Pope: A witness is someone who manifests Christ

At the general audience, Pope Francis highlights the figure of Peter, "who initiates the preaching of the kerygma". The concreteness of the "body of believers" and of a "place". The "healing caress" of Peter and the Church as a "field hospital".

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "A witness is the someone who manifests Christ both with words and with their physical presence": Pope Francis underlined today, speaking of the figure of Peter in the Acts of the Apostles, characterized by a "primacy": "It is he who initiates the preaching of the kerygma on the day of Pentecost (see Acts 2: 14-41) and who will carry out a directive function at the Council of Jerusalem (see Acts 15 and Gal 2,1-10)".

Speaking to the pilgrims gathered for the general audience in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis commented on the passage from Acts 5: 12.15-16, in which the apostle passed among the sick and these were healed if touched by his shadow.

"Peter approaches the stretchers and passes among the sick, just as Jesus had done taking sicknesses and illnesses upon himself (see Mt 8:17; Is 53.4). The fisherman of Galilee, no longer called to gather in nets but the hearts of those who accept the life of Christ, does not play the leading role. He passes, but let allows Another to manifest himtself: the living and working Christ! The witness, in fact, is the one who manifests Christ, both with words and with a physical presence, which allows him to relate to and be a prolongation of the Word made flesh in history ".

As if to underline the concreteness of witness, the Pope added: "The body of believers is not an accessory foreign to the life of faith, but is made to live communion with God and with others, to manifest the beauty of being children, created in the image and likeness of the Father ".

The "concreteness" is also of a "place". The pontiff recalled that in the Acts we often speak of the "portico of Solomon", "a place where the event of Christ is communicated through the word, which moves hearts and which can touch and heal bodies too".

Francis also recalled his definition of the Church as a "field hospital", which "welcomes the weakest people, that is, the sick. Their suffering attracts the Apostles, who possess "neither silver nor gold" (Acts 3: 6) but they are strong in the name of Jesus. In their eyes, as in the eyes of Christians of all times, the sick are privileged recipients of the Good News of the Kingdom, they are brothers in whom Christ is present in a particular way, to be sought and found by all of us (see Mt 25: 36.40) ".

"Filled with the Spirit of his Lord - he continued - Peter passes and, without doing anything, his shadow becomes a healing" caress ", a communication of health, an outpouring of the tenderness of the Risen One who bends over the sick and restores life, salvation, dignity ... And since "Peter is a figure of the Church" (Venerable Bede, Exposition of the Acts of the Apostles 5:15), his shadow refers to that of the Church, which on earth restores its children and destines them to the goods of Heaven".

"Peter's healing action sparks the hatred of the Sadducees, who imprison the apostles and, upset by their mysterious liberation, forbid them to teach. Peter then responds by offering a key to the Christian life: "to obey God instead of men" (Acts 5:29), which means listening to God without reservation, without deferment, without calculation; adhere to Him to become capable of covenant with Him and with whom we meet on our path ”.