Saint Gertrude Parish - Lasne

MEDITATION POPE FRANCIS

“Remember the long journey you have made; the Lord your God has imposed it upon you” (Deuteronomy 8:2). Remember: with this invitation from Moses, the Word of God has opened today. Shortly afterward, Moses reaffirmed: “Do not forget the Lord your God” (cf. v. 14). Scripture was given to us to overcome forgetfulness of God. It is so important to remember it when we pray! As a Psalm teaches us: “I remember the deeds of the Lord; I remember your wonders of old” (76:12). Likewise, remember the wonders and marvels that the Lord has performed in our own lives.

It is essential to remember the good we have received: without remembering it, we become strangers to ourselves, mere passersby in existence; without memory, we uproot ourselves from the soil that nourishes us and let ourselves be carried away like leaves by the wind. Remembering, on the contrary, is to reconnect with stronger bonds, to be part of a history, to breathe with a people. Memory is not a private matter; it is the life that unites us to God and to others. For this reason, in the Bible, the memory of the Lord will be passed down from generation to generation, recounted from father to son, as this beautiful passage says: “Tomorrow, when your son asks you, ‘What are these decrees, laws, and ordinances that the Lord our God commanded you?’ then you shall tell your son, ‘We were slaves—all our days of slavery—and before our very eyes the Lord performed signs and wonders’” (6 Deuteronomy 20:22). You will pass on the memory to your son.

But there's a problem: what if the chain of transmission of memories is broken? And how can we remember what we've only heard about, without having experienced it ourselves? God knows how difficult and fragile our memory is, and yet He has accomplished something extraordinary for us: He has left us a memorial. He hasn't left us just words, because it's easy to forget what we read. He hasn't left us just signs, because we can also forget what we see. He has given us Food, and it's difficult to forget a taste. He has left us Bread in which He is present, living and true, with all the flavor of His love. In receiving it, we can say, "It is the Lord, He remembers me!" That is why Jesus asked us, "Do this in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:24). Do this: the Eucharist is not a mere memory, it is a reality: it is the Lord's Easter come alive again for us. In the Mass, the death and resurrection of Jesus are before us. Do this in remembrance of me: gather together and, as a community, as a people, as a family, celebrate the Eucharist to remember me. We cannot do without it; it is the memorial of God. And it heals our wounded memory.

Above all, it heals our orphaned memories. We live in a time of so many orphaned souls. It heals orphaned memories. Many have memories scarred by a lack of affection and by burning disappointments, received from the one who should have given love and who, on the contrary, left their hearts orphaned. Or they would like to go back and change the past, but we cannot. But God can heal these wounds by placing in our memories a greater love: his own. The Eucharist brings us the faithful love of the Father, which heals our state of orphanhood. It gives us the love of Jesus, who transformed a tomb from an end point into a starting point, and in the same way, it can transform our lives. It fills us with the love of the Holy Spirit, who consoles us because he never leaves us alone, and heals our wounds.

With the Eucharist, the Lord also heals our negative memories, that negativity that so often enters our hearts. The Lord heals this negative memory, which always brings out the things that are wrong and leaves in our minds the sad idea that we are good for nothing, that we only make mistakes, that we are "bad." Jesus comes to tell us that this is not the case. He is happy to draw near to us, and each time we receive him, he reminds us that we are precious: we are expected guests at his banquet, the guests he desires. And not only because he is generous, but because he is truly in love with us: he sees and loves the beauty and goodness that we are. The Lord knows that evil and sin are not our identity; they are illnesses, infections. And he comes to heal them with the Eucharist, which contains the antibodies for our memories sick with negativity. With Jesus, we can immunize ourselves against sadness. We will always have before our eyes our failings, our weariness, the problems at home and at work, the unfulfilled dreams. But their weight will not crush us because, deeper down, there is Jesus who encourages us with his love. This is the power of the Eucharist, which transforms us into bearers of God: bearers of joy, not negativity. We who go to Mass might ask ourselves, what do we bring to the world? Do we receive Communion and then continue to complain, criticize, and weep? But that improves nothing, while the joy of the Lord transforms lives.

Finally, the Eucharist heals our closed-off memories. The wounds we carry inside create problems not only for ourselves but also for others. They make us fearful and suspicious: initially closed off, eventually cynical and indifferent. They lead us to react to others with detachment and arrogance, deluding ourselves that in this way we can control situations. But this is a lie: only love heals fear at its root and liberates us from the closed-off worlds that imprison us. Jesus does this, coming to meet us gently, in the disarming fragility of the Host; Jesus does this, the broken Bread to shatter the shells of our selfishness; Jesus does this, giving himself to tell us that it is only by opening ourselves that we free ourselves from inner blockages, from the paralysis of the heart. The Lord, by offering himself to us simply as bread, also invites us not to waste life pursuing a thousand useless things that create dependencies and leave an emptiness within. The Eucharist extinguishes our hunger for material things and kindles the desire to serve. It lifts us out of our comfortable complacency, reminding us that we are not merely mouths to be fed, but also hands to nourish our neighbor. It is urgent now to care for those who hunger for food and dignity, for those who are unemployed and struggle to get ahead. And to do so in a concrete way, just as concrete is the Bread that Jesus gives us. We need real closeness, we need genuine chains of solidarity. In the Eucharist, Jesus draws near to us: let us not abandon those who are close to us!

Dear brothers and sisters, let us continue to celebrate the Memorial that heals our memory—let us remember: healing memory, memory is the memory of the heart—this memorial is the Mass. It is the treasure to be given first place in the Church and in life. And at the same time, let us rediscover adoration, which continues the work of the Mass within us. It does us good, it heals us from within. Especially now, we truly need it.

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MASS ON THE SOLEMNITY OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST

HOMILY OF POPE FRANCIS

Saint Peter's Basilica

Sunday, June 14, 2020

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