READING OF THE DAY
2 SM 7:1-5, 8B-12, 14A, 16
When King David was settled in his palace,
and the LORD had given him rest from his enemies on every side,
he said to Nathan the prophet,
“Here I am living in a house of cedar,
while the ark of God dwells in a tent!”
Nathan answered the king,
“Go, do whatever you have in mind,
for the LORD is with you.”
But that night the LORD spoke to Nathan and said:
“Go, tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the LORD:
Should you build me a house to dwell in?
“‘It was I who took you from the pasture
and from the care of the flock
to be commander of my people Israel.
I have been with you wherever you went,
and I have destroyed all your enemies before you.
And I will make you famous like the great ones of the earth.
I will fix a place for my people Israel;
I will plant them so that they may dwell in their place
without further disturbance.
Neither shall the wicked continue to afflict them as they did of old,
since the time I first appointed judges over my people Israel.
I will give you rest from all your enemies.
The LORD also reveals to you
that he will establish a house for you.
And when your time comes and you rest with your ancestors,
I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins,
and I will make his Kingdom firm.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.
Your house and your Kingdom shall endure forever before me;
your throne shall stand firm forever.'”
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
LK 1:67-79
Zechariah his father, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied, saying:
“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;
for he has come to his people and set them free.
He has raised up for us a mighty Savior,
born of the house of his servant David.
Through his prophets he promised of old
that he would save us from our enemies,
from the hands of all who hate us.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant.
This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to set us free from the hand of our enemies,
free to worship him without fear,
holy and righteous in his sight
all the days of our life.
You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
to give his people knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of their sins.
In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
Many Christians do not know joy. Even when they are in church to praise God, they seem as if they were at a funeral rather than at a joyful celebration. If instead they had learned to step out of themselves and give thanks to God, “they would really understand that joy which sets us free”.
Christian joy was the centre of Pope Francis’ reflection on Friday, 31 May, the Feast of the Visitation, at the Mass he concelebrated in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae. The Pope began by referring to the readings of the day from the book of Zephaniah (3:14-18) and the Gospel of Luke (1:39-56), saying that they “speak to us of joy and happiness: ‘rejoice, shout for joy’, says Zephaniah…. ‘The Lord is in your midst’…. He too will rejoice over us. He too is joyful”.
“Everything is joy. But we Christians are not very used to talking about joy, about happiness. I think that we often prefer complaints! What is joy? The key to understanding this joy is in the words of the Gospel: ‘Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit’. The One who gives us joy is the Holy Spirit”.
“It is the Spirit himself who guides us. He is the author of joy, the creator of joy, and this joy that is in the Holy Spirit gives us true Christian freedom. Without joy we Christians cannot become free. We are enslaved to our sorrows”. The Pope then cited the great Pope Paul vi, recalling that he said: “it is impossible to carry the Gospel any further with sad, dejected, disheartened Christians. It is impossible”. This is a somewhat funereal attitude”. Joy, on the contrary, comes from praising God.
“But what does praising God mean?”, the Holy Father asked. “Praising him freely, just as the grace he gives to us is freely given”, was his answer. Then he asked: “Do you praise God? Or do you only ask God and thank God?”. Doing this, he repeated, means “going out of ourselves to praise God, ‘wasting’ time in praise”. He continued: “if you do not praise God and do not know the freely given gift of ‘wasting’ time in praising him, then of course the Mass seems long! But if you go to it with this joyful attitude, praising God, it is beautiful”. Moreover, “eternity will be this: praising God; but it will not be boring, it will be wonderful”!
The Holy Father concluded: “it is she, the Virgin Mary, who brings joy…. We must pray to Our Lady that in bringing Jesus, she give us the grace of joy, of freedom, the grace of praise. That she give us the grace of praising freely …. for he is worthy of praise for ever”.
Concelebrating with the Pope among others was Cardinal Jozef Tomko; also taking part in the Mass was a group of the staff of the Technical Services of the Governorate.
(Santa Marta, 31 May 2013)