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Homily of the Pope Francis at Vespers with bishops, priests, deacons,
consecrated men and women, seminarians and pastoral workers
Jerónimos Monastery, Lisbon Wednesday, August 2, 2023
Luke (5:2-11) – BEST TO BE READ IN FULL BEFORE READING POPE FRANCIS HOMILY
2 And he saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 And when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking, 7 they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 9 For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the catch of fish which they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zeb′edee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.” 11 And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.
Dear priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, seminarians, pastoral workers, brothers and sisters: Good Afternoon!
I am happy to be among you to live World Youth Day together with so many young people, but also to share your ecclesial journey, your fatigue and your hopes.
I thank Bishop José Ornelas Carvalho for the words he addressed to me; I would like to pray with you so that, as you said, we may be, together with young people, we may be courageous in embracing “God’s dream and finding ways of joyful, generous and transforming participation for the Church and for humanity”.
And this’s not a joke, it’s a program.
I am surrounded by the beauty of this country, a land of passage between the past and the future, a place of ancient traditions and great changes, adorned by lush valleys, golden beaches that overlook the boundless beauty of the ocean which borders Portugal.
This makes me think of the first calling of the disciples: those whom Jesus called to the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
I would like to dwell on this call, which underlines what we have just heard in the brief reading at this Vespers: the Lord has saved us, and he has called us, not by our works, but by his grace (cf. 2 Tm 1,9). This happened in the lives of the first disciples when Jesus, passing by, “saw two boats on the shore of the lake; the fishermen had come down and were washing their nets” (Luke 5:2).
Then Jesus got into Simon’s boat and, after speaking to the crowd, changed the lives of those fishermen by inviting them to go out into the deep and cast their nets.
We immediately see a contrast:
on the one hand, the fishermen get out of the boat to wash the nets, that is to say, to clean them, to take good care of them and to return home;
on the other hand, Jesus gets into the boat and invites them to cast the nets again for fishing.
They emphasise the differences:
the disciples go down, Jesus goes up;
they want to keep the nets, He wants them to go back into the sea for fishing.
First, there are the fishermen getting out of the boat to wash the nets.
This is the scene Jesus sees and He stops right there. He had just begun to preach in the synagogue of Nazareth, but his countrymen had driven him out of the city and even tried to kill him (cf. Lk 4:28-30). Then he came out of the holy place and began preaching the word among the people, in the streets where the women and men of his time toiled every day.
Christ’s interest was to bring Gods closeness, to the places and situations where people live, struggle, hope, sometimes with failures and frustrations in their hands, just like those fishermen who. had not taken anything during the night.
Jesus looks tenderly at Simon and his companions who, tired and disappointed, were routinely washing their nets, making a repetitive, automatic gesture, but also full of fatigue and resignation: all that remained was to return home empty-handed.
There are moments in our ecclesial journey, when we can experience a similar weariness when we seem to hold only empty nets. Weariness.
Someone once said, “I am afraid when good people get tired.” There is a weariness when we have only empty nets in our hands.
It is not uncommon to feel this way in countries with an ancient Christian tradition, affected by many social and cultural changes, and increasingly marked by secularism, by indifference to God and by a growing distance from the practice of the faith.
And here is the danger of creeping worldliness.
And this is often aggravated by the disappointment or anger with which some people look at the Church, in some cases because of our bad witness and the scandals that have disfigured its face, and which call us to a humble, continuous purification, starting from the cry of pain of the victims, who must always be welcomed and listened to.
But, whenever we feel discouraged – and each of us can think of times when we have felt discouraged – the danger is that we will be tempted to leave the boat and get caught in the nets of resignation and pessimism.
Instead, let us trust that Jesus continues to reach out and hold His beloved Bride.
Let us bring our fatigue and our tears to the Lord, so that he may be able to respond to our pastoral and spiritual needs, dialoguing with one another with an open heart to experience new ways to follow.
When we are discouraged, whether consciously or not, we “retire”, we “step. back” from apostolic zeal, we begin to lose it, and to become “functionaries of the sacred“.
How sad it is when a person who consecrated his or her life to God becomes an “official”, nothing more than administrator of things. It’s very sad indeed.
In fact, as soon as the apostles get out of the boat to wash their nets, Jesus gets into the boat and invites them to cast their nets again.
In moments of discouragement, the moment of “retirement”, let Jesus get back into the boat again, with the excitement of the beginning, an excitement that needs to be recovered, reborn and relived.
He comes to us in the midst of our loneliness and our crises to help us begin anew.
The spirituality of new beginnings.
Don’t be afraid of it.
That’s life: falling and starting over, getting bored and getting joy again.
We put our hands in the hands of Jesus.
Today too he stands at the shore of our lives, to rekindle our hope and to say to us, as he did to Simon and the others: “Go out into the deep and cast your nets” (Lk 5:4).
And when we lose our excitement, we find a thousand justifications for not casting our nets, and above all that sullen resignation that is like a worm that eats away at the soul.
Brothers and sisters, we are certainly living in difficult times. We know that.
But the Lord is asking this Church today: “Do you want to get out of the boat and sink into disappointment, or do you want to get in and allow the newness of my Word to take the helm again? He asks you, priests, consecrated men and women, bishops “Do you want to preserve only the past that is behind you, or do you want to lower the nets once again with enthusiasm for the catch?” This is what the Lord asks of us: to rekindle our “restless” enthusiasm for the spread of the Gospel.
When we become creatures of habit and get bored, and the mission becomes a “job”, it is time to open our hearts to this second call of Jesus, because he never stops calling us. He calls us to make us set out; he calls us to be transformed.
Do not be afraid of this second call of Jesus. It is not an illusion: he continues to knock on our door. And we can say that we experience a “good” restlessness when we allow ourselves be seduced by this second call of Jesus. A good restlessness, that the immensity of the ocean holds out to you, dear Portuguese friends: an impulse to set out from the shore, not to conquer the world – or simply to fish for bacalos – but to make the world rejoice in the consoling joy of the Gospel.
Here we can think of the words of one of your great missionaries, Father António Vieira, known as “Paiaçu”, “great Father”. He once said that God gave you a small country for your birth but by making you gaze at the ocean, He gave you a whole world for which to die: “To be born, a small land; to die, the whole world; to be born in Portugal, to die, the whole world” (A. VIEIRA, Homilies, vol. III, t. VII, Porto, 1959, p. 69).
To lower the nets again and to embrace the whole world with the hope that the Gospel brings: that is what we are called to do!
This is not the time to stop, and give up, to pull the boat to shore or to look back.
We must not flee from the present out of fear, or take refuge in the forms and practices of the past. Now is the God-given time of grace to sail boldly into the sea of evangelization and of mission.
To do this, however, we also must make certain choices.
I would like to point out three of those decisions, inspired by the Gospel.
First, to put out into the deep.
With courage. Don’t hesitate! Go out into the deep. In order to lower the nets again, we must set out and leave behind the shores of our disappointments and our inertia; we must leave behind the faint melancholy and the cynicism and irony that can often afflict us in the face of difficulties. Deep melancholy, cynicism and irony.
Let us examine our conscience on this point. To recover excitement, now in a “second edition”, more mature and the fruit of failure and weariness.
It is not easy to require an adult enthusiasm. But it must be done if we are to pass from defeatism to faith, like Simon, who even after struggling all night in vain, was able to say: “If. you say so, I will let down the nets” (Lk 5:5).
In order to entrust ourselves daily to the Lord and His Word, however, words are not enough; much prayer is also necessary.
Here I would like to ask a question, that everyone can answer in his or her heart: How do I pray? As a “blah, blah, blah”, half asleep in front of the tabernacle because I don’t know how to talk to the Lord. Do I pray? How do I pray?
Only in adoration, only in the presence of the Lord, do we really rediscover our taste and passion for evangelization. Strangely enough, we have lost the prayer of adoration; and everyone, priests, bishops consecrated men and women, must recover it, this ability to be quiet in the Lord’s presence.
Mother Teresa [of Calcutta], busy with so many things in life, never neglected adoration, even at times when her faith was shaken and she wondered if it was all true or not. A similar moment of darkness was also experienced by Therese of the Child Jesus. In prayer, we overcome the temptation to carry out a “ministry of nostalgia and regrets”. Once, in a convent, there was a nun – this really happened – who complained about everything. I forget her name, but the other nuns called her “Sister Lamentation”. How often do we turn our frustrations and disappointments into complaints! Once we give up these complaints, we find the strength to put out once more into the deep, without ideologies, without worldliness. It is the spiritual worldliness that overtakes us and gives rise to clericalism. A clericalism is not only of clerics, for clericalized lay persons are worse than clerics.
This clericalism is our ruin. As a great spiritual master once said, spiritual worldliness – which gives rise to clericalism – is one of the worst evils that can arise in the Church. We must overcome our difficulties without ideologies, without worldliness, driven by a sole desire: that the Gospel be preached to all people.
You yourselves have had many examples along the way. Since we are surrounded by so many young people, I would like to mention a young person from Lisbon, Saint John Brito, a young man born in this place, who centuries ago, in great hardship, set sail for India and began to speak and dress like as the people of the places he went, in order to tell them about Jesus. Today, we too are called to lower our nets these days and ener into dialogue with everyone, proposing the Gospel message, even if it means risking a few storms. Like the young people who come here from all over the world to face the giant waves, we too must set out fearlessly. In fact, we need never be afraid of the open seas, because in the midst of storms and the struggles against oncoming winds, Jesus comes to meet us and says “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid” (Mt14:27). ow often have we experienced this? Each of us can answer this question in his or her heart. And if we have not had it, it is because something has broken down during the storm.
A second choice: to work together to offer pastoral care.
Together. In the Gospel, Jesus gives Peter the task of going out into the deep, but then, speaking in the plural, tells the others: “Cast out your nets” (Lk 5:4).
Peter is at the helm of the boat, but there are others on board, and all are called to let down their nets. Together. And when they caught a large number of fish, they did not think they could do it alone or treat the blessing as their private property, but, as the Gospel tells us, “they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them” (Lk 5:7). In this way, they filled two boats, not one.
“One” speaks to us of solitude, self-absorption, the illusion of self-sufficiency, whereas “two” speaks of relationship.
The Church is synodal: she is communion, mutual support and common journey.
This is the aim of the current Synod, which will have its first General Assembly in October. There must be room for everyone on the boat of the Church: all the baptized are called to come aboard, to let down the nets and to participate personally in the proclamation of the Gospel. Do not forget this word: together! Whenever I speak about the opening of apostolic perspectives, I am deeply touched by the Gospel passage in which the wedding feast of the Son is prepared and the people do not come. What does the Lord, the master of the feast, say? “Go out into the highways and byways and bring everyone, everyone: the sick and the healthy, the young and the old, the righteous and the sinners. Everyone!” Do not make the Church a customs station, selecting who may enter and who may not. All, with their past lives, their sins, as they are, before God, as they are, before life. All of them. Let us not have customs houses in the Church.
This is a great challenge, especially in those situations where priests and consecrated persons are under great pressure because of their diminishing numbers and increasing pastoral demands. Nevertheless, we can see this as an opportunity to involve the lay faithful with fraternal enthusiasm and sound pastoral creativity. The nets of the first disciples can thus serve as an image of the Church, which is a “network of relationships”, human, spiritual and pastoral. When dialogue, co-responsibility and participation are lacking, the Church grows old. I would put it this way: never a Bishop without his priests and the People of God; never a priest without his brother priests; and all of us together, as Church – priests, consecrated men and women, and the lay faithful – never without others, never without the world. . Without worldliness, yes, but not without the world. In the Church we help one another, we support one another, and we feel called to spread a climate of constructive fraternity beyond our own walls. In this regard, Saint Peter tells us that we are living stones being built into a spiritual house (cf. 1 Pt 2:5). I would like to add that you, the faithful of Portugal, are also a “calçada”; you are the precious stones of that friendly and splendid pavement on which the Gospel must walk: not even one stone can be missing, otherwise its absence will be immediately noticed. This is the Church we are called to build with God’s help!
Finally, a third decision: to become fishermen of men and women.
Do not be afraid. This is not a matter of proselytizing, but of proclaiming the challenging message of the Gospel. Jesus uses this beautiful image: fishers of men and women. Jesus entrusts his disciples with the mission of going out into the sea of the world. In Scripture, the sea is often seen as a place of evil and hostile forces that people cannot control. To be “fishers of men and women” and to draw them out of the water means to help them return to the place from which they have fallen, to save them from the evil that threatens to overwhelm them, to revive them from every form of death. But to do this without proselytizing, but with love. One of the signs of certain ecclesial movements in difficulty is proselytism. When an ecclesial movement or a diocese, a bishop, a priest, a nun or a lay person engages in proselytism, it is not Christian. It is Christian to invite, to welcome, to help, but without proselytism. The Gospel is a proclamation of life in the midst of death, of freedom in the midst of slavery, of light in the midst of darkness. In the words of Saint Ambrose, “the means to be used in apostolic fishing are like nets: for nets do not kill the catch, but keep it alive; they draw it from the depths into the light” (Exp. Luc. IV, 68-79). There is so much darkness in today’s society, even here in Portugal, everywhere. We seem to have lost a sense of enthusiasm, the courage to dream, the strength to face challenges and to have confidence in the future; and so we sail amidst doubts and insecurities, especially economic insecurity, an impoverishment of social friendship and a lack of hope.. As a Church, we are entrusted with the task of going out into the waters of this sea and casting out the nets of the Gospel, not pointing fingers, not accusing, but bringing to the men and women of our time an offer of life, the life of Jesus. We are called to bring to them the openness of the Gospel, to invite them to the party, to a multicultural society; to bring the closeness of the Father to situations of increasing insecurity and poverty, especially among young people.
To bring the love of Christ where families are fragile and relationships are broken. To bring the joy of the Spirit where discouragement and fatalism reign.
As one of your authors wrote: “In order to reach the infinite, and I believe that it is possible to reach it, we need a secure harbour, only one, from which to set out towards the Indefinite” (F. PESSOA, Livro do Desassossego, Lisbon, 1998, 247).
Let us dream of the Church in Portugal as a “sefe port” for all those who face the straits, the shipwrecks and the storms of life!
Dear brothers and sisters: to all of you, lay people, religious, priests and bishops, to each and everyone, I say: Do not be afraid, let down the nets. Do not go around throwing accusations – telling people, “this is a sin” or “this is not a sin”.
Let everyone come, we can talk later, but first they should hear the invitation of Jesus; repentance comes later, closeness to Jesus comes later.
Please, do not turn the Church into a customs house: where the righteous, the people whose lives are in order, those who are properly married, can enter, while everyone else remains outside.
No. That is not the Church.
Righteous and sinners, good and bad: everyone, everyone, everyone.
And then, may the Lord can help us to straighten things out. But everyone.
I thank you very much, brothers and sisters, for listening to me, which must have been boring!
I thank you for all that you do, and for your example, especially your hidden example and your perseverance in getting up every day to begin again or to continue what you have begun. Thank you for all that you do!
I entrust you to Our Lady of Fatima, to the care of the Angel of Portugal and to the protection of your great saints.
Here in Lisbon, I think especially of Saint Anthony (whom the Paduans stole from you), a tireless apostle, inspired preacher and faithful disciple of the Gospel, attentive to the evils of society and filled with compassion for the poor.
May Saint Anthony intercede for you and obtain for you the joy of a new “miraculous catch of fish”.
Then you can tell me about it. And I ask you, please, not to forget to pray for me. Thank you very much.
