Africa

MESSAGE
OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
FOR LENT 2015

“Make your hearts firm” (Jas 5:8)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Lent is a time of renewal for the whole Church, for each communities and every believer. Above all it is a “time of grace” (2 Cor 6:2). God does not ask of us anything that he himself has not first given us. “We love because he first has loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). He is not aloof from us. Each one of us has a place in his heart. He knows us by name, he cares for us and he seeks us out whenever we turn away from him. He is interested in each of us; his love does not allow him to be indifferent to what happens to us. Usually, when we are healthy and comfortable, we forget about others (something God the Father never does): we are unconcerned with their problems, their sufferings and the injustices they endure… Our heart grows cold. As long as I am relatively healthy and comfortable, I don’t think about those less well off. Today, this selfish attitude of indifference has taken on global proportions, to the extent that we can speak of a globalization of indifference. It is a problem which we, as Christians, need to confront.

When the people of God are converted to his love, they find answers to the questions that history continually raises. One of the most urgent challenges which I would like to address in this Message is precisely the globalization of indifference.

Indifference to our neighbour and to God also represents a real temptation for us Christians. Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience.

God is not indifferent to our world; he so loves it that he gave his Son for our salvation. In the Incarnation, in the earthly life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God, the gate between God and man, between heaven and earth, opens once for all. The Church is like the hand holding open this gate, thanks to her proclamation of God’s word, her celebration of the sacraments and her witness of the faith which works through love (cf. Gal 5:6). But the world tends to withdraw into itself and shut that door through which God comes into the world and the world comes to him. Hence the hand, which is the Church, must never be surprised if it is rejected, crushed and wounded.

God’s people, then, need this interior renewal, lest we become indifferent and withdraw into ourselves. To further this renewal, I would like to propose for our reflection three biblical texts.

1. “If one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Cor 12:26) – The Church

The love of God breaks through that fatal withdrawal into ourselves which is indifference. The Church offers us this love of God by her teaching and especially by her witness. But we can only bear witness to what we ourselves have experienced. Christians are those who let God clothe them with goodness and mercy, with Christ, so as to become, like Christ, servants of God and others. This is clearly seen in the liturgy of Holy Thursday, with its rite of the washing of feet. Peter did not want Jesus to wash his feet, but he came to realize that Jesus does not wish to be just an example of how we should wash one another’s feet. Only those who have first allowed Jesus to wash their own feet can then offer this service to others. Only they have “a part” with him (Jn 13:8) and thus can serve others.

Lent is a favourable time for letting Christ serve us so that we in turn may become more like him. This happens whenever we hear the word of God and receive the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. There we become what we receive: the Body of Christ. In this body there is no room for the indifference which so often seems to possess our hearts. For whoever is of Christ, belongs to one body, and in him we cannot be indifferent to one another. “If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honoured, all the parts share its joy” (1 Cor 12:26).

The Church is the communio sanctorum not only because of her saints, but also because she is a communion in holy things: the love of God revealed to us in Christ and all his gifts. Among these gifts there is also the response of those who let themselves be touched by this love. In this communion of saints, in this sharing in holy things, no one possesses anything alone, but shares everything with others. And since we are united in God, we can do something for those who are far distant, those whom we could never reach on our own, because with them and for them, we ask God that all of us may be open to his plan of salvation.

2. “Where is your brother?” (Gen 4:9) – Parishes and Communities

All that we have been saying about the universal Church must now be applied to the life of our parishes and communities. Do these ecclesial structures enable us to experience being part of one body? A body which receives and shares what God wishes to give? A body which acknowledges and cares for its weakest, poorest and most insignificant members? Or do we take refuge in a universal love that would embrace the whole world, while failing to see the Lazarus sitting before our closed doors (Lk 16:19-31)?

In order to receive what God gives us and to make it bear abundant fruit, we need to press beyond the boundaries of the visible Church in two ways.

In the first place, by uniting ourselves in prayer with the Church in heaven. The prayers of the Church on earth establish a communion of mutual service and goodness which reaches up into the sight of God. Together with the saints who have found their fulfilment in God, we form part of that communion in which indifference is conquered by love. The Church in heaven is not triumphant because she has turned her back on the sufferings of the world and rejoices in splendid isolation. Rather, the saints already joyfully contemplate the fact that, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, they have triumphed once and for all over indifference, hardness of heart and hatred. Until this victory of love penetrates the whole world, the saints continue to accompany us on our pilgrim way. Saint Therese of Lisieux, a Doctor of the Church, expressed her conviction that the joy in heaven for the victory of crucified love remains incomplete as long as there is still a single man or woman on earth who suffers and cries out in pain: “I trust fully that I shall not remain idle in heaven; my desire is to continue to work for the Church and for souls” (Letter 254, July 14, 1897).

We share in the merits and joy of the saints, even as they share in our struggles and our longing for peace and reconciliation. Their joy in the victory of the Risen Christ gives us strength as we strive to overcome our indifference and hardness of heart.

In the second place, every Christian community is called to go out of itself and to be engaged in the life of the greater society of which it is a part, especially with the poor and those who are far away. The Church is missionary by her very nature; she is not self-enclosed but sent out to every nation and people.

Her mission is to bear patient witness to the One who desires to draw all creation and every man and woman to the Father. Her mission is to bring to all a love which cannot remain silent. The Church follows Jesus Christ along the paths that lead to every man and woman, to the very ends of the earth (cf. Acts 1:8). In each of our neighbours, then, we must see a brother or sister for whom Christ died and rose again. What we ourselves have received, we have received for them as well. Similarly, all that our brothers and sisters possess is a gift for the Church and for all humanity.

Dear brothers and sisters, how greatly I desire that all those places where the Church is present, especially our parishes and our communities, may become islands of mercy in the midst of the sea of indifference!

3. “Make your hearts firm!” (James 5:8) – Individual Christians

As individuals too, we have are tempted by indifference. Flooded with news reports and troubling images of human suffering, we often feel our complete inability to help. What can we do to avoid being caught up in this spiral of distress and powerlessness?

First, we can pray in communion with the Church on earth and in heaven. Let us not underestimate the power of so many voices united in prayer! The 24 Hours for the Lord initiative, which I hope will be observed on 13-14 March throughout the Church, also at the diocesan level, is meant to be a sign of this need for prayer.

Second, we can help by acts of charity, reaching out to both those near and far through the Church’s many charitable organizations. Lent is a favourable time for showing this concern for others by small yet concrete signs of our belonging to the one human family.

Third, the suffering of others is a call to conversion, since their need reminds me of the uncertainty of my own life and my dependence on God and my brothers and sisters. If we humbly implore God’s grace and accept our own limitations, we will trust in the infinite possibilities which God’s love holds out to us. We will also be able to resist the diabolical temptation of thinking that by our own efforts we can save the world and ourselves.

As a way of overcoming indifference and our pretensions to self-sufficiency, I would invite everyone to live this Lent as an opportunity for engaging in what Benedict XVI called a formation of the heart (cf. Deus Caritas Est, 31). A merciful heart does not mean a weak heart. Anyone who wishes to be merciful must have a strong and steadfast heart, closed to the tempter but open to God. A heart which lets itself be pierced by the Spirit so as to bring love along the roads that lead to our brothers and sisters. And, ultimately, a poor heart, one which realizes its own poverty and gives itself freely for others.

During this Lent, then, brothers and sisters, let us all ask the Lord: “Fac cor nostrum secundum cor tuum”: Make our hearts like yours (Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus). In this way we will receive a heart which is firm and merciful, attentive and generous, a heart which is not closed, indifferent or prey to the globalization of indifference.

It is my prayerful hope that this Lent will prove spiritually fruitful for each believer and every ecclesial community. I ask all of you to pray for me. May the Lord bless you and Our Lady keep you.

From the Vatican, 4 October 2014

Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi

FRANCIS

A Commentary on Mc 1, 29-39: Sunday, February 8th 2015

We continue, in this fifth Sunday of the year, reading the first chapter of Mark, which narrates a Jesus’ Day at Capernaum. Last Sunday we read the first part, contemplating Jesus at the synagogue confronting the “impure spirit”. Today we see him outside the synagogue. For my commentary, I will put my attention on four words:

The house:
Jesus leaves the synagogue and enters a house, Peter’s home, with Andrew, James and John, apart from Peter himself, whose house becomes an operational centre for the first community of Jesus’ missionary disciples. The gospels mention quite often this experience of Jesus entering into peoples’ homes, especially public sinners’ homes: Zacchaeus, Levi, the Pharisee… His meals become a sign of fraternity and feast, pardon and new life. Also the first Christian communities used to gather in someone’s house: this was giving the Church an style of nearness and fraternity, of a life connected to the joys and sufferings of ordinary people.
Today, I know families that welcome the Lord in their homes in so many ways, transforming their houses into places of encountering for Jesus’ disciples and for everyone in need of support. They are real disciples. With them I dream of a lay people’s church, a “homely church”, very much in touch with peoples’ lives; a church, community of communities, made of friends who visit each other, help each other, protect each other in moments of distress, listen together to the Word and praise the Lord with one voice.

The house, “emergency hospital”.
With Jesus’ presence, Simon’ s home becomes a place for the revelation of God’s mercy and free love for all, but especially for those in distress and need. A love that heals, dignifies, forgives, reconciles and invites to serve.
This is what Pope Francis, in his direct language, has called “the Church, Emergency hospital”, a server church in a violent world, that produces many wounded people, physically, economically, morally. Fortunately, many of us haven known a Church like that: So many health centres in every corner of the Earth! So many schools for poor children! So many elders cared for! So many persons listened to, consoled, pardoned!
Somehow, we can be “proud” of a Church that is serving in so many ways: with our money, with our time, with our live, with our love. But, at the same time, I feel this Sunday a strong call to conversion. There are in the world so many wounded people in need of attention; my Church (my family, my community, my parish) cannot be a locked up and indifferent castle, but it must be a home transformed into an “emergency hospital”, like the house of Peter in Capernaum.

Sunset and sunrise: work and prayer, word and silence.
At sunrise, Jesus goes to a solitary place, evidently to meet in intimacy the Fountain of his interior life, to re-establish the love links with the Father, to discern all that is saying and doing. Avoiding to get lost in a “foolish” and senseless activism.
Somebody has said that the future belongs to contemplative people, no to those who run from place to place, multiplying empty word and dry hearts. I think that to invest in prayer and contemplations, is the best investment that we can make for ourselves and for our community. Without that prayer we are like dry leaves carried away, without any direction, by the strong winds of our time.

New frontiers
In today’s Reading, the disciples, together with the crowds, want Jesus to remain with tem, trapped in a web of interested affections and egoisms. “We are so well together! “Let us build a place where to enjoy our being together!”, they seemed to say. But Jesus does not allow himself to be trapped by these “reasonable” words; he remains free to go to other places where the announcement of the Kingdom is needed, not confusing mission with auto-satisfaction or the shallow joy of being applauded…
Success can be a danger, a trap, that makes us accommodate to what has been already acquired. I think of so many parishes that are so happy because their church is full at Sunday masses. But those people going to mass are a minority among the thousands of people living in that area. Where are all the others?
I think that the Jesus’ missionary passion is pushing us to go further, over our barriers, to open ourselves (individual disciples and communities) to new people, new human groups, new places, new “areopaghi”; not to be happy with what we already have, but to look always for new horizons, in private life and in community life.
Fr. Antonio Villarino
Rome

A commentary on  a Mc 1, 21-28 (Sunday, February First 2015)

The Fourth Sunday’s reading from the Gospel of Mark is the first part of the so called “Capernaum day”, after the imprisonment of the Baptist and the calling of the first disciples. In my reflexion I will follow three points: the place where Jesus was, the special value of his word, his fight against the “unclean spirit”.

The geography of todays’ gospel

We are at Capernaum, a town in northern Galilee, by the Galilean lake, a crossroads between the Palestine, Lebanon and Assyria. Capernaum as other towns of the time and of today, it was a place full of life, with positive and negative elements. Surely there was commerce and richness; political, religious and military leaders; “imperial roads” that connected it to a “globalized world”, etc. But there was also poverty, confusion, corruption, injustices,  poor faith, exploitation of the poor and other evils in private lives and public structures. There was also a synagogue, where some faithful people used to go, even if sometimes with fatigue and boredom.

Capernaum, in fact, may be the image of our own towns and our own culture, where we can find so much life, in its good and bad side alike: richness end poverty, generosity and egoism, confusion and search of truth, corruption and responsibility… And it is in this town and Culture that we, as disciple missionary, are called to be witnesses to the Kingdom announced by Jesus.

Jesus’ relevant word

Jesus used to teach everywhere, including the Synagogue, where many used to go out of faithfulness to tradition, but also with a kind of resignation, to listen to a word that usually would not mean any change in their lives. But that day there was a surprise. That preacher was different, out of his mouth came a word that touched life, that produced admiration, praise and the desire to change.

We may ask ourselves: Why was it like that? Why the word of Jesus was relevant, full of authority?

On my opinion, any word has authority and relevance whenever it is sincere, authentic and related to any concrete dimension of real life. When that happens, the word meets in the hearer an echo that sounds like a personalized truth.

One day, I had the opportunity to listen to Mother Teresa of Calcuta. A multitude of us were listening to her with admiration and a special emotion. What was special in that little, old and, I may say, “ugly” woman? We can say that nothing was special.  She just said, without any oratory tricks, what all of us knew. And yet, we all were touched and moved by the sincerity and authenticity of those simple words, that were just communication of a true experience of life.

That is what, in my opinion, happened with Jesus –and much more. And that is what may happen with our own words, when they transmit our sincere experience of enlightenment, forgiveness, consolation, and courage, discipleship, in a life lived on the steps of Jesus.

With Jesus, also we are called to be in our “Capernaums” of today “tellers” of authentic words of truth, justice, consolation, forgiveness… words of life. In the family, in the working place, in church, on the road, everywhere we are called to disciple-missionaries with words that come out of the authenticity of our lives.

The battle between the “unclean spirits” and the “Holy one of God”

In the Bible, including the gospels, there is much talk about “unclean” and “impure” spirits. It is a language that we do not use any more. But the reality to which those words relate is still very much with us.

With those words we speak of that part of the world, that is enemy to God and to human happiness. That side of the world made of lies, confusion, injustice, chaos, slavery… that prevents us and the humanity as such from growing up as children of the Father, free and freedom makers.

Let us remember, for example, the absurd violence that we have lately in several parts of the world; let us remember the general corruption in politics and religion, the enormous imbalance between poor and rich people, the stupid pride many use to humiliate the simple ones. Let us remember the many  addictions that are becoming a problem for many of us: drugs, alcohol, disorderly sex, exaggerated good consuming…

This world of corruption, injustice, impurity, that is in us and around us, becomes violent and aggressive when it meets with “the Holy one”, when it is confronted by the limpid word of Jesus.

But Jesus is able to win this battle. Not with the arms of the world (richness, pride, lie) but with the only arm of his word an action, “rooted” in the Fathers ’love, in which he becomes a Son, Free and freedom maker.

And we, in as much as we are disciples, united to this Son of God, we become also free and freedom makers, able to fight against the unclean spirits, not with the arms of the world but with the power of God, the power of our humble witness of the marvellous things Jesus Christ is doing in us. There is our strength, the strenght of a missionary church to overcome the evil present in the word.

Fr. Antonio Villarino MCCJ. Rome