Pope at Mass: we have access to
the Father in Jesus through prayer
On the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Pope Francis offers Mass for
the unity of Europe and reflects on the most important task of every Bishops:
prayer
By Sr Bernadette Mary Reis, fsp
Pope Francis began Sunday morning Mass at the Casa Santa
Marta recalling two anniversaries that have fallen in the past two days. The
first, “the 70th anniversary of Robert Shuman’s Declaration out of which the
European Union was born", and the second, "the commemoration of the
end of the war”. He invited us to “pray to the Lord for Europe that it might
grow united, in this fraternal unity that allows all peoples to grow in unity
in diversity”.
During his homily, he reflected on Jesus’s intercessory role
before His Father described in the Gospel (John 14:1-12). Then he focused on
Peter's description of the role of the Apostles (Acts 6:1-7). This also applies
to the role of the Successors of the Apostles, the Bishops. Their first task,
Pope Francis emphasized, is prayer, then the proclamation of the Word.
Jesus’s intercessory role
The Pope said that the first part of John chapter 14
describes Jesus’s intercessory role before the Father on our behalf. So many
times Jesus spoke about the Father’s care for us, Pope Francis said. “He spoke
of the Father as the One who takes care of us just as He takes care of the
birds of heaven and the lilies of the field”, he said.
“Jesus is very strong in this passage. It is as if He is
opening the doors of the omnipotence of prayer: ‘Whatever you ask in my name, I
will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of
me in my name, I will do it’ (John 13-14)."
Pope Francis then recalled that prayer requires courage and
the same boldness needed in preaching the Gospel. Abraham and Moses provide
examples to us. Both “negotiated” with the Lord, Pope Francis said: Abraham,
when the Lord told him about what was to happen to Sodom and Gomorrah (see
Genesis 18:16-33), and Moses, when God wanted to destroy His people and make
Moses the head of another nation (see Exodus 32:7-14).
Deacons and Bishops
The Pope then turned to the First Reading in which Peter is
inspired to create a new service in the Church after the Greek-speaking
converts complained that their widows were being neglected. “The apostles
didn't have time for all of these things and Peter, enlightened by the Holy
Spirit, ‘invents’ (we can say it this way) the deacons”, Pope Francis said.
This resolved the situation, the Pope went on. The people in
need could be well taken care of and the Apostles, as Peter said, could devote
themselves "to prayer and to the proclamation of the Word”.
Bishop’s primary duty
Pope Francis then went on to develop the thought that the
primary task of a bishop is to pray. The bishop, he said, “is the first to go
to the Father, with the confidence, the boldness, with which Jesus went in
order to fight on behalf of his people”.
“Something is not right”, Pope Francis continued, “if other
things take away space for prayer”. He reminded us that it is “God who does
things, we do very little. God does things in His Church”. It is, therefore,
“prayer that makes the Church progress”.
This reality is so because Jesus stands before the Father
and has promised that “whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the
Father may be glorified”.
The Pope concluded his homily saying that the “Church
progresses in this courageous prayer because she knows that without this
ascension to the Father, she cannot survive”.
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