Vatican City, 15 February 2015 (VIS) –
At midday, following the Mass celebrated with the cardinals in the
Vatican Basilica, the Pope appeared at the window of his study in the
Apostolic Palace to pray the Angelus with the faithful and pilgrims
gathered in St. Peter's Square.
Francis returned to the theme of his
homily, Christ's compassion and mercy when faced with any type of
ailment of the body or spirit, based on the Gospel narrative of the
healing of the leper.
“God's mercy overcomes every barrier,
and Jesus' hand touches the leper. He does not keep a safe distance
and does not act by proxy, but rather He directly exposes Himself to
contagion by our malady; and it is precisely our malady that becomes
the locus of contact: He, Jesus, takes our ailing humanity from us
and we take His healthy, restorative humanity from Him. This happens
every time that we receive a Sacrament with faith: the Lord Jesus
'touches' us and gives us His grace. In his case, we think especially
of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which cures us from the leprosy
of sin”.
“Once again the Gospel shows us what
God does when faced with our sickness: God does not come to 'give a
lecture' on pain; neither does He come to eliminate suffering and
death from the world; rather, He comes to take upon Himself the
burden of our human condition, to bear it unto the end, to free us in
a radical and definitive way. Thus Christ vanquishes the ills and
sufferings of the world: by taking them upon Himself and defeating
them with the strength of God's mercy”.
Today, the Gospel passage of the
healing of the leper tells us that if we wish to be “true disciples
of Christ, we are required to become, joined with Him, instruments of
His merciful love, setting aside every type of marginalisation. To be
'imitators of Christ' before the poor or sick, we must not be afraid
to look them in the eye and to draw closer with tenderness and
compassion, to touch and embrace them”, explained the Pope, adding
that he often asks those who help others to do so “looking them in
the eye, without being afraid to touch them, so that the gesture of
aid may also be a gesture of communication”.
“We too need to be accepted by them”,
he continued, “A gesture of tenderness, a gesture of compassion. …
If evil is contagious, so is good. Therefore, good must increasingly
abound in us. Let us be 'infected' by good, and spread good to
others!”.
Following the Angelus prayer, the Holy
Father expressed his desire for hope and peace to all the men and
women of the Far East and in the other parts of the world that
celebrate the new lunar year. “This celebrations offer them the
happy occasion to rediscover and live intensely fraternity, the
precious bond of family life and the foundation of social life. May
this annual return to the roots of the person and the family help
these peoples to build a society in which relationships based on
respect, justice and charity may be woven”.
Finally, he greeted all those who have
come to Rome for the consistory and to accompany the new cardinals,
and thanked the countries that had sent official delegations. Pope
Francis concluded by asking the faithful and pilgrims in the Square
to applaud the new cardinals.
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