Vatican City, Sep 17, 2013 / 10:10 am
The Church militant is similar to a widow and progresses through history searching for her divine spouse Jesus Christ, Pope Francis preached in his homily for daily Mass Sept. 17.
The widow of Naim in Scripture is "an icon of the Church, because the Church is in a certain sense a widow," the Holy Father said at the chapel of the Vatican's Domus Sanctae Marthae, reflecting on the day's Gospel.
"The Bridegroom is gone and she walks in history, hoping to find him, to meet with him. And she will be his true bride. In the meantime she - the Church - is alone! The Lord is invisible. She has a certain dimension of widowhood."
Christ's encounter with the widow of Naim shows that he has "the capacity to suffer with us, to be close to our sufferings and make them his own," the Pope said, and the Lord "had great compassion" on her.