Pope at Mass: We are not Christian without the Church
(Vatican Radio) There is no such thing as a Christian without the Church, a Christian
who walks alone, because Jesus inserted himself into the journey of His people: This
was Pope Francis reflection at Mass this morning in Casa Santa Marta. Emer McCarthy
reports:
Beginning
with the first reading of the day, Pope Francis said that when they proclaimed Jesus
the apostles did not begin with Him, but the history of the people. In fact " Jesus
does not make sense without this history" because He "is the end of this story, [the
end] towards which this story goes, towards which it walks". So "you cannot understand
a Christian outside of the people of God. The Christian is not a monad", but "belongs
to a people: the Church. A Christian without a church is something purely idealistic,
it is not real".
"But you cannot understand a Christian alone, just
like you cannot understand Jesus Christ alone. Jesus Christ did not fall from the
sky like a superhero who comes to save us. No. Jesus Christ has a history. And we
can say, and it is true, that God has a history because He wanted to walk with us.
And you cannot understand Jesus Christ without His history. So a Christian without
history, without a Christian nation, a Christian without the Church is incomprehensible.
It is a thing of the laboratory, an artificial thing, a thing that cannot give life".
The
people of God, "walking with a promise. This dimension, it is important that we always
remember this dimension of history:
"A Christian is a [memorioso
– living memory] of the history of his people, he is a living memory of his people’s
journey, he is the living memory of his Church. Memory ... memory of all of the past
... Then, where is this people going? Towards the ultimate promise. It is a people
walking towards fullness; a chosen people which has a promise for the future and walks
toward this promise, towards the fulfillment of this promise. And for this, a Christian
in the Church is a man, a woman with hope: hope in the promise. It is not expectation:
no, no! That’s something else: It is hope. Right, on we go! [Towards] that which does
not disappoint".
"Looking back - said the Pope - the Christian
is a person who remembers: Let us seek the grace of memory, always. Looking forward,
the Christian is a man, a woman of hope . And in this, the Christian follows the path
of God and renews the covenant with God. He continually says to the Lord: 'Yes, I
want the commandments, I want your will, I will follow you'. He is a man of the covenant,
and we celebrate the covenant, every day " in the Mass: thus a Christian is "a woman,
a man of the Eucharist". This was the Pope’s concluding prayer:
"It
would do us good today to think about our Christian identity. Our Christian identity
is belonging to a people: the Church . Without this, we are not Christians. We entered
the Church through baptism: there we are Christians. And for this reason, we should
be in the habit of asking for the grace of memory, the memory of the journey that
the people of God has made; also of personal memory: What God did for me, in my life,
how has he made me walk ... Ask for the grace of hope, which is not optimism: no,
no! It 's something else. And ask for the grace to renew the covenant with the Lord
who has called us every day. May the Lord give us these three graces, which are necessary
for the Christian identity".