Francis at the Mass with new cardinals: the way of the Church is that of mercy and inclusion

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!”.

Angelus: good is contagious

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.

Audiences

Vatican City, 16 February 2015 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father received in audience:

- Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith;

- Pynchas Brener, chief rabbi emeritus of the “Israelite Union of Caracas”, and entourage.

Other Pontifical Acts

Vatican City, 16 February 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed Bishop Ystinus Harjosusanto, M.S.F., of Tanjung Selor, Indonesia, as archbishop of Samarinda (area 114,810, population 2,774,246, Catholics 105,959, priests 44, religious 109), Indonesia.

The Pope to the new cardinals: “May the people of God always see in us a firm condemnation of injustice and joyful service to the truth”

Vatican City, 14 February 2015 (VIS) – At 11 a.m. today in the Vatican Basilica, Pope Francis celebrated an Ordinary Public Consistory during which he created twenty new cardinals, to whom he imposed the biretta, consigned the ring and assigned the title or diaconate church.

The celebration was also attended by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, whom Pope Francis embraced upon entering the basilica. He was also greeted by Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura who, as first among the new cardinals, addressed some words of thanks to the Holy Father on behalf of all. “Becoming part of the College of Cardinals places us in a particular way in the history and life of the Church of Rome that – according to St. Ignatius of Antioch's beautiful phrase – presides in charity. We are invited to come out of ourselves, of our habits and comforts, in order to serve the mission of this Church, aware that this implies having a broader horizon”. Cardinal Jose de Jesus Pimiento was unable to attend on account of his advanced age, and so he will receive the biretta in Colombia.

In the homily he pronounced before the new cardinals, the Pope chose as a guide the hymn to charity from St. Paul's first Letter to the Corinthians, and emphasised that charity must always preside over their ministry.

“The cardinalate is certainly an honour, but it is not honorific”, he began. “This we already know from its name – 'cardinal' – from the word 'cardo', a hinge. As such it is not a kind of accessory, a decoration, like an honorary title. Rather, it is a pivot, a point of support and movement essential for the life of the community. You are 'hinges' and are 'incardinated' in the Church of Rome, which 'presides over the entire assembly of charity'”.

In the Church, “all 'presiding' flows from charity, must be exercised in charity, and is ordered towards charity. Here too the Church of Rome exercises an exemplary role. Just as she presides in charity, so too each particular Church is called, within its own sphere, to preside in charity. For this reason, I believe that the 'hymn to charity' in St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians can be taken as a guiding theme for this celebration and for your ministry, especially for those of you who today enter the College of Cardinals. All of us, myself first and each of you with me, would do well to let ourselves be guided by the inspired words of the apostle Paul, especially in the passage where he lists the marks of charity. May our Mother Mary help us to listen. She gave the world Jesus, charity incarnate, who is 'the more excellent Way'; may she help us to receive this Word and always to advance on this Way. May she assist us by her humility and maternal tenderness, because charity, as God’s gift, grows wherever humility and tenderness are found.

“St. Paul tells us that charity is, above all, 'patient' and 'kind'”, remarked the Holy Father. “The greater our responsibility in serving the Church, the more our hearts must expand according to the measure of the heart of Christ. 'Patience' – 'forbearance' – is in some sense synonymous with catholicity. It means being able to love without limits, but also to be faithful in particular situations and with practical gestures. It means loving what is great without neglecting what is small; loving the little things within the horizon of the great things, since 'non coerceri a maximo, contineri tamen a minimo divinum est'. To know how to love through acts of kindness. 'Kindness' – benevolence – means the firm and persevering intention to always will the good of others, even those unfriendly to us.

“The Apostle goes on to say that charity 'is not jealous or boastful, it is not puffed up with pride'. This is surely a miracle of love, since we humans – all of us, at every stage of our lives – are inclined to jealousy and pride, since our nature is wounded by sin. Nor are Church dignitaries immune from this temptation. But for this very reason, dear brothers, the divine power of love, which transforms hearts, can be all the more evident in us, so that it is no longer you who live, but rather Christ who lives in you. And Jesus is love to the fullest.

“St. Paul then tells us that charity 'is not arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way'”, continued Pope Francis. “These two characteristics show that those who abide in charity are not self-centred. The self-centred inevitably become disrespectful; very often they do not even notice this, since 'respect' is precisely the ability to acknowledge others, to acknowledge their dignity, their condition, their needs. The self-centred person inevitably seeks his own interests; he thinks this is normal, even necessary. Those 'interests' can even be cloaked in noble appearances, but underlying them all is always 'self-interest'. Charity, however, makes us draw back from the centre in order to set ourselves in the real centre, which is Christ alone. Then, and only then, can we be persons who are respectful and attentive to the good of others.

“Charity, Saint Paul says, 'is not irritable, it is not resentful'. Pastors close to their people have plenty of opportunities to be irritable, to feel anger. Perhaps we risk being all the more irritable in relationships with our confreres, since in effect we have less excuses. Even here, charity, and charity alone, frees us. It frees us from the risk of reacting impulsively, of saying or doing the wrong thing; above all it frees us from the mortal danger of pent-up anger, of that smouldering anger which makes us brood over wrongs we have received. No. This is unacceptable in a man of the Church. Even if a momentary outburst is forgiveable, this is not the case with rancour. God save us from that!

“Charity – St. Paul adds – 'does not rejoice at the wrong, but rejoices in the right'. Those called to the service of governance in the Church need to have a strong sense of justice, so that any form of injustice becomes unacceptable, even those which might bring gain to himself or to the Church. At the same time, he must 'rejoice in the right'. What a beautiful phrase! The man of God is someone captivated by truth, one who encounters it fully in the word and flesh of Jesus Christ, the inexhaustible source of our joy. May the people of God always see in us a firm condemnation of injustice and joyful service to the truth”.

Finally, the Pope concluded, “'love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things'. Here, in four words, is a spiritual and pastoral programme of life. The love of Christ, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, enables us to live like this, to be like this: as persons always ready to forgive; always ready to trust, because we are full of faith in God; always ready to inspire hope, because we ourselves are full of hope in God; persons ready to bear patiently every situation and each of our brothers and sisters, in union with Christ, who bore with love the burden of our sins.

“Dear brothers, this comes to us not from ourselves, but from God. God is love and he accomplishes all this in us if only we prove docile to the working of his Holy Spirit. This, then, is how we are to be: 'incardinated' and docile. The more we are 'incardinated' in the Church of Rome, the more we should become docile to the Spirit, so that charity can give form and meaning to all that we are and all that we do. Incardinated in the Church which presides in charity, docile to the Holy Spirit who pours into our hearts the love of God. Amen”.

Following his allocution, the Pope pronounced the formula for the creation of the new cardinals, their name and the titular diaconate or church assigned to them. The new cardinals recited the Creed and their oath of fidelity and obedience to the Holy Father and his successors. They subsequently received the biretta and the ring from the Pope, who also assigned them their title or diaconate.

At the end of the rite, Cardinal Angelo Amato S.D.B., prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, addressed the Holy Father to request that three Blesseds be inscribed in the Book of Saints. The first, Jeanne-Emilie de Villeneuve, was born in France in 1811, and founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Castres for the education of poor girls and young women, for the sick, and for missions in distant lands. She died in 1854 and was beatified by Benedict XVI in 2009. The second, Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas (nee Maryam Sultanah) was born in Jerusalem in 1843 and carried out an intense apostolate in favour of Christian mothers and the young. Co-foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Rosary of Jerusalem of the Latins, she died in 1927 and was beatified by Benedict XVI in 2009. Finally, Mary of Jesus Crucified (nee Maryam Baouardy), born in Abellin near Nazareth in 1946, was a professed nun of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, and was sent to found the new Carmelites first in India and later in Bethlehem, where she died in 1878. She was beatified by St. John Paul II in 1983.