Teachings of the Pope: For the Greater Glory of GodWhat are Pope Francis' gestures for? A few months into his pontificate, in a meeting with catechists during the Year of Faith, the Pope said that he liked to recall what St. Francis of Assisi said to his friars: "Preach the gospel always and, if necessary, also with words."He added: "that people may see in your life the gospel, that they may read the gospel.".
At this point in his pontificate, no one doubts that Pope Francis gives as much importance, if not more, to gestures than to words. For he who knows that, in the task of evangelization, words should be used only when necessary, gestures are never casual.
It is not always easy to understand the immediate meaning of the Pope's gestures. In the last month we have seen Francis travel to Morocco, where Catholics live in a minority; we have seen him give two interviews in Spain and the United Kingdom to media that are not exactly known for their affinity with the Catholic Church; and we have seen him kneel before the leaders of South Sudan and kiss their feet to implore, beyond what words can proclaim, effective measures to achieve peace. This last surprising gesture culminated two days of an unprecedented spiritual retreat in which the Pope invited the warring leaders to prayer. A day later, the army took power in a coup d'état that opened a new period of uncertainty in this troubled African country. It is evident that the Pope, who constantly invites us to go out to the peripheries, first likes to go to the peripheries. This is how we see him on the frontier of interreligious dialogue, on the media stage of belligerent secularism and in the field of armed conflicts.
But are these gestures worth anything? Time will tell. Now we can scrutinize their common motivation and venture to interpret their meaning. It is difficult to construe the gestures in the teachings as a whole. We can, at least, search the words for the meaning of the gestures to try to understand their scope. No time is more propitious than Holy Week to discover the primacy of gestures and to welcome the light of words. The Pope's teachings over the past month shed light on gestures that evoke references, express concerns, suggest responses and propose orientations. The liturgy evokes the irreplaceable reference of the origin and the goal; the synodal reflection, as a manifestation of the "journey together", gathers the concerns; in the catecheses and meetings the answers are suggested; in the guidelines and norms the orientations are indicated, so that the Church responds in the present moment to the new evangelizing stage that she is called to promote. Such can be the coordinates within which the drawing of the teachings will one day reveal the meaning of the gestures.
To the rhythm of the liturgy
Late in Lent, the episode of the adulterous woman "invites each of us to be aware that we are sinners, and to drop from our hands the stones of denigration and condemnation, of gossip, which we would sometimes like to hurl against others.". Forgiveness makes us begin a renewed history.
Holy Week begins each year with the mystery of the exultant acclamation and the fierce excitement of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and of the passion to the point of death. This is also how Jesus teaches us the path we must follow. Faced with the temptation of triumphalism, Jesus reacts with humility. Triumphalism feeds on gestures and words that have not passed through the crucible of the cross.
A subtle and perverse form of triumphalism is spiritual worldliness. "Jesus destroyed triumphalism with his passion.". Impressed by the silence of Jesus in the Passion, Francis affirmed: "In times of darkness and great tribulation one must be silent, have the courage to be silent, as long as it is a meek and not rancorous silence.".
At the Chrism Mass the Pope focused on the attitude of Jesus who remains in the midst of the people, among the crowd, and reflected on "three graces that characterize Jesus' relationship with the crowd".The grace of following, because Jesus does not reject those who crowd around him, seek him and follow him; the grace of admiration, because people marvel at his miracles and his Person, and Jesus, for his part, marveled at the faith of simple people; and the grace of discernment, because Christ awakens in people the ability to recognize his authority.
Considering this triple grace, Francis then analyzed who form the multitude that follows Jesus, admires him and recognizes him: they are the poor, the blind and the oppressed. With this in mind, he concluded: "Dear brother priests, we must not forget that our evangelical models are these 'people,' this multitude with these concrete faces, whom the Lord's anointing enhances and enlivens. They are the ones who complete and make real the anointing of the Spirit in us, whom we have been anointed to anoint.". The priest anoints when he distributes himself, when he distributes his vocation and his heart among the multitude. "He who learns to anoint and bless is healed of meanness, abuse and cruelty.".
Celebrating the Lord's Supper in the prison of Velletri, the Pope explained why the Church asks to perform the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday: to repeat the gesture of Jesus. "This is the rule of Jesus and the rule of the gospel: the rule of service, not of dominating, doing wrong or humiliating others, but service!".
In the prayer of the Stations of the CrossFrancis has asked: "Jesus, help us to see in your Cross all the crosses of the world."to conclude: "Lord Jesus, revive in us the hope of resurrection and your definitive victory against every evil and every death.".
During the Easter Vigil, commenting on the Gospel passage proclaimed in the liturgy, the Pope spoke of Easter as the "feast of the removal of stones": "God removes the hardest stones, against which hopes and expectations crash: death, sin, fear, worldliness... Tonight each one of us is called to discover in the One who is Alive the One who removes the heaviest stones from the heart.". It is essential to have a living love with the Lord in order not to fall into a museum faith, because Jesus is not a character of the past, he is a person who lives today. "You don't meet him in history books; you meet him in life.".
Catechesis and meetings
In his first catechesis of the month of April, Francis wanted to explain the significance of his trip to Morocco. He did so in the footsteps of two saints: St. Francis of Assisi, who 800 years ago met with Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil, and St. John Paul II. And he offered two explanations. First, he wondered why a Pope visits Muslims and, following this, why there are so many religions.
In order to clear up the ambiguity that could have arisen from an expression of the Declaration on human fraternity for world peace and common coexistence signed jointly with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, in Abu Dhabi, Francis recalled that the multitude of religions is due to the permissive intent of God, "but what God wants is fraternity among us and in a special way. -Here is the reason for this trip. with our fellow children of Abraham as we Muslims do. We need not fear the difference: God has allowed it.". The second explanation, has to do with the need to "building bridges between civilizations". Migrants deserve special attention in this regard.
Continuing with the catechesis on the Our Father, the time has come to explain the petition "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.". The correct attitude in prayer is always to begin by asking for forgiveness and acknowledging that we are debtors before God, for we have received everything from Him.
In the context of Holy Week, the Pope wanted to offer a catechesis on the prayer of Jesus during the Passion: "Let us make Jesus' prayer our own: let us ask the Father to remove the veil from our eyes so that in these days, looking at the Crucified One, we may accept that God is love.".
