Pope Leo XIV celebrated a Mass on the Italian town of Albano, along with poor, refugees, priests and staff of Caritas, who said that when Christ affirms that “came to bring fire to earth”, refers to the “fire of love” that opposes indifference and arrogance.
The Pontiff, who these days is located in Castel Gandolfo, went to the Sanctuary of Santa Maria Della Rotonda on Sunday morning, in Albano, to celebrate the Mass with the poor assisted by the diocese and with the operators of Diocesan Caritas.
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Vatican News reported that “about 250 people among priests, parishioners, Caritas staff, poor people, shelters in shelters, homeless people and participants from the listening centers of the diocese, attended the Eucharistic celebration inside the temple. Outside, some 2,000 people followed the mass through a giant screen.
In his homily, Leo XIV reflected on the Gospel of the day, in which Christ states: “I have come to bring fire on earth, and how I would like it to be burning!”
The Pontiff said that one could ask Jesus: “But how, Lord, do you also have too many divisions. Are you not precisely you who said at the last dinner: ‘I leave peace, I give them my peace?’ Yes,” the Lord could answer us. Teman! ‘”
Leo XIV pointed out that the world usually “exchange peace with comfort, good with tranquility”; And he indicated that it is likely that friends and family advise Christians not to risk or wear, “because the important thing is to be calm and others do not deserve to be loved.”
“Jesus, on the other hand, immersed himself in our humanity with courage. This is the ‘baptism’ of which he speaks: it is the baptism of the cross, a total immersion in the risks that love entails. And we, when – as it is said – ‘We do communion’, we feed on this bold Don of his.”
“The Mass,” said the Pope, “strengthens this decision; it is the decision to not live for ours The fire of love, which is abused and servesthat opposes care for indifference and meekness to arrogance; The fire of goodness, which does not cost like armaments, but renews the world for free. ”
“It can cost misunderstanding, teasing, and even persecution, but there is no greater peace than having its flame in us,” he said.
He also pointed out Leo XIV, “Jesus has defeated death – Sunday is his day, the day of the resurrection – and we have already begun to overcome it with him.”
For this reason, he thanked those who “commit themselves to bring the fire of charity”, and encouraged them “not to distinguish between the one who attends and the one that is assisted, between which it seems to give and the one who seems to receive, between which he presents himself poor and the one who feels the need to offer time, capacities and help.”
“We are the Church of the Lord, a church of poor, all precious, all participants, each bearer of a unique word of God. Each is a gift for others. We break down the walls,” he encouraged.
“Only together, just being a single body in which even the most fragile participates in full dignity, we will be the body of Christ, the Church of God. This happens when the fire that Jesus has come to bring burning the prejudices, caution and fears that continue to marginalize those who carry the poverty of Christ in their own history,” he added.
In that sense, he urged not to leave “the Lord out of our churches, our homes and our life”, but to let him “enter the poor, and then we will also peace with our poverty, which we fear and refuse when we seek at all costs tranquility and security.”
The pontiff concluded remembering the passage in which the old Simeon told the Virgin Mary that his son Jesus would be a sign of contradiction. “Let the intentions of our hearts be revealed, and that the fire of the Holy Spirit changes them from stone hearts in meat hearts,” he said.
Eduardo Berdejo
Professional in Social Communication of the National University of San Marcos in Peru, I have more than 20 years of experience in Catholic digital journalism. As part of ACI Press, I have been sent to cover the trips of Pope Francis to Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Peru, in addition to the Synod of Sinodality in the Vatican in 2023.