At 5:30pm today, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord and the Day of Consecrated Life, the Holy Father, Pope Francis presided, in the Vatican Basilica, over the celebration of a Mass along with members of the Institute for Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Concelebrating with the Holy Father were priests belonging to Orders, Congregations and Religious Institutes.
We hold before the eyes of our minds the icon of Mother Mary who is walking with the Baby Jesus in her arms. She it was who took him to the temple, who introduced him to the people, who took him to meet his people.
The arms of the Mother are like the stairs on which the Son of God descended toward us, the stairs by which God heard our prayer. We heard about it in the first reading from the Letter to the Hebrews: Christ made himself very similar to his brothers, and became a high priest who is merciful and worthy of faith (Heb 2:17). This is the dual way of Jesus: He descended and became like us, in order to ascend to the Father along with us, making us like Himself.
We can contemplate this movement in our hearts, the gospel scene of Mary who enters the temple with the Baby in her arms. The Madonna walks, but it is the Son who first walked in her. She carries the child, but it was He who carried her in God's journey which comes to us in order that we might go out to Him.
Jesus walked this same road in order to show us the new way, that is the new and living way (cf Heb 10:20) which is He himself. For us who are consecrated, this is the only way that, in truth and without any alternative, we must follow joyfully and with perseverance.
The gospel cites five times the obedience of Mary and Joseph to the Law of the Lord (cf Lk 2:22, 23, 24, 27, 39). Jesus did not come to do his own will, but the will of the Father: and this - he himself said - was his food (cf Jn 4:34). Therefore, he who follows Jesus must embark upon the way of obedience, imitating the Lord's appeasement; lowering himself and cooperating with the Father's will, even to the point of self surrender and humiliation of himself (cf Phil 2:7-8). For a religious, progress is defined by a drop in service, that is by undertaking the same road as Jesus, who did not consider it a privilege to be like God (Phil 2:6). Let us be willing to lower ourself, to become servants in order to serve.
This way takes the form of a rule, guided by the charism of its founder, without forgetting that the irreplaceable rule for everyone is always the gospel. The Holy Spirit then, in its infinite creativity, also results in the different rules of consecrated life which are born, each in the footsteps of Christ, and thus from the same path of service.
Through this law, consecrated persons can achieve wisdom - which is not abstract but is a work and a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is an evident sign of wisdom and joy. Yes, the evangelical light of the religious is a consequence of the journey of self-abasement with Jesus. And when we are sad, it would be good to ask ourselves: how have we lived this dimension of our lives?
In the account of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, wisdom is represented by the two elderly persons, Simeon and Anna: persons who are docile to the Holy Spirit (this fact is mentioned three times), guided by Him, inspired by Him. The Lord gave them wisdom through a long journey, a journey of obedience to his law. Obedience which, on one hand, humiliates and destroys, but, on the other hand, maintains and encourages hope, making it creative so that it may be filled with the Holy Spirit. They also celebrate a kind of liturgy around the child who enters into the Temple: Simeon extols the Lord and Anna preaches salvation (cf Lk 2:28-32, 38). As in the case of Mary, also the elderly Simeon takes the baby in his arms, but in reality, it is the child who takes hold of him and guides him. The liturgy of the first Vespers of today's Feast expresses this fact in a clear and beautiful way: senex puerum portabat, puer autem senem regebat. Both Mary, a young mother, and Simeon, an elderly grandfather, take the child into their arms, but it is the baby himself who leads them both.
It is curious to note that in his story, it is not the young who are creative but the elderly. The young, like Mary and Joseph, follow the law of the Lord in the path of obedience; the elderly, like Simeon and Anna, see in the child, the accomplishment of the Law and the promise of God. They are capable of celebrating this truth: they are joyfully creative and wise.
However, the Lord transforms obedience into wisdom through the action of the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes God can also lavish the gift of wisdom on an inexperienced youth, suffice it that he be willing to follow the way of obedience and of docility to the Spirit. This obedience and this docility are not theoretic facts, they follow the logic of the Incarnation of the Word: docility and obedience to a Founder, docility and obedience to a concrete Rule, docility and obedience to a Superior, docility and obedience to the Church. It is about concrete docility and obedience.
Personal and community wisdom mature through the persevering way of obedience, and thus it also becomes possible to link the rules to the times: true modernization in fact is the work of wisdom, forged in docility and obedience.
The reinvigoration and renewal of consecrated life come about through a great love of the Rule, and also through the capacity to contemplate and to listen to the elderly of the Congregation. Thus the deposit, the charism of every Religious Family, is protected together with obedience and wisdom. And, through this way, we are preserved from living our consecration in a light-hearted way, in a disincarnate way, as if it were a gnosis, which would reduce religious life to a caricature, a caricature in which a following is acted upon without renunciation, prayer without encounter, fraternal life without communion, obedience without trust and charity without transcendence.
Like Mary and Simeon, we also want to take Jesus today in our arms so that He encounters his people, and we will certainly obtain this only if we let ourselves be gripped by the mystery of Christ. We guide the people to Jesus by letting ourselves, in turn, be guided by Him. This is what we must be: guided guides.
May the Lord, through the intercession of Mary our Mother, of Saint Joseph and of Saints Simeon and Anna, grant us all that we asked for in the Collect Prayer: to be presented (to Him) fully renewed in the spirit. Amen.
Homily of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
for the Mass celebrated on the
Day of Consecrated Life
We hold before the eyes of our minds the icon of Mother Mary who is walking with the Baby Jesus in her arms. She it was who took him to the temple, who introduced him to the people, who took him to meet his people.
The arms of the Mother are like the stairs on which the Son of God descended toward us, the stairs by which God heard our prayer. We heard about it in the first reading from the Letter to the Hebrews: Christ made himself very similar to his brothers, and became a high priest who is merciful and worthy of faith (Heb 2:17). This is the dual way of Jesus: He descended and became like us, in order to ascend to the Father along with us, making us like Himself.
We can contemplate this movement in our hearts, the gospel scene of Mary who enters the temple with the Baby in her arms. The Madonna walks, but it is the Son who first walked in her. She carries the child, but it was He who carried her in God's journey which comes to us in order that we might go out to Him.
Jesus walked this same road in order to show us the new way, that is the new and living way (cf Heb 10:20) which is He himself. For us who are consecrated, this is the only way that, in truth and without any alternative, we must follow joyfully and with perseverance.
The gospel cites five times the obedience of Mary and Joseph to the Law of the Lord (cf Lk 2:22, 23, 24, 27, 39). Jesus did not come to do his own will, but the will of the Father: and this - he himself said - was his food (cf Jn 4:34). Therefore, he who follows Jesus must embark upon the way of obedience, imitating the Lord's appeasement; lowering himself and cooperating with the Father's will, even to the point of self surrender and humiliation of himself (cf Phil 2:7-8). For a religious, progress is defined by a drop in service, that is by undertaking the same road as Jesus, who did not consider it a privilege to be like God (Phil 2:6). Let us be willing to lower ourself, to become servants in order to serve.
This way takes the form of a rule, guided by the charism of its founder, without forgetting that the irreplaceable rule for everyone is always the gospel. The Holy Spirit then, in its infinite creativity, also results in the different rules of consecrated life which are born, each in the footsteps of Christ, and thus from the same path of service.
Through this law, consecrated persons can achieve wisdom - which is not abstract but is a work and a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is an evident sign of wisdom and joy. Yes, the evangelical light of the religious is a consequence of the journey of self-abasement with Jesus. And when we are sad, it would be good to ask ourselves: how have we lived this dimension of our lives?
In the account of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, wisdom is represented by the two elderly persons, Simeon and Anna: persons who are docile to the Holy Spirit (this fact is mentioned three times), guided by Him, inspired by Him. The Lord gave them wisdom through a long journey, a journey of obedience to his law. Obedience which, on one hand, humiliates and destroys, but, on the other hand, maintains and encourages hope, making it creative so that it may be filled with the Holy Spirit. They also celebrate a kind of liturgy around the child who enters into the Temple: Simeon extols the Lord and Anna preaches salvation (cf Lk 2:28-32, 38). As in the case of Mary, also the elderly Simeon takes the baby in his arms, but in reality, it is the child who takes hold of him and guides him. The liturgy of the first Vespers of today's Feast expresses this fact in a clear and beautiful way: senex puerum portabat, puer autem senem regebat. Both Mary, a young mother, and Simeon, an elderly grandfather, take the child into their arms, but it is the baby himself who leads them both.
It is curious to note that in his story, it is not the young who are creative but the elderly. The young, like Mary and Joseph, follow the law of the Lord in the path of obedience; the elderly, like Simeon and Anna, see in the child, the accomplishment of the Law and the promise of God. They are capable of celebrating this truth: they are joyfully creative and wise.
However, the Lord transforms obedience into wisdom through the action of the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes God can also lavish the gift of wisdom on an inexperienced youth, suffice it that he be willing to follow the way of obedience and of docility to the Spirit. This obedience and this docility are not theoretic facts, they follow the logic of the Incarnation of the Word: docility and obedience to a Founder, docility and obedience to a concrete Rule, docility and obedience to a Superior, docility and obedience to the Church. It is about concrete docility and obedience.
Personal and community wisdom mature through the persevering way of obedience, and thus it also becomes possible to link the rules to the times: true modernization in fact is the work of wisdom, forged in docility and obedience.
The reinvigoration and renewal of consecrated life come about through a great love of the Rule, and also through the capacity to contemplate and to listen to the elderly of the Congregation. Thus the deposit, the charism of every Religious Family, is protected together with obedience and wisdom. And, through this way, we are preserved from living our consecration in a light-hearted way, in a disincarnate way, as if it were a gnosis, which would reduce religious life to a caricature, a caricature in which a following is acted upon without renunciation, prayer without encounter, fraternal life without communion, obedience without trust and charity without transcendence.
Like Mary and Simeon, we also want to take Jesus today in our arms so that He encounters his people, and we will certainly obtain this only if we let ourselves be gripped by the mystery of Christ. We guide the people to Jesus by letting ourselves, in turn, be guided by Him. This is what we must be: guided guides.
May the Lord, through the intercession of Mary our Mother, of Saint Joseph and of Saints Simeon and Anna, grant us all that we asked for in the Collect Prayer: to be presented (to Him) fully renewed in the spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment