From Vatican News:

Saint Luke’s Gospel this Sunday describes how “great multitudes accompanied Jesus”. As if to illustrate that Gospel, a great multitude of nearly one million people gathered in Antananarivo on Sunday morning to attend the Mass celebrated by Pope Francis.

Catholics make up 35% of Madagascar’s population of 26 million people. The Pope began his homily by acknowledging how “you too have come in great numbers to receive Jesus’ message and follow in His footsteps. But you also know that following Jesus is not easy”. Today’s Gospel, he added, “reminds us of how demanding that commitment can be”. “Jesus’ first demand has to do with family relationships”, said the Pope. When “family” becomes the decisive criterion for what we consider right and good”, he continued, “we end up justifying and even ‘consecrating’ practices that lead to the culture of privilege and exclusion: favouritism, patronage and, as a consequence, corruption”.