Pope Francis homily at mass today was an important message for all of us. We sometimes forget that the way of Christ is not the way of the world. Humility, gentleness nd patience are not virtues that our culture promotes. But, the Holy Father told us, they are the way of peace.
From Vatican News:
Difficulty in making peace
The path to peace in the world, in our societies and also in our families is that of humility, gentleness, and patience. This was the heart of the message of Pope Francis in his homily at Mass Friday morning at the Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican.
He was reflecting on the day’s First Reading, where St. Paul from the solitude of his imprisonment was writing to the Ephesians a true “hymn to unity”, recalling the “dignity of vocation”.
The Pope observed that Paul’s solitude would accompany him until his death in Rome, because Christians were “too busy” in their “internal struggles”. And before Paul, he said, Jesus Himself “asked for the grace of unity from the Father for all of us.”
Yet, the Pope noted, today we are “used to breathing the air of conflict”. Every day, on the TV and in newspapers, we hear about conflicts and wars “one after the other”, “without peace, without unity”. Agreements made to stop conflicts, he said, are ignored, thus the arms race and preparation for war and destruction go ahead.
The Pope noted that even world institutions created with the best of intentions for peace and unity, fail to come to an agreement because of a veto here and an interest there … While they are struggling to arrive at peace agreements, children have no food, no school, no education and hospitals because the war has destroyed everything.
The Holy Father noted there is a tendency to destruction, war and disunity in us. It is the tendency that the devil, the enemy and destroyer of humanity sows in our hearts. Referring to Paul the Pope said the Apostle teaches us that the journey of unity is, so to say, clad or “armoured’ with the bond of peace. Peace, he said, leads to unity.
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