Vatican City, 12 April 2015 (VIS) –
On the second Sunday of Easter, or Divine Mercy Sunday, Pope Francis
celebrated Holy Mass in St. Peter's Basilica to commemorate the
centenary of the “martyrdom” (Metz Yeghern, or Great Evil) of the
Armenian People, and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church St. Gregory of
Narek (c. 951 – c. 1003), Armenian monk, theologian, poet and
philosopher, whose feast day is celebrated on 27 February.
His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX
Tarmouni, Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenian Catholics
concelebrated with the Holy Father, in the presence of His Holiness
Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians and His
Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia. The
president of the Republic of Armenia, Serz Sargsyan, also attended
the Mass.
In his homily, the Pope commented on
the Gospel of St. John, who was in the Upper Room with the other
disciples on the evening of the first day after the Sabbath, and who
tells us that “Jesus came and stood among them, and said, 'Peace be
with you!' and He showed them His hands and His side; He showed them
His wounds. And in this way they realised that it was not an
apparition: it was truly Him, the Lord, and they were filled with
joy. On the eighth day Jesus came once again into the Upper Room and
showed His wounds to Thomas, so that he could touch them as he had
wished to, in order to believe and thus become himself a witness to
the Resurrection”.
To us also, on this Sunday which Saint
John Paul II wished to dedicate to Divine Mercy, “the Lord shows
us, through the Gospel, his wounds. They are wounds of mercy. It is
true: the wounds of Jesus are wounds of mercy. 'With His stripes we
are healed'. Jesus invites us to behold these wounds, to touch them
as Thomas did, to heal our lack of belief. Above all, He invites us
to enter into the mystery of these wounds, which is the mystery of
His merciful love”.
“Through these wounds, as in a
light-filled opening, we can see the entire mystery of Christ and of
God”, said Pope Francis: “His Passion, His earthly life –
filled with compassion for the weak and the sick – His incarnation
in the womb of Mary. And we can retrace the whole history of
salvation: the prophecies – especially about the Servant of the
Lord, the Psalms, the Law and the Covenant; to the liberation from
Egypt, to the first Passover and to the blood of the slaughtered
lambs; and again from the Patriarchs to Abraham, and then all the way
back to Abel, whose blood cried out from the earth. All of this we
can see in the wounds of Jesus, crucified and risen; with Mary, in
her Magnificat, we can perceive that, 'His mercy extends from
generation to generation'”.
He continued, “Faced with the tragic
events of human history we can feel crushed at times, asking
ourselves, 'Why?'. Humanity’s evil can appear in the world like an
abyss, a great void: empty of love, empty of goodness, empty of life.
And so we ask: how can we fill this abyss? For us it is impossible;
only God can fill this emptiness that evil brings to our hearts and
to human history. It is Jesus, God made man, Who died on the Cross
and Who fills the abyss of sin with the depth of His mercy”.
The saints teach us that “the world
is changed beginning with the conversion of one’s own heart, and
that this happens through the mercy of God. And so, whether faced
with my own sins or the great tragedies of the world, 'my conscience
would be distressed, but it would not be in turmoil, for I would
recall the wounds of the Lord: “He was wounded for our iniquities”.
What sin is there so deadly that it cannot be pardoned by the death
of Christ?'”.
“Keeping our gaze on the wounds of
the Risen Jesus, we can sing with the Church: 'His love endures
forever'; eternal is his mercy. And with these words impressed on our
hearts, let us go forth along the paths of history, led by the hand
of our Lord and Saviour, our life and our hope”, concluded the
Pontiff.
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