Confess Jesus Christ – Pope Francis Tells Cardinals

Pope Francis’ First Sermon To Cardinals in Sistine Chapel

There is something that I see that these three readings have in common: motion. In the first reading it is the motion of a journey; in the 2nd reading it is the movement in developing the Church; in the 3rd, the Gospel, it is the motion of confession. Journeying, structure, confessing.

Journeying. “House of Jacob, come, let us walk together in the light of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:5). This is the first thing that God said to Abraham: Walk in my presence and you will be blameless. Trip: our life is a trip and when we stop it does not go on. Trip constantly in the presence of the Lord, in the light of the Lord, seeking to cope with that blamelessness that God asked of Abraham in his guarantee.

Building. Building the Church. Stones are mentioned: the stones have a consistency, but they are the living stones, stones anointed by the Spirit. Constructing the Church, the Bride of Christ, upon that foundation that is the Lord himself. Structure is an additional type of motion in our life.

Third, confessing. We could trip as much as we desire, we could build many things, but if we do not confess Jesus Christ, things does not work. We will become a welfare NGO but not the Church, the Bride of Christ. We quit when we do not journey. When we do not build on the stones, exactly what happens? Everything collapses, loses its consistency, like the sandcastles that kids build on the beach. When we do not confess Jesus Christ, I am reminded of the words of Leon Bloy: “Whoever does not pray to the Lord, prays to the devil.” When we do not confess Jesus Christ, we confess the worldliness of the devil, the worldliness of the satanic force.

Journeying, building-constructing, confessing. It is not that easy, since in journeying, in building, in confessing, there are problems, there are movements antithetical to the journey: they are movements that take us backwards.

Referring to the scripture readings of the day, Pope Francis continued, “This Gospel continues with an essential moment. The same Peter who had confessed Jesus Christ said to him: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. I will follow you, but let’s not discuss the cross. This is not a part of it. I will follow you in any other way, but not to the cross.” When we journey without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we confess a Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of the Lord: we are worldly, we are merely bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, but not disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I would like for all of us, after these days of grace, to have courage, precisely the courage, to walk in the Lord’s presence, with the cross of the Lord; to build the Church upon the blood of the Jesus Christ, which was poured out on the cross; and to confess the only magnificence there is: Christ crucified. And in this way the Church will go ahead.

It is my desire for all of us that the Holy Spirit, through the prayers of Our Lady, our Mother Mary, bestow upon us the grace of journeying, building, confessing Jesus Christ crucified. Amen.