The Bishop of Assisi (Italy), Mons. Domenico Sorrentino, affirmed that when it took the name of San Francisco de Asís, Pope Francis taught that “there is no need to be afraid of holiness”, during a mass that he celebrated in suffrage of the late Pontiff, on Friday, April 25.
“That a Pope took the name of Francisco could almost scare, because then he would have had to be consistent with this election; but Pope Francis really did everything possible to show us what evangelical coherence means following the footsteps of Francisco,” said the prelate, according to the Diocese of Assisi.
Receive the main news of ACI Press by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social networks. Subscribe to our free channels today:
In that sense, the bishop said that the Argentine Pope “leaves us a challenging legacy: he tells us that it is possible to look at Jesus with the eyes, words, gestures and life of our saint.”
The Mass, in which Mons. Sorretino stressed that Francisco was the first Pope who took the name of San Francisco de Asís, was held in the Superior Church of the Basilica of San Francisco in Assisi and was concelebrated by the local clergy, which was also attended by a large number of faithful.
Without fear of holiness
The Bishop of Assisi also stressed that with the choice of his name, Pope Francis “tells us that we must not be afraid of holiness and evangelical radicality in holiness. Each of us certainly has his own vocation, his own talents and his own possibilities: but we must look up, point high and not settle for less.”
Thus “Francisco de Asís told us 800 years ago and Pope Francis reiterated us with all his life and pontifical ministry, trying to tell us what this means.”
“While we accompany him in the hug of the Lord’s mercy, it is beautiful to follow the joint steps of Francisco de Asís and Pope Francis to understand something of this legacy that the poor He left us and that the Pope has relaunched into the church of our time. ”
The Holiness of Carlo Acutis
After remembering the visit made by Pope Francis in October 2013 to Assisi, the prelate also stressed that now, “in the place where I had the privilege of seeing the symbolic place of the radicality of the depth of Francisco that is formed to the dispossession of Jesus, now there is the holiness of Carlo Acutis.”
Carlo Acutis is the Blessed teenager who died at age 15 whose tomb is in Assisi and whose canonization was going to be done today – in the framework of the jubilee of adolescents – but was suspended by the death of the Argentine pontiff.
About him poor From Assisi and Acutis, the bishop said: “The giant and the child who work together as a team, in the line of Pope Francis when he came to explain the secret of the future of the Church, highlighting that Francis is great and must be imitated because he fell in love with Jesus, that he became one with him.”
Now, the Bishop of Assisi finally stressed, “the Church opens up to a new hope and a jump is necessary: the Pope has helped us to give it and now it is up to us to carry it forward, as San Francisco also said to his disciples.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.