Pope, with fellow Jesuits, stresses Centrality of Christ in life

Rome, 01 August 2013: “Is Christ the centre of my life? Do I really put Christ at the centre of my life?”, asked Pope Francis during the Mass he celebrated on Wednesday morning, marking the Feast of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, the Order to which the Pope belongs.

The Church chosen for the celebration was the Jesuits’ Mother Church in Rome, known simply as the “Gesù”. The Pope centered his homily on three thoughts guided by three expressions: to put Christ and the Church in the centre; to allow ourselves to be conquered by Him in order to serve; to feel the shame of our limitations and our sins, in order to be humble before Him and before the brothers.

The Pontiff warned Jesuits saying there is always the temptation to want to put ourselves in the centre. And when a Jesuit puts himself and not Christ in the centre, he goes astray. Christ is our life, said the Pope adding that ‘the centrality of Christ corresponds also to the centrality of the Church: they are two flames that cannot be separated: I cannot follow Christ except in and with the Church. And even in this case we Jesuits and the whole Company, are not at the centre, we are at the service of Christ and of the Church, the Bride of Christ our Lord. To be men routed and grounded in the Church: that is what Jesus desires of us. There cannot be parallel or isolated paths for us. It is important to go to the peripheries. This takes creativity, but always in community, in the Church. To serve Christ is to love this concrete Church, and to serve her with generosity and with the spirit of obedience.

Pope Francis remembered the suffering people of Syria during his homily. He said ‘to allow ourselves to be conquered by Christ means to be always directed towards what is in front of me, toward the goal of Christ, and to ask oneself with truth and sincerity: “What have I done for Christ? What am doing for Christ? What must I do for Christ?”.

The invitation that Jesus makes is for us to never be ashamed of Him, said the Pope adding, but to always follow Him with total dedication, trusting Him and entrusting ourselves to Him. But looking at Jesus, as Saint Ignatius teaches us in the First Week of the spiritual exercises, above all looking at Christ crucified, we have that very human and noble feeling that is the shame of not reaching the highest point; we look at the wisdom of Christ and at our ignorance; at His omnipotence and our weakness; at His justice and our iniquity; at His goodness and our wickedness. Ask for the grace of shame; the shame that comes from the constant dialogue of mercy with Him; the shame that makes us blush before Jesus Christ; the shame that puts us in tune with the heart of Christ who is made sin for me; the shame that harmonizes our heart in tears and accompanies us in the daily following of “my Lord”.

And this always brings us, as individuals and as a Company, to humility. Humility that makes us understand, each day, that it is not for us to build the Kingdom of God, but it is always the grace of God working within us; humility that pushes us to put our whole being at the service of Christ and of the Church, like clay pots, fragile, inadequate, insufficient, but having within them an immense treasure that we carry and that we communicate. May our journey be ccompanied by the paternal intercession of Saint Ignatius and of all the Jesuit saints, who continue to teach us to do all things “ad majorem Dei gloriam”, concluded the Pope. Source: VR Sedoc