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Assisi, 17th June 2007 (CNA) - The Holy Father
celebrated mass today, robed in green vestments and a large white pallium,
in the plaza in front of the Basilica of St. Francis, in Assisi. The Pope’s
message to the civil officials, priests, nuns, and many pilgrims was that
they will find themselves according to the measure that they give themselves
to God.
The Pope celebrated the 600 year anniversary of the conversion of St.
Francis, and he used this event to speak about personal conversion in his
homily. The Word of God today, the Holy Father noted, offers us “three
converted figures.”
The first is David, who, being at the apex of his political power, “is also
at the lowest point of his moral life.” Benedict reflected on how man is
truly both greatness and misery: “he is greatness because he bears within
himself the image of God and is the object of his love; he is misery because
he can make poor use of his freedom which is his great privilege, even to
the point of setting himself against his Creator.”
Struck by the prophet Nathan’s words, “You are that man!”, the king “enters
into sincere repentance and opens himself to the offer of mercy.” Together
with David, today’s festival offers us the figure of St. Francis.
As Francis’s conversion shows, “to convert ourselves to love means to pass
from bitterness to sweetness, from sadness to the true joy. Man is truly
himself, and fulfils himself most truly, in the measure in which he lives
with God and for God,” Benedict affirmed. Francis discovered “in the face
of the lepers, the mystery of the self-offering of the Son of God.”
Francis’s conversion occurred through a strong encounter with the Risen
Lord: “Francis fell in love with Christ.” After his conversion, Benedict
affirmed, “his path was none other than the daily effort to immerse himself
in Christ…The wounds of the Crucified one wounded his heart.”
Finally, the Holy Father cited the ‘sinful woman’ of today’s Gospel as an
example of conversion. The woman “loved much because she had been forgiven
much”, and was fortunate to find Christ. For this woman, “who had been so
often taken advantage of, and so often judged”, found “in Jesus a pure eye,
a heart capable of loving without taking advantage. In the gaze and in the
heart of Jesus she receives the revelation of God-Love!”
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