VATICAN CITY, JUN 17, 2007 (VIS) - At 8.30 a.m. today, following an hour-long helicopter journey from the Vatican, the Pope arrived in the Italian town of Assisi to begin a visit commemorating the eighth centenary of the conversion of St. Francis.
After a brief visit to the Shrine of Rivotorto, where St. Francis lived for two years with his first followers, the Holy Father travelled to the Shrine of St. Damian. From there he journeyed by car to the Basilica of St. Clare where he prayed before the Blessed Sacrament and venerated the crucifix of St. Damian where St. Francis heard the words that changed his life: "Go, Francis, and repair my house."
At 10 a.m., Benedict XVI presided at a Eucharistic concelebration in the Lower Square of St. Francis.
In his homily the Holy Father considered the figure of St. Francis, who in his first 25 years of life "pursued vain dreams of worldly glory." However, "his conversion led him to practice mercy. ... Serving lepers even to the point of kissing them was not only a philanthropic gesture - what might be called a 'social' conversion - but a true religious experience, directed by the initiative of grace and by the love of God."
"To convert ourselves to love is to pass from bitterness to 'sweetness,' from sadness to true joy. Humans are truly themselves, and realize themselves fully, in as much as they live with God and of God, recognizing and loving Him in their fellow man."
"The life of the converted Francis," said the Pope, was "a great act of love," as is shown by "his choice of poverty and his search for Christ in the face of the poor."
Francis was "a true master" in the "search for peace, the protection of nature, and the promotion of dialogue among mankind," said the Holy Father and he recalled John Paul II's initiative that brought together representatives from Christian confessions and from other religions of the world for a meeting of prayer for peace in Assisi in 1986. "That was," said Pope Benedict, "a prophetic intuition and a moment of grace."
"The light of the 'Poverello' on that initiative was a guarantee of its Christian authenticity," said the Pope, "because his life and his message are so visibly founded upon his choice of Christ. What must be rejected a priori is any form of religious indifferentism, which has no connection with authentic inter-religious dialogue.
"The spirit of Assisi," Pope Benedict added, "which from that [1986 initiative] continues to spread out around the world, is opposed to the spirit of violence and to the abuse of religion as a pretext for violence. Assisi tells us that faithfulness to one's own religious convictions, faithfulness above all to the crucified and risen Christ, is not expressed in violence and intolerance but in sincere respect for others, in dialogue, and in an announcement that appeals to freedom and reason while remaining committed to peace and reconciliation.
"Failing to bring together acceptance, dialogue and respect for everyone with the certainty of faith that all Christians, like the saint of Assisi, are called to cultivate, would be neither evangelical nor Franciscan," the Pope concluded. We must all "announce Christ as the way, the truth and the life of man; the only Savior of the world."
PV-ITALY/MASS/ASSISI VIS 20070618 (560)
After a brief visit to the Shrine of Rivotorto, where St. Francis lived for two years with his first followers, the Holy Father travelled to the Shrine of St. Damian. From there he journeyed by car to the Basilica of St. Clare where he prayed before the Blessed Sacrament and venerated the crucifix of St. Damian where St. Francis heard the words that changed his life: "Go, Francis, and repair my house."
At 10 a.m., Benedict XVI presided at a Eucharistic concelebration in the Lower Square of St. Francis.
In his homily the Holy Father considered the figure of St. Francis, who in his first 25 years of life "pursued vain dreams of worldly glory." However, "his conversion led him to practice mercy. ... Serving lepers even to the point of kissing them was not only a philanthropic gesture - what might be called a 'social' conversion - but a true religious experience, directed by the initiative of grace and by the love of God."
"To convert ourselves to love is to pass from bitterness to 'sweetness,' from sadness to true joy. Humans are truly themselves, and realize themselves fully, in as much as they live with God and of God, recognizing and loving Him in their fellow man."
"The life of the converted Francis," said the Pope, was "a great act of love," as is shown by "his choice of poverty and his search for Christ in the face of the poor."
Francis was "a true master" in the "search for peace, the protection of nature, and the promotion of dialogue among mankind," said the Holy Father and he recalled John Paul II's initiative that brought together representatives from Christian confessions and from other religions of the world for a meeting of prayer for peace in Assisi in 1986. "That was," said Pope Benedict, "a prophetic intuition and a moment of grace."
"The light of the 'Poverello' on that initiative was a guarantee of its Christian authenticity," said the Pope, "because his life and his message are so visibly founded upon his choice of Christ. What must be rejected a priori is any form of religious indifferentism, which has no connection with authentic inter-religious dialogue.
"The spirit of Assisi," Pope Benedict added, "which from that [1986 initiative] continues to spread out around the world, is opposed to the spirit of violence and to the abuse of religion as a pretext for violence. Assisi tells us that faithfulness to one's own religious convictions, faithfulness above all to the crucified and risen Christ, is not expressed in violence and intolerance but in sincere respect for others, in dialogue, and in an announcement that appeals to freedom and reason while remaining committed to peace and reconciliation.
"Failing to bring together acceptance, dialogue and respect for everyone with the certainty of faith that all Christians, like the saint of Assisi, are called to cultivate, would be neither evangelical nor Franciscan," the Pope concluded. We must all "announce Christ as the way, the truth and the life of man; the only Savior of the world."
PV-ITALY/MASS/ASSISI VIS 20070618 (560)
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