Pentecost Vigil: The Church must bring Jesus to a humanity in crisis
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis puts his certainty of faith down to his grandmother,
from whom he first heard the Christian proclamation; to a life changing encounter
with Christ at age 17, through a unknown priest who heard his Confession; to his daily
praying of the Rosary to his ‘Mother’, Our Lady and to allowing himself to be held
in God’s gaze even when he nods off after a tiring day, while in prayer before the
Tabernacle. Emer McCarthy reports Listen:
These are just some of the
personal insights that Pope Francis shared with over 200 thousand people who stretched
from St Peter’s Basilica down to the banks of the Tiber and millions more who joined
him last night via TV and radio to celebrate a Prayer Vigil for the Feast of Pentecost
with New Movements.
He also told them "today mankind is in crisis, this is
why the current crisis is a profound one". Where the death of a homless man or a
starving child does not make news headlines but a drop in the stock market is treated
like a national tragedy. This - he said - is also why we must not isolate ourselves
“in the parish, among friends, in our movement, with those who think like us ...".
"The Church must go out to the outskirst of existence itself."
Convoked by
the Pope as part of the great events for the Year of Faith, the Movements – over 150
in total – filled the square bring half of Rome to a standstill from early afternoon.
They heard testimonies from members of the various realities from Renewal in the Spirit
to the Foccolari Movement, St Egidio Community, Communion and Liberation and the Neocatecheumenal
Way but to name a few.
At 17: 30 the Pope entered the square on his jeep and
for a full 30 minutes toured through the throng arriving half-way down the Via della
Conciliazione to greet as many people as possible. Greeting the Pope, Archbishop
Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, said
that the impetus for this oceanic gathering "is to find the most appropriate and consistent
way to live and witness to the Gospel in today's world." After two readings taken
from St Paul’s Letter to the Romans and the treatise of St. Irenaeus, there were two
testimonies. John Waters, an Irish journalist, spoke of his leaving the faith, in
search of a freedom that "makes us feel all-powerful and deeply powerless," typical
man of today who "seeks to dominate everything and that's why he feels isolated and
alone" . He then recalled being brought to “ his knees" by alcoholism, from which
he was saved thanks to some friends who helped him rediscover the faith of his childhood.
Now, he concluded "I am not only John, but one with the One who created me and I could
not be free in any other way."
The second testimony was that of Paul Bhatti,
former minister for minorities in Pakistan, who thanked Pope Francis for being able
to "share the pain and hopes of the Christians of Pakistan." He recalled the mission
of his brother Shahbaz, who was killed by Islamic extremists March 2, 2011, his commitment
to the poor, the marginalized, the weak who "are the body of the persecuted Christ."
At the same time, his brother never stopped dreaming of "a Pakistan free and open
to all communities and minorities", in dialogue with Muslims, who "bear witness to
the love of Jesus." Four representatives from the Movements then addressed their
questions to Pope Francis. Pope, who had previously read the questions, gave an unscripted
response, apologizing at the end that he was "too long". The dialogue lasted for at
least 40 minutes:
Pope Francis began by wishing everyone his signatory “Good
evening”. He said “I am very happy to meet you and that we are all coming together
in this square, to pray, to be united and to wait for the gift of the Spirit. I knew
your questions beforehand so I thought about them - this is not without some thought!
First, the truth! I have them written here. But that first one, "how were you able
to achieve certainty of faith in your life, and what the path can you indicate to
us so that each one of us can overcome our fragility of faith?" Is a historical question,
because it is about my history, my life , no?
I have had the good fortune to
grow up in a family where the faith was lived in a simple and concrete manner, but
it was especially my grandmother, my father's mother, who marked my journey of faith.
She was a woman who explained everything to us, who spoke to us of Jesus, who taught
us the Catechism ... I always remember that on Good Friday in the evening, she would
take us to the Candle-light Procession, and at the end of this Procession, we would
arrive before the recumbent Christ, and my grandmother made us - us kids - kneel down
and she would say: "Look, He is dead, but tomorrow he will Rise up!." I received my
first Christian proclamation right from this woman, from my grandmother, right? That
is something beautiful! The first proclamation is in the home, within the family,
right? And this makes me think of the love of many mothers and so many grandmothers
in the transmission of the faith. They are the ones that transmit the faith. Even
in the early days, because St. Paul said to Timothy: "I remember the faith of your
mother and your grandmother." To all the mothers who are here, to all grandmothers,
[I ask you to ] think about this! Transmitting the faith. Because God puts people
alongside us who help our journey of faith. We do not find our faith 'in the abstract,
no: it is always a person who preaches it to us, who tells us who Jesus is, who gives
us the faith, who gives us the first announcement. And so it was in my first experience
of faith.
But…there is a very important day for me: September 21, 1953. I was
almost 17 It was the "Day of the Student," for us the start of Spring – for you the
start of Autumn. Before going to the festival, I went to my parish. And there I found
a priest I did not know, but I felt the need to confess. And this was for me an experience
of encounter: I found that someone was waiting for me. I do not know what happened,
I do not remember, I do not know if it was that priest who was there, whom I did not
know, why I felt this urge to confess, but the truth is that someone was waiting for
me. Someone was waiting for me for a long time. And after the confession I felt that
something had changed. I was not the same. I felt a voice call me: I was convinced
that I had to become a priest. And this experience of faith is important. We say that
we must seek God, go to Him to ask for forgiveness ... but when we go, He is waiting
for us, He is the first one there! We, in Spanish, we have a word that explains this
well: "The Lord always there primerea" is first, is waiting for you! And it is a really
great grace to find Someone who is waiting for you. You go to Him a sinner, but He
is already waiting to forgive you. That experience that the Prophets of Israel said
that the Lord is like the flower of almond trees, the first flowers of Spring. Before
any other flowers appear, there He is: He who waits. The Lord is waiting for us.
And when we seek Him out, we find this reality: that He is waiting to welcome us,
to give us His love. And this creates wonder in the heart of those who do not believe,
and this is how faith grows! With an encounter with a Person, with an encounter with
the Lord. Some will say, "No, I prefer to study faith in books!" Ah, yes it is important
to study. But look, that alone is not enough! The important thing is our encounter
with Jesus, our encounter with Him, and that gives us faith, because it is He who
gives us Faith! While you were talking about the fragility of faith: how do we overcome
it. Fragility’s biggest enemy curiously enough, is fear. But do not be afraid! We
are weak, we know it but He is stronger! If you are with Him, then there is no problem!
A child is fragile: I have seen many today. But they are with their father, their
mother: so they are safe! We too are safe with the Lord, we are secure. Faith grows
with the Lord, out of the very hands of the Lord. And that makes us grow and makes
us stronger. But if we think that we can make it on our own, ah, think of Peter, what
happened to him, "Lord, I will never disown you," and then the cock crowed three times
and he had, no? We think, when we have too much faith in our own abilities, we are
more fragile, more fragile. Always with the Lord, speaking with the Lord, with Him
in the Eucharist, in the Bible, in prayer ... Even as a family, with our Mother,
even with her because she is the one that leads us to the Lord, the mother who knows
everything the Lord. So let us pray to Our Lady and ask her as our Mother to make
us strong. That is what I think about the fragility: at least, in my experience. The
one thing that makes me stronger every day is to pray the Rosary to Our Lady. I feel
great strength because I go to her and I feel strong”.
Moving on to
the second question, the Pope discussed the challenge of Evangelization for the Movements,
of how to effectively communicate the faith in today’s world".
Pope Francis
said “I will say three words only. First: Jesus. What is the most important thing?
Jesus . If we push ahead with planning and organization, beautiful things indeed,
but without Jesus, then we are on the wrong road. Jesus is the most important thing.
I would like to take the opportunity now to make a small, but fraternal, reproach,
among ourselves, alright? All of you in the square shouted out: "Francis, Francis,
Pope Francis " ... But, where was Jesus? I want to hear you shout out. "Jesus, Jesus
is Lord, and He is in our midst." From now on , no more "Francis", only "Jesus". Alright?
The second word is prayer. Look at the face of God, but above all - and this
is related to what I said before – know that you are being looked at in turn. The
Lord looks at us: He looks at us first. And this is my experience , this is what I
experience in front of the Tabernacle when I go to pray in the evening, before the
Lord. Sometimes I nod off a little bit, No?, It’s true, because the strains of the
day’s work makes you fall asleep. But He understands me. I feel so much comfort when
I think that He is looking at me. We think that we have to pray, talk, talk, talk
... No! Just let the Lord gaze at you. When He looks at us, He empowers us and helps
us to witness to Him. Because the question was on the testimony of faith, right? Prayer
... first, "Jesus", then "prayer" and feeling that God is holding me by the hand.
And the importance of this is to allow ourselves be guided by Him. And that's more
important than any planning or calculations. We are true evangelizers when we let
ourselves be guided by Him. Think of Peter ... maybe he was taking a siesta after
lunch and had the vision, the vision of the tablecloth with all the animals and that
Jesus was saying something but he did not understand. Then, some non-Jews came to
call him to go into a house, and he saw how the Holy Spirit was there. Peter was
guided by Jesus in that first evangelization of the Gentiles, who were not Jews,
something unimaginable at that time. And so it has been, throughout history, throughout
history. Be guided by Jesus. This is our leader: Jesus is our leader.
And
third, "witness." We have Jesus, then prayer - prayer, letting oneself be guided by
Him - and then witness. But I would like to add something. This allowing ourselves
to be guided by Jesus opens us us to being surprised by Jesus. When people think
of evangelization, they think of projects, strategies, making plans? But ... they
are only tools, small tools. The important thing is that Jesus, and being guided by
Him, and then come the strategies. But that is secondary. Witness, the communication
of faith ... but the faith can only be communicated through witness and that is through
love. Not with our ideas, but by living the Gospel in our own lives, which the Holy
Spirit breathes within us. It’s like a synergy between us and the Holy Spirit, and
this is witness. The Church is brought forward by the Saints, who are the ones who
really give this witness. And like Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI said, the world
today has so much need of witnesses. Not so much of teachers, but of witnesses. Less
talk, speak through the way you live: the unity of your life, the consistency of your
life! Consistency of life means living Christianity like an encounter with Jesus that
leads me towards the other and not as a social fact, but ... is this how we are socially?
Are we Christians? Closed in on ourselves? No, not that. Witness”.
The
third question regarded how we can live as a poor Church, for the poor. How does the
suffering of others question our faith? How can we all, as Movements, Lay Associations,
offer a concrete and effective contribution to the Church and society to address this
crisis that touches the public ethics "- this is important! - The "model of development,
politics, in short, a new way of being men and women?.
Pope Francis responded
“I will pick up again from the subject of witness. First of all, the main contribution
we can make is to live the Gospel . The Church is not a political movement, or a well-organized
structure: it is not that. We are not an NGO, and when the Church becomes an NGO it
loses its salt, it has no taste, it's just an empty organization. And this - be clever!
Because the devil deceives us, because there is the danger of hyper - efficiency.
One thing is to preach Jesus, effectiveness, being efficient is another thing: no,
that's another value. The value of the Church, basically, is to live the Gospel and
give witness to our faith. To be the 'salt of the earth, light of the world’, is called
to make present in society the yeast of the Kingdom of God and do it first with our
witness, our witness of fraternal love, solidarity, sharing. When you hear some say
that solidarity is not a value, it is a primary attitude that needs to be done away
with... there’s something wrong! Today people are only concerned with worldly efficacy.
The moments of crisis, such as the one we are experiencing – as you mentioned before,
"we are in a world of lies", no? Lies, it is a crisis - this time of crisis, but ...
let's be careful, ok? It is not only an economic crisis, it is a cultural crisis.
It is a human crisis: what is in crisis is mankind! And what can be destroyed, is
mankind! Mankind, the image of God! For this is a deep crisis. In this time of crisis
we cannot worry only about ourselves, close in on ourselves in loneliness, discouragement,
in a sense of helplessness before our problems. Please do not close in on yourselves!
That is a danger. But ... we lock ourselves up inside our parish, among our friends,
in our movement, with people who think the same as we do ... But, what is happening?
When the Church becomes closed in on itself, it gets sick. Think of a closed room,
a room locked for a year, when you go, there is a smell of damp, all these things
here, that's not right. A Church that is closed in on itself is just the same, it
is a sick Church.
“The Church must go out from herself. Where? Towards the
existential outskirts”, even if that means risking accidents along the way, in the
outward journey. To those who worry about what can happen to the Pope responds : “I
prefer a thousand times a Church damaged by an accident, than a sick Church closed
in on itself”. Faith- he added - is an encounter with Jesus, and we must do the same,
help others to encounter Jesus.
Pope Francis continued “we live in a culture
of confrontation, no?, A culture of fragmentation, a culture of what we don’t really
need. A culture of the disposable. But,– this is part of the crisis - just think about
the elderly, who have the wisdom of a people; think of the children who are ... The
culture of waste. But, we have to bring about encounter, we have to make our faith
a culture of encounter and of friendship, a culture where we find brothers and sisters,
we can talk even with those who do not think like us, even with those with which have
a different faith, who do not have the same faith as our own. But everyone has something
in common with us: they are made in the image of God! They are children of God!. Being
open to an encounter with everyone, without negotiating the faith we belong to. And
this is important: with the poor. If we step outside ourselves, we find poverty. Today,
and it breaks my heart to say it, finding a homeless person who has died of cold,
is not news. Today, the news is scandals, that is news, but the many children who
don't have food - that's not news. This is grave. We can't rest easy while things
are this way!
But ... this is the way things are. We cannot become starched
Christians, too polite, who speak of theology calmly over tea. We have to become courageous
Christians and seek out those who are the flesh of Christ, those who are the flesh
of Christ”.
Pope Francis spoke of when he would hear Confessions, he would
always ask: “Do you give alms to the beggers on the Street?” “Yes, father”. "Ah, good,
good". And I was add: "Tell me, when you give alms, do you look into the eyes of
the person you are giving alms to?" - "Ah, I don’t know, I haven’t noticed." My next
question: "And when you give alms, do you touch the hand of the one to whom you give
alms, or throw the coin and [wipe your hands]?" That's the problem: the flesh of Christ,
touching the flesh of Christ, to take upon ourselves this pain for the poor. Poverty,
for us Christians, is not a philosophical or cultural or sociological category: no,
it is a theological category. I would say, perhaps the first category, because God,
the Son of God, humbled himself, became poor to walk along the road with us”.
The
Holy Father continued: “Being a poor Church for the poor begins by embracing the flesh
of Christ. If we embrace to the flesh of Christ, we begin to understand something
about what poverty is, the poverty of the Lord. And that's not easy. But there is
a problem which is not good for Christians: the spirit of the world, the worldly
spirit. Spiritual worldliness. This leads us to a certain sufficiency, to live according
to the spirit of the world and not that of Jesus”. Pope Francis said that in order
to address the current crisis that touches public ethics, the development model, politics
we must first understand that it is a “human crisis, it destroys the man, it has
stripped man of ethics. And in public life, in politics, if there is no ethics, an
ethics of reference that makes us transcendent, everything, everything is possible
and we can do anything we want. And we see this when we read the newspapers, how this
lack of ethics in public life greatly wounds all of humanity.
I would like
to tell you a story. I have told this twice this week, but I'll tell it a third to
you. It’s the story about a biblical midrash, a rabbi of the twelfth century. He tells
the story of the building of the Tower of Babel, and he says that to build the Tower
of Babel bricks had to be made. This meant making the mud, bringing the straw, mixing
them ... then, in the oven, and when the brick was made it had to be hoisted up, to
build the Tower of Babel. Every brick was a treasure, for all the work it took to
make. When a brick fell, it was a national tragedy, and that worker guilty of breaking
it was punished. But if a worker fell, nothing happened: it was something else. This
still happens today: if investments in banks, drop a little , it’s a tragedy! But
if people are starving, if they have nothing to eat, if they are not healthy, it does
not matter! This is our crisis today! And the witness of a poor Church for the poor
goes against this mentality.
Pope Francis then turned to the fourth question
about how we can help and support our brothers and sisters who still today are persecuted
for their faith. He said:
“Two virtues are needed to proclaim the Gospel:
courage and patience. They are in the Church of patience. They suffer and there are
more martyrs today than in the early centuries of the Church. More martyrs. Our brothers
and sisters. They suffer. They carry the faith until martyrdom. But martyrdom is never
a defeat: martyrdom is the highest rank of witness that we have to give. We are all
on the way to martyrdom. [We are ] small martyrs: we give up this, do that ... they,
poor things, give up their life, but they give it up - as we heard in the situation
in Pakistan – they give it up for love for Jesus, to witness Jesus. A Christian must
always have this attitude of meekness, humility, the attitude that they have, trusting
in Jesus, entrusting themselves to Jesus. It should be noted that many times these
conflicts do not have a religious origin, often there are other causes of a social
and political nature and unfortunately, religious affiliations are used like fuel
to the fire. A Christian must always know how to respond to evil with good, although
it is often difficult”.
We must try to make them feel, these brothers and
sisters, that we are deeply united - deeply united! - to their situation, that we
know that they are Christians who have entered a state of patience. When Jesus goes
to his Passion, he enters [a state of ]patience. We must make it known to them, but
also make it known to the Lord. I ask the question again: Do you pray for these brothers
and sisters? Do you pray for them? In your every day prayers? I will not ask you to
raise your hands. But think well, do we in our everyday prayer say to Jesus: "Lord,
look at these brothers, look at these sisters who suffer so much, so much suffering."
And they experience the limits, they very limits between life and death. And to us,
this experience should lead us to promote religious freedom for all: for everyone!
Every man and woman should be free in his religious confession, whatever it is. Why?
Because that man, that woman are children of God”. And concluding his unscripted
response to the questions put before him, on how to be certain in the faith, on how
these Movements could live out their mission, about being a poor Church for the poor
and about supporting persecuted Christians worldwide, Pope Francis repeated : Never
be a Church closed in on itself. Be a Church that goes outside, which is on the outskirts
of existence. May the Lord guide us there. Thank you”.