POPE FRANCIS’ BEST HOMILY EVER
Pope Francis on March 27, 2020
One with Us in Facing the Coronavirus
Pope Francis meditated on the calming of the storm from the
Gospel of Mark during the prayer service over which he presided on the steps of
St Peter's Basilica on Friday evening. Here is the full text.
“When evening had come” (Mk 4:35). The Gospel passage we
have just heard begins like this. For weeks now it has been evening. Thick
darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has
taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a
distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air,
we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves
afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by
an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat,
all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed,
all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.
On this boat… are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously
with one voice, saying “We are perishing” (v. 38), so we too have realized that
we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this.
It is easy to recognize ourselves in this story. What is
harder to understand is Jesus’ attitude. While his disciples are quite
naturally alarmed and desperate, he stands in the stern, in the part of the
boat that sinks first. And what does he do? In spite of the tempest, he sleeps
on soundly, trusting in the Father; this is the only time in the Gospels we see
Jesus sleeping. When he wakes up, after calming the wind and the waters, he
turns to the disciples in a reproaching voice: “Why are you afraid? Have you no
faith?” (v. 40).
Let us try to understand. In what does the lack of the
disciples’ faith consist, as contrasted with Jesus’ trust? They had not stopped
believing in him; in fact, they called on him. But we see how they call on him:
“Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” (v. 38). Do you not care: they think
that Jesus is not interested in them, does not care about them. One of the
things that hurts us and our families most when we hear it said is: “Do you not
care about me?” It is a phrase that wounds and unleashes storms in our hearts. It
would have shaken Jesus too. Because he, more than anyone, cares about us.
Indeed, once they have called on him, he saves his disciples from their
discouragement.
The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false
and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily
schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities. It shows us how we have
allowed to become dull and feeble the very things that nourish, sustain and
strengthen our lives and our communities. The tempest lays bare all our
prepackaged ideas and forgetfulness of what nourishes our people’s souls; all
those attempts that anesthetize us with ways of thinking and acting that
supposedly “save” us, but instead prove incapable of putting us in touch with
our roots and keeping alive the memory of those who have gone before us. We
deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity.
In this storm, the façade of those stereotypes with which we
camouflaged our egos, always worrying about our image, has fallen away,
uncovering once more that (blessed) common belonging, of which we cannot be
deprived: our belonging as brothers and sisters.
“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” Lord, your word
this evening strikes us and regards us, all of us. In this world, that you love
more than we do, we have gone ahead at breakneck speed, feeling powerful and
able to do anything. Greedy for profit, we let ourselves get caught up in
things, and lured away by haste. We did not stop at your reproach to us, we
were not shaken awake by wars or injustice across the world, nor did we listen
to the cry of the poor or of our ailing planet. We carried on regardless,
thinking we would stay healthy in a world that was sick. Now that we are in a
stormy sea, we implore you: “Wake up, Lord!”.
“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” Lord, you are
calling to us, calling us to faith. Which is not so much believing that you
exist, but coming to you and trusting in you. This Lent your call reverberates
urgently: “Be converted!”, “Return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12). You
are calling on us to seize this time of trial as a time of choosing. It is not
the time of your judgement, but of our judgement: a time to choose what matters
and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not. It
is a time to get our lives back on track with regard to you, Lord, and to
others. We can look to so many exemplary companions for the journey, who, even
though fearful, have reacted by giving their lives. This is the force of the
Spirit poured out and fashioned in courageous and generous self-denial. It is
the life in the Spirit that can redeem, value and demonstrate how our lives are
woven together and sustained by ordinary people – often forgotten people – who
do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines nor on the grand catwalks of
the latest show, but who without any doubt are in these very days writing the
decisive events of our time: doctors, nurses, supermarket employees, cleaners,
caregivers, providers of transport, law and order forces, volunteers, priests,
religious men and women and so very many others who have understood that no one
reaches salvation by themselves. In the face of so much suffering, where the
authentic development of our peoples is assessed, we experience the priestly
prayer of Jesus: “That they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). How many people every
day are exercising patience and offering hope, taking care to sow not panic but
a shared responsibility. How many fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers
are showing our children, in small everyday gestures, how to face up to and
navigate a crisis by adjusting their routines, lifting their gaze and fostering
prayer. How many are praying, offering and interceding for the good of all.
Prayer and quiet service: these are our victorious weapons.
“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith”? Faith begins when
we realise we are in need of salvation. We are not self-sufficient; by
ourselves we flounder: we need the Lord, like ancient navigators needed the
stars. Let us invite Jesus into the boats of our lives. Let us hand over our
fears to him so that he can conquer them. Like the disciples, we will
experience that with him on board there will be no shipwreck. Because this is
God’s strength: turning to the good everything that happens to us, even the bad
things. He brings serenity into our storms, because with God life never dies.
The Lord asks us and, in the midst of our tempest, invites
us to reawaken and put into practice that solidarity and hope capable of giving
strength, support and meaning to these hours when everything seems to be
floundering. The Lord awakens so as to reawaken and revive our Easter faith. We
have an anchor: by his cross we have been saved. We have a rudder: by his cross
we have been redeemed. We have a hope: by his cross we have been healed and
embraced so that nothing and no one can separate us from his redeeming love. In
the midst of isolation when we are suffering from a lack of tenderness and
chances to meet up, and we experience the loss of so many things, let us once
again listen to the proclamation that saves us: he is risen and is living by
our side. The Lord asks us from his cross to rediscover the life that awaits
us, to look towards those who look to us, to strengthen, recognize and foster
the grace that lives within us. Let us not quench the wavering flame (cf. Is
42:3) that never falters, and let us allow hope to be rekindled.
Embracing his cross means finding the courage to embrace all
the hardships of the present time, abandoning for a moment our eagerness for
power and possessions in order to make room for the creativity that only the
Spirit is capable of inspiring. It means finding the courage to create spaces
where everyone can recognize that they are called, and to allow new forms of hospitality,
fraternity and solidarity. By his cross we have been saved in order to embrace
hope and let it strengthen and sustain all measures and all possible avenues
for helping us protect ourselves and others. Embracing the Lord in order to
embrace hope: that is the strength of faith, which frees us from fear and gives
us hope.
“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith”? Dear brothers and
sisters, from this place that tells of Peter’s rock-solid faith, I would like
this evening to entrust all of you to the Lord, through the intercession of
Mary, Health of the People and Star of the stormy Sea. From this colonnade that
embraces Rome and the whole world, may God’s blessing come down upon you as a
consoling embrace. Lord, may you bless the world, give health to our bodies and
comfort our hearts. You ask us not to be afraid. Yet our faith is weak and we
are fearful. But you, Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm. Tell
us again: “Do not be afraid” (Mt 28:5). And we, together with Peter, “cast all
our anxieties onto you, for you care about us” (cf. 1 Pet 5:7).
