Pope Francis: “The pandemic has increased the sense of bewilderment around the world”
The pandemic that has been going on for almost two years “has increased the sense of bewilderment around the world”. Pope Francis declared this today in his homily for the vespers of the solemnity of Mary Most Holy Mother of God, in St. Peter’s Basilica. “After a first phase of reaction, in which we felt solidarity on the same boat, the temptation to ‘save whoever can’ spread”, said Francis during the celebration of vespers, followed by the traditional “Te Deum” of thanksgiving. for the past year. “But thank God we reacted again, with a sense of responsibility”, said the pontiff, who this year did not hold the usual visit to the nativity scene set up in St. Peter’s Square, “to avoid gatherings and the consequent risk of contagion from Covid-19 “.
“Truly we can and must say ‘thank God’, because the choice of joint responsibility does not come from the world: it comes from God,” added Francis. “Indeed, it comes from Jesus Christ, who imprinted once and for all in our history the ‘route’ of his original vocation: to be all sisters and brothers, children of the one Father”, said Pope Bergoglio, who in the course of homily also spoke of the city of Rome.
“A wonderful city, which never ceases to enchant”. But also “a tiring city” for those who live there, “not always dignified” for the citizens and guest visitors and which “sometimes discards”, described the pope, who before the celebration had also greeted the mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri. “Let’s be careful: a welcoming and fraternal city cannot be recognized by the ‘facade’, by the beautiful speeches, by the high-sounding events. No, ”he added. According to Francis, a welcoming city “is recognized by the daily, ‘weekday’ attention to those who struggle most, to the families who feel the burden of the crisis most, to people with serious disabilities and their families, to those who need every day public transport to go to work, to those who live in the suburbs, to those who have been overwhelmed by some failure in their life and need social services, and so on ”. In its “original vocation (…) Rome holds within itself a universal openness”, said the pope who dedicated a reflection to Christmas.
“You can’t celebrate Christmas without wonder,” he said. “But an amazement that is not limited to a superficial emotion – this is not amazement – linked to the exteriority of the party, or worse still to the consumerist frenzy”. “If Christmas is reduced to this, nothing changes: tomorrow will be the same as yesterday, next year will be like the past one, and so on. It would mean warming up for a few moments in a flash in the pan, and not exposing ourselves with our whole being to the force of the Event, not grasping the center of the mystery of the birth of Christ ”, he stressed. “Christian astonishment does not originate from special effects, from fantastic worlds, but from the mystery of reality”, he later explained. “There is nothing more wonderful and astonishing than reality!”
“A flower, a clod of earth, a life story, an encounter?”, Continued the pontiff, “the wrinkled face of an old man and the newly blossomed face of a child. A mom holding her baby in her arms and breastfeeding him. The mystery transpires there ”, the pope highlighted, adding that the first to be“ filled with amazement ”is Mary’s heart. “His heart is filled with amazement, but without a shadow of romanticism, of sweetness, of spiritualism. No. The Mother brings us back to the reality, to the truth of Christmas, which is contained in those three words of Saint Paul: ‘born of a woman’ ”.
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