FR
EN
MASS OF CANONISATION OF BLESSED
MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA
JUBILEE OF WORKERS AND VOLUNTEERS OF MERCY
HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER
Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 4 September 2016
« Who can understand the will of the Lord ? » (Wis 9:13). This question from the book of Wisdom, which we heard in the first reading, presents our life to us as a mystery, whose key of interpretation is not in our possession. The protagonists of history are always two: God on the one hand and man on the other. Ours is the task of perceiving God's call and then of accepting his will. But in order to accept it without hesitation, let us ask ourselves: what is God's will?
In the same passage from the book of Wisdom, we find the answer: « Thus were the paths of those on earth set right » (v. 18). To authenticate God's call, we must ask ourselves and understand what pleases him. Very often, the prophets proclaim what is pleasing to the Lord. Their message finds an admirable synthesis in the expression: « I desire mercy, and not sacrifice » (Hos 6:6; Mt 9:13). Every work of mercy is pleasing to God, because in the brother we help we recognise the face of God whom no one can see (cf. Jn 1:18). And each time we bend down to the needs of our brothers and sisters, we give Jesus something to eat and drink; we clothe, we help, and we visit the Son of God (cf. Mt 25:40). In short, we touch the flesh of Christ.
We are thus called to translate into the concrete that which we invoke in prayer and profess in faith. There is no alternative to charity: those who put themselves at the service of their brothers and sisters, even without knowing it, are those who love God (cf. 1 Jn 3:16-18; Jas 2:14-18). The Christian life, however, is not simply the giving of help in a time of need. Were it so, it would certainly be a beautiful sentiment of human solidarity which brings an immediate benefit, but it would be sterile, because it would be without roots. The commitment that the Lord asks of us, on the contrary, is the commitment of a vocation to charity whereby every disciple of Christ places his or her whole life at his service, so as to grow each day in love.
We heard in the Gospel that « great crowds were travelling with Jesus » (Lk 14:25). Today, these « great crowds » are represented by the vast world of volunteering, gathered here on the occasion of the Jubilee of Mercy. You are that crowd who follows the Master and who makes visible his concrete love for each person. I repeat to you the words of the Apostle Paul: « I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, because the hearts of the faithful have been refreshed through you » (Phlm 7). How many hearts do volunteers comfort! How many hands do they hold up! How many tears do they wipe away! How much love is poured into hidden, humble and selfless service! This praiseworthy service manifests the faith - manifests the faith - and expresses the mercy of the Father who draws near to those who are in need.
Following Jesus is a serious and at the same time joyful commitment; it demands radicality and courage to recognise the divine Master in the poorest as well as in those marginalised by life, and to put oneself at their service. For this reason, volunteers who, out of love for Jesus, serve the least and the destitute expect no recognition or reward, but rather renounce all this because they have discovered authentic love. And each one of us can say: ‘‘Just as the Lord has come to meet me and has bent down to me in my time of need, so too do I go to meet him and bend down to those who have lost their faith or who live as though God did not exist, to young people without values or ideals, to families in crisis, to the sick and the imprisoned, to refugees and migrants, to the weak and to those who are defenceless in body and spirit, to minors left to fend for themselves, as well as to the elderly who are left alone. Wherever there is an outstretched hand asking for help to get back on its feet, there our presence must be perceived, as well as the presence of the Church which sustains and gives hope’’. And this must be done with the living memory of the Lord's hand outstretched to me when I was on the ground.
Mother Teresa, throughout her life, was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available to everyone through the welcoming and defence of human life, whether life in the mother's womb or life abandoned and rejected. She devoted herself to the defence of life, ceaselessly proclaiming that « the one who is not yet born is the weakest, the smallest, the most wretched ». She bent down over the broken people who are left to die at the roadside, recognising the dignity that God had given them; she made her voice heard by the powerful of the earth, so that they might acknowledge their guilt in the face of the crimes – in the face of the crimes - of poverty they had themselves created. Mercy was for her the ‘‘salt’’ that gave flavour to each of her works, and the ‘‘light’’ that illumined the darkness of those who no longer had even tears to weep for their poverty and suffering.
Her mission to the peripheries of cities and to the existential peripheries endures in our day as an eloquent witness to God's closeness to the poorest of the poor. Today, I entrust this emblematic figure of a woman and of a consecrated person to the world of volunteering: may she be your model of holiness! I think, perhaps, we may have some difficulty in calling her Saint Teresa; her holiness is so near to us, so tender and so fruitful that spontaneously we will continue to say to her: ‘‘Mother Teresa’’. May this tireless worker of mercy help us increasingly to understand that our only criterion of action is gratuitous love, free from every ideology and from every bond, and offered to all without distinction of language, culture, race or religion. Mother Teresa loved to say: « Perhaps I do not speak their language, but I can smile ». Let us carry her smile in our hearts and offer it to those we meet along our way, especially to those who suffer. In this way we will open up horizons of joy and hope for so many discouraged people who need understanding as well as tenderness.
