Hoy Mass in Libreville, Gabon (19 February 1982)

On Friday, 19 February 1982, the Holy Father celebrated Holy Mass in Libreville, Gabon. In his homily, the Pope said that, in facing trials, the only thing to fear is sin, and he urged them to build the Church in Gabon.

Dear Brothers and Sisters of Gabon,

You have been delivered from the power of Evil by giving your faith to God our Good Shepherd: live confident in his love!

You have been welcomed by the Church as full members: take your responsibilities to build this spiritual House in your home!

In your family life, you are associated with the mystery of God's love and the gift of his life: this mystery is great!

Christ calls you, like Saint Peter, to overcome your fears and your weaknesses to follow him on the demanding path of the beatitudes: walk in hope, with the strength of the Holy Spirit!

Here are four aspects of the Good News of Jesus Christ that I would like to meditate on with you.

1. And first of all, this Apostle Peter, to whom the resurrected Jesus said on the banks of the lake in Galilee: “Be the shepherd of my sheep”, ended, as you know, his earthly life in Rome, martyr of his fidelity to the love of Christ. But just as a sumptuous basilica was built on his tomb, it is on his faith that the immense Church of Jesus Christ has relied for twenty centuries.

From Krakow, God called me to Rome, his unworthy servant, to inherit the responsibility of Peter, which is to keep the scattered sheep gathered around Christ, the true Shepherd.

In carrying out this mission, I like to reread to you some words that the Apostle Peter wrote from Rome to Christians in Asia Minor converted from paganism: “You are the chosen race, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the people who belong to God: you are therefore responsible for proclaiming the marvels of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. For once you were not his people, but today you are God's people. You were deprived of love, but today God showed you his love”.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, this is a comforting message, a message of peace! It is also for you who have given your faith to Christ. Certainly God was never far from your ancestors, who moreover had their natural virtues; but they did not know his face as a Savior like you.

You know him. You have been baptized in his name, delivered in the depths of your souls from the grip of the Evil One who, since original sin, has held man in servitude, in evil, in lies and in fear. You have received the Holy Spirit who allows you to turn to God by calling him like Jesus: “Abba! Father”, Already the prophet Ezekiel announced to us a God concerned about all his sheep, seeking those who are lost, caring for those who are injured, strengthening those who are sick. And Jesus revealed to us better than anyone the face of his Father, a face of mercy, suffering from sin, but ready to forgive the sinner, to raise him up, to reintegrate him into the paternal house. What he asks first of all, as Jesus said to Peter, is love: “Do you really love me?”. Yes, Jesus allows us to approach this merciful God, to pray to him with confidence to continue to deliver us from evil, by exercising mercy ourselves.

Certainly, our life, like that of all men, like that of all Christians, remains subject to numerous trials. This is because, through original sin, the human race inherited a historical situation of disorder, of rupture with God, as the Bible reveals, in a global and mysterious way; and the immediate and concrete causes of these trials are to be sought within the normal limits of this created world, sometimes in difficult climatic conditions, in our state as mortal creatures, in our improvidence, in our negligence, and also sometimes in social injustices. maintained by others. With Christ, the “man of sorrows”, they can be welcomed, offered, overcome with courage; we must avoid letting ourselves be obsessed by the malevolence of others, and even more so from maintaining a morbid fear of God “who makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and rain falls on the just and the unjust”.

For you, dear Brothers and Sisters, while renouncing sin – the only thing to fear!

– banish all fatalism, all unnecessary fear. While working ardently to remove the natural sufferings and difficulties of life, precisely with all the means that God has given you, always put your trust in the Savior, in Him alone, by resorting to Him with all simplicity.

And lean on the community life of your loved ones and especially Christians whom God has called to live as brothers.

This is the first aspect of the Good News: peace in God.

2. Now, focus on building the Church in Gabon, “in which the Church of Christ is truly present and active, one, holy, catholic and apostolic”, as in each particular Church.

The one Church of Christ has preceded you. Instituted by Him, it was displayed in broad daylight at the first Christian Pentecost, in Jerusalem. It “has for its foundation the Apostles and the prophets, and the cornerstone is Christ himself”, as Saint Paul has just reminded us. It is unique, even if unfortunately Christians are sometimes divided. It is she who sends some of her members on missions, to found new communities, as the missionaries did here almost one hundred and forty years ago. “You have been integrated into the construction... to also become, through the Holy Spirit, the dwelling place of God.” “You are no longer strangers, nor people passing through; you are citizens of the holy people, members of the family of God”.

Those who came to bring you the Gospel, as they themselves had received it, did so out of love for you. In faith you were not strangers to them. You continue, fortunately, to benefit from the fraternal assistance of these missionaries from another homeland, but this Church, built from the children of this country and for them, must also, and more and more, rest on your responsibility: on your bishops – the Holy See has insisted that they are currently all Gabonese –, and on your priests, on the religious men and women of this country, on the laity, catechists or responsible in various capacities, in short on all the apostolic workers to whom I spoke the day before yesterday at the cathedral, but also on all the other baptized and confirmed, who take their responsibilities with a Christian spirit in their family, in their school, in their profession, in civil society . Because everyone enters in their own way into the construction of the Church in Gabon. Its lasting roots are at stake. Its vitality is at stake. Its authenticity depends on it so that it touches the Gabonese soul deeply and produces fruits that have the flavor of this country. The theme of this mass is precisely that of the local Church. Each local Church, especially when it is gathered in prayer around its Bishop, successor of the Apostles and representative of Christ in its midst, is the principal manifestation of the mystery of the Church. In the person of Monsignor Fernand Anguillé, Archbishop of Libreville, Monsignor Félicien Makouaka, Bishop of Franceville, Monsignor Cyriaque Obamba, Bishop of Mouila, Monsignor François Ndong, Bishop of Oyem, and his coadjutor, Monsignor Basile Mvé Engone, I affectionately greet each of your local Churches which together form the Church in Gabon.

These local Churches will of course always have to avoid withdrawing into themselves. You also understand very well – and I congratulate you – the need for your communion with other ecclesial communities throughout the world, and with the one who presides over the college of bishops, the successor of Peter. This communion also means, in practice, the sharing of the same faith, the same Christian ethics, the same sacraments, the essential discipline common to the entire Church. These links will always be for you yourselves a condition of your fidelity to the Gospel, of the authenticity of your belonging to the Catholic Church. But within these links your Gabonese personality must flourish.

Some will perhaps say: how can we find the means to take charge of our Church, as long as we do not have sufficient, by ourselves, pastors, nuns, educational means, financial resources which would be necessary?

Without doubt the transition can only be gradual. But it is not so much a question of increased means: many Churches today have had to make do with poor means, as in the beginning, as in every historical crisis experienced by the Church and followed by a renewal. . It is much more a question of inner vigor, of spiritual sap, like the generous sap of your magnificent trees which makes their foliage spring forth, and you already have the spiritual means for this.

There must also be a climate of trust and co-responsibility, which allows those who were content to receive assistance, often from abroad, to be associated with apostolic initiatives. Is this not the path that, thanks to God, a certain number of lay people have begun to take among you, or hope to take? God grant that they find the spiritual support they need, and that many priestly and religious vocations arise among them! Yes, the Spirit of God will know how to bring about this maturity commensurate with your faith.

3. After the peace received from God and the vitality of the local Church, I approach the third aspect of the Good News. There is indeed a place where the Church must find its privileged expression: it is the family. The Second Vatican Council did not hesitate to call the Christian family the “domestic Church”, a Church in miniature.

Ancestral customs, in Gabon as in many African countries, still have a profound impact on many families. They have instilled in them a certain number of values ​​which can be very precious for Christian spouses; in particular they allow the couple to avoid limiting themselves to an overly individualistic perspective, for example by maintaining solidarity with the spouses' families: they can contribute their part to the founding of the new home and remain likely to still show their support to the couple. help in the education of children or in the face of trials that arise. To the extent that such practices promote the stability and unity of couples, while leaving engaged couples the freedom of their personal consent and commitment, the Church can only rejoice.

What the Church asks Christians to understand well is the incomparable dignity of the union of man and woman in the original plan of God, and the meaning of the sacrament of Christian marriage: this has with the aim of elevating the union of spouses like the Alliance of love between Christ and his Church, of associating them with the dynamism of the paschal mystery of the Savior and thus of bringing to their entire life as spouses a sanctification and a radiance which reflects on their persons, on their children, on the life of the Church and society.

I lack time to repeat here what I explained at length barely two years ago to the Christian families of Kinshasa, what the bishops of the whole world testified to at the Synod in the fall of 1980, and what I myself -even written for the whole Church in my recent apostolic exhortation. I rely on your Pastors to give you the concrete means to familiarize yourself with the nature of Christian marriage, and to enable you to live by it from now on.

Think for example of true marital love, the source and strength of an indissoluble communion, whose fidelity recalls the unshakeable fidelity of God to his Covenant with men. Think of the Church's concern to ensure that the person – particularly the woman – is never treated as an “object” of pleasure, nor even as a simple means of fertility, but that she deserves to be loved for herself by her partner, even if unfortunately she experiences the ordeal of sterility. Think again of the values ​​of respect, delicacy, forgiveness, mercy, with which the Christian vision enriches marriage. Think of the dignity of the role of father and mother, where spouses become cooperators with the creator God by giving life, and of their common responsibility to raise to emotional and spiritual maturity the children they have given birth to.

To protect all this, the Church recalls requirements, serious requirements, certainly, which have their foundation in the Gospel and which require effort and conversion of heart. But she would like Christians to first perceive the sacrament of marriage as a “grace”. She understands with mercy those who experience difficulty in corresponding fully, and she does not want to exclude anyone from “an educational path of growth” which must lead them further, “to a richer consciousness and a more integrated full in this mystery of their life” To the families of Gabon, as I wrote in the exhortation, I say: “Family, become what you are!”. I congratulate the Christian homes which are already giving this beautiful testimony: there are a certain number of them in this country. And I invite them to lead other households in their wake, through a couple-to-couple apostolate, as I invite the entire Church in Gabon to promote adequate pastoral care of the family.

4. In conclusion, dear Brothers and Sisters – and this is the summit of the Good News that I announced to you – I ask the Lord for a lively hope for you, on the path to the holiness of the beatitudes.

We have just mentioned certain requirements of the Christian life. In recent days I have reminded others, to each category of God's people, but always with confidence and in a positive tone.

All these requirements concretize the fundamental double commandment: to love God with all one's strength, to love our neighbor as ourselves, or rather as Jesus loved us. It goes without saying that prayer, participation in the sacraments and in particular in the Eucharistic celebration of Sunday are its expression and essential nourishment.

Some are tempted to ask the Church to relax its requirements, whether for example for Christian marriage or the priesthood. In reality, you all suspect, the Church would then cease to be the salt and leaven of which Jesus spoke; it would be even less credible, its message would be faded, ambiguous, and its testimony even less vigorous. Christ did not propose the easy road, but the steep path, the narrow gate of the beatitudes, which is folly in the eyes of some men, but which is the wisdom of God and the strength of God: the spirit of poverty, purity , thirst for justice, meekness, mercy, seeking peace, patience in trial, perseverance in persecution for Jesus' sake and, above all, joy, yes, the deepest joy: “Blessed!” This is what is moreover capable of renovating the current world, sick of its uncertainties or its “ersatz” happiness. It is therefore not on money, power and the seduction of ease that the Church can really count on to resolve its problems, but on the practice of spiritual means which correspond to the beatitudes. And when she has the audacity to believe it and risk her commitment, then a new horizon, a new Pentecost opens before her. The path that seemed to lead her to fatalism, to discouragement, which could have pushed her back into her “crisis” changes direction. Everything is possible, even if sin is still very close, even if temptations remain, even if we still feel weak, when we are humble and full of confidence.

And now the evangelical scene that we contemplated earlier confirms this to us. The Apostle Peter has barely recovered from his humiliation during the Passion. A deep conversation begins with the resurrected Jesus, a sort of palaver leading to a three-part contract. Jesus knows his weakness. But before the triple performance of love, he said to him: “Be the shepherd of my lambs, be the shepherd of my sheep”. And he entrusts him with the guidance of the whole flock, of the whole Church. The Lord entrusts you today, dear Pastors of Gabon, with the progress of your Church.

As for me, I am here to strengthen you in your faith, in your walk, and weave even stronger bonds of communion between you and the universal Church which is in solidarity with you. A final word will explain to you the meaning of my mission. When the Apostle Peter stopped before the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of Jerusalem, he said to him: “I have neither gold nor silver, but what I have I give you: in the name of Jesus the Nazarene, arise and walk.” Today, in the spiritual sense, seeing your good will, the successor of Peter says to the whole Church in Gabon: I have not come to bring you either gold or silver. But don't be afraid. Have confidence. In the name of Jesus Christ, arise and walk!

Amen!

© Copyright 1982 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

 Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana