Pope in Bulgaria: Full text of
homily at Mass
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| Pope Francis celebrates Mass in Prince Alexander I Square, Sofia, Bulgaria on May 5, 2019 (Vatican Media) |
The last public event of the first day of Pope Francis in
the Bulgarian capital Sofia was a Sunday evening Mass in Prince Alexander I
Square.
In his homily at Mass, Pope Francis reflected on the day’s
Gospel on the way Jesus reveals Himself again to His disciples at the Sea of
Tiberias after His resurrection.
Through the episode, the Pope explained how God calls,
surprises us and loves us.
Please find below the full text of the Pope’s speech:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Christ is risen!
It is wonderful to see how with these words Christians in
your country greet one another in the joy of the Risen Lord during the Easter
season.
The entire episode we have just heard, drawn from the final
pages of the Gospels, helps us immerse ourselves in this joy that the Lord asks
us to spread. It does so by reminding us of three amazing things that are
part of our lives as disciples: God calls, God surprises, God
loves.
God calls. Everything takes place on the shore of the
Sea of Galilee, where Jesus first called Peter. He had called him to
leave behind his trade as a fisher in order to become a fisher of men
(cf. Lk 5:4-11). Now, after all that had happened to
him, after the experience of seeing the Master die and hearing news of his
resurrection, Peter goes back to his former life. He tells the others
disciples, “I am going fishing”. And they follow suit: “We will go with
you” (Jn 21:3). They seem to take a step backwards; Peter
takes up the nets he had left behind for Jesus. The weight of suffering,
disappointment, and of betrayal had become like a stone blocking the hearts of
the disciples. They were still burdened with pain and guilt, and the good
news of the resurrection had not taken root in their hearts.
The Lord knows what a strong temptation it is for us to
return to the way things were before. In the Bible, Peter’s nets, like
the fleshpots of Egypt, are a symbol of a tempting nostalgia for the
past, of wanting to take back what we had decided to leave behind. In
the face of failure, hurt, or even the fact that at times things do not go the
way we want, there always comes a subtle and dangerous temptation to become
disheartened and to give up. This is the tomb psychology that
tinges everything with dejection and leads us to indulge in a soothing sense of
self-pity that, like a moth, eats away at all our hope. Then the worst
thing that can happen to any community begins to appear – the grim pragmatism
of a life in which everything appears to proceed normally, while in reality
faith is wearing down and degenerating into small-mindedness (cf. Evangelii
Gaudium, 83).
But it was at the very moment of Peter’s failure that Jesus
appears, starts over, patiently comes to him and calls him “Simon” (v. 15) –
the name Peter received when he was first called. The Lord does not wait
for perfect situations or frames of mind: he creates them. He does not
expect to encounter people without problems, disappointments, sins or limitations.
He himself confronted sin and disappointment in order to encourage all men and
women to persevere. Brothers and sisters, the Lord never tires of calling
us. His is the power of a Love that overturns every expectation and is
always ready to start anew. In Jesus, God always offers us another
chance. He calls us day by day to deepen our love for him and to be
revived by his eternal newness. Every morning, he comes to find us where
we are. He summons us “to rise at his word, to look up and to realize
that we were made for heaven, not for earth, for the heights of life and not
for the depths of death”, and to stop seeking “the living among the dead” (Homily
at the Easter Vigil, 20 April 2019). When we welcome him, we rise
higher and are able to embrace a brighter future, not as a possibility but as a
reality. When Jesus’s call directs our lives, our hearts grow young.
God surprises. He is the Lord of surprises. He
invites us not only to be surprised, but also to do surprising things.
The Lord calls the disciples and, seeing them with empty nets, he tells them to
do something odd: to fish by day, something quite out of the ordinary on that
lake. He revives their trust by urging them once more to take a risk, not
to give up on anyone or anything. He is the Lord of surprises, who breaks
down paralyzing barriers by filling us with the courage needed to overcome the
suspicion, mistrust and fear that so often lurk behind the mindset that says,
“We have always done things this way”. God surprises us whenever he calls
and asks us to put out into the sea of history not only with our nets, but with
our very selves. To look at our lives and those of others as he does, for
“in sin, he sees sons and daughters to be restored; in death, brothers and sisters
to be reborn; in desolation, hearts to be revived. Do not fear, then: the
Lord loves your life, even when you are afraid to look at it and take it in
hand” (ibid.).
We can now turn to the third amazing thing: God calls and
God surprises, because God loves. Love is his language. That is why
he asks Peter, and us, to learn that language. He asks Peter: “Do you
love me?” And Peter says yes; after spending so much time with Jesus, he
now understands that to love means to stop putting himself at the centre.
He now makes Jesus, and not himself, the starting point: “You know
everything” (Jn 21:18), he says. Peter recognizes his
weakness; he realizes that he cannot make progress on his own. And he
takes his stand on the Lord and on the strength of his love, to the very
end.
The Lord loves us: this is the source of our strength and we
are asked to reaffirm it each day. Being a Christian is a summons to
realize that God’s love is greater than all our shortcomings and sins.
One of our great disappointments and difficulties today comes not from knowing
that God is love, but that our way of proclaiming and bearing witness to him is
such that, for many people, this is not his name. God is love that loves,
that bestows itself, that calls and surprises.
Here we see the miracle of God, who makes of our lives works
of art, if only we let ourselves to be led by his love. Many of the
witnesses of Easter in this blessed land created magnificent masterpieces,
inspired by simple faith and great love. Offering their lives, they
became living signs of the Lord, overcoming apathy with courage and offering a
Christian response to the concerns that they encountered (cf. Christus
Vivit, 174). Today we are called to lift up our eyes and acknowledge
what the Lord has done in the past, and to walk with him towards the future,
knowing that, whether we succeed or fail, he will always be there to keep
telling us to cast our nets.
Here I would like to repeat what I said to young people in
my recent Exhortation. A young Church, young not in terms of age but in
the grace of the Spirit, is inviting us to testify to the love of Christ, a
love that inspires and directs us to strive for the common good. This
love enables us to serve the poor and to become protagonists of the revolution
of charity and service, capable of resisting the pathologies of consumerism and
superficial individualism. Brimming with the love of Christ, be living
witnesses of the Gospel in every corner of this city (cf. Christus
Vivit, 174-175). Do not be afraid of becoming the saints that this
land greatly needs. Do not be afraid of holiness. It will take away
none of your energy, vitality or joy. On the contrary, you and all the
sons and daughters of this land will become what the Father had in mind when he
created you (cf. Gaudete et Exsultate, 32).
Called, surprised and sent for love!
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