Pope Francis' Mass for 20 March 2020

At 7:00am local time this morning (2:00am EST), the Holy Father, Pope Francis celebrated Mass inside the chapel at the Casa Santa Marta.

Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis

prior to the celebration of the Mass

Yesterday, I received a message from a priest ... asking me to pray for the doctors in Bergamo, Treviglio, Brescia, Cremona.  They are at the limits of their work.  They are giving their own lives to help those who are sick, to save the lives of others.  And let us also pray for the Authorities.  Managing this moment is not easy for them; often, they are suffering from incomprehension: this includes the doctors, hospital employees, volunteers, and other Authorities.  At this moment, they are pillars, helping all of us to go on, defending us in this time of crisis.  Let us pray for all of them.

Homily of the Holy Father, Pope Francis

during the Mass celebrated on 20 March 2020

When I read or listen to this passage from the prophet Hosea which we heard in the first reading: Come back, Israel, to the Lord your God (Hos 14:2), return.  When I hear this, I remember a song that used to be sung seventy-five years ago.  The Italian families in Buenos Aires used to listen to it often: Return to your Father; he will still sing you a lullaby, but it is your father who tells you to go back.  It's your Father, not a judge.  It's your father, your daddy.  Return home, listen, come back.

That memory from my childhood brings me right away to the daddy spoken of in the fifteenth chapter of Luke: that daddy who sees his son coming from afar, the son who had left with all his money and had wasted it all.  If he sees him from so far away, it's because he was waiting.  How many times each day he would climb onto the terrace in order to look - maybe he spent years - waiting for his son.  He sees him from afar.  Come back to your father, to your daddy.  He is waiting for you.  This is God's tenderness, which speaks to us especially during Lent.

This is the time for entering into ourselves, and for remembering our Father and returning to our daddy.  Oh, but Father I am ashamed to come back because, Father, you know that I have done so much, I've done so many things wrong.  What will the Lord say?  What does the Lord say?  Come back, I will heal you from all your disloyalty.  I will love you.  I will love them with all my heart, for my anger has turned from them.  I will fall like dew.  He will bloom like the lily, with dressed out roots, like the tree of Lebanon (Hos 14:4-5).  Come back to your Father, the God of tenderness who will heal us; who will heal us from so many wounds, so many of life's wounds, and so many ugly things that we have done.  Everyone has their own.

Thinking about this, going back to God is going back to the embrace of the Father, and I am thinking about another promise made - I think it's from Isaiah - if you think your sons are ugly, even like scarlet, I will make them white as snow (Is 1:18).  He is capable of transforming us, capable of changing our hearts, but we need to take the first step to go back.  It's not going to God, it's going back home.  During Lent ... Lent always directs us toward this transformation of heart, which is a Christian habit that takes on flesh in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  This is the moment - I don't know if it's exactly balancing the accounts but - it's about God who purifies us and embraces us.

I know that many of you go to celebrate confession before Easter, but many might say, where can I find a priest, a confessor, because I can't leave the house, and I want to make my peace with the Lord.  I want him to hug me.  He is my Father.  I want his embrace.  How can I do that unless I find a priest?  Do what the Catechism says.  It is very clear.  If you can't find a priest to go to confession, speak to God.  He is your Father.  Tell him the truth: Lord, I did this and this and this. Forgive me.  Ask him for pardon with all of your heart, with an act of contrition and promise him that afterwards, you will go to Confession, but do this and right away, you will return to God's grace.  You yourself can draw near - as the Catechism teaches us - to God's forgiveness without having a priest at hand. This is a favored moment, this is the right moment. An act of contrition that is well made.  Thus, our souls become white as the snow.

It would be good today, in our ears, this word return should echo in our ears: Go, return to your Father, return to your Father; He is waiting for you and he will throw a feast for you.

As the members of the assembly received communion, the Holy Father continued:

All of those who are far away, we unite ourselves to this sacrifice and we make a spiritual communion: I prostrate myself at your feet, O Jesus, and offer my contrite heart.  I adore you in the sacrament of your love.  I desire to receive you in the poor place where I offer you, in my heart, as a foretaste of heaven.  I would like to possess you in my spirit.  Come to me O my Jesus, so that I might come to you.  May your love inflame all of my being, in life and in death.  I believe in you Jesus.  I hope in you.  I love you.  Amen.

There followed a period of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.  Then the Holy Father blessed those who were gathered and reposed the Blessed Sacrament before leaving the chapel.