Pope Invites Homeless People to Be Great Teachers in Society... from ZENIT of Roswell, Georgia, United States for Friday, 11 November 2016
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Pope Invites Homeless People to Be Great Teachers in Society by Rocío Lancho García
“Be passionate and dream,” was Pope Francis’ invitation today to persons living “in precarious conditions.” The audience, and his 20-minute off-the-cuff address in Spanish, were part of the activities for the Jubilee for the Socially Excluded.
Today’s audience brought some 6,000 people to Rome, men and women from various European nations, who have lived, or are even now, living on the street.
The Jubilee further welcomed not only the homeless, but also disadvantaged persons and people living in poverty.
The event was made possible with the help of “Fratello,” an association which organizes and hosts events with and for people in situations of exclusion, in partnership with associations assisting these people.
Following testimonies from two of the participants, Pope Francis addressed the crowd, thanking them for coming to Rome to meet with him and to pray for him. The Holy Father reflected on some of the ideas brought up by the two people who spoke before him.
The Holy Father spoke to them of the passion that sometimes makes us suffer, puts internal and external obstacles in us, the passion of sickness, but also the passion to go forward, the good passion that leads to dream.
Moreover, he assured them that for him a person is poor when he loses “the capacity to dream, to lead a passion forward.” Therefore, the Pontiff asked them to not cease dreaming; “dream that one day the world will change.”
In that same line, he stressed that “poverty is at the heart of the Gospel.” Only one who feels he is lacking something, looks up and dreams, he said. One who has everything cannot dream.”
Thank you
The Pontiff asked those present to teach “all of us who have a roof, who do not lack food or medicine.” “Teach us,” he exhorted, “not to be satisfied.”
Another concept to which the Pope made reference in his address was dignity, that is, “to find a beautiful life in the worst situations.” Only a man or a woman with dignity has the capacity to find beauty even in the saddest and most distressing things. “Poor yes, but not dragged-down. That is dignity,” said the Pope.
This is “the same dignity that Jesus had, who was born poor, lived poor.”
“Poor yes, dominated no, exploited no.” This sentiment of seeing that life is beautiful, “this dignity has saved you from being slaves,” he noted. “Poor yes, slaves no.” Moreover, he reflected on the meaning of solidarity. “To be able to help, to give a hand to one who is suffering more than I am.”
“The capacity to be solidaristic is one of the fruits that poverty gives us,” he continued.
“When there is much wealth one forgets to be solidaristic because one is accustomed to not lacking anything,” he warned. While “poverty makes one solidaristic and one stretches one’s hand to one who is going through a more difficult situation.” Therefore, the Holy Father thanked those present for the example they give and he asked them to teach this solidarity to the world.
Peace
In the last part of his address, the Pontiff asked for forgiveness, if at some time he offended them with his words or he did not say things he should have said. He also asked them for forgiveness in the name of Christians who read the Gospel, “not finding poverty at the center.” I ask for forgiveness — said the Pope — for Christians who before a poor person or a situation of poverty look the other way. At the same time, he assured the participants in the meeting that their forgiveness “is holy water for us.” It is, he added, to help us to believe again that poverty is at the heart of the Gospel as a great message.
At the end of the meeting, the Holy Father made this prayer: ”God, Father of us all, of each one of your children, I ask you to give us fortitude, that you give us joy, that you teach us to dream to look ahead. That you teach us to be solidaristic because we are brothers and that you help us to defend our dignity. You are the Father of each one of us. Bless us. Amen.”
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Marking Last ‘Friday of Mercy’ of Holy Year, Pope Meets With Men Who Have Left Priesthood by Deborah Castellano Lubov
Marking his last Friday of Mercy this Holy Year, Pope Francis met this afternoon with a group of men who have left the priesthood.
According to a Vatican statement, the Pope left his residence of Casa Santa Marta at 3:30 p.m. and traveled to Ponte di Nona, a neighborhood on the eastern peripheries of Rome to meet with the families formed by the group of former priests, which included five Italians, one Spaniard, and a Latin American.
The Vatican statement said that, despite opposition in many cases from their fellow priests or their families after serving for several years in parishes, these young men–after facing loneliness, misunderstanding, and fatigue from their many tasks–made the difficult decision to leave the priesthood.
The men, the statement also explained, spent months, and sometimes years, wrestling with uncertainty and doubts, before coming to the decision that they were not meant to be priests, and deciding to form a family.
When the Pope arrived there was great enthusiasm, the statement said, noting, “Children gathered around the Pope to embrace him, while their parents did not restrain emotion.”
“The Holy Father’s visit was highly appreciated by all those present who did not hear the Pope make a judgment on their choice, but felt his closeness and affection.”
Even though the encounter did not last long, Francis listened to their stories and has been closely following the considerations that were made about the canonical proceedings of individual cases.
“His paternal word has reassured everyone on his friendship and the certainty of his personal interest,” the statement concluded, reiterating, “In this way, again, Pope Francis wanted to give a sign of mercy to those who live a situation of spiritual and material distress, highlighting the need for private and no one will feel the love of the Shepherd’s solidarity.”
The visit ended at about 5:20 p.m. Then the Holy Father returned to the Vatican.
The Pope has been making these Friday afternoon visits during the Jubilee year. Among those he’s visited are a care home for the elderly and the sick; a community for drug addicts at Castel Gandolfo; the “Chicco” community for individuals with serious mental disabilities at Ciampino; and elderly and suffering priests.
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Pope’s Morning Homily: ‘Ideologies Strip Away the Flesh of the Church’ by Deborah Castellano Lubov
We Christians must say no to ideologies and intellectualism.
According to Vatican Radio, this was at the heart of Pope Francis’ homily during his morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta today, stressing that ideologies on love and intellectual theories threaten to strip away the Flesh of the Church and ruin it.
Drawing inspiration from today’s Gospel reading according to St. John, the Holy Father reflected on the nature of Christian love and how the word ‘love’ is used nowadays to describe many different things.
An antichrist
The true criterion of Christian love, the Pontiff stressed, is the Incarnation of the Word, saying whoever denies or does not recognize this is “the antichrist.”
“A love that does not recognize that Jesus came in the Flesh is not the love that God is asking of us.This is a worldly love, a philosophical love, an abstract love, a love that has flagged, a ‘soft’ or weak love. No! The criterion of Christian love is the Incarnation of the Word.
“Whoever says that Christian love is something else is the antichrist! Who does not recognize that the Word became Flesh. This is our truth: God sent his Son, who became flesh and who lived like us. To love as Jesus loved (us), to love as Jesus taught us, to love by following the example of Jesus; to love, journeying along the path of Jesus. It is the path of Jesus that gives life.”
Only Way to Love
The only way to love in the way Jesus loved us, the Jesuit Pope explained, is to cast aside our own selfishness and go out to help others because Christian love is a ‘concrete’ love.
“Going beyond is a mystery: coming out from the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, of the Mystery of the Church. Because the Church is the community around the presence of Christ and it goes beyond this. That is a really strong word, isn’t it? ….proagon, whoever walks beyond. And it’s from this that all the ideologies spring: the ideologies on love, the ideologies on the Church, the ideologies that strip the Flesh of Christ from the Church.
“These ideologies,” the Pontiff warned, “strip away the Flesh of the Church! ‘Yes, I’m a Catholic, yes I’m a Christian, I love the whole world with a universal love’… But this is so ethereal. Love is always interior, concrete and does not go beyond the doctrine of the Incarnation of the Word.”
Whoever does not love in the same selfless way as Christ did, the Pope pointed out, loves in an ideological manner.
Francis also warned against those who put forward theories on love or intellectualize it, saying they ruin the Church and lead to a situation where we have a God without Christ, a Christ without the Church and a Church without people.
“Let us pray to the Lord so that our walk in love never ever becomes for us an abstract love. May our love be concrete with works of mercy whereby we touch the Flesh of Christ, the Incarnate Christ.
It is for this reason that the deacon Lawrence said ‘The poor are the treasure of the Church!’ Why? Because they are the suffering flesh of Christ! Let us ask for this grace to not go beyond and not enter into this process, that possibly seduces so many people, of intellectualizing and ideologizing this love, stripping away the Flesh of the Church, stripping away Christian love.
Pope Francis concluded, praying, “let’s not arrive at the sad spectacle of a God without Christ, of a Christ without the Church and a Church without its people.”
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Pope Gives Another Interview to Italian Daily Newspaper ‘La Repubblica’ by ZENIT Staff
Pope Francis granted another interview to the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica on Monday, a day before Donald Trump won the U.S presidential elections.
According to Vatican Radio, in his conversation with journalist Eugenio Scalfari, the Pontiff noted that as the United States is experiencing a moment of political transition, his concern goes toward the suffering of refugees and immigrants.
While Francis stressed that he doesn’t judge individual politicians, he did, however, express his interest in seeing how their policies could affect the poor and marginalized.
In the interview, Pope Francis notes that, alongside the refugees fleeing from poverty and conflicts, there are also many poor people suffering in rich countries too and they fear the arrival of these new immigrants.
Insisting the greatest evil in the world today is inequality, the Pope highlighted, “We must stop this vicious cycle” and “build bridges that allow greater freedom and human rights for all.”
Speaking the day before the U.S. election, Pope Francis expressed his admiration for civil rights leader Martin Luther King, saying that love alone is capable of breaking the cycle of hatred and evil.
“Christians in the world today,” the Pope said, “number some two and a half billion people. who must share their faith by following the example of Christ himself.”
Moreover, the Holy Father commented on the world’s many Christian martyrs, who have been killed by so-called Islamic State terrorists: Wars of religion, the Pope observed, only occur when people put political power in the place of faith and mercy.
Lastly, when asked about opponents within the Catholic Church, Francis responded that while individuals see things from a variety of perspectives, faith unites all.
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Bergoglio Prior to Being Francis: ‘The Pastor Who Preaches Looking in the Eyes’ by Salvatore Cernuzio
The Pastor who made a cloth devil burst forth with firecrackers to have his catecheses understood by restless catechism youngsters; the Bishop who encouraged catechists and educators to communicate the joy of evangelizing, Evangelii Gaudium; the Cardinal who on the feast of Saint Cajetan challenged the political class in Buenos Aires to fight against the elite sick with ideology and who supported the population’s struggle for bread and work. The whole done always with a very precise “style”: looking straight into the eyes of the people listening to his preaching “because there must be nothing between the preacher and the people.” Not pre-packaged papers or texts but a direct dialogue, as Saint Ignatius taught.
It is a new face of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, which emerges from the volume “Nei Tuoi Occhi e La Mia Parola,” edited by Father Antonio Spadaro, Director of “La Civiltà Cattolica.” Yet in the more than 1,000 pages that make up the volume, one can make out clearly the features of him who today is Pope Francis.
Published by Rizzoli, the book brings together more than 200 homilies, messages and addresses of the Cardinal who for 14 years (1999-2013) was at the head of the Buenos Aires megalopolis and who, in the designs of Providence, was preparing to become Pope. However, it is not an anthology but rather an Opera Omnia of the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, useful “to understand the ecclesial season that we are living,” as the curator himself explained during the presentation of the book on Thursday in the Jesuits’ General Curia.
Present at the event was Cardinal-designate Blaise Cupich, archbishop of Chicago; the new Superior General of the Jesuits, Father Arturo Sosa; and the former Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, now president of the Ratzinger Foundation. The guest of honor was the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, who affirmed: “The reader who approaches the volume “Nei tuoi occhi e la mia parola” can imagine not only a Bishop who goes on foot or on the metro through the streets of his city and of his diocese, but who can be see him in perspective while he appears at Saint Peter’s loggia of blessings.”
The book, in fact, covers all the main subjects of Bergoglio’s teaching, developed, however, in a rigorous chronological, not thematic, order because, said Father Spadaro, “it would have been like taking living, spring material and caging it.” Neither as Pope or as Archbishop does Francis ”ever speak by argument, but from experience lived by contact with the people.”
And it is in fact this direct thread that Bergolgio has always liked to establish with anyone who listens to his preaching, which is the aspect that this “big volume” highlights in the main, as Father Lombardi described it jokingly.
In the unpublished interview, left by his initiative to Father Spadaro, the Pontiff himself reveals especially for the book (“a Preface would have been too static,” explained the Jesuit): “When in the Seminary we were taught Homiletics I already felt a strong aversion for written papers in which everything is said. And I remember this well. I was and am convinced that there must be nothing between the preacher and the people of God. There cannot be a paper, meticulous writing yes, but not everything.”
Also today as Pope, often “constrained” to read his homilies, “I continue to seek the eyes of the people. Also here in Saint Peter’s Square. When I greet the masses, I don’t see them as masses: I try to look at least at one person, a precise face.” This justifies so many off-the-cuff addresses: “I have this impulse to leave the text, to look in the eyes,” says the Pontiff. And he also confesses his “weakness” for the elderly: “Sometimes I have the desire to descend from the popemobile. It often happens in front of old ladies. I have a weakness for little old ladies, especially those that are clever. They speak to you with their eyes.”
“Francis never sees a mass before him nor can he fix his eyes on a sheet of paper,” confirmed Cardinal Parolin, who described the volume as “the laboratory of Francis’ pontificate.” A Pope, he stressed, “that has placed at the center of his ministry discernment and mercy,” and who today “is considered one of the major moral and spiritual leaders of the world, perhaps the most listened to at the global level, as a recent Gallop poll indicated.”
It must be because his words “are not pastoral exercises, school reflections or meditations sheltered from the world,” but “are nourished by a lived life, by open questions, borders crossed, peripheries traversed, challenges that have faces and names.” Every phrase, said the Secretary of State, is born “from his silence as a Jesuit who contemplates and acts,” who “reads God’s message in events” and who then translates them in that “dense, poetic and popular language that we well know.”
It is an altogether “Ignatian” method, but useful to any Pastor heading today a great metropolis. Therefore, Cardinal-designate Cupich said he was “profoundly grateful” for the contribution offered by the book: “It is a lesson of wisdom,” he said, “it is a support for the episcopal ministry.” In particular, the future Cardinal singled out five pastoral models that delineate Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s teaching. “Formators and reformers,” he explained, interested namely in helping priests, educators, catechists to fulfill their mission without “shutting themselves in the perimeter of the sacristy” or falling into bureaucracy or an administrative mentality. Then “prophetic heralds of justice and life” who show “ a way of social involvement that does not politicize the Gospel but lets the Lord’s salt, light and leaven speak for themselves.”
Also: “servants of ecclesial communion,” or Bishops that do not limit themselves to be ”docents” but learn from the wisdom of the local and universal Church. Hence men who “smell the scent” of the people themselves and “preservers of the Gospel of Christ who find God in their service” and “do not separate pastoral action from spiritual contemplation.”
For his part Father Arturo Sosa, elected last month Superior General of the Society of Jesus, revealed the aspect of Francis’ “universality,” “the first and perhaps last Jesuit pope of history.” His religious experience, united to his “pastoral practice” in the heart of Argentina, “trained” him to become a “broadminded” Pontiff but also capable of looking at the individual, he said.
“His preaching is a form of spiritual conversation,” said Father Sosa, which is rooted in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, who affirmed: “You can preach only if you look at people in the face, their problems, their situations, their life.” A preaching devoid of populisms but certain that “to preach to the people it is necessary to be part of their identity made up of social and cultural bonds.” A preaching that is inspired in great literature, Dostoyevsky primarily, and that is also “political” because, as Francis himself affirms in the interview, “every homily is political, a way of contributing to the formation of the people as subjects of the country and of the Church.”
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Independence Day and 1st Holy Mass Celebrated in Temple of Divine Providence by ZENIT Staff
“We have been waiting for this moment for 225 years,” emphasized the Metropolitan of Warsaw, Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, at the beginning of the first Mass celebrated in the Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw’s District of Wilanow. On November 11th, Poland’s Independence Day, this church, under construction by the Poles since the adoption of the Constitution in 1791, was opened to the faithful. The work on this edifice—intended to be an ex-voto—was impeded first by the partition of Poland, then by World War II and the communist government.
At the beginning of the Mass, Card. Kazimierz Nycz thanked, among others, his predecessor the late Cardinal Jozef Glemp, who reinitiated the construction of the Temple of Divine Providence. “I wish he could have lived to see this day,” he said. He also expressed his gratitude to all who contributed to the construction and to the entire assembly.
The Mass was presided by Poland’s Primate, Archbishop Wojciech Polak, and the homily was given by the President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Stanislaw Gądecki. “We can thank God and that generation for the freedom and independence we enjoy today, while remembering that, for us, freedom is a gift but at the same time also a task,” underlined Archbishop Gądecki in his homily. He said that the temple is a sign of our desire to reach—by means of visible things—things unseen. Moreover, he noted that the decision of the late Cardinal Jozef Glemp to accomplish the pledge of the people was a courageous act that is sometimes underestimated, because it warned the people against making empty promises.
The Polish Primate, Archbishop Wojciech Polak, in his intervention at the end of the Mass, said that we need not only to learn freedom and recall it with gratitude, but we must also wisely, creatively and prudently manage the space of our regained freedom, using freedom responsibly, realizing it—as Saint John Paul II reminded us—through truth and goodness. Msgr. Polak expressed the hope that the first Mass in the Temple of Divine Providence be not only an expression of national gratitude but would also make the Poles increasingly courageous, responsible and creative in shaping the present and future of their Fatherland, “in the incarnation of the gift of freedom for which past generations paid the highest price.”
At the Holy Mass on Independence Day and the opening of the Temple of Divine Providence were present the Apostolic Nuncio in Poland as well representatives of Poland’s highest political authorities, led by President Andrzej Duda, the Speakers of the Parliament and the Senate, and the Prime Minister Beata Szydło, and many faithful. The celebration of the Temple’s opening will continue until November 13th.
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Jubilee Benefit Concert in Vatican With Maestro Ennio Morricone Takes Place Tomorrow Night by ZENIT Staff
Tomorrow evening at 6:30 p.m., Oscar award-winning composer Ennio Morricone will direct the Roma Sinfonietta Orchestra and the National Academy of Saint Cecilia Chorus for the Second Benefit Concert “with the poor and for the poor” in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.
The event, sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization and by the Saint Matthew Foundation in Memory of Card. Van Thuân, is part of the closing of the Jubilee of Mercy and is intended to support Pope Francis’ Sign of Charity for the Jubilee: the construction of a new Cathedral in Moroto in Uganda and an Agricultural School in Burkina Faso.
All the donations collected at the end of the concert will go towards the Jubilee charities.
According to a communique released on the concert, the Maestro will conduct several pieces from the most famous works and soundtracks he has composed during his 60-year career. Along with him, Mons. Marco Frisina will direct the same orchestra and the Diocesan Choir of Rome in two selections of sacred music, and will guide the audience through this musical itinerary with reflections focusing on the Jubilee Year and charity.
Numerous associations are collaborating to make this event possible, and will be present for the evening along with the needy whom they assist: the Great Priory of Rome and the Roman Delegation of the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights of Malta, the Society of Saint Peter, the Diocese of Rome’s Caritas organization, the Sant’Egidio Community, the Astalli Center for Refugees, UNITALSI, the ACLI of Rome, the New Horizions Community, the Mater Mundi Onlus and the Community of Pope John XXIII Association will all unite to make a “seed” of joy and hope “sprout” through the music for our brothers and sisters most in need, who will have seats of honor in the Hall.
As a further concrete gesture of solidarity, at the end of the concert the youth from the Diocesan Choir of Rome and the Jubilee Volunteers will distribute a meal and a small gift as a memento of the evening.
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Benedict in the Ruins by Bishop James Conley
Here is last week’s column from Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, reprinted from the Southern Nebraska Register.
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St. Benedict and St. Scholastica were twins, born in the Italian city of Norcia more than 1,500 years ago, in the year 480. They changed the world. Benedict is the father of western monasticism: he was a hermit who developed a rule for monastic life that transformed the Church, transformed Europe, and transformed the world.
The Rule of St. Benedict established the principles that are at the heart of nearly all of the Church’s monastic traditions. When Benedict founded a community of monks in the sixth century, he developed a pattern for labor and prayer that millions of people around the world still follow, in one form or another. And when the Benedictine Order spread across Europe, it brought peace and tranquility to warring and lawless territories, and, more importantly, it brought the light of Jesus Christ to untold numbers of souls.
We cannot overestimate the significance of St. Benedict in the spread of the Gospel, the development of western culture, or the sanctification of the world. Pope Benedict XVI called St. Benedict “the father of many nations;” he often said that one can hardly understand Europe, the Church, or Christian civilization without understanding St. Benedict.
Benedict’s sister, St. Scholastica, is no less significant. Scholastica began the Benedictine Order for women, which also spread in extraordinary ways around the world. And Scholastica was the most trusted confidant, advisor, and collaborator of her brother St. Benedict. Their spiritual friendship influenced every part of the development of Benedictine spirituality and monasticism.
Since the deaths of Benedict and Scholastica, pilgrims have visited their birthplace to pray for their intercession, and to pray for the salvation of the world. The Basilica of St. Benedict, built over their birthplace, grew up over hundreds of years, little by little, through painstaking labor, until its completion in the sixteenth century.
On Sunday, Oct. 30, a basilica that took hundreds of years to build was flattened in a matter of minutes. Around 7:40 a.m., Norcia and the surrounding mountains were shaken by Italy’s strongest earthquake in decades. This, in fact, was the second major earthquake in Norcia in recent months. The basilica crumbled. All the other churches in this picturesque Umbrian town did too. Miraculously, though more than 3,000 people were evacuated from their homes, there were only 20 injuries, and no deaths.
The Benedictine Monks of Norcia emailed their friends just a few hours after the earthquake. They were all safe, and they had begun helping with the rescue efforts. The priests of Norcia’s monastery were especially looking for those who might need anointing of the sick or spiritual support. The monks gathered, as soon as they could, at their mountain monastery to pray for the people of Norcia before they continued helping with the rescue effort.
The prior, or superior, at the monastery in Norcia, has been my friend for nearly 20 years. The monks of Norcia began their community in Rome in the mid-90s. They were a small community of three, though they have grown exponentially since then. I would visit Father Cassian Folsom, the prior, and his monks in a small upstairs chapel near the Roman Forum. We would often pray vespers together, or share a meal.
Related: 2015 Zenit interview with Fr. Cassian: Monks Who Brought Chant Back to St. Benedict’s Birthplace Release Album
The monks of Norcia are witnessing to the world an important reminder. Their home has crumbled around them. But they are undeterred in hope. Christ is the source of their hope, and the center of their lives. They are able to carry on in the ruins of their home because they have fortitude, and hope, and charity. They know the Lord has called them to continue to pray, and continue to work. They know that God calls them to be a source of grace in the middle of tragedy.
I often speak with friends these days who feel that our culture is crumbling around us. That things built over centuries have collapsed very quickly. I know how easy it is to become discouraged. But the monks of Norcia are a shining witness to the call of every Christian. If Christ is our hope, we will carry on, with fortitude, no matter what happens around us. In every season and circumstance, God calls us to pray and to work – ora et labora. And when culture crumbles, God calls us to be a source of grace in the middle of tragedy.
The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre says that the world is “waiting for another St. Benedict.” The monks of Norcia, following their holy founder, will spread the Gospel, and worship the Lord, and bring hope, peace, and freedom in the midst of their crumbled city. May each one of us have the courage to do the same.
The Monks of Norcia are raising funds to aid relief efforts and rebuild the churches of Norcia. To support them, visit: https://en.nursia.org/donations/
Editor’s note: you can also support the monks by supporting their brewery. Their beer is available for purchase in the United States: https://birranursia.com/purchase/
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Waiting for an Advent by Archbishop Francesco Follo
Roman rite
Mal 3, 19-20; Ps 98; 2 Thes 3, 7-12; Lk 21.5 -19
Ambrosian Rite
Is 51: 4-8; Ps 49; 2 Thes 2.1 to 14; Mt 24.1 – 31
First Sunday of Advent (Year A)
The coming of the Lord
1) To think about the end of the world to know the purpose of the world.
In this last Sunday of the liturgical year that marks our lives, the Church makes us meditate on the end of all things in order to begin the Whole Thing that is eternal Life.
The Word of God invites us to meditate on the ultimate realities to know and understand the signs of time with the eyes of faith on the world and our lives. It also invites us to prepare ourselves with confidence to the final meeting with the love of God. Those who have a loving confidence in God, are able to persevere and deserve life forever.
In today’s Gospel passage the Messiah teaches us to live with persevering faith and testimony, maturing in the awareness that “what we could not get because of our weakness, we can receive through our perseverance” (see St. Ephraim the Syrian (306-373), Diatessaron, IV century).
Speaking of wars, revolutions, famines, persecution and other sad events, Christ does not intend to frighten the disciples, but to teach that the difficulties of life, be they large or small, are opportunities to become stronger in faith and firm in hope.
On the one hand, a firm perseverance while waiting for Christ who is our End, is the mode in which the Expected One is welcomed and puts his dwelling among us. He is the Emmanuel, the God with us – always. On the other hand, the time that separates us from the end when we will be forever with the End, is the time of the testimony in which we experience the closeness of God and his love. He does not abandon his disciples, but is always nearby suggesting to them the words to confront their persecutors (see Lk 21:15).
Jesus encourages us to remain faithful to him until the end. Let’s persevere firmly in the waiting. Then, the meeting with Him will transform our difficulties, fears and anxieties, even those of death, in a glorious resurrection.
2) Two witnesses of perseverance and testimony.
Among the numerous saints, who are an example of perseverance and testimony of the true waiting, I choose two, St. John the Precursor, and the Virgin Mary, because they are the two pillars that stand next to the portal that Christ crossed to get into our history.
They both did not expect something, but Someone. They did not seek to discern more or less apocalyptic events in order to decide what to do in the immediate future. They expected nothing less than God. They were not waiting for better times, nor for a vague utopia or a hero, but they really were expecting God.
St. John the Baptist was just waiting for God, the God who was coming to bring order, to judge and to save. The Precursor was a man determined to the last. He did not had scruples calling the leaders of the people “brood of vipers” and accusing king Herod of all the crimes he had committed. He had no fear of prison and beheading. He persevered in being “just” a voice echoing in the wilderness and through everything, even through plugged ears. He was a true, persevering witness who pointed to the presence of the Lamb of God and fortified this indication with the gift of his own life. He shows how we should be witnesses, that is, martyrs. He is a model for all Christians (laity, religious man and women, priests and bishops) of how to be missionaries of Christ. No one should announce himself, nor replace the Word with little talk. We all have to be only the voice of the One who is growing among us, who is always greater than us.
Even the Virgin Mary was awaiting for God. She knew that the angel had told her: “The Holy One whom you carry in the womb shall be called the Son of God, Son of the Most High, and his kingdom will have no end” (Lk 1, 31 and following). However, she did not expect Somebody like the Unimaginable One awaited by the Baptist, one who would come forward with fire, the hatchet and the winnowing-fan. She was expecting a baby. But for a mother a child who is God is it not even more unimaginable? Is that child not coming to “cast fire on the earth”? And will not a sword pass her mother’s heart? However the Virgin Mary persevered in the waiting and welcomed in her and gave to humanity (to each of us) the One who is “meek and humble of heart” and that “cries out in the streets or quenches a smoldering wick “(Mt 11: , 29, 12, 19 ). Mary persevered even in the walk with Christ, from Nazareth, where she conceived through the Holy Spirit, to Jerusalem where Christ gave up his Spirit and recreated the world.
Our heavenly Mother is an eminent model of how we can and must be witnesses.
The final times and the tremendous signs that indicate them, terrify us not only because they are terrifying, but because they indicate that the end that is inexorably coming.
What to do? “Be converted, and do penance” says John the Baptist. “Bring Christ in you for the others,” says the Mother of God. We must move from “I” to “you”, to God. From the sterile and selfish being for themselves, to the fruitful and loving being for the others, following Christ, the Emmanuel with us and for all.
3) The example of the consecrated virgins in the world.
Now a brief reflection on how the consecrated virgins in the world can be for us an example on how to follow St. John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary.
At the school of the Baptist these consecrated women learn not to speak of Christ, but to indicate him by daily putting in practice the phrase: “It is necessary that I must decrease so that He may grow.” The consecrated virgins show that the Precursor not only calls for a sober lifestyle, but also to an inner change, through which we receive the light of the One who is “the Greatest” and became small, “the Strongest “and became weak.
At the school of Mary they learn to live consecrated virginity as intensity of desire and fruitful life. Thanks to their consecration, the miracle of the virginal motherhood of the Mother of God happens again.
From the incarnation of God and the grace of Baptism flourishes that holy progeny of which, during the consecration of virgins according to the Roman Pontifical, the Church says: “Whilst maintaining the nuptial blessing that descends on marital status, there must be more noble souls who sacrifice the physical community of man and woman and tend to the mystery that marriage contains. Giving all their love to the mystery indicated by marriage, they are consecrated to the One who is husband and son of the eternal virginity. “
This is the great mystery of the Church: the union between divinity and humanity in the Virgin’s womb. For this reason the Church blesses the virgins in the consecration prayer with these words: “Bless the Maker of heaven and earth, who has deigned to choose you for communion with Mary, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Her life is just a prototype. “May the life of Mary from whom, as from a mirror, the beauty of chastity and the rule of all virtue are reflected, be the image of virginity” (Saint Ambrose De Virginibus, II, 2, 6, PL 16, 108) . If the Church wants to remain what it is, “Virgin is and Virgin must be” (Saint. Augustine, Sermon 1.8). It is necessary to have these “noble souls”, who in their own body mimic what happened in Mary and anticipate what the saved Church will receive in glory.
Patristic reading
Golden Chain
On Lk 21:5-9
EUSEB. How beautiful was everything relating to the structure of the temple, history informs us, and there are yet preserved remains of it, enough to instruct us in what was once the character of the buildings. But our Lord proclaimed to those that were wondering at the building of the temple, that there should not be left in it one stone upon another. For it was meet that that place, because of the presumption of its worshippers, should suffer every kind of desolation.
BEDE; For it was ordained by the dispensation of God that the city itself and the temple should be overthrown, lest perhaps someone yet a child in the faith, while rapt in astonishment at the rites of the sacrifices, should be carried away by the mere sight of the various beauties.
AMBROSE; It was spoken then of the temple made with hands, that it should be overthrown. For there is nothing made with hands which age does not impair, or violence throw down, or fire burn. Yet there is also another temple, that is, the synagogue, whose ancient building falls to pieces as the Church rises. There is also a temple in every one, which falls when faith is lacking, and above all when any one falsely shields himself under the name of Christ, that so he may rebel against his inward inclinations.
CYRIL; Now His disciples did not at all perceive the force of His words, but supposed they were spoken of the end of the world. Therefore asked they Him, saying, Master, but when shall these things be? and what sign, &c.
AMBROSE; Matthew adds a third question, that both the time of the destruction of the temple, and the sign of His coming, and the end of the world, might be inquired into by the disciples. But our Lord being asked when the destruction of the temple should be, and what the sign of His coming, instructs them as to the signs, but does not mind to inform them as to the time. It follows, Take heed that you be not deceived.
ATHAN. For since we have received, delivered to us by God, graces and doctrines which ere above man, (as, for example, the rule of a heavenly life, power against evil spirits, the adoption and the knowledge of the Father and the Word, the gift of the Holy Spirit,) our adversary the devil goes about seeking to steal from us the seed of the word which has been sown. But the Lord, shutting up in us His teaching as His own precious gift, warns us, lest we be deceived. And one very great gift He gives us, the word of God, that not only we be not led away by what appears, but even if there is ought lying concealed, by the grace of God we may discern it. For seeing that the devil is the hateful inventor of evil, what he himself is he conceals, but craftily assumes a name desirable to all; just as if a man wishing to get into his power some children not His own, should in the absence of the parents counterfeit their looks, and lead away the children who were longing for them. In every heresy then the devil says in disguise, “I am Christ, and with me there is truth.” And so it follows, For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draws near.
CYRIL; For before His descent from heaven, there shall come some to whom we must not give place. For the Only-begotten Son of God, when He came to save the world, wished to be in secret, that He might bear the cross for us. But His second coming shall not be in secret, but terrible and open. For He shall descend in the glory of God the Father, with the Angels attending Him, to judge the world in righteousness. Therefore He concludes, Go you not therefore after them.
TIT BOST. Or perhaps He does not speak of false Christs coming before the end of the world, but of those who existed in the Apostles’ time.
BEDE; For there were many leaders when the destruction of Jerusalem was at hand, who declared themselves to be Christ, and that the time of deliverance was drawing nigh. Many heresiarchs also in the Church have preached that the day of the Lord is at hand, whom the Apostles condemn. Many Antichrists also came in Christ’s name, of whom the first was Simon Magus, who said, This man is the great power of God.
9-11
11109 Lc 21,9-11
GREG. God denounces the woes that shall forerun the destruction of the world, that so they may the less disturb when they come, as having been foreknown. For darts strike the less which are foreseen. And so He says, But when you shall hear of wars and commotions, &c. Wars refer to the enemy, commotions to citizens. To show us then that we shall be troubled from within and without, He asserts that the one we suffer from the enemy, the other from our own brethren.
AMBROSE; But of the heavenly words none are greater witnesses than we, upon whom the ends of the world have come. What wars and what rumors of wars have we received!
GREG. But that the end will not immediately follow these evils which come first, it is added, These things must first come to pass; but the end is not yet, &c. For the last tribulation is preceded by many tribulations, because many evils must come first, that they may await that evil which has no end.
It follows, Then said he to them, Nation shall rise against nation, &c. For it must needs be that we should suffer some things from heaven, some from earth, some from the elements, and some from men. Here then are signified the confusions of men.
It follows, And great earthquakes shall be in diverse places. This relates to the wrath from above.
CHRYS. For an earthquake is at one time a sign of wrath, as when our Lord was crucified the earth shook; but at another time it is a token of God’s providence, as when the Apostles were praying, the place was moved where they were assembled. It follows, and pestilence.
GREG. Look at the vicissitudes of bodies. And famine. Observe the barrenness of the ground. And fearful sights and great signs there shall be from heaven. Behold the variableness of the climate, which must be ascribed to those storms which by no means regard the order of the seasons. For the things which come in fixed order are not signs. For every thing that we receive for the use of life we pervert to the service of sin, but all those things which we have bent to a wicked use, are turned to the instruments of our punishment.
AMBROSE; The ruin of the world then is preceded by certain of the world’s calamities, such as famine, pestilence, and persecution.
THEOPHYL. Now some have wished to place the fulfillment of these things not only at the future consummation of all things, but at the time also of the taking of Jerusalem. For when the Author of peace was killed, then justly arose among the Jews wars and sedition. But from wars proceed pestilence and famine, the former indeed produced by the air infected with dead bodies, the latter through the lands remaining uncultivated. Josephus also relates the most intolerable distresses to have occurred from famine; and at the time of Claudius Caesar there was a severe famine, as we read in the Acts, and many terrible events happened, A forboding, as Josephus says, the destruction of Jerusalem.
CHRYS. But He says, that the end of the city shall not come immediately, that is, the taking of Jerusalem, but there shall be many battles first.
BEDE; The Apostles are also exhorted not to be alarmed by these forerunners, nor to desert Jerusalem and Judea. But the kingdom against kingdom, and the pestilence of those whose word creeps as a cancer, and the famine of hearing the word of God, and the shaking of the whole earth, and the separation from the true faith, may be explained also in the heretics, who contending one with another bring victory to the Church.
AMBROSE; There are also other wars which the Christian wages, the struggles of different lusts, and the conflicts of the will; and domestic foes are far more dangerous than all foreign.
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