VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Gospel is a word of compassion, mercy, light, freedom and joy, Pope Francis said.
The Gospel “calls us to become passionate witnesses of peace, solidarity and reconciliation,” and “to bear witness to our faith and to be consistent in its practice,” the pope said at Mass on the Sunday of the Word of God in St. Peter’s Basilica Jan. 26. The day also marked the final day of the Jan. 24-26 Jubilee of the World of Communications.
“Evil’s days are numbered because the future belongs to God,” he said. “With the power of the Spirit, Jesus redeems us from all guilt and liberates our hearts from all that holds them in bondage, for he brings the Father’s forgiveness into the world.”
“The Messiah opens the eyes of our heart, all too often dazzled by the allure of power and vain things: the diseases of the soul that prevent us from acknowledging God’s presence and hide from our gaze the weak and the suffering,” he said.
During the Mass, Pope Francis installed 40 lay men and women to the ministry of lector, a ministry he formally opened to women in 2021.
The men and women came from Albania, Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Philippines, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Poland and Slovenia. He gave each new lector a copy of sacred Scriptures, and everyone attending the Mass received a small booklet of the Gospel according to Luke.
The pope encouraged everyone to take time out each day to read one or two verses of the Gospel, whether it was during their commute or other brief moments of their day.
“When we read the Scriptures, when we pray and study them, we do not simply receive information about God; we receive his Spirit, who reminds us of all that Jesus said and did,” he said in his homily. “In this way, our hearts, inflamed by faith, wait in hope for the coming of the kingdom of God.”
In the day’s Gospel reading (Lk 4:14-21), Jesus reveals himself as the Messiah, the pope said. And the reading also reveals “five actions that characterize the unique and universal mission of the Messiah. A unique mission, because he alone can fulfill it; a universal mission, because he wants to involve everyone in it.”
Those five actions are “to bring glad tidings to the poor, … to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”
“By releasing us from our captivity, he tells us that God draws close to us in our poverty, redeems us from evil, enlightens our eyes, breaks the yoke of oppression, and brings us into the joy of a time and greater history in which he makes himself constantly present, to walk beside us and to guide us to eternal life,” he said.
“Let us commit ourselves to bringing the good news to the poor, proclaiming release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free and announcing the year of the Lord’s favor,” he said.
“Then, yes, brothers and sisters, we will transform the world in accordance with the will of God, who created it and redeemed it in his immense love,” he said.
After Mass, Pope Francis appeared at the window of his study overlooking St. Peter’s Square to pray the Angelus with visitors. He told them, “We, too, are challenged by the presence and words of Jesus; we, too, are called to recognize in him the son of God, our savior.”
The faithful may think “that we already know him, that we already know everything about him” because of all that was taught “in school, in the parish, in catechism, in a country with a Catholic culture,” he said.
But “let us try to ask ourselves: Do we sense the unique authority with which Jesus of Nazareth speaks? Do we recognize that he is the bearer of a proclamation of salvation that no one else can give us? And I, do I feel in need of this salvation? Do I feel that I, too, am in some way poor, imprisoned, blind, oppressed?” the pope asked.
“Then, only then, ‘the year of grace’ will be for me too!” he said.
The pope also welcomed a young boy representing Rome’s Catholic Action to stand next to him at the window to address the crowd. Traditionally, the group offers a gesture for peace together with the pope during the Angelus at the end of its annual “month of peace” in January.
“Thank you for this Holy Year, the first for many of us,” he told the pope. “The Holy Door makes us feel God’s love.”
The boy told the pope the wish or “dream” of the Catholic Action youngsters was for all the world’s leaders to go through the Holy Door together, “hand in hand,” and think about the children who are victims of war and violence and the tears of their parents. “That way they would be able to silence the weapons.”
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