The church needs good catechists, who love Christ, live out the Gospel in their lives and courageously go to the margins of society to share the gift of faith with others, Pope Francis told catechists from around the world. "Let us follow him, imitate him in his dynamic of love, of going to others, and let's go out, open the doors, have the audacity to strike out new paths to proclaim the Gospel," he said in a recent talk that was both improvised and drawn from a text. Seated behind a large wooden desk facing his audience in the Vatican's Paul VI hall, the pope joked that he was going to make just three points, "like the old-time Jesuits used to do: one, two, three," he said to laughter. Many in the audience hall took notes, closely following the pope's words. Hundreds of catechists were in Rome for a three-day international congress hosted by the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization. The pope thanked them for their service to the church and said being a catechist isn't a job or a title, it's a vocation, an approach to life. Are you being a catechist for Christ? It doesn't have to be in a formal setting like a classroom or parish hall. You can catechize every day of your life. Talk to you friends, relatives and co-workers and tell them how Christ has changed your life. The gospel reading yesterday spoke of the sin of omission. Not doing anything is as bad as doing evil.
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...