Pope Francis at Tbilisi Mass: God’s consolation calls
us to be childlike
(Vatican Radio) In Tbilisi
Saturday, Pope Francis offered words of consolation to Georgia’s small Catholic
community and invited the faithful to be like little children who are so
lovingly embraced by God.
Celebrating Mass at Tbilisi’s
Mikheil Meskhi Stadium on day two of his pastoral visit to the country, Pope Francis spoke of the “importance of women”
as one of the nation’s many treasures.
Quoting Saint Therese of the
Child Jesus whose feast is celebrated on this day, the Pope said, “‘they love
God in much larger numbers than men do.’” He noted the “great number of
grandmothers and mothers who unceasingly defend and pass on the faith” in
Georgia, whose female Saint Nino is credited with first evangelizing in the
fourth century.
As a mother takes upon
herself the burdens and weariness of her children, “ the Pope stressed, “so too
does God take upon himself our sins and troubles” in his infinite love for us.
Keep the door of
consolation open to Jesus
God, he said, is always ready
to offer us consolation in times of need, “amid the turmoil we experience in
life.” It “liberates us from evil, brings peace and increases our joy.”
But, he warned, we must leave
the “doors of consolation” open to Jesus, through daily reading of the Gospel,
silent prayers in adoration, confession and receiving the Eucharist.
When the door of our heart is
closed, he said, we “get accustomed to pessimism” and “end up absorbed in our
own sadness, in the depths of anguish, isolated.”
God best consoles us, he
noted, “when we are united, in communion” and the Church is “the house of
consolation” to which we should turn.
Pope Francis urged the
faithful to offer to others the same consolation that they receive.
“Even when enduring affliction and rejection,” he said, “a Christian is always
called to bring hope to the hearts of those who have given up, to encourage the
downhearted, to bring the light of Jesus…and his forgiveness.”
“Countless people suffer
trials and injustice and live in anxiety,” he continued. And though God’s
consolation cannot take away our problems, he said, it “gives us the power to
love, to peacefully bear pain.”
Consolation: the Church’s
urgent mission
Receiving and bringing God’s
consolation, he stressed, is the Church’s “urgent” mission.
And in order to do this, he
said, we must become, as Jesus tells us, like a little child. “For God is
not known through grand ideas and extensive study,” he noted, “but rather
through the littleness of a humble and trusting heart.” Likewise,
prestige and earthly success mean little to God who wishes us to empty
ourselves of such things. “A child has nothing to give and everything to
receive,” the Pope went on: “the one who becomes like a little child is poor in
self but rich in God.”
We are not the masters of
our lives: live in simplicity like children
Children have much to teach
us, he observed: they show us that God “accomplishes great things in those who
put up no resistance to him, who are simple and sincere, without duplicity.”
The Pope reminded the
faithful that we are all children of the Father: “not masters of our lives” or
“autonomous and self-sufficient adults,” but children “who need love and
forgiveness.”
In the same way, Christian
communities who live the Gospel with this simplicity may be “poor in means” but
“are rich in God.” And blessed are those “Shepherds,” the Pope said, “who
do not ride the logic of worldly success, but follow the law of love:
welcoming, listening, serving.” Blessed too, he observed, is the Church
“who does not entrust herself to the criteria of functionalism and
organizational efficiency, nor worries about her image.”
Again quoting St. Theresa,
Pope Francis concluded his Homily by inviting the faithful to “bear with the
faults of others” and delight in the “smallest acts of virtue we see them
practice.” Charity, he said, “cannot remain hidden in the depths of our
hearts.”
(Tracey McClure)
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