ROME CNS – Only through loving others and accepting love in spite of one’s own failures can Christians truly understand and proclaim the joy of Christ’s victory over death, said French Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille.
Celebrating Mass at the parish of Santa Maria ai Monti, his titular church in Rome, Cardinal Aveline said that like Peter, who accepted Jesus’ love despite feeling guilty over his own betrayal, Christians must learn to accept love “even when all our failures to love are known.”
“It is enough to love and accept being loved. This is the Christian way,” Cardinal Aveline said in his homily May 4. Reporters who were present shared a recording of the cardinal’s homily, which he gave in Italian.
Easter is “an event of love that surpasses us and yet draws us in, an unheard-of event that transforms us at the deepest level of our being, a joy that has no foundation other than love and that can be understood only through love,” he said.
Like many of his fellow cardinals who are in Rome preparing for the May 7 conclave, Cardinal Aveline went to celebrate Sunday Mass at his titular church, which was celebrating first Communions that day.
Created a cardinal in 2022 by Pope Francis, Cardinal Aveline – who was born and raised in Algeria until the age of 4 when his family fled after the country gained its independence – is considered a champion for migrants and refugees.
He was tasked by the late pontiff to coordinate a churchwide network that links 22 African, Asian and European countries bordering the Mediterranean. His experience of dialogue and ministry in a multicultural and multireligious setting has made him an influential voice as cardinals are set to elect Pope Francis’ successor.
In his homily, Cardinal Aveline reflected on the Sunday Gospel reading in which Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” which mirrored the disciple’s threefold betrayal of Christ before his crucifixion.
“How heavy this burden is on Peter’s shoulders,” the cardinal said. “Now, on this shore, at the dawn of a new day, his heart flooded with mercy and joy, Peter finally understood. He realized that to understand, it is enough to love and to accept being loved, even when all our failures to love are known.”
Addressing the children receiving their first Communion, Cardinal Aveline reminded them that Christians “love and accept being loved” and that the guilt of Peter’s denial was replaced by “an intimate and profound reconciliation where the humility of the repentant sinner is consumed by the boundless goodness of forgiveness.”
“Catechism is good,” he told the children. “But this is a love that can be understood only through love. I say this to you, children, I say it to all of us: Only love is worthy of faith. Only love, only love is worthy of faith.”
Jesus’ three questions to Peter are the same he “asks us every day” and are meant to “draw us into life with him and set ablaze in our hearts the living flame of love from his Gospel, as Saint John of the Cross said.”
Cardinal Aveline concluded his homily by calling on the faithful to “not be afraid of the truth” and to not be afraid of those “who are different from us, because every man, every woman is a brother, a sister for whom Christ died.”
“Do not forget this,” the French cardinal said. “Every man, every woman is a brother, a sister for whom Christ died. Let us not be afraid to commit ourselves to following Christ and to proclaiming the Gospel through the humble witness of our lives, through love and respect for the most vulnerable, from birth to death.”
Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo of Jakarta, Indonesia, who arrived in Rome on May 4 in the evening, missing most of the general congregations, offered a simple response to that same question: “It will depend on the Holy Spirit.” He said he would enter the Sistine Chapel “with an open heart.”
Some moments were more lighthearted. English Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe paused to autograph a baseball for a visiting American – a collector who hopes that among the dozens he has collected these days, one carries the signature of the future Pope.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco of Algiers, urged patience. “There’s no rush for the white smoke,” he told reporters. When asked if he hoped for a French Pope, he smiled and replied, “An Algerian one would be fine too.”
“But we need a good Pope,” he said, all laughter aside. When pressed about what that would mean, he answered: “Someone who can carry the message of the Gospel. Who can share the beatitudes with the world. You know what I mean. Someone who can do what Pope Francis did,” he said.
“We are not discussing names in the congregations, but describing the personality we are looking for in the next Pope, who must be a man with a strong personality, but who is also a good person for whom sharing the Gospel is a priority,” he said.
Ines San Martin writes for OSV News from Rome. She is vice president of communications at the Pontifical Mission Societies USA.
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