Vatican City, 11 November 2015 (VIS) –
Pope Francis concluded his brief pastoral visit to Florence yesterday
with Mass celebrated before fifty thousand people in the “Artemio
Franchi” stadium. Even the detainees in the Florentine prison
participated in a way, as the altar at which the Holy Father
consecrated the Eucharist was produced by them, for which he warmly
thanked them.
In his homily, the Holy Father began
from Christ's question to His disciples: “Who do people say that
the Son of Man is?”. “Jesus is interested in what people think,
not to keep them happy, but to be able to communicate with them”,
he explained. “Without knowing what people think, the disciple
isolates himself and begins to judge people according to his own
thoughts and convictions. Maintaining a healthy contact with reality,
with what people experience, their tears and their joys, is the only
way of being able to help them … to open their hearts to God. In
reality, when God wanted to speak with us He incarnated Himself.
Jesus' disciples must never forget where they were chosen from –
that is, among the people – and must never give in to the
temptation to assume detached attitudes, as if what the people think
and live did not affect them or as if it were of little importance to
them. … This also applies to us. The fact that we are gathered
today to celebrate Holy Mass in a sports stadium is a reminder of
this. The Church, like Jesus, lives amid the people and for the
people. For this reason the Church, throughout her history, has
always carried within her the same question: who is Jesus for the men
and women of today?”.
“Safeguarding and announcing the true
faith in Jesus Christ is at the heart of our Christian identity,
since in recognising the mystery of the Son of God made man, we can
enter into the mystery of God and the mystery of man. … Today, too
… our joy is sharing this faith and answering the Lord Jesus
together: 'You, for us, are the Christ, the Son of the living God'.
Our joy is also that of going against the grain and surmounting
current opinion, that, like then, does not manage to see Jesus as
more than a prophet or a teacher. Our joy is recognising in Him the
presence of God, the envoy of His Father, the Son who came to make
Himself an instrument of salvation for humanity”.
“At the root of the mystery of
salvation is “the will of a merciful God, who does not give up when
confronted with man's incomprehension, blame and misery, but rather
gives Himself to him, to the point of making Himself man in order to
encounter every person in his or her true condition. This, God's
merciful love, is what Simon Peter recognises in Jesus' face. It is
the same face that we are called upon to recognise in the forms in
which the Lord assures us of His presence among us: in His Word, that
illuminates the darkness of our minds and our heart; in the
Sacraments, that regenerate us from our death to new life; in
fraternal communion, that the Holy Spirit generates among His
disciples; in boundless love, that renders generous and tender
service to all; in the poor, who reminds us that Jesus wished for the
supreme revelation of Himself and His Father to take the image of
Himself humiliated and crucified. This truth of faith, this truth
scandalises … those who do not tolerate the mystery of God
impressed on the face of Christ”.
“In reality, the communion between
the divine and the human, fully realised in Jesus, is our aim, the
culmination of human history according to the Father's plan. … God
and man are not the two extremes of an opposition: they always seek
each other, as God recognises in man His own image and man recognises
himself only by looking at God. … This is the road on which we can
encounter humanity … with the spirit of the good Samaritan. It is
not by chance that humanism, to whose most creative moments the city
of Florence bears witness, has always had the face of charity”.
“At the end of the Mass the Pope
greeted the cardinal archbishop of Florence, Giuseppe Betori, and the
members of the Italian Episcopal Conference, and thanked the
detainees who had constructed the altar. He then transferred by car
to the “Luigi Ridolfi” stadium where he departed by helicopter to
return to the Vatican.
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