At Mass to celebrate the feast of Sts Peter and Paul, Pope Francis blesses the pallia for new Metropolitan Archbishops, and reflects on how the people of God are called to follow Jesus and proclaim the Gospel.
Pope Francis blessed the pallia for the new Metropolitan Archbishops on the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul, and presided at the Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.
In his homily, the Holy Father focused on the teachings of Peter and Paul who answered that essential question in life – “Who is Jesus for me?” – by following Him as His disciples and by proclaiming the Gospel.
Reflecting on how the Church is called to grow in the same way “by following the Lord, constantly and humbly seeking Him out,” and by “preaching the Gospel before the world and opening people’s hearts to the presence of God,” the Pope invited the faithful to bring Jesus everywhere, “especially in those places where poverty, decay and marginalization are deeply rooted.”
He began his homily recalling the lives and choices of Peter and Paul, “two apostles in love with the Lord, two pillars of the faith of the Church.”
Answering the question ‘Who is Jesus in my life?’, both of them provide witness and indications on how to grow as Church.
Peter walked in Jesus’ footsteps
Peter, the Pope explained, responded to Jesus’s question ‘Who do you say that I am?’ (Mt 16:16) with the words ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”. That answer, he said, was “the fruit of a journey” he experienced by following the Lord, walking with Him and behind Him for some time.
Only then, he continued, “did Peter arrive at the spiritual maturity that brought him, by grace, to so clear a profession of faith.”
Peter, the Pope said, “was to learn everything day by day, as a disciple, a follower of Jesus, walking in his footsteps.”
“Peter tells us that it is not enough to respond to the question – “Who is Jesus for me” – with a faultless doctrinal formula or a set of preconceived notions. No. It is only by following the Lord that we come to know Him each day, only by becoming his disciples and listening to his words that we become his friends and experience his transforming love,” he added.
Thus, the Holy Father urged believers not to hesitate or come up with excuses.
“We need to be careful, too, because some excuses are disguised as spiritual, as for example when we say, ‘I am not worthy’, ‘I don’t have it in me’, ‘What can I do?’”
This, he said, “is one of the devil’s ploys: it robs us of trust in God’s grace by making us think that everything depends on our own abilities.”
A Church that follows
The charge Peter sets before us, the Holy Father said, is “to detach ourselves from all earthly forms of security, “immediately”, and to follow Jesus anew each day.”
“He invites us to be a “Church that follows.”
Only by striving to be “a disciple of the Lord, a lowly servant of the Gospel” will the Church “be capable of dialoguing with everyone and becoming a place of accompaniment, closeness and hope for the men and women of our time,” the Pope said.
Paul shared the embrace of God’s love
Turning to the Apostle of the Gentiles, the Pope recalled that if Peter’s answer to Jesus’ question was follow, for Paul it is proclaim, to preach the Gospel.
He said that after Paul met the risen Jesus and discovered the fulfilment of the mystery of salvation, he “devoted his life to traversing land and sea, cities and towns, heedless of privations and persecutions, for the sake of preaching Jesus Christ.”
“If we look at Paul’s life, it almost seems that the more he preached the Gospel, the more he grew in the knowledge of Jesus. By preaching the Word to others, he was able to peer more deeply into the depths of God’s mystery,” the Pope said.
The Apostle teaches us, Pope Francis said, “whenever we evangelize, we are ourselves evangelized.”
“Whenever we evangelize, we are ourselves evangelized.”
However much we give to others, we ourselves receive much more, the Pope said quoting the Gospel of Luke and noting “this is something necessary also for the Church in our day: to put preaching at the centre, to be a Church that never tires of repeating: ‘To me, life is Christ’ and ‘Woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel’!”
“A Church that needs to preach, even as we need oxygen to breath.”
An outgoing Church
Reminding the faithful that we are celebrating Peter and Paul who invite us to follow Jesus and proclaim the Gospel, he said the Church must grow in the same way.
“It is good for us to become a Church that is also outgoing, finding joy not in the things of the world, but in preaching the Gospel before the world and opening people’s hearts to the presence of God.”
We must bring the Lord Jesus everywhere, the Pope said, with humility and joy: “in our city of Rome, in our families, in our relationships and our neighbourhoods, in civil society, in the Church, and political life, in the entire world, especially in those places where poverty, decay and marginalization are deeply rooted.”
The Pallium
The Holy Father concluded mentioning the fact that on this solemnity a number of Archbishops receive the Pallium, “a sign of communion with the Church of Rome.”
To them, he said: “Be apostles like Peter and Paul. Be disciples in following and apostles in preaching. Bring the beauty of the Gospel everywhere, together with all the People of God.”
Greetings to the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
Before ending, the Pope greeted the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, sent here by His Holiness Bartholomew.
“Thank you for your presence! May we advance together, in following and in preaching the word, as we grow in fraternity. May Peter and Paul accompany us and intercede for us.” – Vatican News
