By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY — When catechists teach, their aim is not simply to pass on information about the faith but to “place the word of life in hearts, so that it may bear the fruits of a good life,” Pope Leo XIV said.
“The Gospel announces to us that everyone’s life can change because Christ rose from the dead. This event is the truth that saves us; therefore, it must be known and proclaimed,” the pope told some 20,000 catechists from more than 115 countries attending the Jubilee for Catechists.
But just proclaiming the Good News is not enough, the pope said in his homily at Mass Sept. 28 in St. Peter’s Square. “It must be loved. It is love that leads us to understand the Gospel.”
During the liturgy, Pope Leo formally installed in the ministry of catechist 39 women and men from 16 countries, including David Spesia, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Evangelization and Catechesis, and Marilyn Santos, associate director of the secretariat.
Before the pope gave his homily, a deacon called the names of each of the 39, who answered in Italian, “Eccomi,” or “present.” After the homily, Pope Leo presented each of them with a crucifix.
“Let your ministry ever be grounded in a deep life of prayer, let it be built up in sound doctrine and animated by genuine apostolic zeal,” the pope told them. “As stewards of the mission entrusted to the church by Christ, you must always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.”
The Gospel reading at the Mass was the parable of the rich man and Lazarus from Luke 16:19-31.
In the parable, the pope said, Lazarus is ignored by the rich man “and yet God is close to him and remembers his name.”
But the rich man has no name in the parable, “because he has lost himself by forgetting his neighbor,” the pope said. “He is lost in the thoughts of his heart: full of things and empty of love. His possessions do not make him a good person.”
“The story that Christ tells us is, unfortunately, very relevant today,” Pope Leo said. “At the doorstep of today’s opulence stands the misery of entire peoples, ravaged by war and exploitation.”
“Through the centuries, nothing seems to have changed: how many Lazaruses die before the greed that forgets justice, before profits that trample on charity, and before riches that are blind to the pain of the poor,” he said.
In the parable, the rich man dies and is cast into the netherworld. He asks Abraham to send a messenger to his brothers to warn them and call them to repent.
The Gospel story and the words of Scripture that catechists are called to share are not meant to “disappoint or discourage” people, but to awaken their consciences, the pope said.
Echoing the words of Pope Francis, Pope Leo said the heart of catechesis is the proclamation that “the Lord Jesus is risen, the Lord Jesus loves you, and he has given his life for you; risen and alive, he is close to you and waits for you every day.”
That truth, he said, should prompt people to love God and to love others in return.
God’s love, he said, “transforms us by opening our hearts to the word of God and to the face of our neighbor.”
Pope Leo reminded parents that they are the first to teach their children about God, his promises and commandments.
And he thanked everyone who has been a witness to others of faith, hope and charity, cooperating in the church’s “pastoral work by listening to questions, sharing in struggles and serving the desire for justice and truth that dwells in the human conscience.”
Teaching the faith is a community effort, he said, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church “is the ‘travel guidebook’ that protects us from individualism and discord, because it attests to the faith of the entire Catholic Church.”
