Canção Nova News with Vatican Radio
When one announces the Gospel, he is going to encounter persecutions. This was affirmed by Pope Francis at the mass Friday in the Casa Santa Marta. The Pontiff stressed that today, perhaps, you may find more martyrs than in the first centuries of the Church and exhorted the faithful to not be afraid of misunderstandings and persecutions.
The heart of the impious that fled from God wanted to appropriate religion for themselves. Pope Francis developed a homily sharing the excerpt of the Book of Wisdom, the First reading. He observed that the enemies of Jesus prepared traps for him because He opposed their actions. In all the history of salvation the prophets were persecuted, Francis reminded.
The Gospel of today is clear, isn’t it? Jesus hid himself in these last days, because still His hour had not yet arrived. But He knew what his end would be. He was persecuted from the beginning. We remember when, in the beginning of His preaching, He returned to His country, going to the synagogue and preaching; later after a great admiration the people began to say: ‘But we know where He is from. This one is one of us. But with what authority does he come to teach us? Where did he study?” reminded the Pope.
This happened, Francis explained, because Jesus went out of that closed religious environment that cage. The Pope continued saying that the prophet fought against people that stifle the Holy Spirit; they are persecuted and misunderstood, pushed aside. And this situation does not end with the Death and Resurrection of Christ, but continues in the Church. For an example, the Pope cited the life of the saints that were subject to many persecutions and misunderstanding because they were prophets.
“All the people that the Holy Spirit chose to speak the truth to the people of God suffered persecutions. And Jesus is justly the model, the icon. Still today, the Christians are persecuted. I dare to say that there are many more martyrs today than in the first times, because this mundane society, this society a little tranquil that does not want problems, speak the truth, announce Jesus Christ.”
Francis remembered the situation of many Christians that lived in countries in which it is prohibited to manifest the faith. He told that a catholic who dies in one of these countries said to him that they could not pray together, only alone and hidden. In order to celebrate the Eucharist, they had to pretend that they are in an anniversary party and there celebrate the sacrament and, when they saw the politicians arrive, they hid all and continued with the party.
This history of persecution, according to the Pope, is the road of those that follow the Lord, a road that ends always with Him: with the Resurrection, but passing through the cross. The Holy Father, directed his thoughts to Father Matteo Ricci, evangelist in China who was not understood but obeyed as Jesus did.
“Always there will exist persecutions, misunderstandings! But Jesus is the Lord and that is the challenge and the cross of our faith! That the Lord gives us the grace to follow his road even if it happens with a cross of persecutions.”