Pope’s Angelus in Lithuania:
fight temptation to dominate by serving others
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| Pope Francis at Mass in Kaunas, Lithuania on September 23, 2018. (Vatican Media) |
Pope Francis recited the Marian “Angelus” prayer at the end
of the Mass in Kaunas and shared a reflection on how to fight the ungodly
temptation of dominating others.
By Robin Gomes
In his “Angelus” message at the end of the Mass at Santakos
Park in Kaunas, Pope Francis urged Lituhuanians to fight the ungodly
temptation of dominating others with the antidote offered by Jesus – by being
the last of all and the servant of all.
Pope Francis explained that the ungodly who
claim to believe that “power is the norm of justice”, dominate the weak, use
their power to impose a way of thinking, an ideology, a prevailing
mindset. Recalling the 1943 destruction of the ghetto of Vilnius,
that was the climax of 2 years of the killing of the Jews. The Holy
Father lamented that in the ungodly, evil is always trying to destroy good.
Antidote against temptation to dominate
He urged Lithuanians to watch out against the
resurgence of that “pernicious attitude” of dominating others,
saying any trace of it can taint the heart of generations that have not gone
through those times.
The Pope said, Jesus offers us an antidote against the
temptation of the desire for primacy and domination over others, which can
dwell in our heart or in the heart of any society or country. Jesus
asks us “to be the last of all and the servant of all; to go to the
place where no one else wants to go, where no one travels, the furthest peripheries;
to serve and come to know the lowly and the rejected.” “We
could allow the Gospel of Jesus Christ to reach the depths of
our lives, then the 'globalization of solidarity' would be a
reality."
Hill of Crosses
Recalling Lithuania’s famous Hill of Crosses, where
thousands have planted their crosses, the Pope asked the faithful to implore
the Blessed Virgin to help them all plant their own crosses of service
and commitment to the needs of others, on that hill where the poor dwell,
where care and concern are needed for the outcast and
for minorities. In this way, he said, “we can keep far from
our lives and our cultures the possibility of destroying one another, of
marginalizing, of continuing to discard whatever we find troublesome or
uncomfortable.”
At the end, the Pope said that in the afternoon he would
stop at the monument of the Vilnius Ghetto to pray on
the 75th anniversary of its destruction. He invoked
God’s blessing on dialogue and common commitment for justice and peace.
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