Pope’s messages to Italian pilgrimage and Year of Faith event
10 June, 2013 - Pope Francis spoke with an estimated 100 thousand pilgrims, mostly
young people, as they were making a 28km all-night walking pilgrimage on Saturday
from Macerata, Italy, to the Marian shrine of Loreto, on Sunday. Noting that the
pilgrims would be praying the Holy Rosary all along the way, and singing hymns under
the guidance of their pastors, Pope Francis said our entire life is a pilgrimage where
the important thing is encountering Jesus who gives us the strength to make it. In
a telephone link-up he urged the pilgrims to allow themselves to be led by Jesus,
a message that was repeated several times during the march. Pope Francis spoke about
God as the Lord of surprises, and urged them to be open His surprises, as nothing
is impossible to God. As an example of this surprise, the Holy Father recalled the
annual night-time event, which began thirty-five years ago, in 1978, with 300 pilgrims,
but today has grown to tens of thousands. The telephone link-up was one of two
special events in which the Holy Father took part on Saturday evening. The other was
a video message prepared for the participants in the “Ten Commandments in Ten Squares”
initiative, which on Saturday evening took place in the Italian city of Milan, to
mark the fortieth anniversary of the birth of the Renewal in the Holy Spirit movement
in Italy. In his message to the participants, Pope Francis said, “Let us rediscover
and let us live the Ten [Commandments] of God! Let us say, ‘yes’ to these ten ‘ways
of love’, perfected by Christ, in order to defend man and lead him to true liberty.”