VATICAN CITY — In the mold of Sts. Peter and Paul, Catholics are called to be members of a church that constantly follows Jesus and proclaims his word by putting preaching at the center of its ministry, Pope Francis said.
Dressed in red vestments to recall the apostles’ martyrdom, during his homily at a Mass for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul in St. Peter’s Basilica June 29, Pope Francis reflected on how Rome’s patron saints responded to “the most essential and most important question of all: Who is Jesus for me? Who is Jesus in my life?”
St. Peter’s answer, he said, “can be summed up in one word: follow.” When Jesus called out to St. Peter, he did not respond “with a faultless doctrinal formula or a set of preconceived notions,” the pope said, but “left his nets and followed Jesus, without demanding any kind of guarantee beforehand.”
The apostle’s response “invites us to be a church that follows. A church that strives to be a disciple of the Lord, a lowly servant of the Gospel,” he said. “Only in this way will the church be capable of dialoguing with everyone and becoming a place of accompaniment, closeness and hope for the men and women of our time.”
For St. Paul, on the other hand, encountering Jesus means to “proclaim, to preach the Gospel.”
“The apostle teaches us that we grow in faith and in knowledge of the mystery of Christ when we preach and bear witness to him before others,” said Pope Francis. “This is always the case: whenever we evangelize, we are ourselves evangelized.”
Celebrating Mass with metropolitan archbishops appointed in the last year, the pope said that St. Paul’s spirit of evangelization is “necessary also for the church in our day: to put preaching at the center.”
He asked Catholics to form a church that is “outgoing, finding joy not in the things of the world, but in preaching the Gospel before the world and opening people’s hearts to the presence of God.”
That mission is achieved, the pope said, by bringing Jesus everywhere: in families, relationships, neighborhoods, civil society, the church, political
