During the canonization mass of 14 new saints this Sunday, October 20, in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Pope Francis insisted on the need to learn service “according to the style of Jesus.” Thus, “each gesture of attention and care, each expression of tenderness, each work of mercy becomes a reflection of the love of God,” he assured.
Jean-Benoît Harel – Vatican City
After the canonization formula pronounced for the eleven martyrs of Damascus and the three founders of religious and missionary communities (Joseph Allamano, Elena Guerra, Marie-Léonie Paradis), this Sunday, October 20, Pope Francis meditated on their lives of “faithful servants» which followed «the style of Jesus».
This Sunday’s Gospel, reported by the evangelist Mark, recounts the episode during which John and James, two disciples of Christ, asked him to sit on his right and on his left. In his homily, delivered from Saint Peter’s Square, the Holy Father focused on the two questions that Jesus asks in this Gospel: “What do you want me to do for you?” et «Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?”
“What do you want me to do for you?”
«Jesus asks questions and, thus, helps us to discern, because questions make us discover what is in us, they illuminate what we carry in our heart», assured François, proposing a reflection on these two questions. So it is with these two disciples, James and John, who “express the desire to be close to him, but only to occupy a place of honor», underlined the Pope. But Jesus goes further than the question formulated by the disciples, and “try to bring out the desire behind these requests».
This is how with this question, “What do you want me to do for you?“, Christ reveals what James and John really desire, added the Pope, “a powerful and victorious Messiah who will give them a place of honor».
“Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?”
With this second question, Pope Francis explained that Jesus “thus reveals to them that he is not the Messiah that they believe, but the God of love, who humbles himself to join the humble, who makes himself weak to lift up the weak, who works for peace and not for war, who came to serve and not to be served“. The cup in fact represents “the offering of his life, given for us out of love, unto death and death on a cross».
Jesus dies on the cross, not surrounded by glory but escorted by two thieves, a sign for the Pope that “it is not the one who dominates who wins, but the one who serves out of love“. But before his death and resurrection, Jesus makes it clear to his disciples in this Gospel that “those who follow Christ, if they want to be great, must serve, learning from Him».
Service as God’s Style
Christ proposes an inversion of values: far from the glory and power, which James and John hope for, he proposes “the style of God, who makes himself last so that the last are elevated and become the first“. These questions from Jesus, “as incomprehensible to us as they were to the disciples» according to Francis, allows us to follow in his footsteps, to accept the gift of his Love and “to learn God’s style: service».
Rather than seeking glory, we must put ourselves in service, according to the Holy Father because “service is the Christian way of life“. But the Pope warns against “an employee’s reflection» who sees the service as a “to-do list».
“Service is born from love and love knows no boundaries, it does not make calculations, it spends and gives. It is not just producing to obtain results, it is not an occasional performance, it is something that is born from the heart, a heart renewed by love and in love.”
14 new saints: “faithful servants”
Pope Francis ended his homily by evoking the 14 new saints, canonized at the beginning of the mass, of “faithful servants» who lived the style of Jesus. The eleven martyrs of Damascus and the three founders of communities “did not nourish in themselves worldly desires and desires for power but, on the contrary, they became servants of their brothers and sisters, creative in good, firm in difficulties, generous to the end», concluded the Holy Father.
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