At noon today in Rome (6:00am EST), the Holy Father, Pope Francis appeared at the window of his study in the Vatican Apostolic Palace to recite the Angelus with the faithful and with pilgrims gathered in Saint Peter's Square.
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
At the centre of this Sunday's gospel (cf Mk 12:28b-34), we find the commandment of love: love for God and love for our neighbour. A scribe asked Jesus: Which is the first of all the commandments? (Mk 12:28). He responded by citing the profession of faith that is used by every Iraelite when they begin and when they end their day, a profession that begins with the words: Hear, Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord (Deut 6:4). In this way, Israel keeps her faith in the fundamental reality of her whole belief: there is only one Lord and that Lord is ours in the sense that he is bound to us with an indissoluble pact, he loved us, loves us and will love us forever. It is from this source, this love of God, which derives the double commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength ... You will love your neighbour as yourself (Mk 12:30-31).
By choosing these two words addressed by God to his people and putting them together, Jesus taught once and for all that love for God and love for neighbour are inseparable, indeed, even more than this, they support one another . Even if placed in sequence, they are the two sides of a single coin: lived together they are the true strength of the believer! To love God is to live by him and for him, for what he is and for what he does. And living by God means giving without reservation, forgiving without limits, a relationship that grows and grows. Therefore, to love God means investing our energies every day into being his collaborators into serving our neighbour without reserve, into seeking opportunities to forgive without limits and into cultivating relationships of communion and fraternity.
Mark, the evangelist does not bother to specify who is our neighbour because my neighbour is the person I meet on the journey, in my daily life. It is not a matter of pre-selecting my neighbour: this is not Christian. I might think that my neighbour is the one I have preselected: no, this is not Christian, it is pagan; but it is about having eyes to see it and hearts that are willing to seek that person's well-being. If we practice and strive to see with the eyes of Jesus, we will always be close to and work at listening to those who need it. The needs of our neighbours certainly require effective answers, but first they still require sharing. With an image we can say that the hungry needs not only a bowl of soup, but also a smile, to be heard and even to be prayed for, maybe all of this can be done together. Today's Gospel invites all of us to be on the lookout not only for the urgencies of the poorest of our brothers and sisters, but above all to be attentive to their need for fraternal closeness, for the meaning of life, for tenderness. This challenges our Christian communities: it is a question of avoiding the risk of being communities that live by many initiatives but with few relationships; the risk of community service stations but with little company, in the full and Christian sense of this term.
God, who is love, has created us out of love and so that we can love others by remaining united with Him. It would be an illusion to claim to love our neighbour without loving God; and it would be just as illusory to claim to love God without loving our neighbour. The two dimensions of love, for God and for neighbour, in their unity characterize the disciple of Christ. May the Virgin Mary help us to welcome and bear witness to this luminous teaching in everyday life.
Following the recitation of the Angelus, the Holy Father continued:
Dear brothers and sisters,
I express my sadness at the terrorist attack that took place two days ago at the Coptic-Orthodox Church in Egypt. I am praying for the victims, for the pilgrims who were killed solely for the fact that they were Christians, and I ask Blessed Mary to console their families and the entire community. Let us pray together for them: Hail Mary ...
Yesterday, in the Basilica of Saint John in the Lateran, Mother Clelia Merloni, the founder of the Sisters Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was proclaimed Blessed. This woman was entirely abandoned to the will of God, zealously charitable, patient in the face of adversity and heroic in forgiving. Let us give thanks to God for the luminous gospel witness of this new Blessed and let us follow her example of goodness and mercy. Applause for this new Blessed.
I greet all of you, Romans and pilgrims, in particular the students who have come from Vienna, the young people from the Opera Giorgio La Pira in Florence, the young families from Raldon (Verona), the faithful from Milan, Petosino, Civitanova Marche, from the Dioceses of Ozieri, the Oratory in Carugate and the young people who have recently been Confirmed who have come from Longare and Modena.
I wish you all a good Sunday. Please, don't forget to pray for me. Enjoy your lunch and good bye!
(Original text in Italian)
Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
prior to the recitation of the Angelus
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
At the centre of this Sunday's gospel (cf Mk 12:28b-34), we find the commandment of love: love for God and love for our neighbour. A scribe asked Jesus: Which is the first of all the commandments? (Mk 12:28). He responded by citing the profession of faith that is used by every Iraelite when they begin and when they end their day, a profession that begins with the words: Hear, Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord (Deut 6:4). In this way, Israel keeps her faith in the fundamental reality of her whole belief: there is only one Lord and that Lord is ours in the sense that he is bound to us with an indissoluble pact, he loved us, loves us and will love us forever. It is from this source, this love of God, which derives the double commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength ... You will love your neighbour as yourself (Mk 12:30-31).
By choosing these two words addressed by God to his people and putting them together, Jesus taught once and for all that love for God and love for neighbour are inseparable, indeed, even more than this, they support one another . Even if placed in sequence, they are the two sides of a single coin: lived together they are the true strength of the believer! To love God is to live by him and for him, for what he is and for what he does. And living by God means giving without reservation, forgiving without limits, a relationship that grows and grows. Therefore, to love God means investing our energies every day into being his collaborators into serving our neighbour without reserve, into seeking opportunities to forgive without limits and into cultivating relationships of communion and fraternity.
Mark, the evangelist does not bother to specify who is our neighbour because my neighbour is the person I meet on the journey, in my daily life. It is not a matter of pre-selecting my neighbour: this is not Christian. I might think that my neighbour is the one I have preselected: no, this is not Christian, it is pagan; but it is about having eyes to see it and hearts that are willing to seek that person's well-being. If we practice and strive to see with the eyes of Jesus, we will always be close to and work at listening to those who need it. The needs of our neighbours certainly require effective answers, but first they still require sharing. With an image we can say that the hungry needs not only a bowl of soup, but also a smile, to be heard and even to be prayed for, maybe all of this can be done together. Today's Gospel invites all of us to be on the lookout not only for the urgencies of the poorest of our brothers and sisters, but above all to be attentive to their need for fraternal closeness, for the meaning of life, for tenderness. This challenges our Christian communities: it is a question of avoiding the risk of being communities that live by many initiatives but with few relationships; the risk of community service stations but with little company, in the full and Christian sense of this term.
God, who is love, has created us out of love and so that we can love others by remaining united with Him. It would be an illusion to claim to love our neighbour without loving God; and it would be just as illusory to claim to love God without loving our neighbour. The two dimensions of love, for God and for neighbour, in their unity characterize the disciple of Christ. May the Virgin Mary help us to welcome and bear witness to this luminous teaching in everyday life.
Following the recitation of the Angelus, the Holy Father continued:
Dear brothers and sisters,
I express my sadness at the terrorist attack that took place two days ago at the Coptic-Orthodox Church in Egypt. I am praying for the victims, for the pilgrims who were killed solely for the fact that they were Christians, and I ask Blessed Mary to console their families and the entire community. Let us pray together for them: Hail Mary ...
Yesterday, in the Basilica of Saint John in the Lateran, Mother Clelia Merloni, the founder of the Sisters Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was proclaimed Blessed. This woman was entirely abandoned to the will of God, zealously charitable, patient in the face of adversity and heroic in forgiving. Let us give thanks to God for the luminous gospel witness of this new Blessed and let us follow her example of goodness and mercy. Applause for this new Blessed.
I greet all of you, Romans and pilgrims, in particular the students who have come from Vienna, the young people from the Opera Giorgio La Pira in Florence, the young families from Raldon (Verona), the faithful from Milan, Petosino, Civitanova Marche, from the Dioceses of Ozieri, the Oratory in Carugate and the young people who have recently been Confirmed who have come from Longare and Modena.
I wish you all a good Sunday. Please, don't forget to pray for me. Enjoy your lunch and good bye!
(Original text in Italian)
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