Pope Francis recalled that the Gospel “is for everyone” and affirmed that God’s call is not a privilege, but a gift that must be put at the service of others. The Holy Father was speaking to his general audience on 22 November, Wednesday.
Continuing with his catechesis on evangelization and apostolic zeal, the Holy Father affirmed that “the Lord desires” that the proclamation of the Gospel “be for everyone.”
In this sense, he urged the faithful to distinguish themselves “by the ability to come out of ourselves” and recalled that the announcement, to be true, “must come from one’s own selfishness.”
The Pontiff specified that Christians “must be open and expansive, Christians must be ‘extroverted’, and this character of theirs comes from Jesus, who has made his presence in the world a continuous path, aimed at reaching everyone, even learning of certain meetings of his.”
The Holy Father gave as an example Jesus’ encounter with a foreign woman, a Canaanite who begs him to heal her sick daughter, to explain that “preaching should not be limited to the people to which it belongs, but should be open to everyone.”
“The Bible shows us that when God calls a person and makes a pact with some, the criterion is always this: he chooses one to reach many others,” the Holy Father then noted.
He also stressed that “this is the criterion of God’s call” and warned that “the greatest temptation is to consider the call received as a privilege.”
“The call is not a privilege, ever. We cannot say that we are privileged compared to others. The call is a service. “God chooses one to love everyone, to reach everyone,” he reiterated.
For Pope Francis, the proclamation of the Gospel is not for “a group of first-class elect,” but rather “God chooses everyone.”
At the end of his catechesis, the Pope recalled that next Sunday, November 26, we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ, King of the Universe.
“Let us ask that he reign in our lives and grant our young people to be generous witnesses of the joy of the Gospel that God has given us as a gift,” expressed the Holy Father.
Finally, he asked to persevere in prayer “for how many suffer because of wars in so many parts of the world, especially for the beloved population of the martyred Ukraine, of Israel and Palestine.”
Before the General Audience, Pope Francis met privately at the Vatican with a group of relatives of Israelis held hostage in Gaza by Hamas terrorists and later with a group of relatives of Palestinians suffering from the conflict in Gaza. .
The Pontiff highlighted the suffering of these families and stated that “this is no longer war, this is terrorism.”