FR
EN
Pope Francis spoke of joy on the morning of Friday 10 May, during Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, and he wished in a certain way to describe his state of soul on account of the presence, in his residence, of His Holiness Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria, and to share his joy with the faithful present at the celebration.
« Today there is a beautiful reason for joy in this house » where « the Pope of Alexandria, the patriarch of the Church of Mark » is welcomed. He also explained the reason for his joy: « He is a brother who comes to visit the Church of Rome to speak, to walk a stretch of the road together. He is a brother bishop, a bishop like Balthazar, like me: a bishop, and he leads a Church. Let us ask the Lord to bless him and to help him in his ministry of leading the Coptic Church; and to help us as well, so that we may know how to walk this stretch of the road together. It is a true joy, a small joy of today. Let us give thanks to the Lord for this joy ». He himself had welcomed him the previous morning, Thursday 9 May, when the head of the Coptic Church of Egypt had arrived precisely at Saint Martha's, where he will remain until the end of his stay in Rome, on 13 May, together with his entourage. This morning the official audience took place.
The reflection on joy was inspired by the passage from the Gospel of Luke (24:50-53) which speaks of the Ascension of the Lord and of the disciples who « returned to Jerusalem filled with joy. The gift that Jesus had given them was not a certain nostalgia » but « a joy ». This joy which Christians must still today cultivate and bear witness to, so as not to be sad.
The joy of which he spoke is the one that Jesus had promised the disciples: Christian joy. And he had reassured them that « no one will be able to take it away ». But « what is this joy? Is it cheerfulness? No, it is not the same thing. Cheerfulness is a good thing, rejoicing is good. But joy is something more, it is something else ». It does not come from the reasons of the moment, « it is something deeper. It is a gift. Cheerfulness, if we want to live it at every moment, in the end turns into frivolity, into superficiality, and it also leads us to that state of lack of Christian wisdom, it makes us a little foolish, naive. Not everything can be cheerfulness. Joy is something else. Joy is a gift of the Lord. It fills us from within. It is like an anointing of the Spirit ».
And this joy « lies in the certainty that Jesus is with us and with the Father. The other day I said that Paul went to preach, they built bridges because he was sure of Jesus ». It is this same certainty that gives us joy. « The joyful man, the joyful woman is a man, a woman who is certain » that Jesus is with us. But is it a certainty that we can always have? A certainty « that we can put under a bell jar – said the Pope with a colourful expression – to keep it always with us ? No, because if we want to have this joy only for ourselves, in the end it falls ill and our heart becomes a little wrinkled and our face does not convey this great joy, but a nostalgia, a melancholy that is not healthy. Sometimes these melancholic Christians have faces more like pickled peppers » than those of people who are joyful and have a good life.
But joy, the Holy Father added, cannot be stopped: it must go forward, because « it is a virtue on pilgrimage. It is a gift that walks, that walks along the road of life, that walks with Jesus: to preach, to proclaim Jesus, joy, lengthens the road and widens the road ». And it is a virtue of the great, « of those great ones who are above pettiness, who are above these human trifles, who do not let themselves be drawn into these small things within the community, within the Church; they always look towards the horizon ».
Source: News.va
