Below are the words of Pope Francis on the afternoon of this Tuesday, October 11, the anniversary of the start of the Council promoted by John XXIII:
“You love me?”. It is the first sentence that Jesus addresses to Peter in the Gospel that we have heard (Jn 21:15). The last one, on the other hand, is: “Feed my sheep” (v. 17). On the anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, we feel that the Lord addresses these words to us as well, to us as the Church: Do you love me? Feed my sheep.
First of all: do you love me? It is an interrogation because the style of Jesus is not so much that of giving answers, as that of asking questions, questions that challenge life. And the Lord, who “speaks to men as friends, moved by his great love and dwells with them” (Dei Verbum, 2), still asks us and will always continue to ask the Church, his bride: “Do you love me?”.
The Second Vatican Council was a great answer to that question. It was to rekindle her love that the Church, for the first time in history, dedicated a Council to questioning herself, to reflecting on her own nature and her own mission. And it was rediscovered as a mystery of grace generated by love, it was rediscovered as the People of God, the Body of Christ, the living temple of the Holy Spirit.
This is the first look that must be taken on the Church, the look from above. Yes, we must look at the Church above all from above, with eyes in love with God. Let us ask ourselves if in the Church we start from God, from his enamored look on us.
There is always the temptation to start from self rather than from God, to put our agendas before the Gospel, to allow ourselves to be carried away by the wind of worldliness to follow the fashions of time or to reject the time that Providence gives us to go back.
But let’s be careful: neither the progressivism that adapts to the world, nor the traditionalism that yearns for a past world are proofs of love, but of infidelity. They are Pelagian egoisms, which put their own tastes and plans before the love that pleases God, that simple, humble and faithful love that Jesus asked of Peter.
do you love me Let us rediscover the Council to give primacy back to God, to what is essential, to a Church that is mad with love for her Lord and for all the people He loves, to a Church that is rich in Jesus and poor in means, to a Church that is free and liberating.
The Council indicates this path to the Church: it makes her return, like Peter in the Gospel, to Galilee, to the sources of her first love, to rediscover in her poverty the holiness of God (cf. Lumen gentium, 8c; chap. V), to rediscover lost joy in the gaze of the crucified and risen Lord, to concentrate on Jesus.
Pope John XXIII, in his last days, wrote: “This life of mine that is coming to an end could not end better than concentrating totally on Jesus, Son of Mary… great and continuous intimacy with Jesus, contemplated in image: child, crucified, adored in the Sacrament” (Diary of the soul, 977-978). This is our high gaze, our ever-living source! Jesus, the Galilee of love, Jesus who calls us, Jesus who asks us: “Do you love me?”
Brothers, sisters, let us return to the limpid sources of love of the Council. Let us rediscover the passion of the Council and let us renew the passion for the Council. Immersed in the mystery of the Church, mother and bride, let us also say, with Saint John XXIII: Gaudet Mater Ecclesia (Speech at the opening of the Council, October 11, 1962).
May joy live in the Church. If she is not happy she contradicts herself, because she forgets the love that created her. And yet, how many among us fail to live the faith with joy, without murmuring and without criticizing? A Church in love with Jesus has no time for conflicts, poisons and polemics.
God save us from being critical and impatient, bitter and angry. It is not only a matter of style, but of love, because the one who loves, as the apostle Paul teaches, does everything without murmuring (cf. Phil 2,14).
Lord, teach us to look high, to look at the Church as You see it. And when we are critical and dissatisfied, remind us that to be Church is to witness the beauty of your love, it is to live answering your question: do you love me?
You love me? Feed my sheep. Feed: Jesus expresses with this verb the love that he desires from Peter. Let us think precisely of Peter: he was a fisherman of fish and Jesus transformed him into a fisherman of men (cf. Lk 5:10).
He now assigns him a new job, that of shepherd, which he had never exercised. And it is a change, because while the fisherman takes for himself, he attracts to himself, the shepherd takes care of others, feeds others. Moreover, the shepherd lives with his flock, feeds the sheep, becomes fond of them. He is not above, like the fisherman, but in the middle.
This is the second look that the Council teaches us, the look in the middle, being in the world with others and without ever feeling above others, as servants of the Kingdom of God (cf. Lumen gentium, 5); bring the good news of the Gospel to life and in the languages of men (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 36), sharing their joys and their hopes (cf. Gaudium et spes, 1).
How up-to-date the Council is, it helps us to reject the temptation to shut ourselves up in the precincts of our comforts and convictions, to imitate the style of God, which the prophet Ezekiel has described to us today: “go in search of the lost sheep and bring back to flock the lost, bind up the wounded and heal the sick” (cf. Ez 34:16).
Feed: the Church did not celebrate the Council to contemplate itself, but to give itself. Indeed, our holy hierarchical Mother, who emerged from the heart of the Trinity, exists to love. She is a priestly people (cf. Lumen gentium, 10 ss.), She must not stand out in the eyes of the world, but serve the world.
Let us not forget: the People of God are born extroverted and rejuvenate by wearing themselves out, because it is a sacrament of love, “a sign and instrument of intimate union with God and of the unity of the entire human race” (Lumen gentium, 1).
Brothers, sisters, let us return to the Council, which has rediscovered the living river of Tradition without getting bogged down in traditions; who has rediscovered the source of love not to stay on the mountain, but so that the Church descends into the valley and is a channel of mercy for all. Let us return to the Council to get out of ourselves and overcome the temptation of self-referentiality.
And shepherding, overcome the nostalgia of the past, the repentance of relevance, the attachment to power, because you, Holy People of God, are a pastoral people: you do not exist to shepherd yourselves, to climb, but to shepherd others , to everyone else, with love.
Feed, the Lord repeats to his Church; and grazing, overcome the nostalgia of the past, the longing for relevance, the attachment to power, because you, Holy People of God, are a pastoral people, you do not exist to graze yourself, to climb, but to shepherd others , to everyone else, with love.
And, if it is right to have particular attention, let it be for God’s favorites, for the poor and the discarded (cf. Lumen gentium, 8c; Gaudium et spes, 1); to be, as Pope John said, “the Church of all, in particular the Church of the poor” (Radio message to the faithful of the whole world, one month before the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, September 11, 1962).
You love me? Feed —concludes the Lord— my sheep. He does not think only of some, but of all, because he loves all of them, affectionately calls them all “mine.” The Good Shepherd sees and wants his flock united with him, under the guidance of the shepherds he has given him.
He wants —third look— the whole look. The Council reminds us that the Church, in the image of the Trinity, is communion (cf. Lumen gentium, 4.13).
The devil, on the other hand, wants to sow the tares of division. Let’s not give in to his flattery of him, let’s not give in to the temptation of polarization. How many times, after the Council, the Christians insisted on choosing a part in the Church, without realizing that they were tearing the heart of their Mother. How many times has it been preferred to be “fans of one’s own group” rather than servants of all, progressives and conservatives rather than brothers and sisters, “of the right” or “of the left” rather than of Jesus; erecting themselves as “custodians of the truth” or “soloists of novelty”, instead of recognizing themselves as humble and grateful children of holy Mother Church.
The Lord does not want us like this, we are his sheep, his flock, and we are only together, united. Let us overcome polarizations and defend communion, let us become more and more “one thing”, as Jesus pleaded before giving his life for us (cf. Jn 17:21).
May Mary, Mother of the Church, help us in this. May she increase in us the longing for unity, the desire to commit ourselves to full communion among all believers in Christ. It is beautiful that today, as during the Council, representatives of other Christian communities are with us. Thanks for coming!
We thank you, Lord, for the gift of the Council. You who love us, deliver us from the presumption of self-sufficiency and the spirit of worldly criticism.
You, who feed us with tenderness, lead us out of the precincts of self-referentiality. You, who want us a united flock, free us from the diabolical deception of polarizations. And we, your Church, with Peter and as Peter tell you: “Lord, you know everything; you know we love you.”
(Translated from ACI Prensa)