REGINA CÆLI POPE FRANCIS
Saint Peter's
Square
Third Sunday of
Easter, 19 April 2015
Dear Brothers
and Sisters, Good morning,
In the Bible
Readings of today’s liturgy the word “witnesses” is mentioned twice. The first
time it is on the lips of Peter who, after the healing of the paralytic at the
Door of the Temple of Jerusalem, exclaims: You “killed the Author of life, whom
God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses” (Acts 3:15). The second
time it is on the lips of the Risen Jesus. On the evening of Easter he opens
the minds of the disciples to the mystery of his death and Resurrection, saying
to them: “You are witnesses to these things” (Lk 24:48). The Apostles, who saw
the Risen Christ with their own eyes, could not keep silent about their
extraordinary experience. He had shown himself to them so that the truth of his
Resurrection would reach everyone by way of their witness. The Church has the
duty to continue this mission over time. Every baptized person is called to
bear witness, with their life and words, that Jesus is Risen, that Jesus is
alive and present among us. We are all called to testify that Jesus is alive.
We may ask
ourselves: who is a witness? A witness is a person who has seen, who recalls
and tells. See, recall and tell: these are three verbs which describe the
identity and mission. A witness is a person who has seen with an objective eye,
has seen reality, but not with an indifferent eye; he has seen and has let
himself become involved in the event. For this reason, one recalls, not only
because she knows how to reconstruct the events exactly but also because those
facts spoke to her and she grasped their profound meaning. Then a witness
tells, not in a cold and detached way but as one who has allowed himself to be
called into question and from that day changed the way of life. A witness is
someone who has changed his or her life.
The content of
Christian witness is not a theory, it’s not an ideology or a complex system of
precepts and prohibitions or a moralist theory, but a message of salvation, a
real event, rather a Person: it is the Risen Christ, the living and only
Saviour of all. He can be testified to by those who have personal experience of
Him, in prayer and in the Church, through a journey that has its foundation in
Baptism, its nourishment in the Eucharist, its seal in Confirmation, its
continual conversion in Penitence. Thanks to this journey, ever guided by the
Word of God, every Christian can become a witness of the Risen Jesus. And
his/her witness is all the more credible, the more it shines through a life
lived by the Gospel, a joyful, courageous, gentle peaceful, merciful life.
Instead, if a Christian gives in to ease, vanity, selfishness, if he or she
becomes deaf and blind to the question of “resurrection” of many brothers and
sisters, how can he/she communicate the living Jesus, how can the Christian
communicate the freeing power of the living Jesus and his infinite tenderness?
May Mary our
Mother sustain us by her intercession, that we might become, with all our
limitations but by the grace of faith, witnesses of the Risen Lord, bringing
the Paschal gifts of joy and peace to the people we encounter.
After the Regina Caeli:
APPEAL
Dear Brothers
and Sisters,
In these hours
news has been coming in of another tragedy in the Mediterranean. A boat full of
migrants capsized last night about 60 miles off the Libyan coast and hundreds
are feared dead. I express my deepest sorrow in the face of this tragedy and I
assure my thoughts and prayers to those still missing and to their families. I
address an urgent appeal that the international community will act with
decision and promptness to avoid any similar tragedy from happening again.
These are men and women like us, our brothers and sisters seeking a better
life, starving, persecuted, wounded exploited, victims of war; they are seeking
a better life. They were seeking happiness.... I invite you to pray in silence,
first, and then all together for these brothers and sisters.
* * *
Today in Turin
the solemn exposition of the Holy Shroud begins. I too, God willing, will go
there this 21 June. I hope that this act of veneration may help us all to find
in Jesus Christ the Merciful Face of God, and to recognize it also in the faces
of our brothers and sisters, especially those suffering most.
Please, do not
forget to pray for me. I wish everyone a good Sunday and a good lunch.
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