Pope’s Mass on Sunday for those
guaranteeing public services
Those “working to guarantee public services” were on the
Pope’s heart as he celebrates Mass on Sunday at the Casa Santa Marta.
By Vatican News
Pope Francis began his Sunday morning liturgy at the Casa
Santa Marta by recalling those who are sick and suffering. Then he asked us all
to pray with him especially “for all those who are working to guarantee public
services: those working in pharmacies, supermarkets, transportation, police
officers…so that social and civil life can go ahead”.
His homily focused on the passage of the Samaritan Woman
proposed for the Gospel reading for the Third Sunday of Lent.
Courage to own one’s truth
Pope Francis characterized Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan
woman as a “dialogue, an historical dialogue. It’s not a parable. It happened”,
he said. Jesus meets a woman, a sinner and “for the first time in the Gospel,
Jesus manifests His identity. He manifests it to a sinner who has the courage
to tell Him the truth”. And based on that truth, “she went to proclaim Jesus.
‘Come. Perhaps He’s the Messiah, because He told me everything that I have
done’ “.
Salvation based on truth
The Pope went on to explain that it was not through the
theoretical debate about whether God should be worshipped on this or that
mountain that the woman discovers Jesus’s true identity. Rather, the woman
discovers that He is the Messiah because “of her truth” which sanctifies and
justifies her.
“That's what the Lord uses – her truth – to proclaim the
Gospel. One cannot be a disciple of Jesus without one's own truth. …This
woman had the courage to dialogue with Jesus. Because these two peoples
did not dialogue with each other. She had the courage to interest herself in
Jesus’s proposal, in that water, because she knew she was thirsty. She had the
courage of confessing her weakness and her sins.
Truth leads to faith
Furthermore, the Pope continued, the Samaritan woman’s
courage led her to “use her own story as the guarantee that that that
man was a prophet".
“The Lord always wants transparent dialogue without
hiding things, without duplicitous intentions. Just as it is. I can speak with
the Lord this way, just as I am with my own truth. Thus, from my own truth with
the strength of the Holy Spirit, I will find the truth – that the Lord is the
saviour, the One who came to save me and to save us.”
Faith leads to proclamation
Because the dialogue between the Samaritan woman and Jesus
was so transparent, the Pope said she was then able to proclaim “Jesus’
Messianic reality” which brought “the conversion of that people…. It’s the time
of the harvest”, Pope Francis said.
The Pope’s prayer
As is his custom, Pope Francis then concluded his homily
with a prayer:
“May the Lord grant us the grace of praying always in
truth, to turn to the Lord with my own truth and not with the others’ truth,
not with truth that's been distilled in debates…. ‘It’s true, I’ve had five
husbands. This is my truth.’ ”
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