(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis made a visit on Sunday afternoon to a provincial parish
dedicated to Our Lady of Oration. Santa Maria dell’Orazione is in the Setteville neighbourhood
east of Rome, outside the city and about a third of the way to Tivoli. Founded juridically
in 1989, the parish church was dedicated and inaugurated in 2002. Listen:
Pope Francis
celebrated the Sunday afternoon liturgy, and delivered the homily. The Holy Father
focused on the importance of listening, of being attuned and attentive to the Word
of God. “What are the duties of a Christian?” he asked. “Perhaps,” he added, “you
will tell me: to go to Mass on Sundays; to fast and abstain during Holy Week – do
these things,” said Pope Francis, “but the first duty of a Christian is to listen
to the Word of God, to listen to Jesus, because He speaks to us and He saves us with
His Word – and with His word, He also makes our faith stronger, more robust: Listen
to Jesus!” he said.
The schedule of the visit also included: greetings with
the faithful gathered in the square before the church; a visit with the sick and disabled
persons of the parish; a meeting with children making their first communion and young
people making their confirmation; an encounter with the communities of the Neocatechumenal
Way that are present in the parish; another with families that have baptized children
in the past year; confessions ahead of Mass, and a brief exchange with the family
members of the priests serving the parish afterward.
The theme of attunement
and attentiveness was one the Holy Father had also addressed earlier in the day, at
the Sunday Angelus with the faithful gathered in St Peter’s Square. Speaking ahead
of the traditional prayer of Marian devotion, the Holy Father focused on the Gospel
reading of the day, which tells the story of the Transfiguration.
Three were
the principal elements that Pope Francis identified in his reflection: the importance
of being attentive to and focused on God’s Word; and the twofold movement of ascent
and descent that characterizes the Gospel episode (Mt. 17:1-9), in which the Lord
takes Peter, James and John to the top of Mt Tabor, reveals Himself in His glorified
form, and returns down the mountain with them, with grave warnings to the disciples
who accompanied Him not to speak of what they had seen.
“The mountain is the
site of the encounter intimate closeness with God and with Him - the place of prayer,
in which to stand in the presence of the Lord,” said Pope Francis. “We, the disciples
of Jesus,” he continued, “are called to be people who listen to His voice and take
seriously his words.” He added, “To listen to Jesus , we must follow Him.”
The
Holy Father went on to say, “We need to go to [a place of] remove, to climb the mountain
[and go to] a place of silence, to find ourselves and better perceive the voice of
the Lord.” We cannot stay there, however. “The encounter with God in prayer again
pushes us to ‘come down from the mountain’ and back down into the plain,” he said,
“where we meet many brothers and sisters weighed down by fatigue, injustice, and both
material and spiritual poverty.” Pope Francis said that we are called to carry the
fruits of the experience we have with God to our troubled brothers and sisters, sharing
with them the treasures of grace received.
He concluded with an invitation:
returning to the theme of attunement and attentiveness to God’s word, the Holy Father
asked all the faithful to begin keeping a little book of the gospels with them and
to read short passages from it throughout the day. “Don’t forget,” he said, “this
week, listen to Jesus – and then, next week, you’ll tell me whether you’ve kept that
little edition of the Gospels with you, in your pocket or your bag, in order to read
a little bit every day.”