Pope: the Gospel is for everyone, let us not enclose it in a small group of elite
The pontiff's missionary invitation to the faithful during the general audience in St. Peter's Square. "The greatest temptation is to consider the call received as a privilege. God chooses someone to love everyone. And we must prevent the temptation to identify Christianity with a culture, with an ethnic group, with a system".
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - “The Gospel is not for a small group of elect. Everyone has the right to receive it." Taking up what was written ten years ago in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, Pope Francis reiterated it again today, addressing the faithful during the general audience in St. Peter's Square.
Continuing his cycle of reflections on apostolic zeal in evangelization, the pontiff today focused on the theme of the universal destination of the Christian message. He said: "When we truly meet the Lord Jesus, the wonder of this encounter pervades our life and demands to be taken beyond us. He desires this, that His Gospel is for everyone. Indeed, in it there is a “humanizing power”, a fulfilment of life that is destined for every man and woman, because Christ was born, died, and rose again for everyone. For everyone: no-one excluded."
Hence the invitation to Christians to distinguish themselves "for our capacity to come out of ourselves. A proclamation, in order to be true, must leave behind one’s own selfishness – and let us also have the capacity to cross all borders. Christians meet on the church steps, more than in the sacristy, and go through the squares and streets of the city."
Citing the Gospel passage in which a Canaanite woman begs Jesus to heal her sick daughter (see Mt 15:21-28), he explained that "when God calls a person and makes a pact with some of them, the criterion is always this: elect someone to reach others, this is the criterion of God, of God’s calling. All the Lord’s friends have experienced the beauty, but also the responsibility and the burden of being “chosen” by him. And everyone has felt discouragement in the face of their own weaknesses or the loss of their certainties. But perhaps the greatest temptation is that of considering the calling received as a privilege: please, no, the calling is not a privilege, ever. We cannot say that we are privileged compared to others – no. The calling is for a service. And God chooses one in order to love everyone, to reach everyone.."
This gaze aimed at everyone - he concluded - also allows us to "to prevent the temptation of identifying Christianity with a culture, with an ethnicity, with a system. In this way, though, it loses its truly Catholic nature, or rather for everyone, universal: it is not a little group of first-class, chosen people. Let us not forget: God chooses some to love all. This horizon of universality. The Gospel is not only for me, it is for everyone; let us not forget this.."
At the end of the audience - citing the meeting he had shortly before with the families of the Israeli hostages in Gaza and those of some Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons - Francis renewed his invitation to "persevere in prayer for those who suffer from the wars in many parts of the world, especially for the dear people of Ukraine, the tormented Ukraine, and of Israel and Palestine".
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