Homily at the Lateran

Yesterday afternoon, the Holy Father went to the Basilica of Saint John Lateran to visit with priests from all over the world who are participating in a retreat organized by the International Charismatic Renewal Services and by the Catholic Fraternity.  During his visit, the Holy Father celebrated Mass with those who were present.

Homily of the Holy Father, Pope Francis

for the Mass celebrated with priests

at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran

In the first Reading, we enter into the tenderness of God: God tells his people how much he loves them, how much he cares for them.  What God says to his people in the Reading from the book of the prophet Hosea, in chapter 11, he says to each one of us.  It would be good to take this text, in a moment of solitude, to put ourselves in the presence of God and to listen to its words: When you were a child, I loved you; I have loved you from your childhood; I have saved you; I took you out of Egypt, I have saved you from slavery, from slavery to sin, from slavery to self-destruction and from all other forms of slavery that you have known, that you experience, even within your heart.  I have saved you.  I have taught you to walk.  How beautiful it is to hear that God teaches me to walk!  The Almighty makes himself small and teaches me how to walk.  I remember the words of Deutoronomy, when Moses said to his people: Listen - you are so hard headed! - when have you ever seen a god that is so close to his people, as close as God is to us?  The closeness of God is his tenderness: he has taught me how to walk.  Without him, I would not know how to walk in the Spirit.  I held you by the hand, but you did not understand that I was guiding you,you believed that I had left you all alone.  This is the story of each one of us.  I bind you with human ties, not with punitive laws.  With ties of love, cords of love.  Love binds, but it binds us with freedom; it binds us while at the same time leaving space so that you can respond with love.  I was for you as one who raises a child to his cheek and kisses it ... and I bent down and fed it.  This is our history, at least it is my story.  Each of us can read our own story here.  Tell me, now can I abandon you now?  How can I deliver you to the enemy?  At times when we are afraid, in moments when we are insecure, He says: If I have done all this for you, how can I even think of leaving you alone, of abandoning you?

On the coast of Lybia, twenty-three Coptic martyrs were certain that God would never abandon them.   They were decapitated while they spoke the name of Jesus!  They knew that even as their heads were being cut off their bodies, God would never abandon them. 

How can I treat you as an enemy?  My heart is moved within me and I am filled with tenderness.  The tenderness of God attracts us, this warm tenderness: He is the only One capable of warming us with such tenderness.  I will not give way to anger for the sins that exist, for all these misunderstandings, because you have worshipped idols.  For I am God, I am the Holy One among you.  This is a declaration of the love of a father for his son, and for each one of us.

When I sometimes think that we are afraid of God's tenderness and the fact that our fear of the tenderness of God stops us from experiencing it within us.  This is why we are so often hard, severe, chastising ... We are pastors without tenderness.  What does Jesus say to us in the fifteenth chapter of Saint Luke's gospel?  About the shepherd who noticed that he had 99 sheep and that he was missing one.  He left them well protected, he locked the door and went in search of the other one who had been trapped in the bushes ... He did not beat that one, nor did he scold her: he took her in his arms and held her and cared for her, because she was wounded.  Do you do this with your parishioners?  When you notice that one is missing from the flock?  Or are we accustomed to being a Church that has only one sheep in its flock and we leave the other 99 to get lost on the mountainside?  Does all this tenderness speak to your heart?  Are you a shepherd of the flock or have you become a shepherd who grooms the only remaining sheep?  Why do you only seek your own interests and forget about the tenderness that your Father has given you, and tells you about here in the eleventh chapter of Hosea?  Have you forgotten how to give tenderness?  The Heart of Jesus is the tenderness of God.  How can you ever be diminished?  How can I ever abandon you?  When you are alone, disoriented, lost, come to me, I will save you, I will comfort you.

Today I ask you, during this retreat, to be pastors with the tenderness of God.  Leave the whip hanging in the sacristy and be shepherds with tenderness, even with those who create the most problems for you.  This is a grace.  It is a divine grace.  We do not believe in an etherial God, we believe in a God who became flesh, who has a heart and this heart speaks today saying: Come to me.  If you are tired or burdened and I will give you rest.  But treat the little ones with tenderness, with the same tenderness I myself treat them.  This is what the Heart of Jesus Christ asks of us today, and this is what I ask for you during this Mass, and even for myself.