One Defining Moment at 52nd IEC: the ‘Statio Orbis’ “Who Do You Say That I Am?”

His Holiness, Pope Francis was reiterating Jesus’ question to his disciples in the last Sunday’s Gospel to tens of thousand attendees of the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress at Hungary’s capital city, Budapest. In his homily, Pope Francis said that “today too, the Lord looks at each of us and asks, ‘Who Am I — in fact — for you?’.”

The Most Holy Father celebrated the concluding Mass for the 52nd IEC at Heroes’ Square “as a Stato Orbis, a liturgy manifesting the unity of the whole Church around the table of the Lord” (Christopher Wells, Vatican News, September 12, 2021).

In his homily, Pope Francis said that the response to Jesus’ question “renews us as disciples which would take place in three decisive steps involving proclaiming Jesus, discerning with Jesus, and following Jesus.”

By “proclaiming Jesus”, the Holy Father said that this step always involves risk of proclaiming false messianism….Peter’s answer to call Jesus ‘The Christ, the Messiah’ is correct but incomplete….From that time on, Jesus revealed himself his real identity, the ‘paschal identity’ we find in the Eucharist…as God broken, as love crucified.”

By “discerning with Jesus”, Pope Francis was referring to “our experience of fruitful interior struggle, a bitter conflict between thinking as God does and thinking as humans do.” Here, the Holy Father asked us to spend more time in adoration before the Eucharist “to allow Jesus the Living Bread to heal us of our self-absorption, open our hearts to self-giving, liberate us from our rigidity and self-concern, free us from the slavery of defending our image, and inspire us to follow wherever he would lead us.”

The last decisive step that His Holiness was saying involves “walking with Jesus” pointing out that the ‘Christian journey is not a race towards success; it begins by stepping back, finding freedom by not needing to be at the center of everything….it is rather to follow in the footsteps of the Master who came to serve and not to be served, stepping out each day to an encounter with our brothers and sisters.” The Pope added that, “The Eucharist impells us to this encounter, to the realization that we are One Body, to the willingness to let ourselves be broken for others.”

Pope Francis concluded his homily in saying that “walking behind Jesus means to always looking ahead, welcoming the kairos of grace when challenged by the Lord’s question, “Who do you say I Am?”. (Cynthia Chu)