those come of age. It is a fact that nowadays there are many people like the two disciples of Emmaus; not only those looking for answers in the new religious groups that are sprouting up, but also those who already seem godless, both in theory and in
practice.
Faced with this situation, what are we to do? We need a Church unafraid of going forth into their night. … We need a Church able to dialogue with those disciples who, having left Jerusalem behind, are wandering aimlessly, alone, with their own
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disappointment, disillusioned by a Christianity now considered barren, fruitless soil, incapable of generating meaning.
A relentless process of globalization, an often uncontrolled process of urbanization, have promised great things. Many people have been captivated by the potential of globalization, which of course does contain positive elements such as, for instance,
the reduction of distances, the bringing together of people and cultures, the distribution of information and services. But, on the other side, many experience its negative effects without realising how much they prejudice their
own vision of man and of
the world, giving rise to greater disorientation and an emptiness they are unable to explain. Some of these effects are confusion about the meaning of life, personal disintegration, the loss of the experience of belonging to a 'nest', the lack of a
sense of place and of profound links.
And since there is nobody to accompany them or to demonstrate by example the true path, many have sought short cuts, for the standards set by Mother Church seem to be too high. There are also those who recognise the ideal for man and for life proposed
by the Church, but do not have the courage to embrace it. They think this ideal
is too great for them, that it is beyond their reach. Nonetheless they cannot live without having at least something, even a poor imitation, of what seems too lofty and
distant. With disappointed hearts, they then go off in search of something that
will raise false hopes again, or they resign themselves to a partial solution that, in the end, will not bring fullness to their lives. The great sense of abandonment and
solitude, of not even belonging to oneself, which often results from this situation, is too painful to hide. Some kind of release is necessary. There is always the option of complaining? But even complaint acts like a boomerang; it comes
back
and ends up increasing one’s unhappiness. Few people are still capable of
hearing the voice of pain; the best we can do is to anaesthetize it.
Today, we need a Church capable of walking at people’s side, of doing more than simply listening to them; a Church which accompanies them on their journey; a Church able to make sense of the night contained in the flight of so
many of our brothers
and sisters from Jerusalem; a Church which realizes that the reasons why people
leave also contain reasons why they can eventually return. But we need to know how to interpret, with courage, the larger picture.
I would like all of us to ask ourselves today: are we still a Church capable … of leading people back to Jerusalem? Of bringing them home? Jerusalem is where our roots are: Scripture, catechesis, sacraments, community, friendship with the Lord,
Mary and the apostles… Are we still able to speak of these roots in a way that will revive a sense of wonder at their beauty? Many people have left because they were promised something more lofty, more powerful, and faster. But
what is more lofty
than the love revealed in Jerusalem? Nothing is more lofty than the abasement of the Cross, since there we truly approach the height of love! Are we still capable of demonstrating this truth to those who think that the apex of life is
to be found
elsewhere? Do we know anything more powerful than the strength hidden within the weakness of love, goodness, truth and beauty?
People today are attracted by things that are faster and faster: rapid Internet
connections, speedy cars and planes, instant relationships. But at the same time we see a desperate need for calmness, I would even say slowness. Is the Church still able to
move slowly: to take the time to listen, to have the patience to mend and reassemble? Or is the Church herself caught up in the frantic pursuit of efficiency? Dear brothers, let us recover the calm to be able to walk at the same pace as our pilgrims,
keeping alongside them, remaining close to them, enabling them to speak of the disappointments present in their hearts and to let us address them. … We
need a Church capable of bringing warmth, of lighting up hearts, and that is capable of
restoring citizenship to her many children who are journeying, as it were, in an exodus.
4. Challenges facing the Church in Brazil
Formation as a priority: bishops, priests, religious, laity. … It is important to devise and ensure a suitable formation, one which will provide persons able to step into the night without being overcome by the darkness and losing their bearings;
able to listen to people’s dreams without being seduced and to share their disappointments without losing hope and becoming bitter; able to sympathize with the brokenness of others without losing their own strength and identity. What is needed is
a solid human, cultural, effective, spiritual and doctrinal formation. Dear brother bishops, courage is needed to undertake a profound review of the structures in place for the formation and preparation of the clergy and the laity of the Church in
Brazil. It is not enough that formation be considered a vague priority, either in documents or at meetings. ... You cannot delegate this task, but must embrace it as something fundamental for the journey of your Churches. Collegiality and solidarity in the Episcopal Conference
It is important to remember Aparecida, the method of gathering diversity together. Not so much a diversity of ideas in order to produce a document, but a variety of experiences of God, in order to set a vital process in motion. ...
Central bureaucracy
is not sufficient; there is also a need for increased collegiality and solidarity. This will be a source of true enrichment for all.
Permanent state of mission and pastoral conversion
Concerning mission, we need to remember that its urgency derives from its inner
motivation; in other words, it is about handing on a legacy. As for method, it is essential to realize that a legacy is about witness, it is like the baton in
a relay race:
you don’t throw it up in the air for whoever is able to catch it, so that
anyone who doesn’t catch it has to manage without. In order to transmit a
legacy, one needs to hand it over personally, to touch the one to whom one wants to give, to
relay, this inheritance. Concerning pastoral conversion, I would like to recall
that “pastoral care” is nothing other than the exercise of the Church’s motherhood. … So we need a Church capable of rediscovering the maternal womb
of mercy. Without mercy we have little chance nowadays of becoming part of a world of “wounded” persons in need of understanding, forgiveness, love. In mission, also on a continental level, it is very important to reaf
firm
the family, which remains the essential cell of society and the Church; young people, who are the face of the Church’s future; women, who play a fundamental role in passing on the faith. Let us not reduce the involvement of women in the Church,
but instead promote their active role in the ecclesial community. By losing women, the Church risks becoming sterile. Aparecida also underlines the vocation and mission of men in the family, the Church and in societies, as fathers, workers and citizens.
Take this into consideration!
The task of the Church in society
In the context of society, there is only one thing which the Church quite clearly demands: the freedom to proclaim the Gospel in its entirety, even when it runs counter to the world, even when it goes against the tide. In so doing, she defends treasures
of which she is merely the custodian, and values which she does not create but rather receives, to which she must remain faithful. The Church claims the right
to serve man in his wholeness, and to speak of what God has revealed about human beings and
their fulfilment. The Church wants to make present that spiritual patrimony without which society falls apart. … The Church has the right and the duty to keep alive the flame of human freedom and unity. Education, health, social harmony are
pressing concerns in Brazil. The Church has a word to say on these issues, because any adequate response to these challenges calls for more than merely technical solutions; there has to be an underlying view of man, his freedom, his valu
e, his
openness to the transcendent.
The Amazon Basin as a litmus test for Church and society in Brazil
… The Church’s presence in the Amazon Basin is not that of someone
with bags packed and ready to leave after having exploited everything possible.
The Church has been present in the Amazon Basin from the beginning, in her missionaries and
religious congregations, and she is still present and critical to the area’s future. … I would like to invite everyone to reflect on what Aparecida said about the Amazon Basin, its forceful appeal for respect and
protection of the entire
creation which God has entrusted to man, not so that it be indiscriminately exploited, but rather made into a garden.
Dear brother Bishops, I have attempted to offer you in a fraternal spirit some reflections and approaches for a Church like that of Brazil, which is a great mosaic made up of different tesserae, images, forms, problems and challenges, but which for this
very reason is an enormous treasure. The Church is never uniformity, but diversities harmonized in unity, and this is true for every ecclesial reality”.
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POPE FRANCIS: “BUILD UP A SWEAT” LIKE TRUE ATHLETES OF CHRIST Vatican City, 28 July 2013 (VIS) – Yesterday evening the Pope celebrated a prayer vigil with almost two million young people at Copacabana. The Liturgy of the Word began with various testimonies and questions posed to the Holy Father.
At the end the Pope addressed the young, recalling how the Lord asked St. Francis of Assisi to do “his part for the life of the Church. … being at the service of the Church, loving her and working to make the countenance of Christ shine
ever more brightly in her. Today too, as always, the Lord needs you, young people, for his Church. Dear young people, the Lord needs this. Today too, he is calling each of you to follow him in his Church and to be missionaries”.
Due to bad weather, this vigil, which should have celebrated at the “Campus Fidei” in Guaratiba, was transferred to Copacabana. Francis
encouraged the participants to consider this situation. “Perhaps the Lord
wishes to tell us that
the true field of faith, the true Campus Fidei, is not a geographical location,
but rather, it is us?”, he said. The Holy Father introduced three images of the field, to “help us understand better what it means to be a disciple and a
missionary”.
“First, a field is a place for sowing seeds”. Here the Pope mentioned the parable of the “sower who went out to sow seeds in the field; some seed fell on the path, some on rocky ground, some among thorns, and
could not grow; other seed
fell on good soil and brought forth much fruit. Jesus himself explains the meaning of the parable: the seed is the word of God sown in our hearts. Today, every day”, said the Pope, “but especially today, Jesus sows. When we welcome the Word
of God, then we become the Campus Fidei, the field of faith. Please, let Christ
and His Word enter into your life, let the seed of the Word of God be sown, let
it germinate, let it grow. God will do everything but you must let Him in, you must let Him
work and grow”.
“I think that we have to ask ourselves honestly: what kind of ground are we? Maybe sometimes we are like the path: we hear the Lord’s word but it changes nothing in our lives because we let ourselves be numbed by all the superficial voices
competing for our attention; or we are like the rocky ground: we receive Jesus with enthusiasm, but we falter and, faced with difficulties, we don’t have the courage to swim against the tide; or we are like the thorny ground: negativity, negative
feelings choke the Lord’s word in us. Do I have two attitudes in my heart: with one I am happy with God, and with the other I am happy with the devil? One which receives the seed of Jesus and at the same time waters the weeds? What is born in my
heart?”
“But today I am sure that the seed is falling on good soil, that you want
to be good soil, not part-time Christians, not “starchy” and superficial, but real. Seek out a patch of good land and let the seeds fall there; you will see that
they will bear good fruit. I know that you want to become good ground, good Christians, not part-time Christians, those who seem to be Christians but in reality are not. Be authentic Christians. I am sure that you don’t want to be duped by a false
freedom, always at the beck and call of momentary fashions and fads. I know that you are aiming high, at long-lasting decisions which will make your lives meaningful. In silence, we must welcome the seed of Jesus. Everyone knows the name of the seed
that enters: let it grow, and God will take care of it”.
“Jesus asks us to follow him for life, he asks us to be his disciples, to
'play on his team'. I think that most of you love sports! … Now, what do
players do when they are asked to join a team? They have to train, and to train
a lot! The
same is true of our lives as the Lord’s disciples. ... Jesus offers us something bigger than the World Cup! He offers us the possibility of a fulfilled and fruitful life; He also offers us a future with Him, an endless future, eternal life. But He
asks us to buy a ticket to this future, and the ticket is training, 'getting in
shape', bearing witness to our faith. By talking with Him in prayer”. Francis asked the young people various questions, to which he asked them to respond in silence, in their hearts. “Do I pray?”, he said. “Do I let the Holy Spirit speak to my heart? Do I ask Jesus what he wants
me to do? This is
training. Putting questions to Jesus, talking with Jesus. And if you make mistakes in life, if you do something wrong, do not be afraid. … Always talk to Jesus, in good times and bad. That is prayer. This is how we enter into
dialogue with Jesus
and as a missionary disciple. And by the sacraments, which make His life grow within us and conform us to Christ. By loving one another, learning to listen, to understand, to forgive, to be accepting and to help others, everybody, without exclusion or
ostracism. This is the training we have to do to follow Jesus: prayer, sacraments and helping others, serving others”.
Finally, the Holy Father spoke about the field as a construction site. “When our heart is good soil which receives the word of God, when we 'build up a sweat' in trying to live as Christians, we experience something tremendous: we are never alone,
we are part of a family of brothers and sisters, all journeying on the same path: we are part of the Church; indeed, we are building up the Church and we are making history. Please, don't become footnotes to history. Be agents of history, go out and
build a better world”.
Pope Francis remarked that “in the Church of Jesus, we ourselves are the living stones. Jesus is asking us to build up His Church; each one of us is a living stone, a little building block. Each living stone contributes to the unity and the
security of the Church. But he does not want us to build a little chapel which holds only a small group of persons. He asks us to make his living Church so large that it can hold all of humanity, that it can be a home for everyone”.
“Please”, he continued, “do not leave it to others to be the agents of change. You hold the future … continue to work against apathy and offer a Christian response to the social and political problems that arise all over the
world. I ask you to be builders of the future, to set to work for a better world. Dear young people, please, do not live your lives as observers, watching
the world go by. Go into the fray, as Jesus did – He did not sit back and
watch. But where
do we start? Once, Mother Teresa was asked what should be the first thing to change in the Church, and she replied: 'You and I'. Today I too repeat the words of Mother Teresa and I say to you: you and I must be the first to change.”
“Dear friends, never forget that you are the field of faith! You are Christ’s athletes! You are called to build a more beautiful Church and a better world. Let us lift our gaze to Our Lady. Mary helps us to follow Jesus, she gives us the
example by her own 'yes' to God: 'I am the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me as you say'. All together, let us join Mary in saying to God: let it be done to me as you say”.
Following Pope Francis' address, the deacons brought the Holy Sacrament in procession. After the Eucharistic adoration and prayers of the young people in several languages, the recitation of the “Salve Regina” concluded the celebration.
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</style> <br /><br /> <input type="hidden" value="VISnews130728" id="id_oggetto" />VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE <br />YEAR XXII - N° 160<br />DATE 28-07-2013<br /><br />Summary:<br /> - CALLED TO PROMOTE THE CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER<br /> - FRANCIS TO
BRAZIL'S LEADERS: A COUNTRY GROWS WHEN ITS CULTURAL COMPONENTS ARE IN DIALOGUE<br /> - FRANCIS: WE NEED A CHURCH CAPABLE OF WALKING WITH THE PEOPLE<br /> - POPE FRANCIS: “BUILD UP A SWEAT” LIKE TRUE ATHLETES OF CHRIST<br /><br />___________________________________________________________ <br /><br /><!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?-->
<p>CALLED TO PROMOTE THE CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER</p>
<p>Vatican City, 28 July 2013 (VIS) – At 9.00 a.m. Yesterday the Cathedral of St Sebastian in Rio de Janeiro, whose stained glass windows, the work of Lorenz Hailmar, symbolise the four characteristics of the Church – One (green), Holy
(red), Catholic (blue) and Apostolic (yellow) welcomed Pope Francis, who celebrated Mass with the bishops of World Youth Day, priests, religious and seminarians. The texts of the liturgy, inspired by the Year of Faith, were taken from the Mass for the
Evangelization of Peoples. The Holy Father dedicated his homily to three aspects of the vocation: the call from God, the call to proclaim the Gospel, and the call to promote the culture of encounter.</p>
<p>With reference to the first, the call from God, the Pope said, “I believe it is important to revive in ourselves this fact that we so often take for granted amid the many tasks of our daily lives: 'You did not choose me but I chose you', says
Jesus. We were called by God and we were called to be with Jesus. This living in Christ, in fact, marks all that we are and all that we do. This 'life in Christ' is precisely what ensures the effectiveness of our apostolate, that our
service is
fruitful. ... It is not creativity, pastoral though it may be, nor meetings and
planning that ensure our fruitfulness, even if these are very helpful, but what
ensures fruitfulness is our being faithful to Jesus. ... And we know well what that means: to
contemplate Him, to worship Him, to embrace Him, especially through our faithfulness to a life of prayer, and in our daily encounter with Him, present in the Eucharist and in those most in need. “Being with”
Christ does not mean isolating ourselves from others. Rather, it is a “being with” in order to go forth and encounter others. Here I would like to remind you of some words of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta: 'We must be very proud of our
vocation because it gives us the opportunity to serve Christ in the poor. It is
in the favelas, in the cantegriles, in the villas miseria, that one must go to seek and to serve Christ. We must go to them as the priest presents himself at the altar, with
joy”.</p>
<p>To explain the second aspect, the call to proclaim the Gospel, the Pope commented that many of the bishops present in Rio had come to accompany young people to World Youth Day, and emphasised, “It is our responsibility as pastors to help kindle
within their hearts the desire to be missionary disciples of Jesus. Certainly, this invitation could cause many to feel somewhat afraid, thinking that to be missionaries requires leaving their own homes and countries, family and friends. God asks us to
be missionaries. Where? Where He Himself leads us, in our homeland or wherever He places us. Let us help the young. … They need to be listened to … I ask you this with all my heart! We must know how to spend time with them. Sowing the
seeds takes effort, great effort! But reaping the harvest brings so much more satisfaction. … But Jesus asks us take seriously our work in sowing the seeds”.</p>
<p>“Let us spare no effort in the formation of our young people!” he added. “Help our young people to discover the courage and joy of faith
... Form them in mission, in going out and going forth. Jesus did this with His
own disciples:
he did not keep them under his wing like a hen with her chicks. He sent them out! We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities, when so many people are waiting for the Gospel! It is not enough simply to open the door in welcome, so
that they may enter, but we must go out through that door to seek and meet the people! Let us encourage the young to got out. Of course they will falter. Let us not be afraid! The Apostles faltered before us. Let us encourage them to go out. Let us look
decisively to pastoral needs, beginning on the outskirts, with those who are farthest away, with those who do not usually go to church”.</p>
<p>The Holy Father concluded by referring to the third aspect, the call to promote the culture of encounter. “In many places, and in general in this
economic humanism that has been imposed throughout the world, the culture of exclusion, a
'throwaway culture', is spreading”, he observed. “There is no place
for the elderly or for the unwanted child; there is no time for that poor person in the street. At times, it seems that for some people, human relations are regulated by two
modern 'dogmas': efficiency and pragmatism. … Have the courage to go against the tide, against this throwaway culture. Let us not reject this gift of God which is the one family of his children. Encountering and welcoming everyone, solidarity
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