Humility, gentleness and patience are the attitudes needed to have
open heart with a peaceful spirit with which to build unity in the
Church” said Pope Francis at Mass celebrated this morning in Santa
Marta, inspired by the greeting of Jesus, "Peace be with you".
Francis said our Lord’s greeting “creates a bond” of peace and unites
us to create a unity of spirit and warned that if there’s no peace and
if we aren’t able to greet each other in the widest sense of the word,
there will never be unity. The Pope explained that this concept applies
for unity in the world, unity in the town, in the district and in the
family.
“The evil spirit always sows wars. Jealousy, envy, conflicts,
gossip…. are things that destroy peace and therefore there cannot be
unity. And how should a Christian behave to promote unity, to find this
unity? Paul tells us clearly: ‘live in a manner worthy, with all
humility, gentleness and magnanimity.’ These three attitudes: humility -
we cannot sow peace without humility. Where there is arrogance, there
is always war and the desire to defeat the other and believing one is
superior. Without humility there is no peace and without peace there is
no unity.”
Pope Francis noted how nowadays we have lost the ability to speak
gently and instead tend to shout at each other or speak badly about
other people. He urged Christians to rediscover gentleness, saying by
so doing, we are able to put up with each other, give mutual support,
“be patient and put up with the faults of others or the things we don’t
like.”
“First: humility, second: gentleness with this mutual support, and
third: magnanimity: a big heart, a wide-open heart that can accommodate
everybody and that does not condemn, that does not become smaller
because of trifling things: ‘who said that,’ ‘I heard that,’ ‘who…’ no, a
large heart, there is room for everybody. And this creates the bond of
peace; this is the worthy manner in which to behave to create the bond
of peace which is the creator of unity. The Holy Spirit is the creator
of unity but this encourages and prepares the creation of unity.”
These three attitudes, said the Pope, are the right way to respond to
that call to the mystery of the Church that is the mystery of the Body
of Christ. “The mystery of the Church is the mystery of the Body of
Christ: ‘one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over
all’ and who works ‘through all and in all:’ this is the unity that
Jesus asked the Father to grant us and we must help create this unity
with the bond of peace. And the bond of peace grows with humility, with
gentleness and mutual support and with magnanimity.”
Pope Francis
concluded, praying, “Let us pray for the shepherds who are at the end of
their lives and who are waiting for the Lord to take them with Him. And
let us pray so that the Lord may give them strength, consolation and
the certainty that, although they feel sick and alone, the Lord is with
them, close to them.”