Within the framework of his apostolic visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, His Holiness Pope Francis presided over the Divine Liturgy at Ndulu Airport in Kinshasa. Below we publish the official text of the Holy Father’s homily quoted from the official website of the Holy See.
Pope: Bandico, Bobuto (Brothers and sisters, peace).
Congregation: Bondico (fraternity).
Pope: Bondico (brothers).
Community: Isengu (Farah)
Esengo, Farah: Great joy to see and meet you: I’ve been missing this moment so much – you’ve made us wait a year! – Thank you for being here!
The Gospel told us a short time ago that the disciples’ joy was great also on the night of Easter, and that this joy poured into them “because they saw the Lord” (John 20:20). In this atmosphere full of joy and amazement, the Risen Lord spoke to His disciples. And what did he tell them? He first said two words to them: “Peace be upon you!” (verse 19). It is a greeting, but it is more than just a greeting: it is a commandment. Because the peace that the angels proclaimed on the night of Bethlehem (cf. Lk 2:14), the peace that Jesus promised to leave to his disciples (cf. Jn 14:27), now, for the first time, Jesus solemnly gives it to the disciples. The peace of Jesus, which is also given to us in every Mass, is an Easter peace: a peace that came with the Resurrection, because the Lord Jesus had first to defeat our enemies, sin and death, and to reconcile the world with the Father. He had to experience our loneliness and for everyone to leave him as we do, to go through all kinds of hells in our lives, to embrace and eliminate the distances that separate us from life and from hope. Now, once he had abolished the distances between heaven and earth, and between God and man, the peace of Jesus was given to the disciples.
So let’s put ourselves on their side. On that day they were in great pain because of the stumbling block and indecision of the cross, they were wounded inside because they had left Jesus and fled, disappointed by the finality of events, and afraid that they would end up like him. There was a feeling of guilt, frustration, sadness and fear in them… So, Jesus gave the disciples peace, and in their hearts there was wreckage, He gave them life while they felt death inside them. In other words, the peace of Jesus came at the moment when it seemed to them that everything was over, and in the unexpected and unexpected moments, when there was no glimmer of hope for peace. This is what the Lord Jesus does: He surprises us, reaches out to us when we are regarding to drown, and lifts us up when we reach the bottom. Brothers and sisters, with Jesus, evil never triumphs, and it never has the last word. “He is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14), and his peace always triumphs. Therefore, we who belong to Jesus cannot allow grief to overcome us, nor can we allow the forces of resignation and destiny to seep into us. If everyone around us breathes like this, it should not be the same for us: in a world frustrated by violence and war, Christians do what Jesus did. He repeated to his disciples and insisted: Peace be with you!” (cf. Jn 20:19,21); and we are called to make this call our own, and to announce to the world this same good news, the unexpected and prophetic good news of the Lord Jesus, the good news of peace.
We may ask, how do we preserve and nurture the peace of Jesus? He himself shows us three springs of peace, three springs to continue his nourishment. It is forgiveness, community and message.
Let’s see the first fountain: forgiveness. Jesus said to his own: “Those whose sins you forgive are forgiven them” (v. 23). But before He gave the apostles the authority to forgive, He forgave them. Not with words, but with a sign, which was the first thing that the risen Lord completed before them. The Bible says: “He showed them his hands and his side” (v. 20). That is, he explained the wounds to them, and presented them to them, because forgiveness is born from the wounds. You are born when the wounds leave no trace of hatred, but become a place where space is given to others and their weakness is accepted. Then weakness becomes an opportunity, and forgiveness becomes the path to peace. Peace is not achieved by leaving everything behind as if nothing had happened, but by opening the heart to others with love. This is what Jesus did: in the face of the misery of those who denied him and abandoned him, he showed them his wounds and opened to them the source of mercy. He did not use many words, but opened his wounded heart to tell us that he was always wounded by love for us.
Brothers and sisters, when we are overwhelmed by feelings of guilt and sadness, when things are not going well, we know where to look: we look at the wounds of Jesus, who is ready to forgive us with his wounded and infinite love. He knows your wounds and knows the wounds of your country, your people and your land! Wounds are festering, constantly poisoned by hatred and violence, while the medicine of justice and the balm of hope never seem to work. My brother and sister, Jesus suffers with you, sees the wounds you bear within you and wants to comfort you and heal you, to offer you his wounded heart. May God repeat to your heart the words spoken today by the prophet Isaiah: “I will heal him, I will give him comfort, I will give him comfort” (Isaiah 57,18).
Together we believe today that with Jesus there is always the possibility for God to forgive us and to start over, and also the strength to forgive ourselves, others and history! Christ wants this: to anoint us with His forgiveness, to give us peace and the courage to forgive in turn, and the courage to complete great reconciliation from the heart. How useful it is for us to purify our hearts from anger, remorse, and all grudges and hatred! Dear ones, may today be the moment of grace to accept and live the forgiveness of Jesus! Let it be the right moment for you, you who carry a heavy burden on your heart and need to be lifted so that you can breathe once more. And let it be the right moment for you, you are in this country that you say you are Christian, and you commit violence; To you, the Lord Jesus says: “Lay down your weapons, and embrace mercy.” And to all the wounded and oppressed in this people he says: “Do not be afraid to put your wounds in my wounds, and your pain in my pain.” Let’s do it brothers and sisters. Do not be afraid to take the Crucified One from your neck and from your pockets, to hold it in your hands and to place it close to your heart, to share your wounds in the wounds of Jesus. And when you return to your homes, take the crucifix you have and embrace it. Let’s give Christ a chance to heal our hearts, and let’s cast the past on Him, let’s throw away every fear and distress. How beautiful it is to open the doors of our heart and the doors of the house to His peace! Why don’t you write his words in your rooms, on your clothes, and outside your homes: Peace be upon you! Show these words, it will be a prophecy for the homeland, and the blessing of the Lord Jesus on everyone you meet. Peace be upon you!: Let us allow ourselves that God forgives us and that we forgive each other!
Let us now look at the second source of peace, which is: community. The risen Jesus did not address his disciples separately, but met them together: he spoke to them in the plural, and he gave his greetings to the first group. There is no Christianity without community, just as there is no peace without fraternity. But the community, where should it go, and where should it go to find peace? Let’s look once more at the disciples. Before Easter, they were following Jesus, but they still thought in an overly human way: they wished for a victorious Messiah who would expel their enemies, perform wonders and miracles, and increase their prestige and success. However, these worldly desires left them with empty hands, and even took away peace from the community, and created discussions and oppositions (cf. Lk 9,46; 22,24). For us, too, there is this danger, which is: being together but advancing alone, searching in society, and in the Church as well, for power, positions, and ambitions… In this way, we follow our own ego, instead of following the true God, and end up with us. It is like these disciples: closed in at home, devoid of hope and full of fear and disappointment. But at Easter they found once more the way of peace with Jesus, who breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). And with the Holy Spirit they will look no longer at what divides them, but at what unites them, they will go into the world not for themselves, but for others, not to appear, but to give hope, not to achieve unanimity in their favour, but to give Their lives with joy for the sake of the Lord Jesus and others.
Brothers and sisters, the danger is that we follow the spirit of the world instead of the spirit of Christ. What is the way not to fall into the traps of power and money, and not to succumb to the divisions and the temptations of the functional domineering spirit that corrupts the community, and to the false illusions of pleasure and sorcery that it guarantees? The Lord Jesus proposes to us once more through the words of the prophet Isaiah, who said: “I am with him who is contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirits of the humble, and to revive the hearts of the contrite” (Isaiah 57,15). The way is sharing with the poor: this is the best antibiotic once morest the temptation to divide us, to fill us with the spirit of the world. We must be encouraged to look at the poor and listen to them, because they are members of our community, not strangers, and we cannot remove them from our sight and from our conscience. We have to open our heart to others, instead of closing it to our own problems or our own ego. Let us start once more with the poor, and we will discover that we all share the inner poverty, and that we all need the Spirit of God in order to be liberated from the spirit of the world, and we know that humility is the greatness of the Christian and brotherhood is the true richness. Let us believe in the congregation, and with God’s help, let us build a Church devoid of the spirit of the world, filled with the Holy Spirit, liberated from riches for its own sake and filled with fraternal love!
Finally we come to the third source of peace, which is: the message. Jesus said to his disciples: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (John 20,21). He sends us as the Father sent him. And how did the Father send him into the world? He sent him to serve, to lay down his life for humanity (cf. Mk 10:45), to show his mercy to each one (cf. Lk 15), and to search for those far away (cf. Mt 9:13). In a word, he was sent for all: not only for the righteous, but for all. In this sense, the words of Isaiah are echoed, who said: “Peace, peace to those who are far and to those who are near, – saith the Lord” (Isaiah 57,19). For the far, first of all, and for the near: not only for those who “belong to us”, but for everyone.
Brothers and sisters, we are called to be missionaries of peace, this is what gives us peace. It is a choice we make, and it is: to make room for everyone in our heart, to believe that ethnic, regional, social, religious and cultural differences come later and are not obstacles, that others are brothers and sisters, members of the same human community, and that each one is the goal of the peace brought by Jesus for the world. We believe that we Christians are called to cooperate with everyone, to break the cycle of violence, and to dismantle the plots of hatred. Yes, the Christians sent by Christ are called, by virtue of their name and definition, to be the conscience of the peace of the world: not only critical consciences, but to be witnesses of love, not to claim private rights, but the rights of the Gospel, which are fraternity, love and forgiveness, and not to be seekers of Special interests, but to be messengers of the crazy love with which he loves us, and loves every human being.
Peace be upon you! Jesus says today to every family, community, ethnic group, neighborhood and city in this great country. Peace be upon you!: Let us let the words of our Lord Jesus resonate in our hearts, silently. Let us feel it addressed to us, and let us choose to be witnesses of forgiveness, to create our community, to be missionaries of peace in the world.
A person with hearing ears – R/Hear
He who has ears that hear – (Al-Jama’ah:) let him hear
A person with a heart of faith – R/Andima
Whoever has a heart that agrees – (Al-Jama’ah:) let him agree.
