Memory was the focus of Pope Francis’ remarks following the readings
of the day at a Mass of which he was the principal celebrant in the
Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, along with the cardinals
resident in Rome, who were assembled to give thanks to God on the
occasion of the Holy Father’s 80th birthday.
Memory – not merely recollection – of parents and forefathers, of
friends and relatives who have gone before him, of the signs of a life
well and fully lived – but most especially the memoria Dei, the “memory
of God” that is present throughout salvation history and is the
characteristic and the hallmark of Christian life.
“In Advent we started this journey, of vigilant expectation of the
Lord. Today we stop, we look back, we see that the journey has been
beautiful, that the Lord has not disappointed us, that the Lord is
faithful,” he said.
“We also see that both in history, and in our own lives, there have
been wonderful moments of fidelity and bad times of sin,” Pope Francis
went on to say, “but the Lord is there, with hand outstretched to help
you up and tell you: ‘Be on your way forward!’ – and this is the
Christian life – going forward, towards the definitive encounter. Let
not this journey of such intensity, in vigilant expectation of the
Lord’s coming, take away the grace of memory, of looking back on
everything the Lord has done for us, for the Church, in the history of
salvation. Thus shall we understand why the Church does read this
passage [the Genealogy of Jesus, Mt. 1:1-17] that may seem a bit boring –
but here is the story of a God who chose to walk with his people and
become himself, in the end, a man, like every one of us.”
Pope Francis was the principal celebrant at Mass in the Pauline
Chapel of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican on the morning of December
17th. The Mass was that of the Saturday in the Third Week of Advent,
and the concelebrants were the Cardinals resident in Rome.
The reason for the extraordinary liturgical celebration was
thanksgiving to God for the life of Pope Francis, who was born 80 years
ago this day, on December 17th, 1936. The liturgy unfolded with the
simple penitential settings of the season, and the readings were those
of the day. The Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo
Sodano, offered words of greeting in the name of all those present and
of all the members of the College, saying, “The risen Jesus appeared to
the disciples and addressed these well-known words to Simon-Peter:
‘Simon son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?’ And the Apostle
immediately replied: ‘Yes, Lord, You know that I love you!’ It is with
this love that Your Holiness today carries out His mission in the world.
Then we know that we are close to you, especially today, on this
beautiful day of your life.
Cardinal Sodano went on to say, “Our prayer shall be with you always,
well mindful as we are of what we repeat in the Holy Mass every day,
and that is: that by communion with the Body and Blood of Christ, may
the Holy Spirit unite us in One Body.”
At the end of the Mass, Pope Francis offered thanks to the Cardinals
present, saying, “For several days now, I’ve been thinking of a word
that can seem ugly – no? – dotage. It is scary: just yesterday, [Office
Manager for the Dept. for Relations with States in the Secretariat of
State of the Holy See] Msgr. [Luigi] Cavaliere gave me [a copy of]
Cicero’s De senectute - right? Really laying it on [It. una goccia in
più]. Only, remember what I said to you on March 15 [2013], in our first
meeting: ‘Old age is the seat of wisdom.’ Hopefully it is for me,
right? Let us hope that it is so.”
The Holy Father also recalled a line of the Roman poet, Ovid: “Tacitu
pede lapsa vetustas [with silent steps, old age slips up on one] It is a
blow! But also, when one thinks of it as a stage of life that is to
give joy, wisdom, hope, one begins to live again, right? And I can think
of another poem that I quoted to you that day too [from the German
poet, Hölderlin]: Es ist ruhig, das Alter, und fromm, “Old age is quiet
and religious”.