From Vatican Radio:
"True prayer brings us out of ourselves: it opens us to the Father and to the
neediest of our brothers and sisters. This was a central part of Pope Francis’
message to the faithful gathered for Mass on Saturday morning in the chapel of
the Domus Sanctae Marthae residence at the Vatican.........The Pope's homily focused on the day's Gospel reading, in
which Jesus says, “[I]f you ask the Father any thing in my name, he will give it
you.” Discussing Jesus’ words, Pope Francis said, “There's something new here,
something that changes: it is a novelty in prayer. The Father will give us
everything, but always in the name of Jesus.” The Lord ascends to the Father,
enters “the heavenly Sanctuary,” opens doors and leaves them open because “He
Himself is the door,” and “intercedes for us,” as priest, even, “until the end
of the world”:
He prays for us before the Father. I always liked that.
Jesus, in His resurrection, had a beautiful body: the cuts of the scourging and
the crown of thorns are gone, all of them. His bruises from the beatings are
healed and gone. But He wanted always to keep His wounds [in His hands, His feet
and His side], for those wounds are precisely His prayer of intercession to the
Father. [It is as if Jesus were saying,] ‘But ... look,’ ... this person is
asking you this thing in My name, look.’ This is the novelty that Jesus
announces to us. He tells us this new thing: to trust in His passion, to trust
in His victory over death, to trust in His wounds. He is the priest and this is
the sacrifice: his wounds - and this gives us confidence, gives us courage to
pray.”
The Pope noted the many times that we get bored in prayer, adding
that prayer is not asking for this or that, but it is “the intercession of
Jesus, who before the Father bares His wounds for the Father to
see:
“Prayer to the Father in the name of Jesus brings us out of
ourselves. The prayer that bores us is always within ourselves, as a thought
that comes and goes. But true prayer is the turning out of ourselves [and] to
the Father in the name of Jesus: [true prayer] is an exodus from
ourselves.”
Pope Francis goes on to ask how we can “recognize the wounds
of Jesus in heaven,” and, “where the school is,” at which one learns to
recognize the wounds of Jesus, these wounds of priestly intercession? Pope
Francs said that there there is another exodus out of ourselves, and toward the
wounds of our brothers, our brothers and our sisters in need:
“If we are
not able to move out of ourselves and toward our brother in need, to the sick,
the ignorant, the poor, the exploited – if we are not able to accomplish this
exodus from ourselves, and towards those wounds, we shall never learn that
freedom, which carries us through that other exodus from ourselves, and toward
the wounds of Jesus. There are two exits from ourselves: one to the wounds of
Jesus, the other to the wounds of our brothers and sisters. And this is the way
that Jesus wants [there to be] in our prayer.”
“This,” concluded Pope
Francis, “is the new way to pray: with the confidence, the courage that allows
us to know that Jesus is before the Father, showing the Father His wounds, but
also with the humility of those who go to learn to recognize, to find the wounds
of Jesus in his needy brothers and sisters,” who, “carry the cross and still
have not won, as Jesus has.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.