Pope Francis celebrated the Zaire Use of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite in St. Peter’s Basilica on 3 July Sunday. The Mass was celebrated amid singing, clapping, and dancing to traditional Congolese music.
“Esengo,” the Pope began his homily which means “joy” in Lingala, the Bantu-based creole spoken in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo and by millions of speakers across Central Africa.
The Mass was offered exactly on the day of that had to be celebrated in Kinshasa before his trip to Africa.
Pope Francis presided over the Liturgy of the Word and gave the homily. Archbishop Richard Gallagher offered the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
“Today, dear brothers and sisters, let us pray for peace and reconciliation in your homeland, in the wounded and exploited Democratic Republic of Congo,” Pope Francis said.
“We join the Masses celebrated in the country according to this intention and pray that Christians may be witnesses of peace, capable of overcoming any feeling of resentment, any feeling of vengeance, overcoming the temptation that reconciliation is not possible, any unhealthy attachment to their own group that leads to despising others.”
The Pope underlined that the Lord calls all Christians to be “ambassadors of peace.”
“Brother, sister, peace begins with us,” Pope Francis said.
“If you live in his peace, Jesus arrives and your family, your society changes. They change if your heart is not at war in the first place, it is not armed with resentment and anger, it is not divided, it is not double, and it is not false. Putting peace and order in one’s heart, defusing greed, extinguishing hatred and resentment, fleeing corruption, fleeing cheating and cunning: this is where peace begins.”
Peace was expected to be a key theme of the Pope’s canceled Africa trip.
About 2,000 people were present in the inculturated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on the first Sunday of July.