miniZibaldone

From 2023 Christmas Midnight Mass Homily of Pope Francis Let the seed of the Incarnation bloom within us Brothers and sisters, tonight we might ask ourselves: Which God do we believe in? In the God of incarnation or the god of achievement? Because there is always a risk that we can celebrate Christmas while thinking of God in pagan terms, as a powerful potentate in the sky; a god linked to power, worldly success, and the idolatry of consumerism. With the false image of a distant and petulant deity who treats the good well and the bad poorly; a deity made in our own image and likeness, handy for resolving our problems and removing our ills. God, on the other hand, waves no magic wand; he is no god of commerce who promises “everything all at once”. He does not save us by pushing a button, but draws near us, in order to change our world from within.... Dear brother, dear sister, to God, who changed history in the course of a census, you are not a number, but a face. Your name is written o...

From the 2021 Pentecost homily Dear sister, dear brother, if you feel the darkness of solitude, if you feel that an obstacle within you blocks the way to hope, if your heart has a festering wound, if you can see no way out, then open your heart to the Holy Spirit. The first advice offered by the Holy Spirit is, “Live in the present”. The present, not the past or the future. The Paraclete affirms the primacy of today , against the temptation to let ourselves be paralyzed by rancour or memories of the past, or by uncertainty or fear about the future. The Spirit reminds us of the grace of the present moment. There is no better time for us: now, here and now, is the one and only time to do good, to make our life a gift. Let us live in the present!  [full text]

From the homily At Christmas, the question is this: “Do I allow myself to be loved by God? Do I abandon myself to his love that comes to save me?” The grace of God has appeared. Tonight we realize that, when we failed to measure up, God became small for our sake; while we were going about our own business, he came into our midst. Christmas reminds us that God continues to love us all, even the worst of us. To me, to you, to each of us, he says today: “I love you and I will always love you, for you are precious in my eyes”. God does not love you because you think and act the right way. He loves you, plain and simple. His love is unconditional; it does not depend on you. You may have mistaken ideas, you may have made a complete mess of things, but the Lord continues to love you. How often do we think that God is good if we are good and punishes us if we are bad. Yet that is not how he is. For all our sins, he continues to love us. His love does not change. It is not fickle; i...

From a homily Pope Francis described hatred as “Satan’s breath”, saying it is very powerful, capable of doing everything excepting loving. “Life,” the Pope explained, “has value only in giving it, in giving it in love, in truth, in giving it to others, in daily life, in the family.” If someone preserves life for himself, guards it like the king in his corruption or the woman with her hatred, or the daughter with her vanity, a little like an adolescent, unknowingly, life dies and withers, becoming useless. The Pope concluded urging all to think about the 4 characters in the Gospel and to open our hearts so that the Lord may speak to us about this.   [link]

From a homily This then is the consecrated life: praise which gives joy to God’s people, a prophetic vision that reveals what counts. When it is like this, then it flowers and becomes a summons for all of us to counter mediocrity: to counter a devaluation of our spiritual life, to counter the temptation to reduce God’s importance, to counter an accommodation to a comfortable and worldly life, to counter complaints, dissatisfaction and self-pity, to counter a mentality of resignation and “we have always done it this way”. Consecrated life is not about survival, but new life. Everything, therefore, meets as Jesus arrives. What does this mean for us? Above all, that we too are called to welcome Jesus who comes to meet us. To encounter him: the God of life is to be encountered every day of our lives; not now and then, but every day. To follow Jesus is not a decision taken once and for all, it is a daily choice. And we do not meet the Lord virtually, but directly, we encounter hi...

Announce the Easter message, to awaken and resurrect hope in hearts burdened by sadness, in those who struggle to find meaning in life. This is so necessary today. However, we must not proclaim ourselves. Rather, as joyful servants of hope, we must announce the Risen One . From the Easter Vigil homily Peter was looking for Jesus, not himself. He preferred the path of encounter and trust. And so, he got up, just as he was, and ran towards the tomb from where he would return “amazed” (v. 12). This marked the beginning of Peter’s resurrection, the resurrection of his heart. [...]  We, like Peter and the women, cannot discover life by being sad, bereft of hope. Let us not stay imprisoned within ourselves, but let us break open our sealed tombs to the Lord so that he may enter and grant us life. Let us give him the stones of our rancour and the boulders of our past, those heavy burdens of our weaknesses and falls. Christ wants to come and take us by the hand to bring us out of...

Let us walk this path, pausing in these days to gaze upon the Crucifix; it is the “royal seat of God”.  I invite you during this week to gaze often upon this “royal  seat of God”, to learn about the humble love which saves and gives life. From the Palm Sunday 2016 homily [W]e cannot love without letting ourselves be loved by him first, without experiencing his surprising tenderness and without accepting that true love consists in  concrete service. [...]  Even as every form of justice is denied to him, Jesus also experiences in his own flesh indifference, since no one wishes to take responsibility for his fate.  And I  think of the many people, so many outcasts, so many asylum seekers, so many refugees, all of those for whose fate no one wishes to take responsibility. [...]  Jesus, however, even here at the height of his annihilation, reveals the true face of God, which is mercy.  He forgives those who are crucifying him, he opens the...

From a homily There are so many languages in life: the language of word, and there are also languages of gestures. If a person approaches me, at the confessional, it is because he feels something that weighs on him, which he wants to remove from himself. Perhaps he does not know how to say it, but this is his gesture. If such a person approaches, it is because he wishes to change, not to do something something anymore, to change, to be another sort of person, and he says it with the gesture of approaching, he says it with the gesture of approaching. It is not necessary to ask questions: “But you, you …?” If a person comes, it is because in his soul he does not want to do something anymore. But so often they cannot, because they are conditioned by their psychology, by their life, by their situation … “ Ad impossbilia nemo tenetur .”  A wide heart … Forgiveness … Forgiveness is a seed, it is a caress of God. Have trust in God’s forgiveness. Do not fall into Pelagianism!  [fu...

Our life [that] might always be a place that Christ might grow greater, and we might come down, even to the very end . From the homily “John the Baptist, ‘the greatest man born of a woman’ – so says the formula for the canonization of John. But this formula was used not of a Pope, or even of Jesus. That man is the greatest man born of a woman: The greatest saint: Thus Jesus canonized him. [...]  “To diminish, diminish, diminish.” That “was the life of John,” Pope Francis repeated. “A great man who did not seek his own glory, but the glory of God”; a man who died in such a prosaic manner, in anonymity. But with this attitude, the Pope concluded, John “prepared the way for Jesus,’ who, in a similar manner, “died in agony, alone, without the disciples’: [...]  Reading this passage, seeing how God triumphs: the style of God is not the style of man. Asking the Lord for the grace of humility that John had, and not leaning on our own merits or the glory of others. And above a...

The most beautiful inheritance, the greatest inheritance a man, a woman, can leave to their children is the faith.  From the homily Thinking about death is “a light that illuminates life” and “a reality that we should always have before us” [...] "In one of the Wednesday audiences there was among those who were sick a very old sister, but with face of peace, a luminous countenance: ‘But how old are you, sister?’ With a smile she said, ‘Eighty-three, but I am finishing my course in this life, to begin another with the Lord, because I have pancreatic cancer.’ And so, in peace, that woman had lived her consecrated life with great intensity. She did not fear death: ‘I am finishing my course of life, to begin another.’ It is a passage. These things do us good.” [...]  “What is the inheritance I will leave with my life?”  “Will I leave the inheritance of a man, a woman of faith? Will I leave this inheritance to my children? Let us ask two things of the Lord: to not be...

The heart of a Father that goes beyond our little concept of justice to open us to the limitless horizons of His mercy.  From the homily It is only by responding to it with goodness that evil can be truly defeated. Here, then, is another way of doing justice, which the Bible presents to us as the masterful way to follow. [...]  This is the way to resolve disputes within families, in relations between spouses and between parents and children, where the offended one loves the guilty one and desires to save the relation that links him to the other. Do not cut that relationship, that relation. [...]  And here, in fact, forgiveness and mercy come in. [...] T he Lord offers us His forgiveness constantly and He helps us to receive it and to become aware of our wrongdoing to be able to be free of it, because God’s does not want our condemnation, but our salvation.  [full text]

From the homily Jesus is the novelty and the fulfillment: He presents Himself to us as the endless surprise of God. In this Child, born for all, the past — made of memory and promise –, and the future — full of hope come together. [...]  The vocation, in fact, does not take the movements of a plan of ours thought “at table,” but from a grace of the Lord who reaches us through an encounter that changes our life. He is the novelty that makes all things new. One who lives this encounter becomes a witness and makes possible the encounter for others; and makes him also a promoter of the culture of encounter, avoiding self-reference that makes us remain closed in ourselves. [...]  Our Founders were moved by the Spirit and were not afraid to soil their hands in daily life, with the people’s problems, going with courage to the geographic and existential fringes. They did not stop in face of obstacles and the incomprehension of others, because they kept in their heart the wonder of...

From the homily The only way to humility is through humiliation. David’s destiny, which is holiness, comes through humiliation. The destiny of that holiness which God gives to his children, gives to the Church, comes through the humiliation of his Son, who allows himself to be insulted, who allows himself to be placed on the cross - unjustly ... And this Son of God who humbles himself, this is the way of holiness. And David, through his behavior,  prophesizes  this humiliation of Jesus. Let us ask the Lord for the grace of humility for each of us, for the whole Church - but also for the grace to understand that humility cannot be achieved without humiliation.   [full text] From an address to consecrated people Prophecy is to tell people that there is a way of happiness, of grandeur, a way that fills one with joy, which is precisely the way of Jesus. It is the way of being  close to Jesus. It is a gift; prophecy is a charism and it must be asked of the Holy Sp...

From the homily And this is one of the traits of a Christian who has received the light in Baptism and must give it. That is, the Christian is a witness. Testimony. One of the peculiarities of Christian behavior. [...]  “Another trait of the Christian,”  says the Pope, “is magnanimity, because he is the child of a magnanimous father, of great heart.  The Christian heart is magnanimous.  It is open, always. It is not a heart that is closed in on its own selfishness. Or one that’s calculating: up to this point, up to here. When you enter this light of Jesus, when you enter into Jesus’ friendship, when you let yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit, the heart becomes open, magnanimous... The Christian, then, does not gain, but loses. But he loses to gain something else, and in this (between quotation marks) 'defeat' of interests, he gains Jesus; he gains by becoming Jesus’ witness.” [link] From an address Noted by all is how sensitive the Church is to ethical subj...

From the homily of Cardinal Bo of Myanmar, papal legate, for the Opening Mass of the International Eucharistic Congress, January 24, 2016 The Eucharist and adoration is the intense faith encounter with Jesus. But this encounter needs others, the community. [...]  Adoring Jesus in the Eucharist is also accepting our fellow men and women as created in the image of God. In a world that kills children in the womb, in a world that spends more on arms than on food, in a world that continues to have millions of poor, Eucharist is a major challenge to the whole humanity. Can we feel the presence of God in our brothers and sisters? Pope John Paul talked about the culture of death. Pope Francis spoke of a culture of indifference. [...]  Christ is calling us to be disciples, to carry his cross; the Mass of the devotee ends in an hour. But the Mass of the disciple is unending. The Eucharist of the devotee is confined to the clean, decorated altars of the church. The Eucharist of the di...

Saint Stephen, or On the Friendship of Christ Homily by Luigi Giussani for the Feast of St Stephen Desio, Italy, December 26, 1944 Veni Sancte Spiritus. Veni per Mariam. The sacred vestments that the ministers are wearing at the altar are no longer the immaculate white of yesterday. They are red, the symbol of blood. Next to the sweet contemplation of a God-child warmed by His Mother’s love, what a contrast is the vision of Stephen dying under the pelting hail of stones, covered with blood! With what horror our thoughts move from the angels’ song and the affectionate faces of the shepherds to the shouting figures of Stephen’s stoners, throbbing with hatred! But this juxtaposition is dense with meaning. In the dazzling light that surrounds the stable in Bethlehem, we perceive the majestic outline of the Cross. St Stephen was the first to sacrifice his life to follow the Divine Master. The feast of his martyrdom together with the feast of the Holy Birth, whose significance it c...

From the homily All sadness has been banished, for the Child Jesus brings true comfort to every heart. Today, the Son of God is born, and everything changes. The Saviour of the world comes to partake of our human nature; no longer are we alone and forsaken. The Virgin offers us her Son as the beginning of a new life. The true light has come to illumine our lives so often beset by the darkness of sin. Today we once more discover who we are! Tonight we have been shown the way to reach the journey’s end. Now must we put away all fear and dread, for the light shows us the path to Bethlehem. We must not be laggards; we are not permitted to stand idle. We must set out to see our Saviour lying in a manger. This is the reason for our joy and gladness: this Child has been “born to us”; he was “given to us”, as Isaiah proclaims (cf. 9:5). [full text]

From the homily If you want to find God, seek Him in humility, seek Him in poverty, seek Him where He is hidden: in the neediest, in the sick, in the hungry, in the imprisoned. And when Jesus preaches life to us He says: how our Judgment will be. He will not say you come with Me because you made so many good offerings in the Church. The entrance to Heaven is not paid for with money. He won’t say you are very important. You have studied so much and received so many honors.  Honors do not open the doors of Heaven. [...] What will Jesus say? I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was sick, I was in prison and you came to me .... Jesus is in humility. [full text]     From an address In fact, Jesus did not simply appear on earth, He did not dedicate a bit of His time to us, but He came to share our life, to receive our desires, because He wanted, and still wants to live here, together with us and for us. He has our world at heart, which at Christmas became His world. Th...

From the homily God is greater than our sins[...]  Hope is a Christian virtue that is a great gift from God and that allows us see beyond problems, pain, difficulties, beyond our sins. It allows us to see the beauty of God. Human calculations close hearts and shut out freedom, whilst hope gives us levity. [link]

From the homily This third Sunday of Advent draws our gaze towards Christmas, which is now close. We cannot let ourselves be taken in by weariness. [...]  The Apostle Paul takes with force the teaching of the prophet Zephaniah and reiterates: "The Lord is near" (Phil 4,5). Because of this we should rejoice always, and  with our affability give all witness of closeness and care that God has for each person. [...] H e who is baptized knows he has a greater commitment. Faith in Christ leads to a journey that lasts for a lifetime: to be merciful, like the Father. [full text]