Pope Francis desired that consecrated Catholic men and women possess “a heart and a spirit pure and free enough” to love and serve the least among us, Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime said at the eighth Novendiales Mass on Saturday.
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The prelate, the former prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, celebrated, and delivered the homily at, the second-to-last Mass held in mourning for the Holy Father, who passed away on April 21.
Praying for the dead, the cardinal said during the homily at St. Peter’s Basilica, is “the greatest work of charity.”
“When we help our neighbors materially, we share ephemeral goods, but when we pray for them we do so with eternal goods,” Artime said.
“To pray for the dead means, therefore, to love those who have died,” he continued, “and that is what we are doing now for Pope Francis, gathered as the People of God, together with the pastors and especially this evening with a very significant presence of consecrated men and women.”
Francis “felt very well liked by the People of God,” Artime said, “and [he] knew that those belonging to the different expressions of consecrated life also loved him; they prayed for his ministry, for the person of the Pope, for the Church, for the world.”
The whole Church, he said, is “called to be witnesses of the Lord Jesus, who died and rose again.” But consecrated men and women are signaled out for particular service, he said.
“[We] have received this vocation, this call to discipleship that asks us to witness to the primacy of God with our whole lives,” he said. “This mission is especially important when – as in many parts of the world today – we experience God’s absence or forget his centrality too easily.”
The presence of the Risen Christ, the cardinal said, “transforms everything.”
“Darkness is overcome by light; useless work becomes fruitful and promising again; the sense of weariness and abandonment gives way to a new momentum and the certainty that He is with us,” he said.
Artime recalled the words of Pope Francis during the Year of Consecrated Life, when the Holy Father said he expected consecrated Catholics “to wake up the world, because the note that characterizes consecrated life is prophecy.” Francis at the time asked for the consecrated “to be witnesses of the Lord like Peter and the Apostles,” Artime said.
“He was asking us to have a heart and a spirit pure and free enough to recognize the women and men of today, our brothers and sisters, especially the poorest, the last, the discarded,” the cardinal said.
“Because in them is the Lord, and so that with our passion for God, for the Kingdom and for humanity, we will be able, like Peter, to respond to the Lord, ‘Lord, you know everything! You know that I love you.'”
This article was originally published on Catholic News Agency.
