The worshiper of God is no longer a slave to anyone; without compassion for the wounds of those who suffer, the Eucharist cannot be truly adored. Pope Francis emphasized this in his sermon at the closing Mass of the XXVII National Eucharistic Assembly in Italy.
(Vatican News Network)Pope Francis will travel from the Vatican to the city of Matera in southern Italy on Sunday 25 September to preside over the closing mass of the 27th National Eucharistic Assembly. In front of the approximately 12,000 faithful present, the Pope affirmed that “bread cannot necessarily be shared on the table of the world, bread does not necessarily have to emanate the fragrance of communion and cannot be distributed equally”. The Pope invited everyone to be ashamed of the injustices and inequalities of daily life, of the oppression and indifference that the poor and the weak often experience.
The parable of Lazarus, the rich man and the beggar, is recorded in the Sunday Gospel of that day (cf.Lk 16: 19-31). Starting from this passage from the Gospel, the Pope emphasized that the Eucharist reminds everyone “to honor God”. The Pope clarified that, in fact, the rich man in this parable does not have a relationship with God, he does not make room for God in his life, but is concerned only with his own pleasure and his worldly wealth. Such a rich man doesn’t even have a name.
“Unfortunately, it is the same situation today. When we confuse who we are with what we have, when we take the wealth that people have, the titles they hold, the jobs they hold or theirs. This is what happens when we judge them by the brand of the clothes they wear. It is the materialistic and physical trope that prevails in today’s world, but it ends up leaving us empty-handed.
On the contrary, the beggar in the parable has a name: his name is Lazarus, which means “God help”. “Despite his poverty, he retains his full dignity, because he lives in relationship with God”, the Pope said, “the indestructible hope of his life”. This is precisely the challenge that the Eucharist poses to everyone’s life: “To adore God, not ourselves; be centered on God, not on personal vanity ”.
“This is because if we worship ourselves, we will die from lack of oxygen in our own insignificance; if we worship the riches of this world, we will be controlled by it and become slaves; if we worship a man who seeks the appearance of God, we will devote ourselves to waste and sooner or later our life will pay our bills ”.
And by worshiping Jesus in the Eucharist, we get a new perspective on life. “I don’t equal what I have, what I can get. The value of my life is neither determined by my appearance, nor is it dwarfed by my setbacks and failures.”
Furthermore, the Eucharist exhorts us to love our brothers and sisters: a task that the rich man in the Gospel parable is unable to carry out. The rich man did not realize Lazarus existed until the Lord reversed his fate with Lazarus, and the gap between them was impossible to bridge. “In his earthly life the rich man dug with his own hands the abyss between him and Lazarus, and in eternity the abyss will remain forever”. Our future, in fact, depends on our present life: “If we dig breaches with our brothers and sisters, we dig pits in the future; if we build walls now to separate ourselves from our brothers and sisters, we will be imprisoned in solitude and death, not me I’ll never go “.
This Gospel parable also reflects what is happening today. “Injustice, inequality, the unequal distribution of the earth’s resources, the oppression of the weak by the powerful, indifference to the cry of the poor: these are the chasms we dig every day, the exclusions we create every day, and we cannot be indifferent. And today we declare ourselves together. We recognize that the Eucharist announces a new world in which Jesus is present and asks us to do our best to bring about a concrete transformation: from indifference to mercy, from waste to sharing , from selfishness to love, from individualism to brotherhood Friendship “.
The Pope encouraged the Church to love the Eucharist: to bow before the Eucharist, to adore with surprise the Lord who is present in the sacrificial bread, and at the same time to know how to show compassion for the wounds of the suffering, to help the poor. , dry their tears and be bread of hope and joy for all.
Finally, the Pope invited the faithful to return to Jesus. When hope is extinguished, when I feel lonely and tired in my heart, when I am tormented by sin, and when I fear I will not be able to overcome the difficulties I have before me, I love again Jesus and tasted the “taste of bread” again: only Jesus overcomes death and makes life seem ever new.
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