His Holiness Pope Francis at Mass: Church called to promote a culture of care
At Mass to celebrate the feast of Sts Peter and Paul, His Holiness Pope Francis blesses the pallia for new Metropolitan Archbishops, and reminds the faithful that the Church is called to “get up quickly” and “fight the good fight.”
By Christopher Wells
His Holiness Pope Francis blessed the pallia for the new Metropolitan Archbishops on the feast of Sts Peter and Paul, and presided at the Mass for the Solemnity, which was celebrated by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Dean of the College of Cardinals.
In his homily at the Mass, the Holy Father focused on two expressions from the day's readings: “Get up quickly,” the command of the angel to St Peter as he languished in prison; and St Paul’s call to Christians to “fight the good fight,” from the Apostle’s Letter to St Timothy.
He reflected on the meaning of these two phrases for "today’s Christian community, engaged in the synodal process”.
Get up quickly
St Peter, the Pope recalled, had been imprisoned by Herod when an angel appeared to him, woke him, and ordered him to “get up quickly.”
“The scene reminds us of Easter, because it contains two verbs present in the account of Resurrection: ‘awaken’ and ‘get up.’ For Peter, this was the beginning of his escape from Herod’s jail, while for the Church it stands as a call to enter into the mystery of the Resurrection, and allow the Lord to guide us along the paths he wishes to point out to us.”
Often, however, “we experience forms of resistance that prevent us from setting out,” including laziness, or fear of change, leading to spiritual mediocrity. We are called by the Synod now in progress “to become a Church that gets up, one that is not turned in on itself, but capable of pressing forward, leaving behind its own prisons and setting out to meet the world.”
‘Fight the good fight’
The second phrase comes from St Paul’s Letter to Timothy, where, looking back on his whole life, he says, “I have fought the good fight.” St Paul sees that fight going on throughout history, “since many people are not disposed to accept Jesus, preferring to pursue their own interests and follow other teachers.” Having fought his own battles, St paul calls on Timothy and the Christians in the community to carry on his work “with watchful care, preaching, and teaching.”
Pope Francis said Paul’s exhortation “is also a word of life for us,” helping us realize that we are all called to be missionary disciples, with everyone offering their own contribution.
The Pope posed two questions for modern Christians. First, he said, we must ask “What can I do for the Church?” He warned against complaining about the Church and invited the faithful to participate in the Church’s work with passion and humility. This, he said, “is what a synodal Church means: everyone has a part to play, no individual in the place of others or above others.”
Then, “What can we do together, as Church, to make the world in which we live more humane, just, and solidary, more open to God and to fraternity among men?” This does not mean retreating into “ecclesial circles,” trapped in fruitless debates, but instead, “helping one another to be leaven in the dough of the world”…
This report was originally published on Vatican News website. Please click here to read the full text.
