HOMILY OF POPE FRANCIS
Cathedral of Saint Sebastian, Rio de Janeiro
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Seeing this Cathedral full of Bishops, priests, seminarians, and men
and women religious from the whole world, I think of the Psalmist’s
words from today’s Mass: “Let the peoples praise you, O God” (Ps 66). We
are indeed here to praise the Lord, and we do so reaffirming our desire
to be his instruments so that not only some peoples may praise God, but
all. With the same parrhesia of Paul and Barnabas, we proclaim the
Gospel to our young people, so that they may encounter Christ, the light
for our path, and build a more fraternal world. I wish to reflect with
you on three aspects of our vocation: we are called by God, called to
proclaim the Gospel, and called to promote the culture of encounter.
1) Called by God – It is important to rekindle an awareness of our
divine vocation, which we often take for granted in the midst of our
many daily responsibilities: as Jesus says, “You did not choose me, but I
chose you” (Jn 15:16). This means returning to the source of our
calling. At the beginning of our vocational journey, there is a divine
election. For this reason, a bishop, a priest, a consecrated man or
woman, a seminarian cannot have a bad memory. He or she must safeguard
that grace and never forget his or her first calling. We were called by
God and we were called to be with Jesus (cf. Mk 3:14), united with him
in a way so profound that we are able to say with Saint Paul: “It is no
longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20).
This living in Christ, in fact, marks all that we are and all that we
do. And this “life in Christ” is precisely what ensures the
effectiveness of our apostolate, that our service is fruitful: “I
appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit
should abide” (Jn 15:16). It is not pastoral creativity, or meetings or
planning that ensure our fruitfulness, but our being faithful to Jesus,
who says insistently: “Abide in me and I in you” (Jn 15:4). And we know
well what that means: to contemplate him, to worship him, to embrace
him, especially through our faithfulness to a life of prayer, and in our
daily encounter with him, present in the Eucharist and in those most in
need. “Being with” Christ does not isolate us from others. Rather, it
is a “being with” in order to go forth and encounter others. This brings
to mind some words of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta: “We must be
very proud of our vocation because it gives us the opportunity to serve
Christ in the poor. It is in the favelas, in the cantegriles, in the
villas miseria, that one must go to seek and to serve Christ. We must go
to them as the priest presents himself at the altar, with joy”
(Mother’s Instructions, I, p. 80). Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is our true
treasure. Let us try to unite our hearts ever more closely to his (cf.
Lk 12:34).
2) Called to proclaim the Gospel – dear Bishops and priests, many of
you, if not all, have accompanied your young people to World Youth Day.
They too have heard the mandate of Jesus: “Go and make disciples of all
nations” (cf. Mt 28:19). It is our responsibility to help kindle within
their hearts the desire to be missionary disciples of Jesus. Certainly,
this invitation could cause many to feel somewhat afraid, thinking that
to be missionaries requires leaving their own homes and countries,
family and friends.
God asks us to be missionaries where we are, where He puts us! Let us
help our young people to realize that the call to be missionary
disciples flows from our baptism and is an essential part of what it
means to be a Christian. We must also help them to realize that we are
called first to evangelize in our own homes and our places of study and
work, to evangelize our family and friends. Let us help our young
people, let us open our ears to their questions, they need to be
listened to when in difficulty; of course patience is needed to listen,
in confession and in spiritual direction. We need to know how best to
spend time with them.
Let us spare no effort in the formation of our young people! Saint
Paul uses a beautiful expression that he embodied in his own life, when
he addressed the Christian community: “My little children, with whom I
am again in travail until Christ be formed in you” (Gal 4:19). Let us
embody this also in our own ministry! Let us help our young people to
discover the courage and joy of faith, the joy of being loved personally
by God, who gave his Son Jesus for our salvation. Let us form them in
mission, in going out and going forth. Jesus did this with his own
disciples: he did not keep them under his wing like a hen with her
chicks. He sent them out!
We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities,
when so many people are waiting for the Gospel! It is not enough simply
to open the door in welcome, but we must go out through that door to
seek and meet the people! Let us courageously look to pastoral needs,
beginning on the outskirts, with those who are farthest away, with those
who do not usually go to church. They are the VIPs invited to the table
of the Lord… go and look for them in the nooks and crannies of the
streets.
3) Called to promote the culture of encounter – Unfortunately, in
many places, generally in this economic humanism that prevails in the
world, the culture of exclusion, of rejection, is spreading. There is no
place for the elderly or for the unwanted child; there is no time for
that poor person on the edge of the street. At times, it seems that for
some people, human relations are regulated by two modern “dogmas”:
efficiency and pragmatism. Dear Bishops, priests, religious and you,
seminarians who are preparing for ministry: have the courage to go
against the tide. Let us not reject this gift of God which is the one
family of his children. Encountering and welcoming everyone, solidarity…
this is a word that in this culture is being hidden away, as if it was a
swear word… solidarity and fraternity: these are what make our society
truly human.
Be servants of communion and of the culture of encounter! Permit me
to say that we must be almost obsessive in this matter. We do not want
to be presumptuous, imposing “our truths”. What must guide us is the
humble yet joyful certainty of those who have been found, touched and
transformed by the Truth who is Christ, ever to be proclaimed (cf. Lk
24:13-35).
Dear brothers and sisters, we are called by God, called to proclaim
the Gospel and called to promote with courage the culture of encounter.
May the Virgin Mary be our exemplar. In her life she was “a model of
that motherly love with which all who join in the Church’s apostolic
mission for the regeneration of humanity should be animated” (Second
Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, 65).
Let us ask her to teach us to meet Jesus every day, let us ask her to
encourage us to go out to meet our many brothers and sisters who are on
the edges and are thirsty for God but do not have anyone to announce
Him; let us ask her not to throw us out of home, but to encourage us to
leave home; in this way we will be disciples of the Lord.
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