Pope's homily during Mass in
Bari: Full text
Pope Francis on Sunday celebrates Mass during a pastoral
visit to the southern Italian city of Bari, telling the faithful gathered that
"the worship of God is contrary to the culture of hatred. "
Please find the full text of the Pope's Homily in Bari
Jesus quotes the ancient law: “An eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth” (Mt 5:38; Ex 21:24). We know
what that law meant: when someone takes something from you, you are to take the
same thing from him. This law of retaliation was actually a sign of
progress, since it prevented excessive retaliation. If someone harms you,
then you can repay him or her in the same degree; you cannot do something
worse. Ending the matter there, in a fair exchange, was a step forward.
But Jesus goes far beyond this: “But I say to you, do not
resist one who is evil” (Mt 5:39). But how, Lord? If
someone thinks badly of me, if someone hurts me, why can I not repay him with
the same currency? “No”, says Jesus. Nonviolence. No act of
violence.
We might think that Jesus’ teaching is a part of a plan; in
the end, the wicked will desist. But that is not why Jesus asks us to
love even those who do us harm. What, then, is the reason? It is
that the Father, our Father, continues to love everyone, even when his love is
not reciprocated. The Father “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the
good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (v. 45). In today’s
first reading, he tells us: “You shall be holy; for I, the Lord your God, am
holy” (Lev 19:2). In other words: “Live like me, seek the
things that I seek”. And that is precisely what Jesus did. He did
not point a finger at those who wrongfully condemned him and put him to a cruel
death, but opened his arms to them on the cross. And he forgave those who
drove the nails into his wrists (cf. Lk 23:33-34).
If we want to be disciples of Christ, if we want to call
ourselves Christians, this is the only way. Having been loved by God, we
are called to love in return; having been forgiven, we are called to forgive;
having been touched by love, we are called to love without waiting for others
to love first; having been saved graciously, we are called to seek no benefit
from the good we do. You may well say: “But Jesus goes too far! He
even says: “Love your enemies and pray for those who they persecute you” (Mt 5:44).
Surely he speaks like this to gain people’s attention, but he cannot really
mean it”. But the opposite is true. Here Jesus is not speaking in
paradoxes or using nice turns of phrase. He is direct and clear. He
quotes the ancient law and solemnly tells us: “But I say to you: love your
enemies”. His words are deliberate and precise.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
This is the Christian innovation. It is the Christian difference.
Pray and love: this is what we must do; and not only with regard to those
who love us, not only with regard to our friends or our own people. The
love of Jesus knows no boundaries or barriers. The Lord demands of us the
courage to have a love that does not count the cost. Because the measure
of Jesus is love without measure. How many times have we neglected that
demand, behaving like everyone else! Yet his commandment of love is not
simply a challenge; it is the very heart of the Gospel. Where the command
of universal love is concerned, let us not accept excuses or preach prudent
caution. The Lord was not cautious; he did not yield to
compromises. He asks of us the extremism of charity. It
is the only kind of Christian extremism: the extremism of love.
Love your enemies. We do well to repeat these
words to ourselves and apply them to those who treat us badly, who annoy us,
whom we find hard to accept, who trouble our serenity. Love your
enemies. We also do well to ask ourselves: “What am I really
concerned about in this life? About my enemies, or about those who
dislike me? Or about loving?” Do not worry about the malice of
others. about those who think ill of you. Instead, begin to disarm your
heart out of love for Jesus. For those who love God have no enemies in
their hearts.
The worship of God is contrary to the culture of hatred.
And the culture of hatred is fought by combatting the cult of
complaint. How many times do we complain about the things that we
lack, about the things that go wrong! Jesus knows about all the things that
don’t work. He knows that there is always going to be someone who
dislikes us. Or someone who makes our life miserable. All he asks
us to do is pray and love. This is the revolution of Jesus, the greatest
revolution in history: from hating our enemy to loving our enemy; from the cult
of complaint to the culture of gift. If we belong to Jesus, this is the
road we are called to take!
But you can object: “I understand the grandeur of the ideal,
but that is not how life really is! If I love and forgive, I will not
survive in this world, where the logic of power prevails and people seem to be
concerned only with themselves”. So is Jesus’ logic, his way of seeing
things, the logic of losers? In the eyes of the world, it is, but in the
eyes of God it is the logic of winners. As Saint Paul told us in the
second reading: “Let no one deceive himself... For the wisdom of this world is
folly with God” (1 Cor 3:18-19). God sees what we cannot see.
He knows how to win. He knows that evil can only be conquered by
goodness. That is how he saved us: not by the sword, but by the cross.
To love and forgive is to live as a conqueror. We will lose if we
defend the faith by force.
The Lord would repeat to us the words he addressed to Peter
in Gethsemane: “Put your sword into its sheath” (Jn 18:11).
In the Gethsemanes of today, in our indifferent and unjust world that
seems to testify to the agony of hope, a Christian cannot be like those
disciples who first took up the sword and later fled. No, the solution is
not to draw our sword against others, or to flee from the times in which we
live. The solution is the way of Jesus: active love, humble love, love
“to the end” (Jn 13:1).
Dear brothers and sisters, today Jesus, with his limitless
love, raises the bar of our humanity. In the end, we can ask ourselves:
“Will we be able to make it?” If the goal were impossible, the Lord would
not have asked us to strive for it. By our own effort, it is difficult to
achieve; it is a grace and it needs to be implored. Ask God for the
strength to love. Say to him: “Lord, help me to love, teach me to
forgive. I cannot do it alone, I need you”. But we also have to ask
for the grace to be able to see others not as hindrances and complications, but
as brothers and sisters to be loved. How often we pray for help and
favours for ourselves, yet how seldom do we pray to learn how to love! We
need to pray more frequently for the grace to live the essence of the Gospel,
to be truly Christian. For “in the evening of life, we will be judged on
love” (Saint John of the Cross, Sayings of Light and Love, 57).
Today let us choose love, whatever the cost, even if it
means going against the tide. Let us not yield to the thinking of this
world, or content ourselves with half measures. Let us accept the
challenge of Jesus, the challenge of charity. Then we will be true
Christians and our world will be more human.
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