The way indicated to aspire to peace is to be close to the weakest, to those who do not hold power, echoes the initial commentary on the Word of the Day, read from midday in front of a packed St Peter's Square. In the passage (Mk 9:30-37), referring to who is ‘the greatest’, Jesus says, before calling a child to himself, placing him in the midst of the disciples: ‘If anyone wants to be first, let him be last’. ‘True power is taking care of the weakest, this makes you great,’ said the Pontiff.
Also attending today's recitation - the first day of autumn - of the Marian prayer were a group of Bergoglio's compatriots from Argentina, as well as from Ecuador; other flags from the nations of the world were also numerous.
After completing the historic apostolic journey to Asia, the Holy Father will travel to Belgium and Luxembourg from 26 to 29 September for the 46th outing of the pontificate. To put into practice, despite his age, that ‘outgoing Church ’ aimed at ‘proclaiming the Gospel to the nations’ so dear to him. Because ‘Jesus renews our way of life. He teaches us that true power does not lie in the domination of the strongest, but in caring for the weakest,' he said this morning.
From this care comes the tireless appeals for peace - ‘Let us continue to pray for peace’ - accompanied by the invitation to listen to the ‘peoples’. Of concern in these hours is the frontline between Israel and Lebanon, due to the risk of conflict widening in the area.
Commenting on the day's Gospel, Pope Francis drew attention to the silence that pervades the disciples who, together with Jesus, travel through Galilee, and also once they arrive in Capernaum. ‘The disciples kept silent because they were arguing about who was the greatest (cf. v. 34). They keep silent in shame. What a contrast to the words of the Lord! While Jesus was confiding to them the meaning of his own life, they were talking about power,’ he said. The Messiah confides to them what appears to be a paradox: he is great who makes himself small and puts himself at the service of all people. Having communicated this teaching, ‘taking a little child, he placed him in their midst’, we read in the Word.
‘The child has no power: the child has need. When we care for man, we recognise that man is always in need of life. We, all of us, are alive because we have been taken in, but power makes us forget this truth,' the Pontiff added.
Power obscures the practices of care, distances us from being ‘servants’ and urges us to become ‘dominators’. This happened in the existence of Jesus. ‘When He was delivered into the hands of men, He did not find an embrace, but a cross’. But there is hope, despite the interference of power. ‘The Gospel nevertheless remains a living word,’ he said, ’He who was rejected, is risen, is Lord!
During the concluding appeals, the Bishop of Rome also recalled the death he learnt ‘with sorrow’ of Juan Antonio López, ‘delegate of the Word of God, coordinator of the social pastoral in the diocese of Trujillo and founding member of the pastoral of integral ecology in Honduras’.
Victim not of isolated violence, but systematic violence. In his shared words on the incident he said he joined the ‘mourning of that Church’, expressing his firm condemnation of all forms of violence. ‘I am close to all those who see their elementary rights trampled upon and to those who work for the common good in response to the cry of the Earth's poor.’