NYT: Pope Francis’ Homily at the Canonization Mass for the Rev. Junípero Serra
Following is
the text of the English translation of Pope Francis
canonizing the Rev. Junípero Serra,
a Spanish-born Franciscan friar, the first canonization in the United States.
The text of the homily, which the pope gave in Spanish, was prepared for
delivery and released by the Vatican:
Rejoice in the
Lord always! I say it again, rejoice! These are striking words, words which
impact our lives. Paul tells us to rejoice; he practically orders us to
rejoice. This command resonates with the desire we all have for a fulfilling
life, a meaningful life, a joyful life. It is as if Paul could hear what each
one of us is thinking in his or her heart and to voice what we are feeling,
what we are experiencing. Something deep within us invites us to rejoice and
tells us not to settle for placebos which simply keep us comfortable.
At the same
time, though, we all know the struggles of everyday life. So much seems to
stand in the way of this invitation to rejoice. Our daily routine can often
lead us to a kind of glum apathy which gradually becomes a habit, with a fatal
consequence: our hearts grow numb.
We don’t want
apathy to guide our lives… or do we? We don’t want the force of habit to rule
our life… or do we? So we ought to ask ourselves: What can we do to keep our heart
from growing numb, becoming anesthetized? How do we make the joy of the Gospel
increase and take deeper root in our lives?
Jesus gives the
answer. He said to his disciples then and he says it to us now: Go forth! Proclaim!
The joy of the Gospel is something to be experienced, something to be known and
lived only through giving it away, through giving ourselves away.
The spirit of
the world tells us to be like everyone else, to settle for what comes easy.
Faced with this human way of thinking, “we must regain the conviction that we
need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and for the
world” (Laudato Si’, 229). It is the responsibility to proclaim the message of
Jesus. For the source of our joy is “an endless desire to show mercy, the fruit
of our own experience of the power of the Father’s infinite mercy” (Evangelii
Gaudium, 24). Go out to all, proclaim by anointing and anoint by proclaiming.
This is what the Lord tells us today. He tells us:
A Christian
finds joy in mission: Go out to people of every nation!
A Christian
experiences joy in following a command: Go forth and proclaim the good news! A
Christian finds ever new joy in answering a call: Go forth and anoint!
Jesus sends his
disciples out to all nations. To every people. We too were part of all those
people of two thousand years ago. Jesus did not provide a short list of who is,
or is not, worthy of receiving his message, his presence. Instead, he always
embraced life as he saw it. In faces of pain, hunger, sickness and sin. In
faces of wounds, of thirst, of weariness, doubt and pity. Far from expecting a
pretty life, smartly-dressed and neatly groomed, he embraced life as he found
it. It made no difference whether it was dirty, unkempt, broken. Jesus said: Go
out and tell the good news to everyone. Go out and in my name embrace life as
it is, and not as you think it should be. Go out to the highways and byways, go
out to tell the good news fearlessly, without prejudice, without superiority,
without condescension, to all those who have lost the joy of living. Go out to
proclaim the merciful embrace of the Father. Go out to those who are burdened
by pain and failure, who feel that their lives are empty, and proclaim the
folly of a loving Father who wants to anoint them with the oil of hope, the oil
of salvation. Go out to proclaim the good news that error, deceitful illusions
and falsehoods do not have the last word in a person’s life. Go out with the
ointment which soothes wounds and heals hearts.
Mission is
never the fruit of a perfectly planned program or a well-organized manual.
Mission is always the fruit of a life which knows what it is to be found and
healed, encountered and forgiven. Mission is born of a constant experience of
God’s merciful anointing.
The Church, the
holy People of God, treads the dust-laden paths of history, so often traversed
by conflict, injustice and violence, in order to encounter her children, our
brothers and sisters. The holy and faithful People of God are not afraid of
losing their way; they are afraid of becoming self-enclosed, frozen into
élites, clinging to their own security. They know that self-enclosure, in all
the many forms it takes, is the cause of so much apathy.
So let us go
out, let us go forth to offer everyone the life of Jesus Christ (Evangelii
Gaudium, 49). The People of God can embrace everyone because we are the
disciples of the One who knelt before his own to wash their feet (ibid., 24).
The reason we
are here today is that many other people wanted to respond to that call. They
believed that “life grows by being given away, and it weakens in isolation and
comfort” (Aparecida Document, 360). We are heirs to the bold missionary spirit
of so many men and women who preferred not to be “shut up within structures
which give us a false sense of security… within habits which make us feel safe,
while at our door people are starving” (Evangelii Gaudium, 49). We are indebted
to a tradition, a chain of witnesses who have made it possible for the good
news of the Gospel to be, in every generation, both “good” and “news”.
Today we
remember one of those witnesses who testified to the joy of the Gospel in these
lands, Father Junípero Serra. He was the embodiment of “a Church which goes
forth”, a Church which sets out to bring everywhere the reconciling tenderness
of God. Junípero Serra left his native land and its way of life. He was excited
about blazing trails, going forth to meet many people, learning and valuing
their particular customs and ways of life. He learned how to bring to birth and
nurture God’s life in the faces of everyone he met; he made them his brothers
and sisters. Junípero sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to
protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it. Mistreatment and wrongs
which today still trouble us, especially because of the hurt which they cause
in the lives of many people.
Father Serra
had a motto which inspired his life and work, a saying he lived his life by:
siempre adelante! Keep moving forward! For him, this was the way to continue
experiencing the joy of the Gospel, to keep his heart from growing numb, from
being anesthetized. He kept moving forward, because the Lord was waiting. He
kept going, because his brothers and sisters were waiting. He kept going
forward to the end of his life. Today, like him, may we be able to say:
Forward! Let’s keep moving forward!
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