On August 30, 2022, Pope Francis addresses the congregation at Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.
30 August 2022, 13:00 in Vatican City (CNA).
At Mass with the College of Cardinals on Tuesday, Pope Francis emphasized that we have the same task of evangelizing the world as did the apostles 2,000 years ago, which should make us marvel at our duty.
Pope Francis remarked during Mass on August 30 in St. Peter’s Basilica, “We continue to wonder at the incomprehensible divine determination to convert the entire world beginning with that motley group of followers, some of whom, as the evangelist tells us, still questioned.”
We should be even more astounded, then, if we consider that we are the ones assembled here right now, to whom the Lord has uttered those same words and given the same command.
The pope added, “Wonder is a route to redemption.” We are set free from the temptation to believe that we can “control things,” therefore may God keep it alive in our hearts forever. Or from the delusion of security that comes from believing that the present is somehow distinct from the past.
Francis stated: “The Church is large and strong now, and we hold important positions within its hierarchy… This has some truth to it, but it also has a lot of lies that the Father of Lies uses to first make Christ’s disciples worldly and then harmless.
The Church received the Mass with the Cardinal College. The Eucharistic Liturgy was conducted by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the College of Cardinals. During the Mass, Pope Francis gave a sermon.
A “cancer of spiritual worldliness” was referred to by the pope in his sermon.
In response, he defined a minister of the Church as “one who feels astonishment before God’s design and, in that spirit, passionately loves the Church and stands at the service of her mission wherever and whatever the Holy Spirit may choose.”
He said that Catholics should be in awe of both God’s plan of salvation and the “far more astonishing reality” that God has called them to take part in it.
It is a “double mystery of our being blessed in Christ and our stepping out into the world with Christ” for Catholics.
Speaking to the new cardinals, Francis stated, “This amazement does not fade with the years; it does not wane with our growing duties in the Church. No, praise the Lord. It becomes deeper and more powerful.
Following two days of private discussions with the College of Cardinals to discuss Pope Francis’ reform of the Roman Curia as outlined in the constitution Praedicate evangelium, the Mass with new cardinals was celebrated.
In the first extraordinary consistory in seven years, 197 cardinals took part.
Pope Francis referred to Saint Pope Paul VI and his Ecclesiam Suam encyclical on the Church from 1964 in his address.
As he put it, Saint Paul VI had a love for the Church that was “first and foremost thankfulness, grateful astonishment at her mystery and at the gift of our being not just members of the Church, but participants in her existence, sharing in and, in fact, jointly responsible for her.”
The pope remarked that “the Church has to nurture a greater knowledge of her identity… her origin and her purpose” at the opening of his programmatic encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, which was written during the [Second Vatican] Council, according to Francis.
He specifically cited the Letter to the Ephesians in this respect, speaking of “the providential design of the secret concealed for ages in God… so that via the Church… it may be made known.”
As we can see from his writings, this was the situation with the Apostle Saint Paul. His words of blessing, “Blessed be God,” were usually spoken alongside his apostolic enthusiasm and care for the community, and they even came before it. said Pope Francis.
May that likewise be the case for us, he said in closing. “May it be thus for each and every one of you, my brother Cardinals. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Church’s Mother, gain this favor for each and every one of us.