Pope at Mass: “I thank God for
their heroic example”
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| Pope Francis during Benediction, Casa Santa Marta, 24 March 2020 |
Medical personnel who have given their lives caring for
coronavirus patients receive the Pope’s admiration during Mass on Tuesday at
the Casa Santa Marta.
By Vatican News
Pope Francis began his Mass at the Casa Santa Marta on
Tuesday morning with these words:
“I received the news that in these days, a number of
doctors and priests have died, I don't know if there were a few nurses. They
were infected…because they were serving the sick. Let’s pray for them, for
their families. I thank God for the example of heroism they give us in caring
for the sick.”
He then reflected on the theme of water suggested by the
readings of the fourth Tuesday of Lent (Ezekiel 47:1-9, 12; John 5 1-16).
Water heals
Pope Francis began his homily saying that the day’s readings
present water as a sign and means of salvation. This water brings life, and
heals the “waters of the sea”, making it “new water”.
It is beside a pool of water that Jesus encounters a
paralyzed man. He’d been waiting beside that water to be healed for 38
years. Pope Francis then delved into the incongruity of a man who waited that
long without doing anything to help himself.
“It makes us think. It's a bit long, isn't it?
Because someone who wants to be healed would have organized things so that
someone would help him….”
The paralysis of apathy
His response also makes us wonder. “He doesn't say ‘Yes”; he
complains. About the illness? No.” the Pope said. Neither do we see him jumping
for joy or “telling the whole world” as others did after they were healed. He
doesn’t even thank Jesus when they meet up again in the Temple. Rather, he goes
off to inform the authorities. What’s wrong with this man?
“His heart was sick. His soul was sick. He was ailing
from pessimism…from sadness…from apathy (acedia). This is the man’s sickness.
‘Yes, I want to live’, and he just stayed there. Is his response: ‘Yes, I would
like to be healed’? No, it’s ‘it's always the others that get there first’. It's
always the others. The response to Jesus’s offer of healing is complaining
about the others…for 38 years…doing nothing to be healed”.
Surviving not living
The Pope went on to describe this as a “sin of surviving and
complaining about others’ lives”. It inhibits this man from “making any
decisions for his own life”. “ ‘I'm a victim of this life’. These type of
people breathe by complaining,” the Pope remarked. We do not see the “joy and
decisiveness” that the man blind from birth had after being healed. “Many of us
Christians live in this state of apathy”, the Pope said.
“They are incapable of doing a lot but they complain
about everything. Apathy is poison. It’s a fog that surrounds the soul that
doesn’t allow it to live. It's also a drug because if you taste it often, you
like it. You end up addicted to sadness, addicted to apathy…. This is a fairly
habitual sin among us. Sadness, apathy…. I’m not going to say melancholy, but
it's very similar…. It is a gray life, gray because of this bad spirit of
apathy, sadness, melancholy”.
The waters of Baptism makes us new
Pope Francis concluded his homily encouraging us to reread
the 5th chapter of John.
“Let's think of water, that water that is the symbol of
our strength, of our life – the water that Jesus used to regenerate us in
Baptism. Let’s also think about ourselves – if there is the danger that one of
us might slip into this apathy, into this “neutral” sin – neither black nor
white…. This is a sin that the devil can use to drown our spiritual life and
our personal life. May the Lord help us understand how awful and evil this sin
is.”
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