The Minister general pilgrim in the Holy Land:
Homily (Jerusalem, 27.10.2003)

HOMILY

Dear Brothers, May the Lord give you peace!

The Lord has been very good to us and has prepared the table of His word, light for our steps and the table of the Eucharistic bread, our viaticum, for us.

In the word just heard, the Lord speaks to us of life, of freedom: “You did not receive the spirit of slaves”.

The tension between law and freedom has always existed and will continue to exist as long as man is man. This tension is a good thing, provided it does not lead to fundamentalism, laxity or licentiousness. To make the law or the structures sacred could make man a slave if this does not go hand in hand with the freedom-responsibility of each person. Fundamentalism would be the normal result of this sacred-making that does not take into account the freedom that God had given to us as a gift. Out of fundamentalism would come intolerance, authoritarianism, coercion, dogmatism, fanaticism, sectarianism, etc., and every form of negation and domination of the other. On the other hand, from the absence of respect for the law come chaos and every kind of anarchy.

Life needs structures, but these must be put at the service of life. We cannot put the law or structures at the centre of human existence, but rather must we put life, the person, which is of supreme value because it was created in the image and likeness of God. No law or structure can impede doing good to a neighbour that is in need.

“You did not receive the spirit of a slave... but the spirit of sons, which leads us to cry out and confess God as Father, God as dad”.

That is the reason for our freedom, we are sons, but that is the limit of our freedom, we are brothers because we are sons of the same Father. And so our freedom ends when it comes up against the freedom of the sons and against the condition of being brothers. In this case it would be licentiousness. Dear brothers, we are called to be signs of God, bearers of joy, of communion, of freedom. As Friars Minor we are called to be committed to opening up spaces of freedom where we can honour our common human dignity, derived from God, our creator, and destined for perfection in Christ.

Like Jesus, it is our task to cure the wounds of our world and to communicate the love of God the Father, our Abba, to all and to proclaim to all the great revelation that we are sons and brothers.

On this day, in which we commemorate the spirit of Assisi, while asking for the gift of peace for the whole world and in particular for this land bathed in the blood of Christ, we commit ourselves to being builders of peace and reconciliation based on justice and on the pardon announced by Jesus, the source of life, grace and freedom.