Pope: only the path of the Beatitudes can save us from the devastation of creation, of morality, of history, of family, of everything
Rome (AsiaNews) - Only the path of the Beatitudes "will save us from the devastation of the Earth, of creation, of morality, of history, of family, of everything", helping us to cast aside the attitude in which man believes himself God and discards people and nations. This was the message at the heart of Pope Francis' homily - entirely off the cuff- delivered during Mass at the Monumental Cemetery of Verano, Rome.
The Pope reflected on the first reading from the Book of Revelation, where the angel cries with a loud voice to the four who were given power to damage the land and the sea, "Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God..". The Pope said that this brought to mind a phrase that "is at the heart of all of us: 'men are capable of doing this better than you.' We are capable of devastating the Earth far better than the angels. And this is exactly what we are doing, this is what we do: we destroy creation, we devastate lives, we devastate cultures, we devastate values, we ravage hope. How greatly we need the Lord's strength to seal us with His love and His power to stop this crazy will to destroy.
"Destroying- he continued - what He has given us, the most beautiful things that He has done for us, for us to carry forward, to nurture, to bear fruit ... When I looked at the pictures in the sacristy of 71 years ago [depicting the WWII bombing of the area of San Lorenzo where the cemetry is situated -ed], I thought, 'This is so grave, so painful. This is nothing in comparison to what is happening today. Man takes over everything, believes himself to be God, to be King. And the wars, wars that continue, not exactly to sow the seed of life. To destroy. But it is the industry of destruction. It is also a system of life, that when things can't be fixed they are discarded: we discard children, we discard the old, the young are discarded without a job ... This devastation that is the result of the culture of waste. We discard people".
The Pope then spoke of the second image, also taken from the First Reading: "This great multitude which no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language ... The people, people ... It's starting to get cold in the Northern hemisphere: these poor people, who have to flee for their lives, their homes, their people, their villages, in the desert ... and they live in tents, they feel cold, without medicine, hungry ... because the god-man has taken control of creation, of all that good that God has done for us. But who pays for the party? Them! The young, the poor, those who were discarded. And this is not ancient history: it is happening today. 'But Father, it is far away ...' - It's here too! Everywhere. It is happening today. I will say more: it seems that these people, these children who are hungry, sick, do not seem to count, it's as if they were of a different species, as if they were not even human. And this multitude is before God and begs, 'Please, salvation! Please, peace! Please bread! Please work! Please, children and grandparents! Please, young people with the dignity of being able to work! '".
There are also between those who are persecuted for their faith, those "dressed in white" in the passage from Revelation: "'They are the ones who come from great tribulation, and their robes are made immaculate in the blood of the Lamb.'" "And now, without exaggeration, today on the Feast of All Saints - the Pope said - I would like us to think of all these, the unknown saints. Sinners like us, worse off than us, destroyed. Of this multitude of people who are in great tribulation: most of the world is in tribulation. And the Lord sanctifies the people, sinners like us, but He sanctifies these people in tribulation".
There is a third image,
"God. The first, the devastation; the second, the victims; the third, God.
God: 'We as of now we are children of God,' we heard in the second reading. 'But
what we will be has not yet been revealed. But we know that when he appears we
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is', that is: hope. And this is
the blessing of the Lord that we still have: hope. Hope He will have pity on His
people, mercy on those who are in the great tribulation and compassion for the destroyers
that they will convert. And so, the holiness of the Church goes on: with these
people, with us, that we will see God as He is. And what should our attitude be
if we want to be part of this multitude walking to the Father, in this world of
devastation, in this world of war, in this world of tribulation? Our attitude,
as we heard in the Gospel, is the attitude of the Beatitudes. That path alone will
lead us to the encounter with God. That path alone will save us from
destruction, from destroying the Earth, creation, morality, history, family,
everything. That path alone, but it will bring us through bad things. It will
bring us trouble. Persecution. But that path alone will take us forward. And
so, these people who are suffering so much today because of the selfishness of destroyers,
destroyers of our brothers and sisters, these people go on with the Beatitudes,
hoping to find God, to find ourselves face to face with the Lord in the hope of
becoming holy, at the time of our final encounter with Him. "
"May the Lord - concluded the Pope -
help us and give us the grace of this hope, but also the grace of courage to emerge
from all this destruction, devastation, relativism of life, the exclusion of
others, exclusion of values, exclusion of all that the Lord has given us: the
exclusion of peace. Deliver us from this, and give us the grace to walk in the
hope of finding ourselves one day face to-face with Him. And this hope,
brothers and sisters, does not disappoint".
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