Mass with the Military

This morning, at 9:30am, in the Chapel of the Casa Santa Marta, the Holy Father, Pope Francis celebrated Mass with a group of about eighty persons, led by the Italian Military Ordinary, His Excellency, Vincenzo Pelvi, who concelebrated with the Pope.

The group was composed of relatives - mainly parents - of Italian military cadets who have served on peace missions over the past four to five years (particularly in Afghanistan), and some soldiers who had been wounded during these missions, accompanied by some of their loved ones.

The relatives of the cadets numbered about fifty-five, representing twenty-four soldiers; thirteen wounded, accompanied by a few of their family members.  Participants had come from various regions of Italy.  Especially remembered in prayer today were those who have been wounded or who have fallen in the cause of peace.

Other than the Military Ordinary, the group was accompanied by some of the chaplains and by two persons who coordinate the meetings between the wounded and the families of those who have been killed - an activity which is promoted by the Ordinariate in order to promote a Christian spirit and understanding of suffering.

The day chosen for this gathering is Sunday, June 2, because in Italy it is the National Day, and in essence, we celebrate the country - as Monsignor Pelvi noted during his brief words of greetings addressed to the Holy Father at the beginning of this celebration - with various demonstrations meant to express a debt of love which is owed to the military family.

 

The Pope preached the homily, in a spontaneous fashion, as he does regularly during his liturgical celebrations at Santa Martha.  The gospel chosen for this celebration was that of the IX Sunday of Ordinary Time, Luke 7:1-10, recounting the episode of the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant.

Following is a synthesis of the homily, provided by Radio Vaticana:

The Lord hears the prayers of everyone! – not only Solomon’s prayers on the day of the consecration of the Temple, but also the prayer of all of us. Pope Francis emphasised that fact, citing the Gospel story of the centurion who goes to Jesus to ask for the healing of his servant. He said our God is such that He hears the prayers of each one of us – not as an anonymous mass of prayers, but the prayers of each and every individual. Our God is the God of the great and the God of small, our God is personal, He listens to everyone with His heart, and loves from the heart.

Today we have come to pray for our dead, for our wounded, for the victims of the madness that is war! It is the suicide of humanity, because it kills the heart, it kills precisely that which is the message of the Lord: it kills love! Because war comes from hatred, from envy, from desire for power, and – we’ve seen it many times - it comes from that hunger for more power.

So many times, the Pope noted, we’ve seen the great ones of the earth want to solve local problems, economic problems, economic crises with a war. Why? Because, for them, money is more important than people! And war is just that: it is an act of faith in money, in idols, in idols of hatred, in the idol that leads to killing one’s brother, which leads to killing love. It reminds me of the words of God our Father to Cain, who, out of envy, had killed his brother: ‘Cain, where is your brother?’ Today we can hear this voice: it is God our Father who weeps, crying for this madness of ours, who asks all of us, ‘Where is your brother?’ Who says to the powerful of the earth, ‘Where is your brother? What have you done!’

From this exhortation, Pope Francis went on to pray to the Lord, that He might “take all evil far away from us, repeating this prayer even with tears, with the tears of the heart: ‘Turn to us, o Lord, and have mercy on us, because we are sad, we are distressed. See our misery, and our pain and forgive all sins,’ because behind a war there are always sins: there is the sin of idolatry, the sin of exploiting men on the altar of power, sacrificing them. ‘Turn to us, o Lord, and have mercy, because we are sad and distressed. See our misery and our pain.’ We are confident that the Lord will hear us and will do anything to give us the spirit of consolation. Amen.

At the end of the Mass, the Prayer for Italy, composed by Blessed John Paul II (15 March 1994), was recited. Afterwards, the ecclesial community of the Military Ordinariate offered the Holy Father a hand-crafted terracotta sculpture from Naples, representing Saint Joseph the Worker showing Jesus a carpenter’s tools. The child Jesus is holding a basket with objects that call to mind the Crucifixion, including a hammer and nails.

As is his custom, the Holy Father greeted each of those who was present, with great cordiality and affection.  The entire encounter lasted a little less than an hour and a half.  The celebration was accompanied by songs sung by members of the Cappella Giulia choir.