You have to overcome any pretence of self-sufficiency in order to understand oneself to be in need of grace, and to always be in need of Him. Is someone tells me, “Father, what is the shortest way to encounter Jesus?” Be needy. Be needy for grace, needy for forgiveness, be needy for joy. And he will draw near to you. Thank you.

25.01.23

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

We continue our catechesis; the theme we have chosen is “The passion of evangelizing, apostolic zeal.” Because evangelizing is not saying, ‘Look, blah, blah, blah’ and nothing more. There is a passion that involves everything: the mind, the heart, the hands, going out… everything, the whole person is involved with this proclamation of the Gospel, and for this reason we talk about the passion for evangelizing. After having seen in Jesus the model and the master of proclamation, we turn today to the first disciples, to what the disciples did. The Gospel says that Jesus “appointed twelve, to be with Him, and to be sent out to preach” (Mk 3:14), two things: to be with him and to send them to preach. There is one aspect that seems contradictory: He called them to be with Him and to go and preach. One would say: either one or the other, either stay or go. But no: for Jesus there is no going without staying and there is no staying without going. It is not easy to understand this, but that’s the way it is. Let us try to understand a little bit what is the sense in which Jesus says these things.

First of all, there is no going without staying: before sending the disciples on mission, Christ—the Gospel says—“calls them to Himself” (cf. Mt 10:1). The proclamation is born from the encounter with the Lord; every Christian activity, especially the mission, begins from there. Not from what is learnt in an academy. No, no! It begins from the encounter with the Lord. Witnessing Him, in fact, means radiating Him; but, if we do not receive His light, we will be extinguished; if we do not spend time with Him, we will bear ourselves instead of Him—I am bringing myself and not Him—and it will all be in vain. So only the person who remains with Him can bring the Gospel of Jesus. Someone who does not remain with Him cannot bear the Gospel. He will bring ideas, but not the Gospel. Equally, however, there is no staying without going. In fact, following Christ is not an inward looking fact: without proclamation, without service, without mission, the relationship with Jesus does not grow. We note that in the Gospel the Lord sends the disciples before having completed their preparation: shortly after having called them, He is already sending them! This means that the mission experience is part of Christian formation. Let us then recall these two constitutive moments for every disciple: staying with Jesus and going forth, sent by Jesus.

Having called the disciples to Himself and before sending them, Christ addresses a discourse to them, known as the ‘missionary discourse’—this is what it is called in the Gospel. It is found in chapter 10 of Matthew’s Gospel and is like the ‘constitution’ of the proclamation. From that discourse, which I recommend you read today—it is only one page in the Gospel—I draw out three aspects: why proclaim, what to proclaim and how to proclaim.

Why to proclaim: The motivation lies in a few words of Jesus, which it is good for us to remember: “Freely you have received, freely give” (v. 8). They are just a few words. But why proclaim? Because I have received freely, and I should give freely. The proclamation does not begin from us, but from the beauty of what we have received for free, without merit: meeting Jesus, knowing Him, discovering that we are loved and saved. It is such a great gift that we cannot keep it to ourselves, we feel the need to spread it; but in the same style, right? That is, in gratuitousness. In other words: we have a gift, so we are called to make a gift of ourselves; we have received a gift and our vocation is to make a gift of ourselves to others; there is in us the joy of being children of God, it must be shared with our brothers and sisters who do not yet know it! This is the reason for the proclamation. Going forth and bringing the joy of what we have received.

Second: What, then, to proclaim? Jesus says: “Preach as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” (v. 7). This is what must be said, first and foremost: God is near. So, never forget this: God has always been close to the people. He said it to the people Himself: He said, “Look, what God is as close to the nations as I am to you?” This closeness is one of the most important things about God. There are three important things: closeness, mercy, and tenderness. Don’t forget that. Who is God? The One Who is Close, the One Who is Tender, the One Who is Merciful. This is the reality of God. We, in preaching, often urge people to do something, and that is fine; but let’s not forget that the main message is that He is near: closeness, mercy, and tenderness. Accepting God’s love is more difficult because we always want to be in the centre, we want to be protagonists, we are more inclined to do than to let ourselves be moulded, to speak than to listen. But, if what we do comes first, we will still be the protagonists. Instead, the proclamation must give primacy to God: to give the primacy to God, the first place to God, and to give to others the opportunity to welcome Him, to realise that He is near. And me in the background.

The third point: how to proclaim. This is the aspect Jesus dwells on most: how to proclaim, what is the method, what should be the language for proclaiming; it’s significant: He tells us that the manner, the style is essential in witnessing. Witnessing does not just involve the mind and saying something, the concepts. No. It involves everything, mind, heart, hands, everything, the three languages of the person: the language of thought, the language of affection, and the language of work. The three languages. One cannot evangelise only with the mind or only with the heart or only with the hands. Everything is involved. And, in style, the important thing is testimony, as Jesus wants us to do. He says this: “I send you out as sheep among wolves” (v. 16). He does not ask us to be able to face the wolves, that is, to be able to argue, to offer counter arguments, and to defend ourselves. No, no. We might think like this: let us become relevant, numerous, prestigious, and the world will listen to us and respect us and we will defeat the wolves. No, it’s not like that. No, I send you out as sheep, as lambs. This is important. If you don’t want to be sheep, the Lord will not defend you from the wolves. Deal with it as best you can. But if you are sheep, rest assured that the Lord will defend you from the wolves. Be humble. He asks us to be like this, to be meek and with the will to be innocent, to be disposed to sacrifice; this is what the lamb represents: meekness, innocence, dedication, tenderness. And He, the Shepherd, will recognise His lambs and protect them from the wolves. On the other hand, lambs disguised as wolves are unmasked and torn to pieces. A Church Father wrote: ‘As long as we are lambs, we will conquer, and even if we are surrounded by many wolves, we will overcome them. But if we become wolves—‘Ah, how clever, look, I feel good about myself’—we will be defeated, because we will be deprived of the shepherd’s help. He does not shepherd wolves, but lambs’ (St John Chrysostom, Homily 33 on the Gospel of Matthew). If I want to be the Lord’s, I have to allow Him to be my shepherd; and He is not the shepherd of wolves, He is the shepherd of lambs, meek, humble, kind as the Lord is.

Still on the subject of how to proclaim, it is striking that Jesus, instead of prescribing what to bring on a mission, says what not to bring. At times, one sees some apostles, some person who relocates, some Christian that says he is an apostle and has given his life to the Lord, and he is carrying a lot of luggage. But this is not of the Lord. The Lord makes you lighten your load. “Take no gold, nor silver, nor copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor a staff” (vv. 9—10). Don’t take anything. He says not to lean on material certainties, but to go into the world without worldliness. That is to say, I am going into the world, not with the style of the world, not with the world’s values, not with wordliness—for the Church, falling into worldliness is the worst thing that can happen. I go forth with simplicity. This is how one should proclaim: by showing Jesus rather than talking about Jesus. And how do we show Jesus? With our witness. And finally, by going together, in community: the Lord sends all the disciples, but no one goes alone. The apostolic Church is completely missionary and in the mission it finds its unity. So: going forth, meek and good as lambs, without worldliness, and going together. Here is the key to the proclamation, this is the key to success in evangelization. Let us accept these invitations from Jesus: may His words be our point of reference.

15.02.23

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!

In our catechetical itinerary on the passion for evangelizing, today we start from the words of Jesus that we have heard: ‘Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Mt 28:19). ‘Go,’ says the Risen One, ‘not to indoctrinate, not to make proselytes, no, but to make disciples, that is, to give everyone the opportunity to come into contact with Jesus, to know and love Him freely. Go and baptise: to baptise means to immerse; and therefore, before indicating a liturgical action, it expresses a vital action: to immerse one’s life in the Father, in the Son, in the Holy Spirit; to experience every day the joy of the presence of God who is close to us as Father, as Brother, as Spirit acting in us, in our very spirit.” To be baptised is to immerse oneself in the Trinity

When Jesus says to His disciples – and also to us – ‘Go!’, He is not just communicating a word. No. He communicates the Holy Spirit at the same time, because it is only thanks to Him, thanks to the Spirit, that one can receive Christ's mission and carry it out (cf. Jn 20:21-22). The Apostles, in fact, out of fear, remain closed up in the Upper Room until the day of Pentecost arrives and the Holy Spirit descends upon them (cf. Acts 2:1-13). And in that moment the fear is gone, and with His power those fishermen, mostly unlettered, will change the world. ‘But if they can’t speak…?’ But it is the word of the Spirit, the strength of the Spirit that bears them onward to change the world. The proclamation of the Gospel, therefore, is only realized in the power of the Spirit, who precedes the missionaries and prepares hearts: He is ‘the engine of evangelisation.’

We discover this in the Acts of the Apostles, where on every page we see that the protagonist of the proclamation is not Peter, Paul, Stephen, or Philip, but is the Holy Spirit. Staying with the book of Acts, a pivotal moment in the beginning of the Church is recounted, which can also say a lot to us. Then, as now, tribulations were not lacking, beautiful moments and not so beautiful moments, joys were accompanied by worries, both of these. One worry in particular: how to deal with the pagans who came to the faith, with those who did not belong to the Jewish people, for example. Were they or were they not bound to observe the prescriptions of the Mosaic Law? This was no small matter for those people. Two groups were thus formed, between those who considered the observance of the Law indispensable and those who did not. In order to discern, the Apostles gathered in what was called the ‘Council of Jerusalem,’ the first in history. How to resolve the dilemma? They might have sought a good compromise between tradition and innovation: some rules are observed, and others are left aside. Yet the Apostles do not follow this human wisdom to seek a diplomatic balance between the one and the other, they don’t follow this, but adapting to the work of the Spirit, who had anticipated them by descending upon the pagans as He had upon them.

And so, removing almost every obligation related to the Law, they communicate the final decisions, made – and this is what they write – ‘by the Holy Spirit and by us’ (cf. Acts 15:28), and this went out, ‘the Holy Spirit with us,’ and the Apostles always acted in this way. Together, without being divided, despite having different sensitivities and opinions, they listen to the Spirit. And He teaches one thing, which is also valid today: every religious tradition is useful if it facilitates the encounter with Jesus, every religious tradition is useful if it facilitates the encounter with Jesus. We could say that the historic decision of the first Council, from which we also benefit, was motivated by a principle, the principle of proclamation: everything in the Church must be conformed to the requirements of the proclamation of the Gospel; not to the opinions of the conservatives or the progressives, but to the fact that Jesus reaches people’s lives. Therefore, every choice, every usage, every structure, and every tradition is to be evaluated on the basis of whether they favour the proclamation of Christ. And when decisions are found in the Church – for example ideological divisions: ‘I am conservative because...’ ‘I am progressive because...’ But where is the Holy Spirit? Be careful that the Gospel is not an idea, the Gospel is not an ideology: the Gospel is a proclamation that touches your heart and makes you change your heart, but if you take refuge in an idea, in an ideology, whether right or left or centre, you are making the Gospel a political party, an ideology, a club of people. The Gospel always gives you this freedom of the Spirit that acts within you and carries you forward. And how much it requires of us today to take hold of the freedom of the Gospel and allow ourselves to be carried forward by the Spirit.

In this way the Spirit sheds light on the path of the Church, always. In fact, He is  not only the light of hearts; He is the light that orients the Church: He brings clarity, helps to distinguish, helps to discern. This is why it is necessary to invoke Him often; let us also do so today, at the beginning of Lent. Because, as Church, we can have well-defined times and spaces, well-organised communities, institutes and movements, but without the Spirit, everything remains soulless. The organization… it won’t do, it’s not enough: it is the Spirit that gives life to the Church. The Church, if it does not pray to Him and invoke Him, closes in on itself, in sterile and exhausting debates, in wearisome polarisations, while the flame of the mission is extinguished. It is very sad to see the Church as if it were nothing more than a parliament. The Church is something else. The Church is the community of men and women who believe and proclaim Jesus Christ, but moved by the Holy Spirit, not by their own reason. Yes, you use your reason, but the Spirit comes to enlighten and move it. The Spirit makes us go forth, urges us to proclaim the faith in order to confirm ourselves in the faith, to go on mission to discover who we are. That is why the Apostle Paul recommends: ‘Do not quench the Spirit’ (1 Thess 5:19). Do not quench the Spirit. Let us pray to the Spirit often, let us invoke him, let us ask him every day to kindle his light in us. Let us do this before each encounter, to become apostles of Jesus with the people we find. Don’t quench the Spirit, either in the community or in each one of us.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us start, and start anew, as Church, from the Holy Spirit. ‘It is undoubtedly important that in our pastoral planning we start from sociological surveys, analyses, the list of difficulties, the list of expectations and even complaints, this must be done, in order to touch reality. However, it is far more important to start from the experiences of the Spirit: that is the real departure. And it is therefore necessary to seek them out, list them, study them, interpret them. It is a fundamental principle that, in the spiritual life, is called the primacy of consolation over desolation. First there is the Spirit who consoles, revives, enlightens, moves; then there will also be desolation, suffering, darkness, but the principle for adjusting in the darkness is the light of the Spirit’ (C. M. Martini, Evangelising in the Consolation of the Spirit, 25 September 1997). This is the principle to guide ourselves in things we do not understand, in confusions, even in such great darkness, it is important. Let us ask ourselves, each one of us, let us ask ourselves if we open ourselves up to this light, if we give it space: do I invoke the Spirit? Each of us can answer within ourselves. How many prayers to the Spirit? ‘No, Father, I pray to Our Lady, I pray to the Saints, I pray to Jesus, sometimes I pray the Our Father, I pray to the Father…’ ‘And the Holy Spirit? Don’t you pray to the Holy Spirit, who is the one who moves your heart, who brings you consolation, who brings you the desire to evangelize, undertake mission? Do I let myself be guided by Him, who invites me not to close in on myself but to bear Jesus, to bear witness to the primacy of God’s consolation over the desolation of the world? May our Lady, who has understood this well, help us to understand it.

22.02.23

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

In the last catechesis we saw how the first “council” in the history of the Church – council, like that of Vatican II –, the first council, was convened in Jerusalem over a matter linked to evangelization, namely the proclamation of the Good News to non-Jews – it was thought that Gospel should be proclaimed only to Jews. In the twentieth century, the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council presented the Church as the pilgrim People of God over time, and for her missionary nature (cf. Decree Ad gentes, 2). What does this mean? There is a bridge between the first and last Council, under the banner of evangelization, a bridge whose architect is the Holy Spirit. Today we listen to Vatican Council II to discover the evangelizing is always an ecclesial service, never solitary, never isolated, never individualistic. Evangelization is always carried out in ecclesia, that is in a community, and without proselytism, because that is not evangelization.

Indeed, the evangelizer always transmits what he or she has received. Saint Paul was the first to write this: the gospel that he announced and the community received, and in which they remained steadfast, is the same that the Apostle had in turn received (cf. 1 Cor 15:1-3). Faith is received and transmitted. This ecclesial dynamism of the transmission of the Message is binding and guarantees the authenticity of Christian proclamation. The same Paul writes to the Galatians: “Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed” (1:8). This is beautiful, and this is good for many fashionable views…

The ecclesial dimension of evangelization constitutes, however, a criterion for confirmation of apostolic zeal. A necessary confirmation, because the temptation of proceeding “alone” is always lurking, especially when the path becomes impassable and we feel the burden of the commitment. Equally dangerous is the temptation to follow easier pseudo-ecclesial paths, to adopt the worldly logic of numbers and polls, to rely on the strength of our ideas, programmes, structures, “relationships that count”. This will not do; this should help a little but the fundamental thing is the strength that the Spirit gives you to proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ, to proclaim the Gospel. The other things are secondary.

Now, brothers and sisters, we place ourselves more directly in the school of the Second Vatican Council, rereading some passages of the Decree Ad gentes (AG), the document on the missionary activity of the Church. These texts of Vatican Council II fully retain their value even in our complex and plural context.

First of all, this document, Ad gentes, invites us to consider the love of God the Father as a wellspring, which “on account of His surpassing and merciful kindness and graciously calling us moreover to share with Him His life and His cry” - this is our vocation – “has generously poured out, and does not cease to pour out still, His divine goodness. Thus He who created all things may at last be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28), bringing about at one and the same time His own glory and our happiness” (no. 2). This passage is fundamental, because it says that the love of the Father is destined for every human being. God’s love is not only for a little group, no … for everyone. Keep that word firmly in mind and in the heart: everyone, everyone, no-one excluded: this is what the Lord says. And this love for every human being is a love that reaches every man and woman through the mission of Jesus, mediator of salvation and our redeemer (cf. AG, 3), and through the mission of the Holy Spirit (cf. AG, 4), who – the Holy Spirit – works in everyone, both in the baptized and the non-baptized. The Holy Spirit works!

The Council, furthermore reminds us that it is the task of the Church to continue the mission of Christ, who was “sent to preach the Gospel to the poor”; therefore, the document Ag gentes continues, “the Church, prompted by the Holy Spirit, must walk in the same path on which Christ walked: a path of poverty and obedience, of service and self-sacrifice to the death, from which death He came forth a victor by His resurrection” (AG, 5). If it remains faithful to this “path”, the mission of the Church is “an epiphany, or a manifesting of God’s decree, and its fulfilment in the world and in world history” (AG, 9).

Brothers and sisters, these brief comments also help us understand the ecclesial meaning of the apostolic zeal of each disciple-missionary. Apostolic zeal is not enthusiasm; it is another thing, it is a grace of God, that we must preserve. We must understand its meaning, because in the pilgrim and evangelizing People of God, there are no active or passive individuals. There are not those who preach, those who proclaim the Gospel in one way or another, and those who remain silent. “All the baptized”, says Evangelii gaudium, “whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, 120). Are you Christian? “Yes, I have received Baptism”. And do you evangelize?” “But what does this mean?” If you do not evangelize, if you do not bear witness, if you do not give that witness of the Baptism you have received, of the faith that the Lord gave you, you are not a good Christian. By virtue of the Baptism received and the consequent incorporation in the Church, every baptized person participates in the mission of the Church and, in this, in the mission of Christ the King, Priest and Prophet. Brothers and sisters, this task “is one and the same everywhere and in every condition, even though it may be carried out differently according to circumstances” (AG, 6). This invites us not to become rigid or fossilized; it redeems us from that restlessness that is not of God. The missionary zeal of the believer also expresses itself as a creative search for new ways of proclaiming and witnessing, new ways of encountering the wounded humanity that Christ took on. In short, of new ways of serving the Gospel and serving humanity. Evangelization is a service. If a person says that he is an evangelizer, and does not have that attitude, that servant’s heart, and believes himself to be a master, he is not an evangelizer, no … he is wretched.

Returning to the fountainhead of the love of the Father and to the missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit does not close us up in spaces of static personal tranquility. On the contrary, it leads us to recognize the gratuitousness of the gift of the fullness of life to which we are called, a gift for which we praise and thank God. This gift is not only for us, but rather it is to be given to others. And it also leads us to live ever more fully what we have received, by sharing it with others, with a sense of responsibility and travelling together along the roads, very often the tortuous and difficult ones of history, in vigilant and industrious expectation of its fulfilment. Let us ask the Lord for this grace, to take in hand this Christian vocation and to give thanks to the Lord for what he has given us, this treasure. And to try to communicate it to others.

08.03.23

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

Let us continue the catechesis on the passion of evangelizing: not only on “evangelizing”, the passion for evangelizing and, in the school of Vatican Council II, let us try to understand better what it means to be “apostles” today. The word “apostle” reminds us of the group of the Twelve disciples chosen by Jesus. At times we refer to some saint, or more generally the bishops, as “apostles”: they are apostles, because they go in the name of Jesus. But are we aware that being apostles concerns every Christian? Are we aware that it concerns each one of us? Indeed, we are required to be apostles – that is, envoys – in a Church that, in the Creed, we profess as apostolic.

So, what does it mean to be apostles? It means being sent for a mission. The event in which the Risen Christ sends his apostles into the world, passing on to them the power he himself received from the Father and giving them His Spirit, is exemplary and foundational. We read in the Gospel of John: “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me even so I send you’. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (20:21-22).

Another fundamental aspect of being an apostle is the vocation, that is, the calling. It has been thus ever since the beginning, when the Lord Jesus “called to him those whom he desired; and they came to him” (Mk 3:13). He constituted them as a group, attributing to them the title of “apostle”, so they would come with him and send them on their mission (cf. Mk 3:14; Mt 10:1-42). Saint Paul, in his letters, presents himself as “Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle”, that is, an envoy (1 Cor 1:1), and again, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle” (Rm 1:1). And he insists on the fact that he is “an apostle not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead” (Gal 1:1); God called him from his mother’s womb to proclaim the gospel among the nations (cf. Gal 1:15-16).

The experience of the Twelve apostles and the testimony of Paul also challenges us today. They invite us to verify our attitudes, to verify our choices, our decisions, on the basis of these fixed points: everything depends on a gratuitous call from God; God also chooses us for services that at times seem to exceed our capacities or do not correspond to our expectations; the call received as a gratuitous gift must be answered gratuitously.

The Council says: “the Christian vocation by its very nature is also a vocation to the apostolate” (Decree Apostolicam actuositatem [AA], 2). It is a calling that is common, just as “a common dignity [is shared] as members from their regeneration in Christ, having the same filial grace and the same vocation to perfection; possessing in common one salvation, one hope and one undivided charity” (Lumen gentium, 32).

It is a call that concerns both those who have received the sacrament of Orders, consecrated persons, and all lay faithful, man or woman: it is a call to all. You, the treasure you have received with your Christian vocation, are obliged to give it: it is the dynamic nature of the vocation, the dynamic nature of life. It is a call that empowers them to actively and creatively perform their apostolic task, within a Church in which “there is a diversity of ministry but a oneness of mission. Christ conferred on the Apostles and their successors the duty of teaching, sanctifying, and ruling in His name and power. But the laity too: all of you, the majority of you are laypeople. The laity likewise share in the priestly, prophetic, and royal office of Christ and therefore have their own share in the mission of the whole people of God in the Church and in the world” (AA, 2).

In this framework, what does the Council mean by the collaboration of the laity with the hierarchy? How is it meant? Is it a mere strategic adaptation to new situations as they come? Not at all, not at all: there is something more, that exceeds the contingencies of the moment and which maintains its own value for us too. The Church is like that, it is founded and apostolic.

Within the framework of the unity of the mission, the diversity of charisms and ministries must not give rise, within the ecclesial body, to privileged categories: here there is not a promotion, and when you conceive of Christian life as a promotion, that the one who is above commands all the others because he has succeeded in climbing, this is not Christianity. This is pure paganism. The Christian vocation is not a promotion, so as to rise, no! It is something else. It is a great thing because, although by the will of Christ some are in an important position, perhaps, doctors, “pastors and dispensers of mysteries on behalf of others, yet all share a true equality with regard to the dignity and to the activity common to all the faithful for the building up of the Body of Christ” (LG, 32). Who has more dignity in the Church: the bishop, the priest? No, we are all Christians in the service of others. Who is more important in the Church: the religious sister or the common person, baptized, not baptized, the child, the bishop…? They are all equal, we are equal and one of the parties themself to be more important than the others, turning up their nose, it is a mistake. That is not the vocation of Jesus. The vocation that Jesus gives, to everyone, but also to those who seem to be in the highest places, is service, serving others, humbling oneself. If you find a person who in the Church has a higher vocation and you see he is vain, say, “Poor soul”, pray for him, because he has not understood what the vocation of God is. The vocation of God is adoration of the Father, love for the community, and service. This is what being apostles is, this is the witness of apostles.

The matter of equality in dignity asks us to rethink may aspects of our relations, which are decisive for evangelization. For example, are we aware of the fact that with our words we can undermine the dignity of people, thus ruining relationships within the Church? While we try to engage in dialogue with the world, do we also know how to dialogue among ourselves as believers? Or in the parish, one person goes against another, one speaks badly of another in order to climb up further? Do we know how to listen to understand another person’s reasons, or do we impose ourselves, perhaps even with appeasing words? To listen, to be humble, to be at the service of others: this is serving, this is being Christian, this is being an apostle.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us not be afraid to ask these questions. Let us shun vanity, the vanity of positions. These words can help us to confirm how we live our baptismal vocation, how we live our way of being apostles in an apostolic Church, which is at the service of others. Thank you.

15.03.23

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

Today we will listen to the “magna carta” of evangelization in the contemporary world: Saint Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi (EN, 8 December 1975). It is topical, it was written in 1975 but it is as though it were written yesterday. Evangelization is more than just simple doctrinal and moral transmission. It is, first and foremost, witness – one cannot evangelize without witness – witness of the personal encounter with Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word in which salvation is fulfilled. An indispensable witness because, firstly, the world “is calling for evangelizers to speak to it of a God whom the evangelists themselves should know and be familiar with” (EN, 76). It is not to transmit an ideology or a “doctrine” on God, no. It is to transmit God who is living in me: this is witness, and moreover, because “modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (ibid., 41). The witness of Christ, then, is at the same time the first means of evangelization (cf. ibid., and an essential condition for its efficacy (cf. ibid., 76), so that the proclamation of the Gospel may be fruitful. Being witnesses.

It is necessary to remember that witness also includes professed faith, that is, convinced and manifest adherence to God the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, who created us out of love, and redeemed us. A faith that transforms us, that transforms our relationships, the criteria and the values that determine our choices. Witness, therefore, cannot be separated from consistency between what one believes and what one proclaims, and what one lives. One is not credible just by stating a doctrine or an ideology, no. A person is credible if there is harmony between what he or she believes and lives. Many Christians only say they believe, but they live something else, as if they did not. And this is hypocrisy. The opposite of witness is hypocrisy. How many times we hear, “Ah, this person goes to Mass every Sunday and then he lives like this, or that”: it is true, it is counter-witness.

Every one of us is required to respond to three fundamental questions, posed in this way by Paul VI: “Do you believe what you are proclaiming? Do you live what you believe? Do you preach what you live?” (cf. ibid.). Is there harmony: do you believe I what you proclaim? Do you live what you believe? Do you proclaim what you live? We cannot be satisfied with easy, pre-packaged answers. We are called upon to accept the risk, albeit destabilized, of the search, trusting fully in the action of the Holy Spirit who works in each one of us, driving us ever further: beyond our boundaries, beyond our barriers, beyond our limits, of any type.

In this sense, the witness of a Christian life involves a journey of holiness, based on Baptism, which makes us “sharers in the divine nature; in this way they are really made holy” (Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 40). A holiness that is not reserved to the few; that is a gift from God and demands to be received and made to bear fruit for ourselves and for others. Chosen and beloved by God, must bring this love to others. Paul VI teaches that the zeal for evangelization springs from holiness, it springs from the heart that is filled with God. Nourished by prayer and above all by love for the Eucharist, evangelization in turn increases holiness in the people who carry it out (cf. EN, 76). At the same time, without holiness, the word of the evangelizer “will have difficulty in touching the heart of modern man”, and “risks being vain and sterile” (ibid.).

Therefore, we must be aware that the people to whom evangelization is addressed are not only others, those who profess other faiths or who profess none, but also ourselves, believers in Christ and active members of the People of God. And we must convert every day, receive the word of God and change our life: every day. And this is how the heart is evangelized. To bear this witness, the Church as such must also begin by evangelizing herself. If the Church does not evangelize herself, she remains a museum piece. Instead, it is by evangelizing herself that she is continually updated. She needs to listen unceasingly to what she must believe, to her reasons for hoping, to the new commandment of love. The Church, which is a People of God immersed in the world, and often tempted by idols – many of them – and she always needs to hear the proclamation of the works of God. In brief, this means that she has a constant need of being evangelized, she needs to read the Gospel, to pray and to feel the force of the Spirit changing her heart (cf. EN, 15).

A Church that evangelizes herself in order to evangelize is a Church that, guided by the Holy Spirit, is required to walk a demanding path, a path of conversion and renewal. This also entails the ability to change the ways of understanding and living its evangelizing presence in history, avoiding taking refuge in the protected zones of the logic of “it has always been done this way”. They are the refuges that cause the Church to sicken. The Church must go forward, she must grow continually; in this way she will remain young. This Church is entirely turned to God, therefore a participant in his plan of salvation for humanity, and, at the same time, entirely turned towards humanity. The Church must be a Church that dialogically encounters the contemporary world, that weaves fraternal relationships, that generates spaces of encounter, implementing good practices of hospitality, of welcome, of recognition and integration of the other and of otherness, and that cares for the common home that is creation. That is, a Church that dialogically encounters the contemporary world, that dialogues with the contemporary world, but that encounters the Lord every day, and dialogues with the Lord, and allows the Holy Spirit, the agent of evangelization, to enter. Without the Holy Spirit we can only publicize the Church, not evangelize. It is the Spirit in us that drives us towards evangelization, and this is the true freedom of the children of God.

Dear brothers and sisters, I renew my invitation to you to read and re-read Evangelii nuntiandi: I will tell you the truth, I read it often, because it is Saint Paul VI’s masterpiece, it is the legacy he left to us, to evangelize.

22.03.23

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

In the path of catechesis on apostolic zeal, let us start today to look at some figures who, in different ways and times, bore exemplary witness to what passion for the Gospel means. And the first witness is naturally the Apostle Paul. I would like to devote these two catecheses to him.

And the history of Paul of Tarsus is emblematic in this regard. In the first chapter of the Letter to the Galatians, as in the narration of the Acts of the Apostles, we can see that his zeal for the Gospel appears after his conversion, and takes the place of his previous zeal for Judaism. He was a man who was zealous about the law of Moses for Judaism, and after his conversion, this zeal continued, but to proclaim, to preach Jesus Christ. Paul loved Jesus. Saul – Paul’s first name – was already zealous, but Christ converts his zeal: from the Law to the Gospel. His zeal first wanted to destroy the Church, whereas after it builds it up. We might ask ourselves: what happened, that passed from destruction to construction? What changed in Paul? In what way was his zeal, his striving for the glory of God, transformed? What happened there?

Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches that passion, from the moral point of view, is neither good nor evil: its virtuous use makes it morally good, sin makes it bad.[1] In Paul’s case, what changed him is not a simple idea or a conviction: it was the encounter, this word, it was the encounter with the risen Lord – do not forget this, it is the encounter with the Lord that changes a life – it was the encounter with the risen Lord that transformed his entire being. Paul’s humanity, his passion for God and his glory was not annihilated, but transformed, “converted” by the Holy Spirit. The only one who can change our hearts, change, is the Holy Spirit. And it was so for every aspect of his life. Just as it happens in the Eucharist: the bread and wine do not disappear, but become the Body and Blood of Christ. Paul’s zeal remains, but it becomes the zeal of Christ. It changes direction but the zeal is the same. The Lord is served with our humanity, with our prerogatives and our characteristics, but what changes everything is not an idea, but rather the very life itself, as Paul himself says: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” – it changes you from within, the encounter with Jesus Christ changes you from within, it makes you another person – “the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). If one is in Christ, he or she is a new creation, this is the meaning of being a new creation. Becoming Christian is not a masquerade, that changes your face, no! If you are Christian, your heart is changed, but if you are a Christian in appearance, this will not do: masquerading Christians, no, they will not do. The true change is of the heart. And this happened to Paul.

The passion for the Gospel is not a matter of comprehension or studies – you can study all the theology you want, you can study the Bible and all that, and become atheist or worldly, it is not a question of studies; in history there have been many atheist theologians, no! Study is useful but it does not generate the new life of grace; rather, to convert means going through that same experience of “fall and resurrection” that Saul/Paul lived and which is at the origin of the transfiguration of his apostolic zeal. Indeed, as Saint Ignatius says: “For it is not knowing much, but realizing and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies”. [2] Every one of us, think. “I am a religious” – “Fine” – “I pray” – “Yes” – “I try to obey the commandments” – “Yes” – “But where is Jesus in your life?” – “Ah, no, I do the things the Church commands”. But Jesus, where is he? Have you encountered Jesus, have you spoken with Jesus? If you pick up the Gospel or talk with Jesus, do you remember who Jesus is?  And this is something that we very often lack; a Christianity, I would say, not without Jesus, but with an abstract Jesus… No! How Jesus entered your life, how he entered the life of Paul, and when Jesus enters, everything changes. Many times, we have heard comments on people: “But look at him, he was a wretch and now he is a good man, she is a good woman… who changed them? Jesus, they found Jesus. Has your Christian life changed? “No, more or less, yes…”. If Jesus did not enter your life, it did not change. You can be Christian only from the outside. No, Jesus must enter and this changes you, and this happened to Paul. It is finding Jesus, and this is why Paul said that Christ’s love drives us, it is what takes you forward. The same thing happened, this change, to all the saints, who went forward when they found Jesus.

We can reflect further on the change that takes place in Paul, who from a persecutor became an apostle of Christ. We note that there is a sort of paradox in him: indeed, as long as he feels he is righteous before God, he feels authorized to persecute, to arrest, even to kill, as in the case of Stephen; but when, enlightened by the Risen Lord, he discovers he was a “blasphemer and persecutor” (cf. 1 Tim 1:13) – this is what he says of himself, “I formerly blasphemed and persecuted” – then he starts to be truly capable of loving. And this is the way. If one of us says, “Ah, thank you Lord, because I am a good person, I do good things, I do not commit major sins…”, this is not a good path, this is the path of self-sufficiency, it is a path that does not justify you, it makes you turn up your nose… It is an elegant Catholic, but an elegant Catholic is not a holy Catholic, he is elegant. The true Catholic, the true Christian is one who receives Jesus within, which changes your heart. This is the question I ask you all today: what does Jesus mean for me? Did I let him enter my heart, or do I keep him within reach but so that he does not really enter within? Have I let myself be changed by him? Or is Jesus just an idea, a theology that goes ahead… And this is zeal, when one finds Jesus and feels the fire, like Paul, and must preach Jesus, must talk about Jesus, must help people, must do good things. When one finds the idea of Jesus, he or she remains an ideologue of Christianity, and this does not justify, only Jesus justifies us. May the Lord help us find Jesus, encounter Jesus, and may this Jesus change our life from within and help us to help others. Thank you.

[1] Cfr  Quaestio “De veritate” 24, 7.

[2]  Spiritual Exercises, Annotations, 2, 4.

29.03.23

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

After having seen, two weeks ago, St Paul's personal zeal for the Gospel, we can now reflect more deeply on the evangelical zeal as he himself speaks of it and describes it in some of his letters.

By virtue of his own experience, Paul is not unaware of the danger of a distorted zeal, oriented in the wrong direction. He himself had fallen into this danger before the providential fall on the road to Damascus. Sometimes we have to deal with a misdirected zeal, doggedly persistent in the observance of purely human and obsolete norms for the Christian community. “They make much of you,” writes the Apostle, “but for no good purpose” (Gal 4:17). We cannot ignore the solicitude with which some devote themselves to the wrong pursuits even within the Christian community itself; one can boast of a false evangelical zeal while actually pursuing vainglory or one’s own convictions or a little bit of love of self.

For this reason, we ask ourselves, what are the characteristics of true evangelical zeal according to Paul? The text we heard at the beginning seems useful for this, a list of “arms” that the Apostle indicates for the spiritual battle. Among these is readiness to spread the Gospel, translated by some as “zeal” – this person is zealous in carrying forward these ideas, these things – and referred to as a “shoe”. Why? How is zeal for the Gospel related to what is worn on your feet? This metaphor picks up on a text from the prophet Isaiah, who says this: “How beautiful on the mountains are / the feet of the one who brings good tidings, / who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation / who says to Zion: ‘Your God reigns’” (52:7).

Here too, we find reference to the feet of a herald of good news. Why? Because the one who goes to proclaim must move, must walk! But we also note that Paul, in this text, speaks of footwear as part of a suit of armour, following the analogy of the equipment of a soldier going into battle: in combat it was essential to have stability of footing in order to avoid the pitfalls of the terrain – because the adversary often littered the battlefield with traps – and to have the strength to run and move in the right direction. So the footwear is to run and to avoid all these things of the adversary.

Evangelical zeal is the support on which proclamation is based, and heralds are somewhat like the feet of the body of Christ that is the Church. There is no proclamation without movement, without ‘going out’, without initiative. This mean there is no Christian if not on the move; no Christian if the Christian does not go out of themself in order to set out on the journey and bear the proclamation. There is no proclamation without movement, without walking. One does not proclaim the Gospel standing still, locked in an office, at one’s desk or at one’s computer, arguing like ‘keyboard warriors’ and replacing the creativity of proclamation with copy-and-paste ideas taken from here and there. The Gospel is proclaimed by moving, by walking, by going.

The term used by Paul to denote the footwear of those who bear the Gospel is a Greek word denoting readiness, preparation, alacrity. It is the opposite of sloppiness, which is incompatible with love. In fact, elsewhere Paul says: “Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord” (Rom 12:11). This attitude was the one required in the Book of Exodus to celebrate the sacrifice of the Passover deliverance: “In this manner you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night” (12:11-12a).

A herald is ready to go, and knows that the Lord passes by in a surprising way. He or she must therefore be free from schemes and prepared for an unexpected and new action: prepared for surprises. One who proclaims the Gospel cannot be fossilised in cages of plausibility or the idea that “it has always been done this way,” but is ready to follow a wisdom that is not of this world, as Paul says when speaking of himself: “My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God’ (1 Cor 2:4-5).

This is why, brothers and sisters, it is important to have this readiness for the newness of the Gospel, this attitude that involves momentum, taking the initiative, going first. It means not letting pass by the opportunities to promulgate the Gospel of peace, that peace that Christ knows how to give more and better than the world gives.

And for this reason I exhort you to be evangelizers who are moving, without fear, who go forward, in order to bring the beauty of Jesus, to bring the newness of Jesus who changes everything. “Yes, Father, He changes the calendar, because now we count the years beginning with Jesus…” But does He also change the heart? And are you disposed to let Jesus change your heart? Or are you a lukewarm Christian, who is not moving? Think about it: Are you an enthusiast of Jesus, are you going forward? Think about it a bit.

12.04.23