01091993 Homily Pope JPII upper basilica Assisi

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 Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

1. This is the hour of prayer.

A while ago we all met to hear the testimonies of those who have closely experienced the war and its consequences. We reflect in silence on the painful vicissitudes exposed and we feel we are participants in the sufferings of these martyred populations.

It was the first objective of this vigil: that all men and women in Europe who are open to religious values ​​feel, as if produced in their own flesh, the wounds of war: anguish, loneliness, impotence, crying, Pain and death. Perhaps despair as well. We have thus convinced ourselves more strongly that these evils are something that weighs on our shoulders and oppresses our hearts. Faced with such a tragedy, we cannot remain indifferent: we cannot fall asleep. On the contrary, we have to watch and pray like the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Olives, when he bore all our sins to the point of sweating blood (cf. Lk 22,44). Indeed, Christ "is in agony to the end of the world" (Pascal, Pensées, 736). And we want to accompany him tonight, watching and praying.

2. This is the second moment of our wakefulness. For us Christians, it takes place in the upper basilica of Saint Francis. The representatives of Islam, like some representatives of Judaism, have gathered elsewhere in this holy convent. Many other Jews, who because of their religious obligations have not been able to meet us here in Assisi, join our plea by praying in their synagogues.

As we entered the Church, we lit our candles from the candle placed in a main place as a symbol of the presence in our midst of Christ, "light of the world." In fact, Christ promised us: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them" (Mt 18:20).

But the candle is also the symbol of the inner light of the Holy Spirit, of which we have a particular need in this moment of prayer.

We have listened together to the word of Sacred Scripture. The candle is also a symbol of this light. Sacred Scripture enlightens us because the Word speaks in it and through it. Furthermore, the Word is present in the words of the prophets, the Apostles and the evangelists. Thus, we are given the possibility of better understanding what we must ask of the Triune God in this vigil of prayer for peace; what we have to ask for on this holy night.

3. The key to reading the words that we have heard, and the meaning of our prayer, is found in the second passage that we proclaimed a moment ago. The Apostle affirms that Christ is our peace: "He," says Saint Paul, "is our peace" (Eph 2:14).

What do the Apostle's stony words mean to us tonight?

They mean, first of all, that we do not have to seek peace outside of Christ; and, much less, turning against him. On the contrary, we must strive to live the words of Paul: "Have the same sentiments among yourselves as Christ" (Phil 2,5).

This supposes our personal conversion, which the Apostle himself effectively expressed in these terms: «Do nothing out of rivalry, or out of pride, but with humility, considering each one to others as superior to himself, each seeking not his own interest but that of others »(Phil 2,3-4).

If Christ "broke down the wall that separated them, enmity" (cf. Eph 2:14), if Christ "put enmity to death" in order to "reconcile both to God in one body, through the cross ”(cf. Eph 2:16), how can enmity still exist in the world? How can hate exist? How is it possible that they kill each other?

4. These are the questions we must ask everyone tonight, and above all ourselves, in the face of the tragedy in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the tragedies in other parts of Europe and the world.

For these questions there is only the answer of the humble request for forgiveness at the foot of the cross on which the Lord is crucified: for us and for everyone. Precisely for this reason, our prayer vigil is also a vigil of penance and conversion. There will be no peace without this return to Jesus Christ crucified through prayer, but also through the renunciation of ambitions, the thirst for power, the will to subdue others and the lack of respect for the rights of others. the rest.

These are, in fact, the causes of war, as the apostle James already taught in his letter: “Where do wars and strife between you come from? Is it not your passions that fight in your limbs? » (St 4.1).

Christ is our peace. When we move away from it - in our private lives, in the structures of social life, in the relationships between people and peoples - what is left to us but hatred, enmity, conflict, cruelty and war?

We must pray that his "blood" makes us "neighbors", that is, close to one another, since we ourselves only know how to be "far away" (cf. Eph 2:13); we only know how to turn our backs on each other. "Let us therefore allow ourselves to be reconciled with God" (cf. 2 Cor 5:20), in order to be able to reconcile ourselves.

5. The conflicts that arise around us, the hunger, the deprivations, the deficiencies that afflict and torment so many human beings from one end of the world to the other are a challenge for all who call themselves followers of Christ. Are not many disasters the reflection of the struggle that opposes evil to good, that opposes the civilization of love to a society based on selfishness and greed? Christ invites us not to allow ourselves to be overcome by evil, but to conquer evil with good (cf. Rm 12,21), to build a civilization in which love fully reigns and that places respect for the "other" first. ».

Is it possible to deprive a man of the right to life and security because he is not one of us, because he is "of the others"? To deprive a woman of the right to her integrity and dignity because she is not one of us, because she is "of the others"? And also, depriving a child of the right to a roof that protects him and the right to feed himself because he is a child that belongs to the "others"? "We", "they", are we not all children of one God, his beloved children? Didn't Jesus Christ, "the true light that enlightens every man" (Jn 1,9), come into the world to free us from the sin of division and bring everyone together in love? And when "the other" is mocked, denigrated, despised and mistreated, when "the other" has no place to lay his head, has no food and has nothing to warm himself with, does he not mock, denigrate himself, is Jesus Christ himself once again despised and offended? (cf. Mt 25,31-46).

Who can loosen the cruel embrace of evil that surrounds us?

We can and must respond with the words of Saint Paul: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Rm 7.25).

6. Christ, who is our peace, true peace, what other inheritance could he have left us but that same peace?

We have heard his words, referred to on the evangelical page. These are words that we know very well. May they resonate with greater force in our hearts during this vigil of prayer, eliciting a more convinced and generous response.

«I leave you peace, my peace I give you; I do not give it to you as the world gives it ”(Jn 14:27). If we look around us, in the gathering of this night in Assisi, what do we see? Has the Lord Jesus really left us peace? So how come there is so much violence all around us, and some countries we come from are even at war? What have we done with the gift of the Lord and his precious inheritance? Could it be that we have preferred a peace "as the world gives it": a peace that consists in the silence of the oppressed, in the impotence of the defeated and in the humiliation of all those - men and peoples - see their rights trampled on?

The true peace that Jesus has left us is based on justice and flourishes in love and reconciliation. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, "whom the world cannot receive" (Jn 14:17). Doesn't the Apostle teach that "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace ..." (Ga 5,22)? "" There is no peace for the wicked, "says my God," the prophet Isaiah reminded us a while ago (57,21).

7. "But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have said to you" (Jn 14:26). Tonight the Spirit teaches us and reminds us of the source of true peace and where to look for it. That is why we have gathered in this sacred place, under the gaze and protection of Saint Francis.

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace".

"Lord, give us peace", give it to all, just as we have already given it to each other and now we will give it to each other in this liturgical celebration.

May it pour over Europe and the world tonight from the open side of Christ. In the Christmas message of 1990, which we heard recently, did not the late Patriarch Dimitrios I tell us: “This peace is not an idea or a motto; It is a reality that derives from extreme humility, kenosis, and the self-sacrifice of the Son of God »?

Faced with the mystery of suffering and death that are wars, our prayer vigil does not want to be an isolated, fleeting and momentary response, but rather a renewed acceptance of the inheritance that Christ has left us. Didn't he leave us peace when he went to the cross and when, having risen, he returned to us? (cf. Jn 20:19).

Peace on earth is our task, of men and women "of good will." It is the task, in particular, of Christians. We are responsible for it before the world and in the world, which remains deprived of true peace if Jesus Christ does not give it to it through his "instruments of peace", through "builders of peace" (cf. Mt 5,9). Paul VI said in the passage that we read a few moments ago: «Our mission is to launch the word" peace "in the midst of men who fight among themselves. Our mission is to remind men that they are brothers. Our mission is to teach men to love each other, to reconcile and to educate themselves in peace.

8. Gathered here tonight, we are invited to reflect on the contribution that each of us, each of our Churches, is called to offer in the service of peace.

There is one contribution, however, that is certainly common to all of us: it is about prayer. For this reason, the Bishop of Rome, together with the presidents of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe, wanted to invite his brothers and sisters in the faith, and the heads of other Churches and Christian communities, as well as Jews and Muslims , to come to Assisi to pray for peace. And he has also invited the particular Churches of Europe to do the same. During this vigil, Europe will raise in all its languages ​​an anguished supplication to the God of peace, in order that he finally grant this essential good to many of its peoples who are still torn by the scourge of war.

Accepting the inheritance of Christ in this field means, first of all, praying for peace. It also means giving a common witness to the inheritance we have received, our responsibility to it and our constant commitment to peace.

Alongside this primary commitment, there is also the commitment in favor of justice: "I dwell in the lofty and sacred," says the Lord through Isaiah's mouth, "and I am also with the humbled and downcast of spirit, to enliven the spirit of the downcast, to enliven the spirits of the humiliated "(57,15). Tonight we all want to renew our commitment in favor of the least, of the victims of wars, whose silent cry penetrates the skies.

9. In my message for the World Day of Peace this year, I have focused on the relationship between poverty and peace. The poor are the sad procession that accompanies conflicts, but the injustices committed against them are what provoke and fuel conflicts. Respect for people and peoples is the sure way to reach peace.

Each of us is called to follow that path. Every step, even small, along this blessed path brings us closer to harmony and peace: proclaiming the rights of each and everyone; affirm the dignity of every man and every woman, whatever their ethnicity, the color of their skin and their religious profession; report abuse ... these are some of the steps we want to commit to taking tonight as heirs of the peace of Jesus.

Christ is our peace. He conquered it for us on the cross, and he also gives it to us on this holy night so that we, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, with word and action, with the attitude of each hour and each day, may transmit it to the world that he has no peace.

Isaiah says: «Putting praise on the lips:" Peace, peace to the far and to the near! " says the Lord. "I will heal him" »(57,19).

May the Lord put the word peace on our lips tonight, to heal us all. Amen.