In the Church it is necessary to build "harmony" and not "parties or ropes", with an eye to the past. Pope Francis asked again in the homily of the Chrism Mass that opens the sacred Triduum of Easter. Presiding at Mass in St. Peter's Basilica with hundreds of priests from "his" diocese of Rome, in the presence of bishops and cardinals, Pope Francis addressed consecrated persons in his homily affirming: "Brothers, building harmony among us is not so much a good method for the ecclesial structure to proceed better, it is not a question of strategy or courtesy: it is a requirement internal to the life of the Spirit. One sins against the Spirit who is communion when one becomes, even out of lightness, instruments of division; And it plays into the hands of the enemy, who does not come out into the open and loves rumors and insinuations, foments parties and ropes, feeds nostalgia for the past, distrust, pessimism, fear. Let us be careful, please, not to sully the anointing of the Spirit and the garment of Mother Church with disunity, with polarization, with every lack of charity and communion".

And the Pope added: "Let us remember that the Spirit, 'the "we" of God', prefers the community form: availability with respect to one's own needs, obedience with respect to one's own tastes, humility with respect to one's own demands".

The Chrism Mass is concelebrated by the Pope with the cardinals, bishops, the Pope's vicar in Rome, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, celebrant at the altar, and the priests of the diocese. During the celebration, the priests renewed the promises made at the time of their ordination; Then the blessing, as happens in all cathedral churches on the morning of Holy Thursday, of the oil of the sick, of the oil of catechumens and of chrism.

The Pope invited priests to "preserve harmony" and to welcome and forgive everyone. That of the priest, he stressed, is a mission made of kindness and forgiveness "always", of positivity and optimism. "Let us help each other, brothers, to preserve harmony, beginning not with others, but with each one of himself; asking ourselves: in my words, in my comments, in what I say and write, is there the stamp of the Spirit or that of the world? I also think of the priest's kindness: but so often we priests are rude. If people find even in us - Pope Francis said in his homily - dissatisfied and discontented people, spinsters, who criticize and point the finger, where will they see harmony? How many do not approach or distance themselves because in the Church they do not feel welcomed and loved, but looked upon with suspicion and judged! In God's name, let us welcome and forgive, always! And let us remember that being angular and complaining, in addition to not producing anything good, corrupts the proclamation, because it counter-witnesses God, who is communion and harmony. This displeases first of all the Holy Spirit, whom the apostle Paul exhorts us not to grieve".

The Pontiff then urged priests to overcome their crises and never to lapse into mediocrity. "Everyone, sooner or later, happens to experience disappointments, fatigues and weaknesses, with the ideal that seems to wear out between the demands of reality, while a certain habituality takes over and some trials, previously difficult to imagine, make fidelity appear more uncomfortable than in the past," the Pope said. From this sense of disappointment "one can come out badly, gliding towards a certain mediocrity, dragging oneself tired into a normality wherethree dangerous temptations creep in: that of compromise, for which one is content with what one can do; that of surrogates, for which we try to 'recharge' with something other than our anointing; that of discouragement, which is the most common, for which, discontented, we go forward by inertia".

For the Pope this is "the great risk: while appearances remain intact, 'I am a priest, I am a priest', one withdraws into oneself and draws to live listlessly; The fragrance of anointing no longer perfumes life and the heart does not expand but narrows, wrapped in disenchantment".

And "when the priesthood slowly slips into clericalism, the priest forgets that he is a pastor in order to become a cleric of state," the Pope warned. But a crisis can instead "also become the turning point of the priesthood, the decisive stage of the spiritual life, in which the last choice must be made between Jesus and the world, between the heroic nature of charity and mediocrity, between the cross and a certain well-being, between holiness and honest fidelity to religious commitment". The Pope reiterated to priests that "careerism" must be avoided.

For the Pontiff, it is "an indispensable struggle: it is in fact indispensable, as St. Gregory the Great wrote, that those who proclaim the word of God first dedicate themselves to their own way of life, so that then, drawing from their own lives, they learn what and how to say it. Let no one presume to say outside what he has not heard inside before."

Pope Francis has donated to the priests of the diocese of Rome a book by Renè Voillaume, entitled "The Second Call", dedicated to the theme of "the courage of fragility". The Pontiff himself, in his homily, announced his particular gift, calling it a "classic".

AFP

Pope Francis during the celebration of the Chrism Mass, in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican - Holy Week 6 April 2023