Ponder Christ’s Passion amid the coronavirus crisis, pope urges

The flag of Vatican City with St. Peter’s Basilica in the background. Credit: Bohumil Petrik/CNA.

Vatican City, Jul 16, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
As a nine-month abuse and cover-up trial comes to a close, a prosecutor has asked the Vatican’s court … […]

Pope Francis delivers his homily during the Mass for the Solemnity of the Epiphany in St. Peter’s Basilica on Jan. 7, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Jan 6, 2024 / 09:50 am (CNA).

Drawing on account of the Magi on the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, Pope Francis on Saturday urged the faithful to “find God in flesh and bone, in the faces of those we meet each day, and especially in the poor.” 

“The Magi teach us that an encounter with God opens us up to a greater reality, which makes us change our way of life and transform our world,” the pope said during his homily at a Mass Jan. 6 in St. Peter’s Basilica attended by nearly 6,000 people.

In the Latin rite of the Catholic Church, Epiphany (from the Greek word meaning “manifestation”) celebrates the revelation that Jesus was the Son of God. It focuses primarily on this revelation to the three Magi, or wise men, but it also focuses on the manifestation of Jesus’ divinity at his baptism in the Jordan River and in his first public miracle at the wedding at Cana.

The 87-year-old pontiff emphasized that the wise men’s journey was one of adoration and love, but he noted that “they do not pass their lives staring at their feet, self-absorbed, confined by earthly horizons, plodding ahead in resignation or lamentation.” 

Instead, the pope continued, “they lift their heads high and await the light that can illuminate the meaning of their lives, the salvation that dawns from on high.”

For the Magi “the star shining in the heavens” was a call to both lift “their eyes on high” and “lower them to this world.” In this way, the pope continued, they were able to recognize that God is not an abstract concept, but instead is humbly manifest “in man, in a little child lying in a manger.”

The adoration of the Christ child is a moment that “illuminates our life,” Francis noted.

“The Lord Jesus was given to us not to warm our nights, but to let rays of light break through the dark shadows that envelop so many situations in our societies,” he said.

“We find the God who comes down to visit us, not by basking in some elegant religious theory, but by setting out on a journey, seeking the signs of his presence in everyday life, and above all in encountering and touching the flesh of our brothers and sisters.” 

The Holy Father called on the faithful to remain in God’s presence and stay faithful to the Church.

“We need this on our journey through life, we need to let ourselves walk in friendship with the Lord, we need his love to sustain us, and the light of his word to guide us, like a star in the night,” Pope Francis said.

At the same time, he continued, “we need to set out on this journey so that our faith will not be reduced to an assemblage of religious devotions or mere outward appearance, but will instead become a fire burning within us, making us passionate seekers of the Lord’s face and witnesses to his Gospel.”

Pope Francis added: “We need this in the Church, where, instead of splitting into groups based on our own ideas, we are called to put God back at the center.” 

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Vatican City, Apr 21, 2020 / 03:30 am (CNA).- The Holy Spirit can help Christians overcome the three temptations that destroy community life, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass Tuesday.

The pope noted April 21 that money, vanity and idle chatter have divided believers since the early days of Christianity.

“But the Spirit always comes with his strength to save us from this worldliness of money, vanity and idle chatter,” he said, “because the Spirit is not the world: he is against the world. He is capable of doing these miracles, these great things.”

Reflecting on the day’s Gospel (John 3:7-15), in which Jesus tells Nicodemus that he “must be born from above,” the pope said we are reborn through the Holy Spirit rather than by our own efforts. 

“Our docility opens the door to the Holy Spirit: it is He who makes the change, the transformation, this rebirth from above,” he said. “It is Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is capable of doing wonders, things that we cannot even think about.”

Speaking from the chapel of his Vatican residence, Casa Santa Marta, the pope turned to the day’s first reading (Acts 4:32-37), which describes the harmony among the first Christians. This description was no fantasy, he said, but rather a model for today’s Church.

“It is true that immediately after this problems will begin,” he observed, “but the Lord shows us how far we can go if we are open to the Holy Spirit, if we are docile. In this community there is harmony.”

Pope Francis said that many things divided parishes, dioceses, communities of priests, and men and women religious. He identified three major temptations: money, vanity and idle chatter.

“Money divides the community,” he said. “For this reason, poverty is the mother of the community. Poverty is the wall that guards the community. Money divides … Even in families: how many families ended up divided by an inheritance?”

He continued: “Another thing that divides a community is vanity, that desire to feel better than others. ‘Thank you, Lord, that I am not like the others:’ the Pharisee’s prayer.” 

Vanity could be seen at the celebration of sacraments, the pope said, with people vying to wear the best clothes. 

“Vanity enters there too. And vanity divides. Because vanity leads you to be a peacock and where there is a peacock, there is division, always,” he said.

“A third thing that divides a community is idle chatter: it’s not the first time I’ve said it, but it’s reality … That thing that the devil puts in us, like a need to talk about others. ‘What a good person that is…’ — ‘Yes, yes, but…’ Immediately the ‘but:’ that’s a stone to disqualify the other.”

Yet with the Holy Spirit we are able to resist all three temptations, he said, concluding: “Let us ask the Lord this docility to the Spirit so that He may transform us and transform our communities, our parish, diocesan, religious communities: transform them, so that we may always move forward in the harmony that Jesus wants for the Christian community.”

After Mass, the pope presided at adoration and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. 

He led those watching via livestream in an act of spiritual communion, praying: “My Jesus, I believe that you are truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love you above all things, and I desire to receive you into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace you as being already there and unite myself wholly to you. Never permit me to be separated from you.”

Finally, those present sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”

At the start of Mass, Pope Francis noted that amid the coronavirus lockdown towns and cities had fallen silent.

“In this time there is so much silence,” he said. “One can also feel the silence. May this silence, which is a little new in our habits, teach us to listen, make us grow in our ability to listen. Let us pray for this.”

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