The last words of Cardinal Re before the election

We read in the acts of the apostles only after the ascent of Christ in heaven, and pending Pentecost, all were assiduous to prayer with Mary, the mother of Jesus (cf. AC 1, 14).

This is exactly what we too do, shortly before the start of the conclave, under the gaze of the Virgin Mary placed next to the altar, in this basilica which rises on the tomb of the apostle Peter.

We feel that all the people of God are united to us, with his faith, his love for the pope and his confident expectation.

We are here to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit, to implore its light and its strength so that the Pope is elected that the Church and humanity need this difficult and complex turning point in history.

Praying, by invoking the Holy Spirit, is the only right attitude that is suitable, while the cardinals voters are preparing for an act of the highest human and ecclesial responsibility, and a choice of exceptional importance; A human act for which all personal consideration must be abandoned, by having only the God of Jesus Christ and the good of the Church and of humanity in the Spirit and in the Heart.

In the Gospel which has been proclaimed, resonate words that lead us to the heart of the supreme message, the will of Jesus, given to his apostles on the evening of the Last Supper to the Cenacle: “My command, here it is: love yourself as I loved you” (Jn 15, 12). In order to specify this “as I loved you” and indicate how far our love must go, Jesus adds: “There is no greater love than giving his life for those we love” (Jn 15:13).

It is the message of love that Jesus defines as a “new” commandment. New because it transforms into positive and considerably widens the warning of the Old Testament which said: “Do not do to others what you would not want to be done to you”.

The love that Jesus reveals does not know any limits and must characterize the thoughts and the action of all his disciples who must always, in their behavior, manifest an authentic love and undertake to build a new civilization, that which Paul VI called “civilization of love”. Love is the only force capable of changing the world.

Jesus gave us the example of this love at the beginning of the last period by a surprising gesture: he lowered himself to the service of others, washing the feet of the apostles, without discrimination, not excluding Judas who was going to betray him.

This message from Jesus echoes what we heard in the first reading of the mass, where the Prophet Isaiah reminded us that the fundamental quality of the pastors is love to the total gift of self.

The liturgical texts of this Eucharistic celebration therefore invite us to fraternal love, mutual aid and commitment to ecclesial communion and universal human fraternity. Among the tasks of each stone successor, there is that of growing communion: communion of all Christians with Christ; Communion of bishops with the Pope; communion of bishops between them. It is not a self -referential communion but tense towards communion between people, peoples and cultures, anxious that the church is always “house and school of communion”.