Pope Francis invited the faithful to the path of salvation through the cross of Christ. At the Mass that he presided over this Wednesday, September 14, the second day of his visit to Kazakhstan, Pope Francis explained that the way to our salvation is “to look at Jesus crucified.”
The Pope presided over a Mass before thousands of faithful from the Exhibition Square in the capital of Kazakhstan after several meetings with religious leaders.
After greeting the people from the popemobile, the Holy Father went up to the altar in a wheelchair to preside over the Eucharistic Celebration.
Every September 14, the Church celebrates the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a special feast for Catholics on which Pope Francis focused his homily.
Before the faithful present, the Holy Father pointed out that “on that wood Jesus has taken upon himself our sin and the evil of the world, and has overcome them with his love.”
Next, Pope Francis assured that the First Reading “calls us to look carefully at the moments of our personal and community history in which trust has waned, in the Lord and among us.”
“How many times, discouraged and intolerant, have we withered in our deserts, losing sight of the goal of the road,” he lamented.
As the Pope explained, these are “the moments of fatigue and trial, in which we no longer have the strength to look up to God.”
“These are the situations of personal, ecclesial and social life in which we are bitten by the snake of distrust, which injects into us the poisons of disillusionment and discouragement, of pessimism and resignation, enclosing us in our ‘I’, dampening our enthusiasm,” he explained.
Faced with these situations, the Pope defended that “it does us good to guard the memory of everything that has been suffered; It is not necessary to erase certain obscurities from memory, because otherwise one can believe that they are past water and that the path of good is channeled forever.
“No, peace is never achieved once and for all, it is achieved every day, in the same way as the coexistence between ethnic groups and religious traditions, comprehensive development and social justice”, said the Holy Father.
Likewise, he pointed out that “a renewed act of faith in the Lord is necessary; look up, look at him, and learn from his universal and crucified love.”
Before the “biting snakes” present in the First Reading, Pope Francis explained that Jesus, “elevated on the mast of the cross, does not allow the poisonous snakes that lie in wait for us to lead us to death.”
“Before our baseness, God gives us a new stature; if we have our eyes fixed on Jesus, the bites of evil can no longer dominate us, because He, on the Cross, has taken upon himself the poison of sin and death, and has defeated its destructive power”, he affirmed.
Furthermore, he explained that “this is what the Father has done in the face of the spread of evil in the world; he has given us Jesus, who has become close to us as we could never have imagined” and “this is the infinite greatness of divine mercy”.
The Pope defended that “this is the path, the path of our salvation, of our rebirth and resurrection: to look at Jesus crucified.”
“From the Cross of Christ we learn love, not hate; we learn compassion, not indifference; we learn forgiveness, not revenge. The outstretched arms of Jesus are the tender embrace with which God wants to welcome us. And they show us the fraternity that we are called to live among ourselves and with everyone,” the Pope continued.
“They show us the way, the Christian way; not that of imposition and coercion, of power or relevance, never the path that the cross of Christ wields against the other brothers and sisters for whom He has given His life. The way of Jesus, the way of salvation, is another: it is the way of humble, gratuitous and universal love, without conditions and without “buts”.
“Brothers, sisters, we have been reborn from the open side of Jesus on the cross; let there be no deadly poison among us (cf. Wis 1,14). Let us pray, rather, that by the grace of God we can be more and more Christians, joyful witnesses of new life, of love and of peace”, he concluded.