Pope Francis presided over the Chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on 28 March, Thursday in the Vatican along with thousands of faithful, cardinals, bishops and priests who renewed their promises made at the time of the Sacred Ordination.
Unlike the Palm Sunday Mass, in which the Holy Father preferred to maintain silence after reading the Gospel, on this occasion Pope Francis gave a long homily for about 20 minutes.
During the celebration, the Pope blessed the Holy Chrism and the other Sacred Oils, Oil of the Catechumens and Oil of the Sick, which will be used throughout the year to impart the sacraments. Furthermore, the priests present renewed the promises made on the day of his ordination.
Taking Peter’s denial as a reference, Pope Francis specified that the Apostle began to know Jesus when “in the darkness of denial, he gave way to tears of shame and repentance.”
Addressing the priests, the Holy Father remarked that “the healing of Peter’s heart, the healing of the Apostle and the healing of the Shepherd are possible when, wounded and repentant, we allow ourselves to be forgiven by Jesus; These healings happen through tears, bitter crying and pain that allow us to rediscover love.” In this sense, the Pontiff explained that this aspect can be defined as “compunction”, a “puncture in the heart, a prick that wounds it, causing tears of repentance to flow.”
“This is compunction, it is not a feeling of guilt that knocks us to the ground, it is not scruple that paralyzes, but a beneficial sting that burns inside and heals, because the heart, when it sees its own evil and recognizes itself as a sinner, It opens, it welcomes the action of the Holy Spirit, living water that shakes it, making tears flow on its face.”
Pope Francis stressed that it is necessary to understand well what tears of compunction mean, since “it is not about feeling sorry for oneself, as we are often tempted to do.”
“Also when,” he continued, “because of a strange and unhealthy taste in our spirit, we gloat over the grievances we have received to feel sorry for ourselves, thinking that we have not been given what we deserved and imagining that the future holds nothing for us other than continued disappointments.”
This, Pope Francis explained, “is sadness according to the world, opposed to that according to God.” For the Holy Father, having tears of compunction means “it is seriously repenting of having saddened God with sin; It is recognizing that we are always in debt and never being creditors; It is admitting having lost the path of holiness, not having believed in the love of the One who gave his life for me.
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“From there, fix my gaze on the Crucified and allow myself to be moved by his love that always forgives and uplifts, that never disappoints the hopes of those who trust in Him. Thus the tears continue to shed and purify the heart,” said Pope Francis.
Along these lines, he highlighted that compunction “requires effort but restores peace; It does not cause anguish, but rather it lightens the soul from its burdens, because it acts in the wound of sin, preparing us precisely there to receive the caress of the heavenly doctor, who transforms the heart when it is ‘contrite and humiliated’, softened by tears.”
“Compunction is therefore the antidote against sclerosis of the heart, against that hardness of heart that Jesus denounced so much,” he remarked.
“The miracle of sadness that leads to sweetness”
Later, the Holy Father assured that “the heart without repentance or tears becomes rigid: First, it becomes entrenched in its routines, then it is intolerant of problems and people are indifferent to it, then it becomes cold and almost impassive, as if wrapped in an unbreakable shell, and finally becomes a heart of stone.”
However, he reiterated that “as a drop excavates the stone, so tears slowly excavate hardened hearts. In this way, she witnesses the miracle of sadness that leads to sweetness.
“Compunction is the remedy, because it shows us the truth of ourselves, so that the depth of our sinful being reveals the infinitely greater reality of our forgiven being.”
Likewise, he pointed out that “each of our interior rebirths always springs from the encounter between our misery and the mercy of the Lord, passing through our poverty of spirit, which allows the Holy Spirit to enrich us. In this light the strong affirmations of so many spiritual teachers are understood.”
The Holy Father invited us to turn to ourselves “and ask ourselves how present compunction and tears are in our examination of conscience and in our prayer. Let us ask ourselves if as the years go by the tears increase.”
“He who does not cry regresses, he ages inside, while he who reaches a simpler and more intimate prayer, made of adoration and emotion before God, matures. He becomes less attached to himself and more and more to Christ, and becomes poor in spirit. In this way he feels closer to the poor, the beloved of God.”
For Pope Francis, “he who is repentant from the heart feels more like a brother to all the sinners of the world, without a hint of superiority or harshness of judgment, but with the desire to love and make reparation.”
“A docile heart, liberated by the spirit of the Beatitudes, is naturally inclined to make compunction for others; Instead of getting angry or scandalized by the evil that his brothers commit, he cries for his sins. A kind of reversal is then carried out, where the natural tendency to be indulgent with oneself and inflexible with others is reversed and, by the grace of God, one becomes severe with oneself and merciful with others.
In this sense, he assured that the “Lord does not ask us for derogatory judgments about those who do not believe, but rather for love and tears for those who are far away.”
“The difficult situations that we see and experience, the lack of faith, the sufferings that we touch, upon coming into contact with a broken heart, do not arouse determination in controversy, but perseverance in mercy.”