Vatican
City, 8 September 2013 (VIS) – Pope Francis, following yesterday's
fast and prayer vigil for peace in Syria, the Middle East and all
over the world, returned to the theme of peace during the Angelus at
midday today. He commented on today's Gospel reading in which Jesus
states the condition for his disciples: to put nothing before their
love for Him, carrying their cross, and following him.
The
Holy Father explained that many people approached Jesus, especially
in the wake of some prodigious dream, that indicated Him as the
Messiah, the King of Israel. But Jesus knows that in Jerusalem the
cross awaits Him and does not wish to create illusions; he knows that
the path will lead him to sacrifice Himself for the redemption of our
sins. “Following Jesus does not mean taking part in a triumphal
parade!” the Pope said. “It means sharing in His merciful love,
becoming part of His great mission of mercy towards each and every
man. … And this universal forgiveness, this mercy, comes through
the cross. Jesus does not want to carry out this mission alone: He
wants to involve us too, in the mission that the Father entrusted to
Him. ... A disciple of Jesus gives up all his or her goods, because
he or she has found in Him the greatest Good, within which every
other asset receives its true worth and meaning: family relations,
other relationships, work, cultural and economic wealth, and so
forth”.
To
explain his demand, Jesus uses the parable of the king who, before
leaving to go to war, would surely first sit down and consider
whether with ten thousand men he could stand up to his adversary, who
was advancing against him with twenty thousand? If not, then while
the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue
for peace. “Here Jesus doesn’t want to discuss war – it is
only a parable” commented the Holy Father. “But at this moment in
time, when we are praying intensely for peace, this Word of the Lord
affects us profoundly, and fundamentally it says: there’s a deeper
war we must fight, all of us! It is the strong and brave decision to
renounce evil and its seductions, and to choose good, fully prepared
to pay personally: that is, following Christ, and taking up our
cross! It is a profound war against evil! What is the point of
fighting wars, many wars, if you are not capable of fighting this
deeper war against evil? There’s no point!”
He
continued, “This war against evil means saying no to fratricidal
hatred, and to the lies that it uses; saying no to violence in all
its forms; saying no to the proliferation of arms and their sale on
the black market. There are so many of them! And the doubt always
remains: this war over there, this other war over there – because
there are wars everywhere – is it really a war over problems, or is
it a commercial war, to sell these arms on the black market? These
are the enemies we must fight, united and coherent, following no
other interests but those of peace and of the common good”.
The
Pope concluded by mentioning that today we remember the Nativity of
the Virgin Mary, a celebration particularly beloved by the Oriental
Churches. “All of us, now, can send our warm greetings to all the
brothers, sisters, bishops, monks, nuns of the Oriental Churches,
Orthodox and Catholic. … Jesus is the sun, Mary is the first light
that announces its dawning. Yesterday evening we kept vigil, calling
on Her intercession in our prayer for peace in the world, especially
in Syria and in the whole of the Middle East. We invoke Her now as
Queen of Peace. Queen of Peace, pray for us!”
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