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Wednesday, June 15, 2016
GENERAL AUDIENCE POPE FRANCIS
St Peter's Square
Wednesday, 8 June 2016

22. The first sign of Mercy: Cana (Jn 2:1-11)


Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good Morning!
Before beginning the catechesis, I should like to greet a group of couples who are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversaries. They really are the “good wine” of the family! Yours is a witness that newlyweds — whom I will greet afterwards — and young people must learn from. It is a beautiful testimony. Thank you for your witness.

After having commented on several parables about mercy, today we shall ponder on Jesus’ first miracle, which John the Evangelist calls “signs”, because Jesus doesn’t perform them in order to excite wonder but to reveal the love of the Father. The first of these miraculous signs is actually recounted by John (2:1-11) and takes places at Cana in Galilee. It is a kind of “gateway”, on which are engraved the words and expressions that illuminate the entire mystery of Christ and open the hearts of the disciples to the faith. Let us look at a few of them.

In the introduction we find the expression “Jesus with his disciples” (v. 2). Those whom Jesus called had to follow him, he bound to himself in a community and now, like a single family, they are all invited to a wedding. Thereby initiating his public ministry at the wedding at Cana, Jesus reveals himself as the spouse of the People of God, proclaimed by the prophets, and reveals to us the depth of the relationship that unites us to Him: it is the new Covenant of love. What is at the foundation of our faith? An act of mercy by which Jesus binds us to him. And the Christian life is the response to this love, it is like the history of two people in love. God and man meet, seek, find, celebrate and love one another: just like the lovers in the Song of Songs. Everything else comes as a result of this relationship. The Church is the family of Jesus into which he pours his love; it is this love that the Church safeguards and desires to give to all.

In the context of the Covenant, we are also to understand Our Lady’s observation: “They have no wine” (v. 3). How can one celebrate a wedding feast and make merry without what the prophets indicated as a typical element of the messianic banquet (cf. Am 9:13-14; Jl 2:24; Is 25:6)? Water is necessary for life, but wine expresses the abundance of a banquet and the joy of a feast. This wedding feast was short of wine; the newlyweds are ashamed of this. But just imagine ending a wedding feast drinking tea; it would be a shame. Wine is necessary for a feast. By transforming into wine the water of the jars used “for the Jewish rites of purification” (Jn 2:6), Jesus preforms an eloquent sign: he transforms the Law of Moses into the Gospel, bearer of joy. As John states elsewhere: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (1:17).

The words Mary addresses to the servants come to crown the wedding of Cana: “Do whatever he tells you” (v. 5). It is curious: these are her last words recounted by the Gospels: they are the legacy that she hands down to us. Today too Our Lady says to us all: “Whatever he tells you — Jesus tells you, do it”. It is the legacy that she has left us: it is beautiful! It is an expression that recalls the formula of faith used by the people of Israel at Sinai in response to the promises of the Covenant: “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!” (Ex 19:8). And indeed at Cana the servants obey. “Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water’. And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast’. So they took it” (Jn 2:7-8). At this wedding, the New Covenant is truly articulated and to the servants of the Lord, that is to all the Church, is entrusted a new mission: “Do whatever he tells you!”. To serve the Lord means to listen and to put into practice his Word. It is the simple but essential recommendation of the Mother of Jesus and it is the programme of life of the Christian. For each one of us, to draw from the jar is equivalent to entrusting oneself to the Word of God in order to experience its effectiveness in life. Thus, together with the steward of the banquet who had tasted the water-become-wine, we too can exclaim: “you have kept the good wine until now” (v. 10). Yes, the Lord continues to reserve the best wine for our salvation, just as it continues to flow from the pierced side of the Lord.

The conclusion of the narrative sounds like a judgment: “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him” (v. 11). The wedding feast at Cana is more than a simple account of Jesus’ first miracle. Like a treasure chest, He guards the secret of his Person and the purpose of his coming: the awaited Groom starts off the wedding that is fulfilled in the Paschal Mystery. At this wedding Jesus binds his disciples to himself in a new and final Covenant. At Cana Jesus’ disciples become his family and at Cana the faith of the Church is born. We are all invited to the wedding feast, because the new wine will never run short!

Special greetings:
I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, particularly those from England, Scotland, France, The Netherlands, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States of America. With prayerful good wishes that the present Jubilee of Mercy will be a moment of grace and spiritual renewal for you and your families, I invoke upon all of you joy and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ.

I exhort the young people, the sick and newlyweds to pray with special intensity to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary that they may teach you how to love God and neighbour with full dedication.
              

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Sunday, June 12, 2016
ANGELUS POPE FRANCIS
Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 5 June 2016



The word of God, which we have just heard, points us to the central event of our faith: God’s victory over suffering and death. It proclaims the Gospel of hope, born of Christ’s paschal mystery, whose splendour is seen on the face of the Risen Lord and reveals God our Father as one who comforts all of us in our afflictions. That word calls us to remain united to the Passion of the Lord Jesus, so that the power of his resurrection may be revealed in us.

In the Passion of Christ, we find God’s response to the desperate and at times indignant cry that the experience of pain and death evokes in us. He tells us that we cannot flee from the Cross, but must remain at its foot, as Our Lady did. In suffering with Jesus, she received the grace of hoping against all hope (cf. Rom 4:18).

This was the experience of Stanislaus of Jesus and Mary, and Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad, who today are proclaimed saints. They remained deeply united to the passion of Jesus, and in them the power of his resurrection was revealed.
This Sunday’s first reading and Gospel offer us amazing signs of death and resurrection. The first took place at the hand of the Prophet Isaiah, the second by Jesus. In both cases, they involved the young children of widows, who were then given back alive to their mothers.

The widow of Zarephath — a woman who was not a Jew, yet had received the Prophet Elijah in her home — was upset with the prophet and with God, because when Elijah was a guest in her home her child had taken ill and had died in her arms. Elijah says to her: “Give me your son” (1 Kings 17:19). What he says is significant. His words tell us something about God’s response to our own death, however it may come about. He does not say: “Hold on to it; sort it out yourself!” Instead, he says: “Give it to me”. And indeed the prophet takes the child and carries him to the upper room, and there, by himself, in prayer “fights with God”, pointing out to him the absurdity of that death. The Lord heard the voice of Elijah, for it was in fact he, God, who spoke and acted in the person of the prophet. It was God who, speaking through Elijah, told the woman: “Give me your son”. And now it was God who gave the child back alive to his mother.

God’s tenderness is fully revealed in Jesus. We heard in the Gospel (Lk 7:11-17) of the “great compassion” (v. 13) which Jesus felt for the widow of Nain in Galilee, who was accompanying her only son, a mere adolescent, to his burial. Jesus draws close, touches the bier, stops the funeral procession, and must have caressed that poor mother’s face bathed in tears. “Do not weep”, he says to her (Lk 7:13), as to say: “Give me your son”. Jesus asks to takes our death upon himself, to free us from it and to restore our life. The young man then awoke as if from a deep sleep and began to speak. Jesus “gave him to his mother” (v. 15). Jesus is no wizard! It is God’s tenderness incarnate; the Father’s immense compassion is at work in Jesus.

The experience of the Apostle Paul was also a kind of resurrection. From a fierce enemy and persecutor of Christians, he became a witness and herald of the Gospel (cf. Gal 1:13-17). This radical change was not his own work, but a gift of God’s mercy. God “chose” him and “called him by his grace”. “In him”, God desired to reveal his Son, so that Paul might proclaim Christ among the Gentiles (vv. 15-16). Paul says that God the Father was pleased to reveal his Son not only to him, but in him, impressing as it were in his own person, flesh and spirit, the death and resurrection of Christ. As a result, the Apostle was not only to be a messenger, but above all a witness.

So it is with each and every sinner. Jesus constantly makes the victory of life-giving grace shine forth. Today, and every day, he says to Mother Church: “Give me your children”, which means all of us. He takes our sins upon himself, takes them away and gives us back alive to the Mother Church. All that happens in a special way during this Holy Year of Mercy.

The Church today offers us two of her children who are exemplary witnesses to this mystery of resurrection. Both can sing forever in the words of the Psalmist: “You have changed my mourning into dancing / O Lord, my God, I will thank you forever” (Ps 30:12). Let us all join in saying: “I will extol you, Lord, for you have raised me up” (Antiphon of the Responsorial Psalm).

After the Angelus:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I greet all of you who have taken part in this celebration. In a special way I thank the Official Delegations who came for the Canonizations: that of Poland, headed by the President of the Republic, and that of Sweden. May the Lord, through the intercession of these two new Saints, bless your nations.

I greet with affection the many pilgrim groups from Italy and other countries, in particular the faithful from Estonia, as well as those from the Diocese of Bologna as well as the musical bands.

All together let us now turn in prayer to the Virgin Mary, that she may always guide us on the path of sanctity and support us in building day by day justice and peace.

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Thursday, June 09, 2016
GENERAL AUDIENCE POPE FRANCIS
Wednesday, 1st June 2016


21. Humble prayer obtains mercy (cf Lk 18:9-14)



Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

Last Wednesday we listened to the parable of the judge and the widow, on the need to pray with perseverance. Today, with another parable, Jesus wants to show us the right attitude for prayer and for invoking the mercy of the Father; how one must pray; the right attitude for prayer. It is the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector (cf. Lk 18:9-14). Both men went up into the Temple to pray, but they do so in very different ways, obtaining opposite results.

The pharisee stood and prayed using many words. His is yes, a prayer of thanksgiving to God, but it is really just a display of his own merits, with a sense of superiority over “other men”, whom he describes as “extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even,” for example, referring to the other one there, “like this tax collector” (v. 11). But this is the real problem: that pharisee prays to God, but in truth he is just self-lauditory. He is praying to himself! Instead of having the Lord before his eyes, he has a mirror. Although he is standing in the Temple, he doesn’t feel the need to prostrate himself before the majesty of God; he remains standing, he feels secure, as if he were the master of the Temple! He lists all the good works he has done: he is beyond reproach, observing the Law beyond measure, he fasts “twice a week” and pays “tithes” on all he possesses. In short, rather than prayer, he is satisfied with his observance of the precepts. Yet, his attitude and his words are far from the way of God’s words and actions, the God who loves all men and does not despise sinners. On the contrary, this pharisee despises sinners, even by indicating the other one there. In short, the pharisee, who holds himself to be just, neglects the most important commandment: love of God and of neighbour.

It is not enough, therefore, to ask how much we pray, we have to ask ourselves how we pray, or better, in what state our heart is: it is important to examine it so as to evaluate our thoughts, our feelings, and root out arrogance and hypocrisy. But, I ask myself: can one pray with arrogance? No. Can one pray with hypocrisy? No. We must only pray by placing ourselves before God just as we are. Not like the pharisee who prays with arrogance and hypocrisy. We are all taken up by the phrenetic pace of daily life, often at the mercy of feelings, dazed and confused. It is necessary to learn how to rediscover the path to our heart, to recover the value of intimacy and silence, because the God who encounters us and speaks to us is there. Only by beginning there can we in our turn encounter others and speak with them. The pharisee walked toward the Temple, sure of himself, but he was unaware of the fact that his heart had lost the way.

Instead the tax collector — the other man — presents himself in the Temple with a humble and repentant spirit: “standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast” (v. 13). His prayer was very brief, not long like that of the pharisee: “God, be merciful to me a sinner”. Nothing more. A beautiful prayer! Indeed, tax collectors — then called “publicans” — were considered impure, subject to foreign rulers; they were disliked by the people and socially associated with “sinners”. The parable teaches us that a man is just or sinful not because of his social class, but because of his way of relating to God and how he relates to his brothers and sisters. Gestures of repentance and the few and brief words of the tax collector bear witness to his awareness of his own miserable condition. His prayer is essential. He acts out of humility, certain only that he is a sinner in need of mercy. If the pharisee asked for nothing because he already had everything, the tax collector can only beg for the mercy of God. And this is beautiful: to beg for the mercy of God! Presenting himself with “empty hands”, with a bare heart and acknowledging himself to be a sinner, the tax collector shows us all the condition that is necessary in order to receive the Lord’s forgiveness. In the end, he is the one, so despised, who becomes an icon of the true believer.

Jesus concludes the parable with the judgment: “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (v. 14). Of these two, who is the corrupt one? The pharisee. The pharisee is the very icon of a corrupt person who pretends to pray, but only manages to strut in front of a mirror. He is corrupt and he is pretending to pray. Thus, in life whoever believes himself to be just and criticises others and despises them, is corrupt and a hypocrite. Pride compromises every good deed, empties prayer, creates distance from God and from others.

If God prefers humility it is not to dishearten us: rather, humility is the necessary condition to be raised by Him, so as to experience the mercy that comes to fill our emptiness. If the prayer of the proud does not reach God’s heart, the humility of the poor opens it wide. God has a weakness for the humble ones. Before a humble heart, God opens his heart entirely. It is this humility that the Virgin Mary expresses in the Canticle of the Magnificat: “he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden […] his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation” (Lk 1:48, 50). Let her help us, our Mother, to pray with a humble heart. And we, let us repeat that beautiful prayer three times: “Oh God, be merciful to me a sinner”.

Special greetings:
I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, particularly those from England, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nigeria, Canada and the United States of America. With prayerful good wishes that the present Jubilee of Mercy may be a moment of grace and spiritual renewal for you and your families, I invoke upon all of you joy and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Friday is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, this year enriched by the Jubilee of Priests. I invite you all to pray throughout the month of June to the Heart of Jesus and to support your priests with closeness and warmth that they may ever more clearly reflect that Heart filled with merciful love.

I extend a special thought to young people, to the sick and to newlyweds. Dear young people, draw from the Heart of Jesus the nourishment for your spiritual life, the font of your hope; dear sick people, offer up your suffering to the Lord, that he may continue to spread his love in the hearts of men; and you, dear newlyweds, approach the Eucharist regularly, that, nourished by Christ, you may be Christian families touched by the love of the Sacred Heart.


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