The Church of Mercy (8 page)

[
Walking
] is one of my favorite words when I think about a Christian and about the Church. However, it has a special meaning for you: you are about to enter into the diocesan synod. To hold a “synod” means to walk together. I think this is truly the most wonderful experience we can have: to belong to a people walking, journeying through history together with our Lord, who walks among us! We are not alone; we do not walk alone. We are part of the one flock of Christ that walks together.

Here I think once more of you priests, and let me place myself in your company. What could be more beautiful for us than walking with our people? It is beautiful! When I think of the parish priests who knew the names of their parishioners, who went to visit them: one of them told me, “I know the name of each family’s dog.” They even knew the dog’s name! How nice it was! What could be more beautiful than this? I repeat it often: walking with our people, sometimes in front, sometimes behind, and sometimes in the middle. We walk in front in order to guide the community, in the middle in order to encourage and support, and at the back so that no one lags too far behind, to keep them united. There is another reason too: because the people have a “nose”! The people scent out, discover, new ways to walk; they have the
sensus fidei
, as theologians call it. What could be more beautiful than this? During the synod, it will be very important to consider what the Holy Spirit is saying to the laity, to the People of God, to everyone.

But the most important thing is to walk together by working together, by helping one another, by asking forgiveness, by acknowledging one’s mistakes and asking for forgiveness, and also by accepting the apologies of others by forgiving—how important this is! Sometimes I think of married people who separate after many years. “Oh . . . no, we didn’t understand each other. We drifted apart.” Perhaps at times they didn’t know how to ask for forgiveness at the right time. Perhaps at times they did not know how to forgive. And I always give this advice to newlyweds: “Argue as much as you like. If the plates fly, let them! But never end the day without making peace! Never!” And if married people learn to say, “Excuse me, I was tired,” or even a little gesture, this is peace. Then carry on with life the next day. This is a beautiful secret, and it prevents these painful separations. It is important to walk in unity, without running ahead, without nostalgia for the past. And while you walk you talk, you get to know one another, you tell one other about yourselves, you grow as a family. Here let us ask ourselves: How do we walk? How does our diocese walk? Does it walk together? And what am I doing so that it may truly walk in unity?

Jesus enters Jerusalem. The crowd of disciples accompanies him in festive mood, their garments stretched out before him. There is talk of the miracles he has accomplished, and loud praises are heard: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:38).

Crowds, celebration, praise, blessing, peace: joy fills the air. Jesus has awakened great hopes, especially in the hearts of the simple, the humble, the poor, the forgotten, those who do not matter in the eyes of the world. He understands human sufferings, he has shown the face of God’s mercy, and he has bent down to heal body and soul.

This is Jesus. This is his heart, which looks to all of us, to our sicknesses, to our sins. The love of Jesus is great. And thus he enters Jerusalem, with this love, and looks at us. It is a beautiful scene, full of light—the light of the love of Jesus, the love of his heart—of joy, of celebration.

At the beginning of Mass, we too repeated it. We waved our palms, our olive branches. We too welcomed Jesus; we too expressed our joy at accompanying him, at knowing him to be close, present in us and among us as a friend, a brother, and also as a King—that is, a shining beacon for our lives. Jesus is God, but he lowered himself to walk with us. He is our friend, our brother. He illumines our path here. And in this way we have welcomed him today. And here the first word that I wish to say to you:
joy
! Do not be men and women of sadness: a Christian can never be sad! Never give way to discouragement! Ours is not a joy born of having many possessions, but of having encountered a Person: Jesus, in our midst. This joy is born from knowing that with him we are never alone, even at difficult moments, even when our life’s journey comes up against problems and obstacles that seem insurmountable—and there are so many of them! And in this moment the enemy, the devil, comes, often disguised as an angel, and slyly speaks his word to us. Do not listen to him! Let us follow Jesus! We accompany, we follow Jesus, but above all we know that he accompanies us and carries us on his shoulders. This is our joy; this is the hope that we must bring to this world. Please do not let yourselves be robbed of hope! Do not let hope be stolen! The hope that Jesus gives us.

Why does Jesus enter Jerusalem? Or better: how does Jesus enter Jerusalem? The crowds acclaim him as King. And he does not deny it; he does not tell them to be silent (see Luke 19:39–40). But what kind of a King is Jesus? Let us take a look at him: he is riding on a donkey, he is not accompanied by a court, he is not surrounded by an army as a symbol of power. He is received by humble people, simple folk who have the sense to see something more in Jesus; they have that sense of the faith which says, “Here is the Savior.” Jesus does not enter the Holy City to receive the honors reserved for earthly kings, to the powerful, to rulers; he enters to be scourged, insulted, and abused, as Isaiah foretold (see Isa. 50:6). He enters to receive a crown of thorns, a staff, a purple robe: his kingship becomes an object of derision. He enters to climb Calvary, carrying his burden of wood.

And this brings us to the second word:
cross
. Jesus enters Jerusalem in order to die on the cross. And it is precisely here that his kingship shines forth in godly fashion: his royal throne is the wood of the cross! It reminds me of what Benedict XVI said to the cardinals: you are princes, but of a King crucified. That is the throne of Jesus. Jesus takes it upon himself . . . Why the cross? Because Jesus takes upon himself the evil, the filth, the sin of the world, including the sin of all of us, and he cleanses it; he cleanses it with his blood, with the mercy and the love of God. Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money that you can’t take with you and have to leave. When we were small, our grandmother used to say, “A shroud has no pocket.” Love of power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation! And—as each one of us knows and is aware—our personal sins: our failures in love and respect toward God, our neighbor and the whole of creation. Jesus on the cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it; he defeats it with his resurrection. This is the good that Jesus does for us on the throne of the cross. Christ’s cross, embraced with love, never leads to sadness, but to joy, to the joy of having been saved and of doing a little of what he did on the day of his death.

Evangelizing is the Church’s mission. It is not the mission of only a few, but it is mine, yours, and our mission. The apostle Paul exclaimed, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (1 Cor. 9:16). We must all be evangelizers, especially with our lives! Paul VI stressed that “evangelizing is . . . the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize” (apostolic exhortation,
Evangelii nuntiandi
, no. 14).

Who is the real driving force of evangelization in our life and in the Church? Paul VI wrote clearly: “It is the Holy Spirit who today, just as at the beginning of the Church, acts in every evangelizer who allows himself to be possessed and led by him. The Holy Spirit places on his lips the words which he could not find by himself, and at the same time the Holy Spirit predisposes the soul of the hearer to be open and receptive to the Good News and to the Kingdom being proclaimed” (
Evangelii nuntiandi
, no. 75). To evangelize, therefore, it is necessary to open ourselves once again to the horizon of God’s Spirit, without being afraid of what he asks us or of where he leads us. Let us entrust ourselves to him! He will enable us to live out and bear witness to our faith, and will illuminate the hearts of those we meet. This was the experience at Pentecost. “There appeared” to the apostles gathered in the Upper Room with Mary “tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:3–4). In coming down upon the apostles, the Holy Spirit makes them leave the room they had locked themselves into out of fear; he prompts them to step out of themselves and transforms them into heralds and witnesses of the “mighty works of God” (Acts 2:11). Moreover, this transformation brought about by the Holy Spirit reverberated in the multitude that had arrived “from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5), for each one heard the apostles’ words as if they had been “speaking in his own language” (Acts 2:6).

This is one of the first important effects of the action of the Holy Spirit, who guides and brings to life the proclamation of the Gospel: unity, communion. It was in Babel, according to the biblical account, that the dispersion of people and the confusion of languages had begun, the results of the act of pride and conceit of people who wanted to build with their efforts alone, without God, “a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens” (Gen. 11:4). At Pentecost these divisions were overcome. There was no longer conceit with regard to God, nor the closure of some people to others; instead, there was openness to God, there was going out to proclaim his word: a new language, that of love, which the Holy Spirit pours out into our hearts (see Rom. 5:5), a language that all can understand and that, once received, can be expressed in every life and every culture. The language of the Spirit, the language of the Gospel, is the language of communion that invites us to get the better of closedness and indifference, division and antagonism.

We must all ask ourselves: How do I let myself be guided by the Holy Spirit in such a way that my life and my witness of faith are both unity and communion? Do I convey the word of reconciliation and of love, which is the Gospel, to the milieus in which I live? At times it seems that we are repeating today what happened at Babel: division, the incapacity to understand one another, rivalry, envy, egoism. What do I do with my life? Do I create unity around me? Or do I cause division by gossip, criticism, or envy? What do I do? Let us think about this. Spreading the Gospel means that we are the first to proclaim and live the reconciliation, forgiveness, peace, unity, and love that the Holy Spirit gives us. Let us remember Jesus’ words: “it is by your love for one another, that everyone will recognize you as my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13: 34–35).

A second element is the day of Pentecost. Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit and standing “with the eleven,” “lifted up his voice” (Acts 2:14) and “confidently” (Acts 2:29) proclaimed the Good News of Jesus, who gave his life for our salvation and whom God raised from the dead. This is another effect of the Holy Spirit’s action: the courage to proclaim the newness of the Gospel of Jesus to all, confidently (with parrhesia) in a loud voice, in every time and in every place. Today too this happens for the Church and for each one of us: the fire of Pentecost, from the action of the Holy Spirit, releases an ever-new energy for mission, new ways in which to proclaim the message of salvation, new courage for evangelizing. Let us never close ourselves to this action! Let us live the Gospel humbly and courageously! Let us witness to the newness, hope, and joy that the Lord brings to life. Let us feel within us “the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing” (Paul VI,
Evangelii nuntiandi
, no. 80). Because evangelizing, proclaiming Jesus, gives us joy. In contrast, egoism makes us bitter, sad, and depresses us. Evangelizing uplifts us.

I will only mention a third element, which, however, is particularly important: a new evangelization, a Church that evangelizes, must always start with prayer, with asking, as the apostles did in the Upper Room, for the fire of the Holy Spirit. Only a faithful and intense relationship with God makes it possible to get out of our own closedness and proclaim the Gospel with parrhesia. Without prayer our acts are empty and our proclamation has no soul; it is not inspired by the Spirit.

“Tend the flock of God that is your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not as domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock” (1 Pet. 5:2). May St. Peter’s words be engraved on our heart! We are called and constituted pastors, not pastors by ourselves but by the Lord; and not to serve ourselves but the flock that has been entrusted to us, and to serve it to the point of laying down our life, like Christ, the Good Shepherd (see John 10:11).

What does tending and having the “permanent and daily care of their sheep” (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Lumen gentium
, no. 27) actually mean? Three brief thoughts. Tending means welcoming magnanimously, walking with the flock, and staying with the flock. Welcoming, walking, staying.

1. 
To welcome magnanimously
. May your heart be large enough to welcome all the men and women you come across during the day and whom you go and seek out when you go about your parishes and to every community. Ask yourselves from this moment: how will those who knock at my door find it? If they find it open, through your kindness, your availability, they will experience God’s fatherhood and will understand that the Church is a good mother who always welcomes and loves.

2. 
To walk with the flock
. To welcome magnanimously, and to walk. Welcoming everyone in order to walk with everyone. The bishop journeys
with
and
among
his flock. This means setting out with one’s faithful and with all those who turn to you, sharing in their joys and hopes, their difficulties and sufferings, as brothers and as friends, but especially as fathers who can listen, understand, help, and guide. Walking together demands love, and ours is a service of love,
amoris officium
, as St. Augustine used to say (
In evangelium Johannis tractatus
123, 5:
PL
35, 1967).

a) And as you walk I would like to remember
affection for your priests
. Your priests are your first neighbor; the priest is the bishop’s first neighbor—love your neighbor, but he is your first neighbor—your priests are indispensable collaborators from whom to seek counsel and help and for whom you should care as fathers, brothers, and friends. One of your priorities is the spiritual care of the presbyterate, but do not forget the human needs of each individual priest, especially in the most delicate and important events in their ministry and their life. The time you spend with your priests is never wasted! Receive them whenever they ask you to. Do not let a telephone call go unanswered. I have heard priests say [when I was directing them] during the Spiritual Exercises—I don’t know whether it’s true but I’ve heard it very often in my life—“Well! I called the bishop, and his secretary told me that he had no time to receive me!” It was like this for months and months and months. I don’t know whether it is true, but if a priest telephones the bishop, then that same day or at least the following day, the call [should be returned]: “I heard that you called; what would you like? I cannot receive you today but let’s look at the dates together.” Please listen to what the father says. Vice versa, the priest might think: “But he doesn’t care; he is not a father, he is an office head!” Think about this well. This would be a good resolution: reply to a telephone call from a priest, if [not on the same day], then at least the following day. And then see when you can meet him. Be constantly close; be in touch with them all the time.

b) Then
presence in the diocese
. In the homily in the Chrism Mass this year, I said that pastors must have “the odor of sheep.” Be pastors with the odor of the sheep, present in your people’s midst like Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Your presence is not secondary; it is indispensable. Presence! The people themselves, who want to see their bishop walk with them and be near them, ask it of you. They need his presence in order to live and breathe! Do not close yourselves in! Go down among your faithful, even into the margins of your dioceses and into all those “peripheries of existence” where there is suffering, loneliness, and human degradation. A pastoral presence means walking with the People of God, walking in front of them, showing them the way, showing them the path; walking in their midst, to strengthen them in unity; walking behind them, to make sure no one gets left behind, but especially, never to lose the scent of the People of God in order to find new roads. A bishop who lives among his faithful has his ears open to listen to “what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 2:7), and to the “voice of the sheep,” also through those diocesan institutions whose task it is to advise the bishop, promoting a loyal and constructive dialogue. It is impossible to think of a bishop who did not have these diocesan institutions: a presbyteral council, consultors, a pastoral council, a council for financial matters. This means really being with the people. This pastoral presence will enable you to be thoroughly acquainted with the culture, customs, and mores of the area, the wealth of holiness that is present there. Immerse yourselves in your own flock!

c) And here I would like to add: let your
style of service
to the flock be that of humility; I would say even of austerity and essentiality. Please, we pastors are not men with the “psychology of princes”—please—ambitious men who are bridegrooms of this Church while awaiting another that is more beautiful, wealthier. But this is a scandal! If a penitent arrives and says to you, “I am married. I live with my wife, but I am always looking at that woman who is more beautiful than mine: is this a sin, Father?” The Gospel says: it is a sin of adultery. Is there a “spiritual adultery”? I don’t know; think about it. Do not wait for another more beautiful, more important, or richer. Be careful not to slip into the spirit of careerism! That really is a form of cancer! It is not only with words but also and above all with a practical witness in our life that we are teachers and educators of our people. The proclamation of faith requires us to live out what we teach. Mission and life are inseparable (see John Paul II,
Pastores gregis
, no. 31). This is a question we should ask ourselves every day: do I practice what I preach?

3. To welcome, to walk. And the third and last element:
staying with the flock
. I am referring to
stability
, which has two precise aspects: “staying” in the diocese and staying in “this” diocese, as I said, without seeking change or promotion. As pastors it is impossible to know your flock really well—walking in front of it, in its midst and behind it, caring for it with your teaching, with the administration of the sacraments and with the testimony of your life—unless you remain in your diocese. In this, the Council of Trent is very up to date: residence. Ours is a time in which we can travel and move from one place to another easily, a time when communications are rapid, the epoch of the Internet. However, the old law of residence is not out of fashion! It is necessary for good pastoral government (directory,
Apostolorum successores
, no. 161). Of course, concern for other Churches and for the universal Church can take you from your diocese, but let it be only for the time that is strictly necessary and not a regular practice. You see, residence is not only required for the purpose of good organization, it is not a functional element; it has a theological root! You are bridegrooms of your communities, deeply bound to them! I ask you, please remain among your people. Stay, stay . . . Steer clear of the scandal of being “airport bishops”! Be welcoming pastors, journeying on with your people, with affection, with mercy, treating them with gentleness and fatherly firmness, with humility and discretion. And may you also be able to see your own limitations and have a large dose of good humor. This is a grace we bishops must ask for. We must all ask for this grace: Lord, give me a sense of humor. Finding the way to laugh at oneself first is part of it. And stay with your flock!