Pope: ‘Saints risk everything to
put the Gospel into practice’
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| Canonization in St.Peter's Square. |
Pope Francis on Sunday declared Pope Paul VI and murdered
Salvadoran bishop Oscar Romero Saints. The canonization Mass, during which five
other lesser-known blessed were also elevated to sainthood, took place in St.
Peter’s Square.
In a ceremony before tens of thousands of people, Pope
Francis canonized Pope Paul VI, Archbishop Oscar
Romero, Francesco Spinelli, Vincenzo Romano, Maria
Caterina Kasper, Nazaria Ignazia of Saint Teresa of Jesus,
and Nunzio Sulprizio.
“All these saints, he said, in different contexts, put
today’s word into practice in their lives, without lukewarmness, without
calculation, with the passion to risk everything and to leave it all
behind. May the Lord help us to imitate their example".
This is the full text of his homily:
The second reading tells
us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword
(Heb 4:12). It really is: God’s word is not merely a set of
truths or an edifying spiritual account; no – it is a living word that touches
our lives, that transforms our lives. There, Jesus in person, the living
Word of God, speaks to our hearts.
The Gospel,
in particular, invites us to an encounter with the Lord, after the example of
the “man” who “ran up to him” (cf. Mk 10:17). We can
recognize ourselves in that man, whose name the text does not give, as if to
suggest that he could represent each one of us. He asks Jesus how “to inherit eternal
life” (v. 17). He is seeking life without end, life in its fullness: who
of us would not want this? Yet we notice that he asks for it as an inheritance,
as a good to be obtained, to be won by his own efforts. In fact, in order
to possess this good, he has observed the commandments from his youth and to
achieve this he is prepared to follow others; and so he asks: “What must I
do to have eternal life?”
Jesus’s
answer catches him off guard. The Lord looks upon him and loves him (cf.
v. 21). Jesus changes the perspective: from commandments observed in
order to obtain a reward, to a free and total love. That man was speaking
in terms of supply and demand, Jesus proposes to him a story of love. He
asks him to pass from the observance of laws to the gift of self, from doing
for oneself to being with God. And the Lord suggests
to the man a life that cuts to the quick: “Sell what you have and give to the
poor…and come, follow me” (v. 21). To you, too, Jesus says: “Come, follow
me!” Come: do not stand still, because it is not enough not
to do evil in order to be with Jesus. Follow me: do not walk
behind Jesus only when you want to, but seek him out every day; do not be
content to keep the commandments, to give a little alms and say a few prayers:
find in Him the God who always loves you; seek in Jesus the God who is the
meaning of your life, the God who gives you the strength to give of yourself.
Again Jesus
says: “Sell what you have and give to the poor.” The Lord does not
discuss theories of poverty and wealth, but goes directly to life. He
asks you to leave behind what weighs down your heart, to empty
yourself of goods in order to make room for him, the only good. We cannot
truly follow Jesus when we are laden down with things. Because if our
hearts are crowded with goods, there will not be room for the Lord, who will become
just one thing among the others. For this reason, wealth is dangerous and
– says Jesus – even makes one’s salvation difficult. Not because God is
stern, no! The problem is on our part: our having too much, our wanting
too much suffocates our hearts and makes us incapable of loving.
Therefore, Saint Paul writes that “the love of money is the root of all evils”
(1 Tim 6:10). We see this where money is at the centre, there
is no room for God nor for man.
Jesus is
radical. He gives all and he asks all: he gives a love that
is total and asks for an undivided heart. Even today he gives himself to
us as the living bread; can we give him crumbs in exchange? We cannot
respond to him, who made himself our servant even going to the cross for us, only
by observing some of the commandments. We cannot give him, who offers us
eternal life, some odd moment of time. Jesus is not content with a
“percentage of love”: we cannot love him twenty or fifty or sixty
percent. It is either all or nothing.
Dear
brothers and sisters, our heart is like a magnet: it lets itself be attracted
by love, but it can cling to one master only and it must choose: either it will
love God or it will love the world’s treasure (cf. Mt 6:24);
either it will live for love or it will live for itself (cf. Mk 8:35).
Let us ask ourselves where we are in our story of love with God. Do we
content ourselves with a few commandments or do we follow Jesus as
lovers, really prepared to leave behind something for him? Jesus asks each
of us and all of us as the Church journeying forward: are we a Church that only
preaches good commandments or a Church that is a spouse, that launches herself
forward in love for her Lord? Do we truly follow him or do we revert to
the ways of the world, like that man in the Gospel? In a word, is Jesus
enough for us or do we look for many worldly securities? Let us ask for
the grace always to leave things behind for
love of the Lord: to leave behind wealth, the yearning for status and power,
structures that are no longer adequate for proclaiming the Gospel, those
weights that slow down our mission, the strings that tie us to the world.
Without a leap forward in love, our life and our Church become sick from
“complacency and self-indulgence” (Evangelii Gaudium, 95): we find joy
in some fleeting pleasure, we close ourselves off in useless gossip, we settle
into the monotony of a Christian life without momentum, where a little
narcissism covers over the sadness of remaining unfulfilled.
This is how
it was for the man, who – the Gospel tells us – “went away sorrowful”
(v. 22). He was tied down to regulations of the law and to his many
possessions; he had not given over his heart. Even though he had encountered
Jesus and received his loving gaze, the man went away sad. Sadness is the
proof of unfulfilled love, the sign of a lukewarm heart. On the other
hand, a heart unburdened by possessions, that freely loves the Lord, always
spreads joy, that joy for which there is so much need today.
Pope Saint Paul VI wrote: “It is indeed in the midst of their distress that our
fellow men need to know joy, to hear its song” (Gaudete in Domino,
I). Today Jesus invites us to return to the source of joy, which is the
encounter with him, the courageous choice to risk everything to follow him, the
satisfaction of leaving something behind in order to embrace his way. The
saints have travelled this path.
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