Today, on the afternoon of April 23, the cardinal president of the Italian Episcopal Conference celebrated a Mass in memory of Francesco at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica. He recalled the most significant actions of the Pontiff who “spent his whole life until the end, with great evangelical freedom because he was bound to the Gospel. Without arrogance, choosing simplicity.”
By: Tiziana Campisi – Vatican News
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The countless encounters, dialogues, and speeches will help us “look forward.” From the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, began this afternoon of April 23 with these words, the Mass in memory of Pope Francis, accompanied by a delegation from the CEI. The cardinal recalled the numerous visits of the Pontiff “to places of many saints and important presences in the Italian Church, which he highlighted as places to start from, for a Church that speaks to everyone, that reaches out to everyone, that joyfully communicates its Gospel.” In his homily, he first thanked God “for the countless gifts” that have come to the Church and everyone through Pope Francis: “his words, his presence, his smile, his visit, his corrections, his insistence,” then he recalled the Pope’s recent actions. In particular, his visit to the Regina Coeli prison, the “being mercy towards the closest and towards everyone,” “going among the people.”
He spent his life with great evangelical freedom
“We feel so much emotion in celebrating in this house,” Zuppi said, explaining that St. Peter’s Basilica “brings us back to the ministry entrusted by Jesus to Peter, an indispensable primacy that serves and represents communion, an antidote to trivial protagonism, a defeat of selfishness, a present and above all future dimension.” And for the 265th Successor of Peter, Zuppi asked to pray, urging, as he said, to “go beyond what we think,” to “have a broad heart, because the people of God are always larger than what we think.” “In this common house that is our country, but which is also the world marked by many divisions,” where men are “unable to think together, to listen to the cry of the poor,” and are “persuaded by the logic of force and not by that of dialogue,” we must thank God “for the gift of this father, shepherd, brother because obedient to the Gospel,” added the president of the CEI. And he highlighted that the Pope “spent his whole life until the end, with great evangelical freedom because he was bound to the Gospel. Without arrogance, choosing simplicity.”
The Pope reignited joy in us believers who were extinguished
It was precisely on the simplicity of Francis that the cardinal focused, specifying that this simplicity “brought others closer,” made the Word familiar. And with his words and gestures today, he “continues to show us the way,” he insisted, “to reignite joy, to put the words of Jesus at the center, the kerygma, freeing it from so many personal and ecclesiastical glosses that make it ineffective, so much so that it no longer speaks to the heart.” “And then we feel Pope Francis again, who stands by our side, as he has tirelessly done in these years of his ministry, to us believers extinguished of enthusiasm and made prisoners by fear.” Bergoglio showed us until the end how to follow the path of Jesus and give ourselves, were still the Archbishop of Bologna’s emphases, who, finally, repeated the three words spoken by the Pope in Florence in 2015 in the speech that accompanied and animated the synodal journey: that invitation to be “humble, selfless, blessed for a Church not defensive for fear of losing something,” but that “must have the face of a mother who understands, accompanies, caresses,” “unsettles, ever closer.”
