(Vatican Radio) When the Church is humble and poor, then
"it is faithful" to Christ, giving all it has for the Lord and
others, leaving nothing for itself said Pope Francis at morning Mass in
Casa Santa Marta Monday.
Pope Francis based his reflections on the Gospel of the Day
which recounts the episode of the poor widow who gives all that she has – two
small coins or mites – to the Temple treasury, while the rich made offerings
from their surplus wealth under the gaze of Jesus. Pope Francis said the Gospel
captures two tendencies always present in the history of the Church. The Church
tempted by vanity and the "poor Church", which - he says - "must
have no other riches than her Spouse", like the humble widow:
"I like to see the Church
in this figure, the Church which is, in a sense, a widow, because she waiting
for her Bridegroom who will return ... But she has her Bridegroom in the
Eucharist, in the Word of God, in the poor, yes: but she is still waiting for
his return. This is the attitude of the Church... This widow was not important,
the widow’s name did not appear in the newspapers. No one knew her. She had no
university degrees... nothing. Nothing. She didn’t shine of her own light. This
is what makes me see the Church in the figure of this woman. The Church must
not shine on her own light, but the light that comes from her Bridegroom. That
comes right from her Bridegroom. And over the centuries, when the Church wanted
to have her own light, she was wrong”.
"It's true,"
continued Pope Francis, "that sometimes the Lord can ask His Church to
have, to shine some its own light" but this means that if the Church's
mission is to illuminate humanity, the light that she gifts must be the one she
has received from Christ in an attitude of humility:
"Everything we do in the
Church is to help us in this, to help us receive that light. Service without
this light is no good: it makes the Church rich, or powerful, or makes the
Church seek power, or take the wrong road, as has happened many times in
history, as happens in our lives, when we want to have another light, which is
not exactly that of the Lord: a light of our own".
When the Church
"is faithful to hope and to her Bridegroom," repeated Papa Francis,
"it is a joy to receive the light from Him, to be in this sense 'widow' ',
waiting, like the moon, for the “sun that will return":
"When the Church is
humble, when the Church is poor, even when the Church confesses her
wretchedness – we all experience this – then the Church is faithful. The Church
says: ‘I am dark, but my light comes from there!' This does us all good. Let us
pray to this widow who is certainly in Heaven, to teach us to be the
Church like this, giving everything we have in life: leaving nothing for us.
Everything for the Lord and for others. Humble. Without boasting of having our
own light, always seeking the light that comes from the Lord".
(Emer McCarthy)
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