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Pope Francis 13th Catechesis on Evangelization
Saint Peter’s Square – Wednesday, 26 April 2023
The passion for evangelization: the apostolic zeal of the believer.
2. Witnesses: monasticism and the power of intercession. Gregory of Narek
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Let us continue our catechesis on the witnesses of apostolic zeal.
We began with Saint Paul, and last time we looked at the martyrs, who proclaim Jesus with their lives, to the point of giving their lives for him and for the Gospel.
But there are other great witnesses that runs through the history of faith: that of the nuns and monks, sisters and brothers who renounce themselves and who renounce the world to imitate Jesus on the path of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and intercede for all. Their lives speak for themselves, but we might ask:
How can people who live in monasteries help the proclamation of the Gospel?
Wouldn’t it be better for them to put their energies into mission by leaving the monastery and preaching the Gospel outside the monastery?
In reality, the monks are the beating heart of the preaching.
This is strange: they are the beating heart.
Their prayer is the oxygen for all the members of the Body of Christ, their prayer is the invisible force that sustains the mission.
It is not by chance that the patroness of the missions is a nun, St. Therese of the Child Jesus. Let us listen to how she discovered her vocation – she wrote:
“I understood that the Church has a heart and that this heart was burning with love.
I understood that it was love alone that made the members of the Church act, that if love were ever extinguished, the Apostles would not preach the Gospel and Martyrs would not shed their blood.
I understood that love encompasses all vocations. …
Then, in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my love …. my vocation, I have finally found it…. my vocation is love! … In the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be Love” (Autobiographical Manuscript “B”, 8 September 1896).
The contemplatives, the monks, the nuns: they are people who pray, who work, who pray in silence for the whole Church. And this is love. It is the love that is expressed by praying for the Church, working for the Church, in the monasteries.
This love for all inspires the life of nuns and monks, and is translated into their prayer of intercession.
In this regard, I would like to offer you the example of St. Gregory of Narek, Doctor of the Church. He is an Armenian monk, who lived around the year 1000 and who left a book of prayers, in which the faith of the Armenian people, the first to embrace Christianity, is poured out; a people that, juniteded to the Cross of Christ, has suffered so much throughout history.
Saint Gregory spent most of his life in the monastery of Narek. There he learned to look into the depths of the human soul and, by comining poetry and prayer together, marked the peak of both Armenian literature and spirituality.
What is most striking about him is the universal solidarity of which he is the interpreter. And among monks and nuns there is a universal solidarity: whatever happens in the world, finds a place in the heart, in their heart, and they pray, and they pray.
The heart of monks and nuns is a heart that receives like an antenna, it picks up what is happening in the world, and it prays and intercedes for this.
In this way: they live in union with the Lord and with everyone.
And St. Gregory of Narek writes: “I have voluntarily taken upon myself all the faults, from those of the first father those of to the last of his descendants, and I have made myself responsible for them”.
This is what Jesus did: the monks take on the problems of the world, the difficulties, the sicknesses, many things, and they pray for others.
And they are the great evangelizers.
How can they live in seclusion, and evangelize? It is true…
Because by word, example, intercession and daily work, monks are a bridge of intercession for all people and for sins.
They weep, even shed tears, they weep for their sins – after all, we are all sinners – and they also weep for the sins of the world, and they pray and intercede with their hands and hearts lifted up.
Let us reflect a little om this – if I may permit myself the use of the word reserve – that we have in the Church: – they are the true strength, the true force that carries the People of God forward, and this is comes the the habit that people have – the People of God – have of saying “Pray for me, pray for me”, when they meet a consecrated man or woman, because they know that there is a prayer of intercession.
It will do us good – and if we are able – to visit a monastery, because there one prays and works.
Each one has his/her own rules, but their hands are always busy: busy with work, busy with prayer.
May the Lord give us new monasteries, may he give us new monks and nuns to carry the Church forward with their intercession.
Thank you.
