ANGELUS POPE
FRANCIS
Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 6 November 2016
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| PHOTO: ANSA-en.radiovaticana.va |
Dear
Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!
Within
just days of the Solemnity of All Saints and of the Commemoration of the
faithful departed, this Sunday’s Liturgy invites us once again to reflect upon
the mystery of the resurrection of the dead. The Gospel (cf. Lk 20:27-38)
presents Jesus confronted by several Sadducees, who did not believe in the
resurrection and considered the relationship with God only in the dimension of
earthly life. Therefore, in order to place the resurrection under ridicule and
to create difficulty for Jesus, they submit a paradoxical and absurd case: that
of a woman who’d had seven husbands, all brothers, who died one after the
other. Thus came the malicious question posed to Jesus: in the resurrection,
whose wife will the woman be (v. 33)?
Jesus
does not fall into the snare and emphasizes the truth of the resurrection,
explaining that life after death will be different from that on earth. He makes
his interlocutors understand that it is not possible to apply the categories of
this world to the realities that transcend and surpass what we see in this
life. He says, in fact: “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage;
but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the
resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage” (vv.
34-35).
With
these words, Jesus means to explain that in this world we live a provisional
reality, which ends; conversely, in the afterlife, after the resurrection, we
will no longer have death as the horizon and will experience all things, even
human bonds, in the dimension of God, in a transfigured way. Even marriage, a
sign and instrument of God in this world, will shine brightly, transformed in
the full light of the glorious communion of saints in Paradise.
The
“sons of heaven and of the resurrection” are not a few privileged ones, but are
all men and all women, because the salvation that Jesus brings is for each one
of us. And the life of the risen shall be equal to that of angels (cf. v. 36),
meaning wholly immersed in the light of God, completely devoted to his praise,
in an eternity filled with joy and peace. But pay heed! Resurrection is not
only the fact of rising after death, but is a new genre of life which we
already experience now; it is the victory over nothing that we can already
anticipate.
Resurrection
is the foundation of the faith and of Christian hope. Were there no reference
to Paradise and to eternal life, Christianity would be reduced to ethics, to a
philosophy of life. Instead, the message of Christian faith comes from heaven,
it is revealed by God and goes beyond this world. Belief in resurrection is
essential in order that our every act of Christian love not be ephemeral and an
end in itself, but may become a seed destined to blossom in the garden of God,
and to produce the fruit of eternal life.
May the
Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth, confirm us in the hope of resurrection
and help us to make fruitful in good works her Son’s word sown in our hearts.
After
the Angelus:
Dear
brothers and sisters, on the occasion of today’s Jubilee for Prisoners, I would
like to address an appeal in favour of improving the living conditions in
prisons throughout the world, that the human dignity of detainees be fully
respected. In addition, I would like to emphasize the importance of reflecting
on the need for a criminal justice system that is not exclusively punitive, but
open to hope and the prospect of reintegrating the offender into society. In a
special way, I submit for the consideration of the competent civil authorities
of every country the possibility that, in this Holy Year of Mercy, an act of
clemency be carried out for those prisoners who are held to be eligible to
benefit from such a provision.
Two days
ago the Paris Agreement on the world climate was ratified. This important step
forward shows that humanity has the capacity to collaborate for the protection
of creation (cf. Laudato Si’, n. 13), in order to place
the economy at the service of people and to build peace and justice. Then
tomorrow, in Marrakech, Morocco, the new session of the Climate Change
Conference will begin, aimed among other things at the implementation of the
Agreement. I hope that this whole process may be guided by the awareness of our
responsibility for the care of our common home.
Yesterday
in Scutari, Albania, 30 martyrs were proclaimed Blessed: two bishops, many
priests and religious, a seminarian and several lay people, victims of the
terribly harsh persecution by the atheist regime that long controlled that
country in the last century. They preferred to submit to prison, torture and
finally death, in order to remain faithful to Christ and to the Church. May their
example help us to find in the Lord strength that supports in moments of
difficulty and that inspires attitudes of goodness, forgiveness and peace.
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