April 2013
Pope's Intentions
Liturgy, Source of Life. That the public, prayerful celebration of faith may give life to the faithful.
Mission Churches. That mission churches may be signs and instruments of hope and resurrection.
« Give them something to eat yourselves » (Mt 14,16)
In the eucharistic bread we receive the inexhaustible multiplication of the bread of Christ's love, rich enough to satisfy the hunger of every age and thus seeking to place us, too, at the service of the same multiplication. The few little wheaten breads of our lives may seem without value but our Lord needs them and asks for them.
The Church's sacraments are, like the Church herself, fruits of the grain of wheat that dies (Jn 12,24). To receive them we have to enter into the movement from which they themselves come. This movement consists in losing ourselves, without which we cannot find ourselves: “”Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it” (Mk 8,35). These words of our Lord are the basic formula for a christian life...; the characteristic shape of christian life comes from the cross. Christian openness to the world, which is so often preached today, can only find its true model in the open side of the Lord (Jn 19,34), the expression of that radical love that is alone able to save.
From the pierced side of Jesus crucified blood and water flowed. What is, at first sight, a sign of his death, sign of his utmost failure, constitutes at the same time a new beginning: the Crucified One rises and dies no more. From the pit of death the promise of eternal life arises. Above the cross of Jesus Christ there already shines the victorious brightness of Easter morning. And that is why, to live with him beneath the sign of the cross is synonymous with living beneath the promise of paschal joy.