Being
Christian is a response to the voice of love, to a call to become
children of God. This was the central theme of Pope Francis’ remarks at
Mass on Tuesday morning in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae
residence in the Vatican.
The Holy Father also spoke of the Christian
certainty that God never leaves us alone and asks us to go forward, even
in the midst of difficulties.
Pope
Francis focused his homily on the first reading of the day, from the
Book of Genesis, which tells of the discussion between Abram and Lot his
cousin for the division of the earth. “When I read this,” he said, “I
think of the Middle East and so I ask the Lord [intensely] that He give
wisdom to all of us, the wisdom [to say] let’s not fight, [you and I], I
from here and you from there... the wisdom for peace.”
Abram, the Pope
observed, “keeps walking.” He said, “[Abram] had left his land to go he
knew not where, but wherever the Lord would tell him.” He kept on
walking, then, because he believed in the Word of God, which, “had
invited him to go out of his land.” This man, perhaps ninety years old,
said the Pope, looked upon the land that the Lord had shown him and
believed:
"Abram departed his land [carrying] a promise: his
entire journey is a going toward this promise. The way he walked his
path is a model for how we [ought to walk our own]. God called Abram, a
[single] person, and that one person makes an entire people. If we go to
the Book of Genesis, to the beginning, to the creation, we find that
God creates the stars, creates the plants, creates the animals, creates
the these and the that’s and the others ... But He creates Man in the
singular, one. God always speaks in the singular to us, because He has
created in his image and likeness. And God speaks in the singular. He
spoke to Abram and gave him a promise and invited him to come out of his
land. We Christians have been called one-by-one: none of us is
Christian by pure chance. No one.”
There is a call, “by name, and
with a promise,” the Pope said, “Go ahead, I am with you! I walk beside
you.” This, he said, Jesus knew as well: “Even in the most difficult
moments He turns to the Father”:
"God accompanies us, God calls
us by name, God promises [there will be] a line of heirs. This is
something of ‘the surety of the Christian. It is not a coincidence, it
is a call - a call that keeps us going. Being a Christian is a call of
love, friendship, a call to become a child of God, brother of Jesus, to
become fruitful in the transmission of this call to others, to become
instruments of this call. There are so many problems, so many problems,
there are difficult times, Jesus had many of His own! But always with
that confidence: ‘The Lord has called me. The Lord is like me. The Lord
has promised me.”
The Lord, he reiterated, "is faithful, for He
can never deny Himself: He is faithfulness.” Thinking of the passage in
which Abram, “is anointed father, for the first time, the father of
peoples,” we also think of ouseveles – we, who have been anointed in
Baptism, and we think of our Christian life.”:
"Someone will say,
‘Father, I am a sinner’, but we all are, as everyone knows. The problem
is: sinners, go forward with the Lord, go forward with that promise
that He has made us, with the promise of fruitfulness, and tell others,
recount to others others that the Lord is with us, that the Lord has
chosen us and that He does not leave us alone, not ever! That certainty
of the Christian will do us good. May the Lord give us, all of us, this
desire to move forward, which Abram had, in the midst of all his
problems: to go forward with the confidence that He who called me, who
promised me so many beautiful things, is with me.”
The Mass was concelebrated by Cardinal Robert Sarah of the Pontifical Council cor unum and by the emeritus vicar-general of the Rome diocese, Cardinal Camillo Ruini. It was attended by staff from cor unum
as well as of the Pontifical Academy for Life and the Vatican
Observatory, accompanied by the Observatory’s director, Fr. José Gabriel
Funes, SJ.