1. St. Paul takes up a liturgical hymn that blesses God for his plan of salvation. And Francis says that our amazement at this plan of salvation should be no less than our amazement at the universe around us, where, for example, everything in the cosmos moves or stops according to the force of gravity. Thus, in God's plan through time, that center of gravity, where everything has its origin, meaning and purpose is Christ.
In the words of Francis, glossing St. Paul: "In Christ we have been blessed before creation; in Him we have been called; in Him we have been redeemed; in Him every creature is brought back to unity, and all, near and far, first and last, are destined, thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit, to be in praise of the glory of God". For this reason the Pope invites us to praise, bless, adore and give thanks for this work of God, this plan of salvation.
That's right, taking into account that this 'plan' will meets us in the life of each one of usThe Catechism of the Catholic Church indicates that it leaves us free to respond to this loving plan, which originates in the heart of God the Father.
It is not, therefore, a plan that God has made behind our backs, without counting on us or our freedom. On the contrary: is a loving project that presents us, and that fills the history of the world and human life with meaning., although many aspects of this plan are not fully known to us and may be known at a later date.
And Francis asks us all: "How is your wonder? Do you sometimes feel wonder? Or have you forgotten what it means?". Indeed. It is very convenient to marvel at God's gifts.Otherwise, we may enter, first, into habituation and then into meaninglessness.
In a train, Antoine de Saint-Éxupéry observed in The Little Prince (ch. XXII), it is the children who are left with their noses pressed to the windows, while the adults continue in other routine occupations.
2. Secondly, the Pope observes that If we now enter into the call that the Lord makes to the disciples in Galilee, we discover a new amazement.. This time it is not so much because of the plan of salvation itself; but because, surprisingly, God involves us in this plan, He involves us in the. The Lord's words to his eleven disciples are: "Go (...) make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them everything I have commanded you" (Mt 28:19-20); and then the final promise that instills hope and consolation: "I will be with you always, even to the end of the age" (v. 20).
And Peter's successor points out that these words of the risen Jesus "still have the power to make our hearts vibrate, two thousand years later" Why? Because it is amazing that the Lord decided to evangelize the world starting from that poor group of disciples.
Here one might ask if only Christians enter into this plan of salvation or if only they collaborate in it. In reality any person -and all other beings, according to their own being. enter into these loving plans of God. At the same time, Christians, by divine election (before the constitution of the world, cf. Eph. 1:4), have a special place in this project, similar to that which Mary, the twelve apostles and the women who followed the Lord from the beginning had. This is what God does: he comes to some through others.
The Pope himself has said it and this is also true for all Christians. To make us aware of our littleness, of our disproportion to collaborate in the divine plans. To free us from the temptation to feel "at the height" of the divine plan. (most eminent, as the cardinals are called), to lean on a false security, perhaps thinking that the Church is great and solid....
All this, Francis says, has some truth in it (if we look at it with the eyes of faith, since it is God who has called us and gives us the possibility of collaborating with Him). But it is an approach that can lead us to to be fooled by "el Mentiroso" (the Liar) (i.e. the devil). And become, first, "worldly" (with the worm of spiritual worldliness); and secondly "harmless", that is, without strength and without hope to collaborate effectively in salvation.
3. Finally, the Bishop of Rome points out that the whole of these passages awakens (or should awaken) in us "the wonder of being Church"; of belonging to this family, to this community of believers that forms one body with Christ, since our baptism. It is there that we have received the two roots of wonder as we have seen: first to be blessed in Christ and second to go with Christ into the world.
And Francisco explains that it is an astonishment that neither diminishes with age nor declines with responsibility.s (we could say: with the tasks, gifts, ministries and charisms that each of us can receive in the Church, at the service of the Church and the world).
At this point, Francis evokes the figure of the saintly Pope Paul VI and his programmatic encyclical Ecclesiam suamwritten during the Second Vatican Council. Pope Montini says there: "This is the hour in which the Church must deepen her awareness of herself, [...] of her own origin, [...] of her own mission.". And referring precisely to the Letter to the Ephesians, he places this mission in the perspective of the plan of salvation; of "the dispensation of the mystery hidden for ages in God... that it might be made known... through the Church" (Eph 3:9-10).
Francisco He uses St. Paul VI as a model to present the profile of what a minister in the Church should be like.He who knows how to marvel at God's plan and passionately loves the Church in that spirit, ready to serve his mission wherever and however the Holy Spirit wills. Such was, before St. Paul VI, the apostle to the Gentiles: with this ability to be astonished, to be passionate and to serve. And that should also be the measure or thermometer of our spiritual life.
The Pope concludes by once again addressing to the Cardinals some questions that are useful to all of us, since all of us - faithful and ministers in the Church - participate, in very different and complementary ways, in that great and unique "ministry of salvation" which is the Church's mission in the world:
"How is your ability to be amazed? Or have you gotten used to it, so used to it, that you've lost it? Are you capable of being amazed again?" He warns that it is not a simple human capacity, but above all a grace of God that we must ask for and be grateful for, guard and make fruitful, like Mary and with her intercession.
Mr. Ramiro Pellitero Iglesias
Professor of Pastoral Theology at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarra.
(*) Published in "Iglesia y nueva evangelización".
