THE CONCHO PADRE POST

Gospel Lk 1:26-38

The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”
But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”
And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
Then the angel departed from her.

Pope Francis on Sunday celebrated Mass in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, during which he officially took possession of the Basilica.

Find below the full text of the Pope’s homily.

It is with joy that I am celebrating the Eucharist for the first time in this Lateran Basilica, the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome. I greet all of you with great affection: the very dear Cardinal Vicar, the auxiliary bishops, the diocesan presbyterate, the deacons, the men and women religious, and all the lay faithful. I offer my greetings, too, to the mayor and his wife, and to all the civil authorities. Together let us walk in the light of the risen Lord.

1. Today we are celebrating the Second Sunday of Easter, also known as “Divine Mercy Sunday”. What a beautiful truth of faith this is for our lives: the mercy of God! God’s love for us is so great, so deep; it is an unfailing love, one which always takes us by the hand and supports us, lifts us up and leads us on.

2. In today’s Gospel, the Apostle Thomas personally experiences this mercy of God, which has a concrete face, the face of Jesus, the risen Jesus. Thomas does not believe it when the other Apostles tell him: “We have seen the Lord”. It isn’t enough for him that Jesus had foretold it, promised it: “On the third day I will rise”. He wants to see, he wants to put his hand in the place of the nails and in Jesus’ side. And how does Jesus react? With patience: Jesus does not abandon Thomas in his stubborn unbelief; he gives him a week’s time, he does not close the door, he waits. And Thomas acknowledges his own poverty, his little faith. “My Lord and my God!”: with this simple yet faith-filled invocation, he responds to Jesus’ patience. He lets himself be enveloped by divine mercy; he sees it before his eyes, in the wounds of Christ’s hands and feet and in his open side, and he discovers trust: he is a new man, no longer an unbeliever, but a believer.

Let us also remember Peter: three times he denied Jesus, precisely when he should have been closest to him; and when he hits bottom he meets the gaze of Jesus who patiently, wordlessly, says to him: “Peter, don’t be afraid of your weakness, trust in me”. Peter understands, he feels the loving gaze of Jesus, and he weeps. How beautiful is this gaze of Jesus – how much tenderness is there! Brothers and sisters, let us never lose trust in the patience and mercy of God!

Let us think too of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus: their sad faces, their barren journey, their despair. But Jesus does not abandon them: he walks beside them, and not only that! Patiently he explains the Scriptures which spoke of him, and he stays to share a meal with them. This is God’s way of doing things: he is not impatient like us, who often want everything all at once, even in our dealings with other people. God is patient with us because he loves us, and those who love are able to understand, to hope, to inspire confidence; they do not give up, they do not burn bridges, they are able to forgive. Let us remember this in our lives as Christians: God always waits for us, even when we have left him behind! He is never far from us, and if we return to him, he is ready to embrace us.

I am always struck when I reread the parable of the merciful Father; it impresses me because it always gives me great hope. Think of that younger son who was in the Father’s house, who was loved; and yet he wants his part of the inheritance; he goes off, spends everything, hits rock bottom, where he could not be more distant from the Father, yet when he is at his lowest, he misses the warmth of the Father’s house and he goes back. And the Father? Had he forgotten the son? No, never. He is there, he sees the son from afar, he was waiting for him every hour of every day, the son was always in his father’s heart, even though he had left him, even though he had squandered his whole inheritance, his freedom. The Father, with patience, love, hope and mercy, had never for a second stopped thinking about him, and as soon as he sees him still far off, he runs out to meet him and embraces him with tenderness, the tenderness of God, without a word of reproach: he is back! And that is the joy of the Father. In that embrace of the son there is all of this joy: he is back! God is always waiting for us, he never grows tired. Jesus shows us this merciful patience of God so that we can regain confidence, hope – always! A great German theologian, Romano Guardini, said that God responds to our weakness by his patience, and this is the reason for our confidence, our hope (cf. Glaubenserkenntnis, Würzburg, 1949, p. 28). It is like a dialogue between our weakness and the patience of God, a dialogue that, if we will engage in it, gives us hope.

3. I would like to emphasize one other thing: God’s patience has to call forth in us the courage to return to him, however many mistakes and sins there may be in our life. Jesus tells Thomas to put his hand in the wounds of his hands and his feet, and in his side. We too can enter into the wounds of Jesus, we can actually touch him. This happens every time that we receive the sacraments with faith. Saint Bernard, in a fine homily, says: “Through the wounds of Jesus I can suck honey from the rock and oil from the flinty rock (cf. Deut 32:13), I can taste and see the goodness of the Lord” (On the Song of Songs, 61:4). It is there, in the wounds of Jesus, that we are truly secure; there we encounter the boundless love of his heart. Thomas understood this. Saint Bernard goes on to ask: What can I count on? On my own merits? No, “My merit is God’s mercy. I am by no means lacking merits as long as he is rich in mercy. If the mercies of the Lord are manifold, I too will abound in merits” (ibid., 5). This is important: the courage to trust in Jesus’ mercy, to trust in his patience, to seek refuge always in the wounds of his love. Saint Bernard even states: “So what if my conscience gnaws at me for my many sins? ‘Where sin has abounded, there grace has abounded all the more’ (Rom 5:20)” (ibid.). But some of us may think: my sin is so great, I am as far from God as the younger son in the parable, my unbelief is like that of Thomas; I don’t have the courage to go back, to believe that God can welcome me and that he is waiting for me, of all people. But God is indeed waiting for you; he asks of you only the courage to go to him. How many times in my pastoral ministry have I heard it said: “Father, I have many sins”; and I have always pleaded: “Don’t be afraid, go to him, he is waiting for you, he will take care of everything”. We hear many offers from the world around us; but let us take up God’s offer instead: his is a caress of love. For God, we are not numbers, we are important, indeed we are the most important thing to him; even if we are sinners, we are what is closest to his heart.

Adam, after his sin, experiences shame, he feels naked, he senses the weight of what he has done; and yet God does not abandon him: if that moment of sin marks the beginning of his exile from God, there is already a promise of return, a possibility of return. God immediately asks: “Adam, where are you?” He seeks him out. Jesus took on our nakedness, he took upon himself the shame of Adam, the nakedness of his sin, in order to wash away our sin: by his wounds we have been healed. Remember what Saint Paul says: “What shall I boast of, if not my weakness, my poverty? Precisely in feeling my sinfulness, in looking at my sins, I can see and encounter God’s mercy, his love, and go to him to receive forgiveness.

In my own life, I have so often seen God’s merciful countenance, his patience; I have also seen so many people find the courage to enter the wounds of Jesus by saying to him: Lord, I am here, accept my poverty, hide my sin in your wounds, wash it away with your blood. And I have always seen that God did just this – he accepted them, consoled them, cleansed them, loved them.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us be enveloped by the mercy of God; let us trust in his patience, which always gives us more time. Let us find the courage to return to his house, to dwell in his loving wounds, allowing ourselves be loved by him and to encounter his mercy in the sacraments. We will feel his tenderness, so beautiful, we will feel his embrace, and we too will become more capable of mercy, patience, forgiveness and love.

After the Mass, from the Loggia of the Archbasilica, the Holy Father greeted the faithful gathered outside the church, and offered them his blessing:

Brothers and sisters,

Buona sera! I thank you so much for your company in today’s Mass. Thank you so much! I ask you to pray for me. I need it. Don’t forget this. Thanks to all of you! And let us all go forward together, the people and the Bishop, all together, going forward always in the joy of the Resurrection of Jesus. He is always at our side.
May God bless you!
(He blessed the people.)
Many thanks! See you soon!

Vatican Radio

Here are my homily notes for the homily I delivered today at the Cathedral.

DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY
Why is today Divine Mercy Sunday?
• On April 30, 2000, Blessed John Paul II canonized the Polish nun who had received from Christ the amazing revelations of the Divine Mercy in the early years of the twentieth century, Saint Mary Faustina Kowalska.
• During that ceremony, the pope fulfilled one of the requests that Christ had made through those revelations: that the entire Church reserve the Second Sunday of the Easter Season to honor and commemorate God’s infinite mercy.
Where do we see this mercy revealed in today’s Readings?
First of all, we see it in the reaction Christ shows to those men, his chosen Apostles, who had abandoned him just two nights before.
• They had abandoned Jesus in his most difficult hour, but Jesus wasn’t going to abandon them.
• He passes through the locked doors, passes through their fears, regret, and guilt, and appears to them.
• He hasn’t given up on them. He brings them his peace. And he reaffirms his confidence in them by reaffirming their mission: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
We also see God’s mercy in Christ’s reaction to the men who had crucified him.
• Does he crush them in revenge? No.
• Instead, he sends out his Apostles to tell them – and the whole sinful world, the world that had crucified its God – that they can be redeemed, that God has not condemned them: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And then, just to make sure that the Church is fully armed to communicate this message, Jesus gives the ultimate revelation of God’s mercy – he delegates to his Apostles his divine power to forgive sins: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
This is the explicit institution of the sacrament of confession, the sacrament in which the limitless ocean of God’s mercy overwhelms the puny ocean of our misery.
It was the ultimate revelation of the Divine Mercy.
Of all the Apostles, perhaps Doubting Thomas experienced this mercy most dramatically.
• Thomas was mad that Jesus had failed. He was brooding over it, nursing his anger and sorrow in solitude.
• So when he finally heard the news of the Resurrection, he wouldn’t accept it: “Unless I see the mark of the nails… I will not believe.”
• A week later, on the second Sunday after the Resurrection, Divine Mercy Sunday, Thomas is with the other Apostles, still locked inside the room and inside their fears and doubts.
• Jesus comes through those locked doors once again, and wishes them peace.
And then what does he do?
Right after he greets the whole group, his very next words are for Thomas: Touch my wounds, Thomas; believe in me!
What look do you think was in Jesus’ eyes at that point?
• I think he was smiling. He was glad to oblige Thomas’ stubborn request.
• He wasn’t offended by the Apostle’s hesitation and resistance, he was just eager to get his faith back.
• And Thomas sees this, and he sees that Christ humbly lowers himself to Thomas’ level, letting him touch him, letting him feel Christ’s real, physical presence…
• And Thomas falls on his knees and is the first Apostle to proclaim his faith in Christ’s divinity, calling him “My Lord and my God”, the very titles given to God throughout the whole Old Testament.
We are all Doubting Thomases.
We all resist God’s action in our lives in one way or another, get mad at him, don’t trust him, and rebel against him.
And it is precisely in those moments and those corners of our lives where Jesus wants to show off his boundless mercy, come down to our level, and win back our faith.
We are all children of this God whose mercy, goodness, and power are boundless, persistent, and untiring.
And children should be like their parents.
We have had the grace to experience God’s mercy – through the sacraments, through prayer, through being taught the Good News about Jesus Christ.
But there are many people around us who haven’t had that grace, or have forgotten about it.
I can think of nothing that would please God more than if we all made the commitment to spread that mercy this week, even just a little bit.
• We all have relationships that are not exactly marked by mercy.
• We all know of relationships that are marred by indifference and envy and resentment.
• This week, why not take the first step towards reconciliation, with prayer, words, or actions?
• Why not follow in the footsteps of Christ, not waiting for others to take the first step, but doing so ourselves, just like Christ, just like Jesus who held out his hands to Thomas, showing them by our courage and humility the face of Christ, our merciful Lord?
In his conversations with St Faustina, Jesus promised to unleash on the world a flood of mercy.
• He has been doing so, and he wants to continue to do so.
• The flood hasn’t yet reached every heart.
• This week, let’s be conscious channels for that flood, clear pipelines for that mercy to refresh someone’s shriveled and dried up heart.
If in today’s Mass we put ourselves at Christ’s service for this purpose, I am sure he will give each one of us plenty of opportunities to carry it out.
All we need to do is keep ever on our lips that prayer that he himself taught to St Faustina: Jesus, I trust in you.

The Concho Padre

God of everlasting mercy,
who in the very recurrence of the paschal feast
kindle the faith of the people you have made your own,
increase, we pray, the grace you have bestowed,
that all may grasp and rightly understand
in what font they have been washed,
by whose Spirit they have been reborn,
by whose Blood they have been redeemed.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.

Only the name of Jesus is our salvation. Only he can save us. And no one else. Even less the modern “magicians” with their improbable tarot card prophecies that bewitch and delude men and women today.

And it was on the name of Jesus that Pope Francis focused his reflection on Friday morning, 5 April, in the Octave of Easter, at the Mass he celebrated in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae with the participation of the Sediari pontifici (the pontifical chair-bearers), and those in charge, employees and religious of the St John of God Brothers who work at the Vatican Pharmacy.

The Pope drew inspiration in particular from the First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles (4:1-12), to think about the value and significance of the name of Jesus. The passage presents the episode of Peter and John who were arrested because they were preaching Christ’s Resurrection to the people and were led before the Sanhedrin. To the question as to whether they had healed the cripple at the door of the Temple, Peter answered that they had done so “by the name of Christ”. In the name of Jesus, the Pope repeated, adding: “He is the Saviour, this name, Jesus. When someone says Jesus, it is he himself, that is, the One who works miracles. And this name accompanies us in our heart”.

In John’s Gospel too, the Pope added, the Apostles seemed to have taken leave of their senses, “because they had caught nothing after fishing all night. When the Lord asked them for something to eat they were replied somewhat curtly ‘no’. Yet “when the Lord told them to ‘cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some’, perhaps they were thinking of the time when the Lord told Peter to start fishing and he had answered precisely: “We toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets’”.

Then returning to the Acts, Pope Francis explained that “Peter reveals a truth when he says: ‘by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth’. Because he answers inspired by the Holy Spirit. In fact we”, he continued, “cannot profess Jesus, we cannot speak of Jesus, we cannot say anything about Jesus without the Holy Spirit”. It is the Holy Spirit himself “who urges us to profess Jesus or to talk about Jesus or to have trust in Jesus”. And is it Jesus himself who is beside us “on our journey through life, always”.

The Pope then recounted a personal experience linked to his memory of a man, the father of eight, who worked for 30 years in the Archiepiscopal Curia of Buenos Aires. “Before going out, before going to do any of the things he had to do”, the Holy Father said, “he would always whisper to himself: ‘Jesus!’. I once asked him ‘But why do you keep saying “Jesus?”’. ‘When I say ‘Jesus’, this humble man answered me, ‘I feel strong’, I feel able to work because I know he is beside me, that he is keeping me’”. “And yet”, the Pope said, this man “had not studied theology: he had only the grace of Baptism and the power of the Spirit”. And “his witnessing”, Pope Francis then admitted, “did me so much good. The name of Jesus. There is no other name. Perhaps it will to do good to all of us”, who live in a “world that offers us such a multitude of ‘saviours’”. At times, “whenever there are problems”, he noted, “people do not commend themselves to Jesus, but to others”, even turning to self-styled “magicians”, “that they may resolve matters”; or people “go to consult tarot cards”, to find out and understand what they should do. Yet it is not by resorting to magicians or to tarot that salvation is found: it is “in the name of Jesus. And we should bear witness to this! He is the one Saviour”.

Then he made a reference to the Virgin Mary’s role. “Our Lady”, Pope Francis said, “always takes us to Jesus. Call upon Our Lady, and she will do what she did at Cana: ‘Do whatever he tells you!’”. She “always leads us to Jesus. She was the first person to act in the name of Jesus”. The Pope concluded by expressing a wish: “today, which is a day in the week of the Lord’s Resurrection, I would like us to think of this: I entrust myself to the name of Jesus; I pray, ‘Jesus, Jesus!’”.

L’Osservatore Romano