"The catholicity of the Church, asks to be welcomed and lived in every age."Pope Francis: "In today's dramatic situation, Mother of God, we have recourse to you"."In this Sunday's Gospel," Pope Francis began this Sunday, commenting on the Gospel, during the prayer of the Regina Coeli in St. Peter's Square, "Jesus, after having compared Himself to the vine and us to the branches, explains what it is to be a vine and what it is to be a branch. the fruit that those who remain united to Him bear: this fruit is love. Once again, take up the key verb: remain. He invites us to remain in his love so that his joy may be in us and our joy may be full (vv. 9-11)".
Jesus treats us as friends
Francis asked a fundamental question: "What is this love in which Jesus tells us to remain in order to have his joy? It is the love that has its origin in the Fatherbecause "God is love" (1 Jn 4:8). Like a river, it flows in the Son Jesus, and through him it reaches us, his creatures. In fact, he says: "As the Father loves me, so I love you" (Jn 15:9). The love that Jesus gives us is the same love with which the Father loves him: pure, unconditioned, gratuitous love. By giving it to us, Jesus treats us as friends, making the Father known to us, and involves us in his own mission for the life of the world".
And he continued with another question: "And what must we do to remain in this love? Jesus says: "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love" (v. 10). Jesus summarized his commandments in only one, this one: "Love one another as I have loved you" (v. 12). To love as Christ loves means to place oneself at the service of the brethren, just as he did when he washed the disciples' feet. It means going out of oneself, detaching oneself from one's own human securities, from comforts, in order to open oneself to others, especially to those who are most in need. It means to make oneself available with what we are and what we have. This means to love not in word, but in deed".
Dwelling in God's love
"To love like Christ means to say no to other "loves" that the world proposes to us: love of money, of success, of power... These deceitful ways lead us away from the love of the Lord and lead us to be more and more selfish, narcissistic and overbearing. Self-importance leads to a degeneration of love, to abuse others, to make the loved one suffer. I think of the sick love that turns into violence - and how many women are its victims today! This is not love. To love as the Lord loves means to appreciate the person at our side and to respect his or her freedom, to love him or her as he or she is, gratuitously. In short, Jesus asks us to dwell in his love, not in our ideas, not in the cult of ourselves; to abandon the pretension of directing and controlling others in order to trust and give ourselves to them".
Love leads to joy
And continuing with this examination of conscience, the Holy Father asks: "Where does this abiding in the love of the Lord lead?" And he responds with the words of Jesus: "That my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full" (v. 11). The Lord wants the joy that he possesses, because he is in full communion with the Father, to be also in us insofar as we are united to him".
"The joy of knowing that we are loved by God in spite of our infidelities," Francis concluded, "makes us face the trials of life with faith, makes us go through the crises and come out of them better. To be true witnesses consists in living this joy, because joy is the characteristic sign of the Christian".
