Pope Francis thanks the volunteers for their delivery to society

Pope Francis thanked the volunteers who follow the example of Jesus, serving the neighbor “without serving” him, and praised his free “delivery”, that “infuses hope” to the whole society.

“Through the streets and in the houses, together with the sick, those who suffer, to the prisoners, with the young and with the elders, their delivery infuses hope throughout society,” said the pontiff in the homily he prepared for the jubilee of the world of volunteering, one of the great acts of the Holy Year 2025.

The Holy Father wrote the text from the Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital, where he remains admitted with bilateral pneumonia since February 14. However, unable to preside over the Mass, Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, who did it for him in the Plaza de San Pedro.

“In the deserts of poverty and loneliness, so many small free service gestures make sprouts of a new humanity germinate; That garden that God has dreamed and continues to dream for all of us, ”he said.

In his homily, read before hundreds of volunteers from all over the world gathered in Rome by this retirement event by the purple Canadian, Pope Francis reflected on the passage of the Gospel of Luke that narrates Jesus’ temptations in the desert.

For this purpose, he pointed out that in those forty days “a decisive change happens”, because the place of silence “becomes a scope of listening.” He then said that it is a “listening that tests, because it is necessary to choose who pays attention between two totally contrary voices.”

Thus, he emphasized that the path of Jesus begins with an act of obedience: “It is the Holy Spirit, the same force of God, who leads it to where nothing good grows from earth or rains from heaven. In the desert, man experiences his own material and spiritual destitution, his need for bread and word. ”

The pontiff, who according to doctors in the last hours a slight improvement, insisted that Jesus “for forty days was tempted” by the devil, something that also happens today.

In fact, “the Son of God made man is not limited to giving us a model in the fight against evil, but, much more, gives us the strength to resist his assaults and persevere along the way.”

Stoping in temptation, Pope Francis explained that the Lord does not go to the desert “for arrogance” or “to demonstrate how strong it is”, but for his subsidiary availability to the spirit of the Father, whose guide is trusted promptly. “Our temptation, on the other hand, is imposed on us,” he added.

In this way, he insisted that “evil precedes our freedom, intimately corrupts it as an inner shadow and a constant insidia.” In any case, he said that the Lord “is with us and takes care of us, especially in the place of proof and suspicion, that is, when the tempting voice rises, which is the father of lies, corrupted and corruptor, because he knows the word of God, but he does not understand. Moreover, he distorts him. ”

The devil divides

“The devil is the one who separates, the one who divides, while Jesus is the mediator who unites God and man,” added Czerny by reading the homily prepared by Pope Francis.

And he continued: “In his perversion, the demon wants to destroy this bond, making Jesus a privileged, but he decides how to be a son. In the spirit that guides him, his decision reveals how he wants to live his filial relationship with the Father, as a relationship that encompasses everyone, without excluding anyone. ”

“The relationship with the Father is the gift that Jesus shares in the world for our salvation, not a treasure that keeps jealously, of which he presumes to achieve success and attract followers,” he reiterated.

“The devil, in effect, whispers to our ears that God is not truly our Father, who has actually abandoned us,” he said.

Thus, he pointed out that the world is “in the hands of malignant powers, that crush the peoples with the registration of their calculations and the violence of the war.”

“Precisely, while the demon would like to make us believe that the Lord is far from us, leading us to despair, God approaches us even more, giving his life for the redemption of the world,” he encouraged.

Thus, he recalled that in the desert “the tempting is defeated”, although Christ’s victory “is not yet definitive; It will be in his Easter of death and resurrection. ”

We are all sinners

“We, in the face of temptation, sometimes fall; We are all sinners. But defeat is not definitive, because God lifes us from each fall with his forgiveness, infinitely great in love, “said Czerny reading the homily prepared by Pope Francis.

And he concluded: “Our proof, therefore, does not end with a failure, because in Christ we are redeemed from evil. Crossing the desert with Him, we travel a path where none had drawn. Jesus Himself opens for us that new way of liberation and rescue. Following with faith the Lord, of vagrants we become pilgrims.”