Ninth meeting of the Council of Cardinals

Vatican City, 13 April 2015 (VIS) – This morning the ninth meeting of the Council of Cardinals, to be attended by the Holy Father, began in the Vatican. The Council will continue its work until Wednesday, 15 April.

Mass for the centenary of the Armenian Metz Yeghern: Jesus fills the abyss of sin with the depth of His mercy

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.

Pope's message to the Armenians

Vatican City, 12 April 2015 (VIS) – At the end of the Holy Mass celebrated in St. Peter's Basilica to commemorate the centenary of the Armenian “martyrdom” (Metz Yeghern) and the proclamation of St. Gregory of Narek as Doctor of the Church, the Pope met with His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenian Catholic Church, and the president of the Republic of Armenia, Serz Sargsyan. He handed to each of them a signed copy in Italian of his message he read at the beginning of the celebration, with a translation in Armenian. The following is the full text of his message.

“On a number of occasions I have spoken of our time as a time of war, a third world war which is being fought piecemeal, one in which we daily witness savage crimes, brutal massacres and senseless destruction. Sadly, today too we hear the muffled and forgotten cry of so many of our defenceless brothers and sisters who, on account of their faith in Christ or their ethnic origin, are publicly and ruthlessly put to death – decapitated, crucified, burned alive – or forced to leave their homeland.

Today too we are experiencing a sort of genocide created by general and collective indifference, by the complicit silence of Cain, who cries out: 'What does it matter to me? Am I my brother’s keeper?'.

In the past century our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies. The first, which is widely considered 'the first genocide of the twentieth century' (John Paul II and Karekin II, Common Declaration, Etchmiadzin, 27 September 2001), struck your own Armenian people, the first Christian nation, as well as Catholic and Orthodox Syrians, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Greeks. Bishops and priests, religious, women and men, the elderly and even defenceless children and the infirm were murdered. The remaining two were perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism. And more recently there have been other mass killings, like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia. It seems that humanity is incapable of putting a halt to the shedding of innocent blood. It seems that the enthusiasm generated at the end of the Second World War has dissipated and is now disappearing. It seems that the human family has refused to learn from its mistakes caused by the law of terror, so that today too there are those who attempt to eliminate others with the help of a few and with the complicit silence of others who simply stand by. We have not yet learned that 'war is madness', 'senseless slaughter'.

Dear Armenian Christians, today, with hearts filled with pain but at the same time with great hope in the risen Lord, we recall the centenary of that tragic event, that immense and senseless slaughter whose cruelty your forebears had to endure. It is necessary, and indeed a duty, to honour their memory, for whenever memory fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester. Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it!

I greet you with affection and I thank you for your witness. With gratitude for his presence, I greet Mr Serz Sargsyan, the President of the Republic of Armenia. My cordial greeting goes also to my brother Patriarchs and Bishops: His Holiness Kerekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians; His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX, Patriarch of Cilicia of Armenian Catholics; and Catholicosates of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Patriarchate of the Armenian Catholic Church.

In the certainty that evil never comes from God, Who is infinitely good, and standing firm in faith, let us profess that cruelty may never be considered God’s work and, what is more, can find absolutely no justification in his Holy Name. Let us continue this celebration by fixing our gaze on Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, victor over death and evil”.

Regina Coeli: “Invited to contemplate Divine Mercy in the wounds of the Risen Christ”

Vatican City, 13 April 2015 (VIS) – At midday on Divine Mercy Sunday, following the celebration of Holy Mass in the Vatican Basilica for the faithful of Armenian Rite, Pope Francis appeared at the window of his study to pray the Regina Coeli with the faithful and pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square. Before the Marian prayer, the Pontiff addressed those present.

“Today is the eighth day after Easter, and the Gospel of St. John tells of the two appearances of the Resurrected Jesus to the apostles gathered in the Upper Room. … The first time, the Lord shows the disciples the wounds on His body. … But Thomas was not present that evening, and he did not believe the account given by the others. … Eight days after – precisely like today – Jesus returned among them and turned immediately to Thomas, inviting him to touch the wounds on His hands and on His side. He reaches out to his incredulity so that, through the signs of the Passion, he is able to reach the fullness of Paschal faith: faith in the resurrection of Jesus”.

“Thomas is a person who is not easily satisfied, a seeker who wishes to check in person, to attain his own personal experience. After his initial resistance and uneasiness, he too finally reaches the point of believing. ... Jesus awaits him patiently and is attentive to the difficulties and insecurities of the last man to arrive. … [Thomas] was able to 'touch' the paschal Mystery that fully demonstrates God's salvific love, rich in mercy. And like Thomas, we too, on this second Sunday of Easter, are invited to contemplate, in the wounds of the Risen Christ, the Divine Mercy that overcomes every human limit and shines through the darkness of evil and sin”.

Francis explained that the upcoming Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy will be an intense and prolonged period for welcoming the immense wealth of God's merciful love, and emphasised that the Face of Mercy is Jesus Christ. “Let us keep our gaze upon Him, He Who always seeks us, awaits us, forgives us … and may the Virgin Mary help us to be merciful towards others, as Jesus is with us”.

After the Marian prayer, the Pope greeted those present, especially pilgrims attending the Holy Mass in the Church of the Holy Spirit in Sassia, centre for devotion to Divine Mercy. He mentioned the neocatechumenical communities of Rome, which are beginning a special mission in the city's squares to pray and offer witness of their faith, and congratulated the Oriental Churches which, according to their calendar, celebrate Easter. Finally, he gave thanks for the many Easter greetings that he has received from all over the world.

Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy: path of forgiveness and mercy

Vatican City, 12 April 2015 (VIS) – The Pope presided at the first vespers of the second Sunday of Easter – Divine Mercy Sunday – in St. Peter's Basilica at 5.30 p.m. yesterday, Saturday 11 April. The celebration included the consignment and reading of the official Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, to begin on 8 December 2015 and to close on 16 November 2016.

The Holy Father, accompanied by the cardinals, transferred to the entrance of the Vatican Basilica, and by the side of the Holy Door, he presented the Bull of Indiction to the four cardinal archpriests of the papal basilicas of Rome: St. Peter in the Vatican, St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside-the-Walls and St. Mary Major. As an expression of his desire that the Jubilee be celebrated both in Rome and throughout the world, the Pope also handed a copy of the Bull to the prefects of the Congregations for Bishops, for Evangelisation of Peoples, and for the Oriental Churches, and thus symbolically to bishops worldwide. A copy of the document was received by Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai on behalf of all the East , and by Archbishop Bartolome Adoukounou for the African continent. Msgr. Khaled Ayad Bishay of the Patriarchal Church of Alexandria of the Copts received the copy destined for the Oriental Churches.

The Regent of the Papal Household, Msgr. Leonardo Sapienza, apostolic protonotary, read a number of extracts from the official document convoking the extraordinary Holy Year, in the presence of the Pope. The Holy Father then went on to preside at first vespers in the Vatican Basilica, and pronounced the following homily.

“The greeting of the Risen Christ to His disciples on the evening of Easter, 'Peace be with you!', continues to resound in us all. Peace, especially during this Easter season, remains the desire of so many people who suffer unprecedented violence of discrimination and death simply because they bear the name 'Christian'. Our prayer is all the more intense and becomes a cry for help to the Father, Who is rich in mercy, that He may sustain the faith of our many brothers and sisters who are in pain. At the same time, we ask for the grace of the conversion of our own hearts so as to move from indifference to compassion.

“St. Paul reminds us that we have been saved through the mystery of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He is the Reconciler, Who is alive in our midst offering the way to reconciliation with God and with each other. The Apostle recalls that, notwithstanding the difficulties and the sufferings of life, the hope of salvation which Christ has sown in our hearts nonetheless continues to grow. The mercy of God is poured out upon us, making us just and giving us peace.

“Many question in their hearts: why a Jubilee of Mercy today? Simply because the Church, in this time of great historical change, is called to offer more evident signs of God’s presence and closeness. This is not the time to be distracted; on the contrary, we need to be vigilant and to reawaken in ourselves the capacity to see what is essential. This is a time for the Church to rediscover the meaning of the mission entrusted to her by the Lord on the day of Easter: to be a sign and an instrument of the Father’s mercy.

“For this reason, the Holy Year must keep alive the desire to know how to welcome the numerous signs of the tenderness which God offers to the whole world and, above all, to those who suffer, who are alone and abandoned, without hope of being pardoned or feeling the Father’s love. A Holy Year to experience strongly within ourselves the joy of having been found by Jesus, the Good Shepherd Who has come in search of us because we were lost. A Jubilee to receive the warmth of His love when He bears us upon his shoulders and brings us back to the Father’s house. A year in which to be touched by the Lord Jesus and to be transformed by His mercy, so that we may become witnesses to mercy. Here, then, is the reason for the Jubilee: because this is the time for mercy. It is the favourable time to heal wounds, a time not to be weary of meeting all those who are waiting to see and to touch with their hands the signs of the closeness of God, a time to offer everyone the way of forgiveness and reconciliation.

“May the Mother of God open our eyes, so that we may comprehend the task to which we have been called; and may she obtain for us the grace to experience this Jubilee of Mercy as faithful and fruitful witnesses of Christ”.