Vatican City, 15 February 2015 (VIS) –
At 10 a.m. today Pope Francis presided at a Eucharistic celebration
in the Vatican Basilica with the cardinals created in yesterday's
consistory, and with all the cardinals in Rome for the occasion.
In the homily he pronounced before the
members of the College of Cardinals, in which he commented on the
passage from the Gospel narrating the healing of the leper –
marginalised, despised and abandoned for being “impure” –
Francis insisted that the cardinals follow Jesus' merciful logic and
reminded them that the way of the Church is “not only to welcome
and reinstate with evangelical courage all those who knock at our
door, but to go out and seek, fearlessly and without prejudice, those
who are distant, freely sharing what we ourselves freely received”.
'Lord, if you choose, you can make me
clean…': Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and
touched him, and said: 'I do choose. Be made clean!'. The compassion
of Jesus! That com-passion which made him draw near to every person
in pain! Jesus does not hold back; instead, he gets involved in
people’s pain and their need for the simple reason that he knows
and wants to show com-passion, because he has a heart unashamed to
have 'compassion'.
“'Jesus could no longer go into a
town openly, but stayed in the country; and people came to him from
every quarter'. This means that Jesus not only healed the leper but
also took upon himself the marginalisation enjoined by the law of
Moses. Jesus is unafraid to risk sharing in the suffering of others;
he pays the price of it in full.
“Compassion leads Jesus to concrete
action: he reinstates the marginalised! These are the three key
concepts that the Church proposes in today’s liturgy of the word:
the compassion of Jesus in the face of marginalisation and his desire
to reinstate.
“Marginalisation: Moses, in his
legislation regarding lepers, says that they are to be kept alone and
apart from the community for the duration of their illness. He
declares them: 'unclean!'.
“Imagine how much suffering and shame
lepers must have felt: physically, socially, psychologically and
spiritually! They are not only victims of disease, but they feel
guilty about it, punished for their sins! Theirs is a living death;
they are like someone whose father has spat in his face.
“In addition, lepers inspire fear,
contempt and loathing, and so they are abandoned by their families,
shunned by other persons, cast out by society. Indeed, society
rejects them and forces them to live apart from the healthy. It
excludes them. So much so that if a healthy person approached a
leper, he would be punished severely, and often be treated as a leper
himself.
“True, the purpose of this rule was
'to safeguard the healthy', 'to protect the righteous', and, in order
to guard them from any risk, to eliminate the 'peril' by treating the
diseased person harshly. As the high priest Caiaphas exclaimed: 'It
is better to have one man die for the people than to have the whole
nation destroyed'.
Reinstatement: Jesus revolutionises and
upsets that fearful, narrow and prejudiced mentality. He does not
abolish the law of Moses, but rather brings it to fulfilment. He does
so by stating, for example, that the law of retaliation is
counterproductive, that God is not pleased by a Sabbath observance
which demeans or condemns a man. He does so by refusing to condemn
the sinful woman, but saves her from the blind zeal of those prepared
to stone her ruthlessly in the belief that they were applying the law
of Moses. Jesus also revolutionises consciences in the Sermon on the
Mount, opening new horizons for humanity and fully revealing God’s
'logic'. The logic of love, based not on fear but on freedom and
charity, on healthy zeal and the saving will of God. For 'God our
Saviour desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of
the truth'. 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice'.
“Jesus, the new Moses, wanted to heal
the leper. He wanted to touch him and restore him to the community
without being 'hemmed in' by prejudice, conformity to the prevailing
mindset or worry about becoming infected. Jesus responds immediately
to the leper’s plea, without waiting to study the situation and all
its possible consequences! For Jesus, what matters above all is
reaching out to save those far off, healing the wounds of the sick,
restoring everyone to God’s family! And this is scandalous to some
people!
“Jesus is not afraid of this kind of
scandal! He does not think of the closed-minded who are scandalised
even by a work of healing, scandalised before any kind of openness,
by any action outside of their mental and spiritual limits, by any
caress or sign of tenderness which does not fit into their usual
thinking and their ritual purity. He wanted to reinstate the outcast,
to save those outside the camp.
“There are two ways of thinking and
of having faith: we can fear to lose the saved and we can want to
save the lost. Even today it can happen that we stand at the
crossroads of these two ways of thinking. The thinking of the doctors
of the law, which would remove the danger by casting out the diseased
person, and the thinking of God, who in his mercy embraces and
accepts by reinstating him and turning evil into good, condemnation
into salvation and exclusion into proclamation.
“These two ways of thinking are
present throughout the Church’s history: casting off and
reinstating. Saint Paul, following the Lord’s command to bring the
Gospel message to the ends of the earth, caused scandal and met
powerful resistance and great hostility, especially from those who
demanded unconditional obedience to the Mosaic law, even on the part
of converted pagans. Saint Peter, too, was harshly criticised by the
community when he entered the house of the pagan centurion Cornelius.
“The Church’s way, from the time of
the Council of Jerusalem, has always always been the way of Jesus,
the way of mercy and reinstatement. This does not mean
underestimating the dangers of letting wolves into the fold, but
welcoming the repentant prodigal son; healing the wounds of sin with
courage and determination; rolling up our sleeves and not standing by
and watching passively the suffering of the world. The way of the
Church is not to condemn anyone for eternity; to pour out the balm of
God’s mercy on all those who ask for it with a sincere heart. The
way of the Church is precisely to leave her four walls behind and to
go out in search of those who are distant, those essentially on the
'outskirts' of life. It is to adopt fully God’s own approach, to
follow the Master who said: 'Those who are well have no need of the
physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call, not the
righteous but sinners'.
“In healing the leper, Jesus does not
harm the healthy. Rather, he frees them from fear. He does not
endanger them, but gives them a brother. He does not devalue the law
but instead values those for whom God gave the law. Indeed, Jesus
frees the healthy from the temptation of the 'older brother', the
burden of envy and the grumbling of the labourers who bore 'the
burden of the day and the heat'.
In a word: charity cannot be neutral,
antiseptic, indifferent, lukewarm or impartial! Charity is
infectious, it excites, it risks and it engages! For true charity is
always unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous!. Charity is creative
in finding the right words to speak to all those considered incurable
and hence untouchable. Finding the right words. Contact is the
language of genuine communication, the same endearing language which
brought healing to the leper. How many healings can we perform if
only we learn this language of contact! The leper, once cured,
became a messenger of God’s love. The Gospel tells us that 'he went
out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the word'.
Dear new Cardinals, this is the
'logic', the mind of Jesus, and this is the way of the Church. Not
only to welcome and reinstate with evangelical courage all those who
knock at our door, but to go out and seek, fearlessly and without
prejudice, those who are distant, freely sharing what we ourselves
freely received. 'Whoever says: “I abide in [Christ]”, ought to
walk just as he walked'. Total openness to serving others is our
hallmark, it alone is our title of honour!
“Consider carefully that, in these
days when you have become Cardinals, we have asked Mary, Mother of
the Church, who herself experienced marginalisation as a result of
slander and exile, to intercede for us so that we can be God’s
faithful servants. May she – our Mother – teach us to be
unafraid of tenderly welcoming the outcast; not to be afraid of
tenderness. How often we fear tenderness! May Mary teach us not to be
afraid of tenderness and compassion. May she clothe us in patience as
we seek to accompany them on their journey, without seeking the
benefits of worldly success. May she show us Jesus and help us to
walk in his footsteps.
“Dear new Cardinals, my brothers, as
we look to Jesus and our Mother, I urge you to serve the Church in
such a way that Christians – edified by our witness – will not be
tempted to turn to Jesus without turning to the outcast, to become a
closed caste with nothing authentically ecclesial about it. I urge
you to serve Jesus crucified in every person who is marginalised, for
whatever reason; to see the Lord in every excluded person who is
hungry, thirsty, naked; to see the Lord present even in those who
have lost their faith, or turned away from the practice of their
faith, or say that they are atheists; to see the Lord who is
imprisoned, sick, unemployed, persecuted; to see the Lord in the
leper – whether in body or soul – who encounters discrimination!
We will not find the Lord unless we truly accept the marginalised!
May we always have before us the image of St. Francis, who was
unafraid to embrace the leper and to accept every kind of outcast.
Truly, dear brothers, the Gospel of the marginalised is where our
credibility is at stake, is discovered and is revealed!”.
