Pope Francis Tells Religious "The language of the heart, do not forget it!" and "Each has his own task to make the people of God grow. Understood?" FULL TEXT
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Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Francis to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Singapore (2 - 13 September 2024) – Meeting with the Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Consecrated Men and Women, Seminarians and Catechists, 04.09.2024
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This morning, the Holy Father left the Apostolic Nunciature and went to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption for the Meeting with the Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Consecrated Men and Women, Seminarians and Catechists.
Upon his arrival at the Cathedral, the Pope was welcomed at the entrance by His Eminence Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo, Archbishop of Jakarta, by H.E. Msgr. Antonius Subianto Bunyamin, O.S.C., President of the Episcopal Conference and the Parish Priest, who gave him the cross and the holy water for sprinkling. Finally, two children gave the Pope flowers.
Then the Holy Father crossed the central nave and reached the altar, while the choir intoned a song. The President of the Episcopal Conference greeted Pope Francis, followed by the testimonies of a priest, a nun, a catechist and a catechist. Then the Pope gave his speech.
At the end, after the blessing, the group photo with the Bishops and the final song, the Pope went to Piazza Maria, at the side exit of the Cathedral, to bless the faithful gathered in the square.
The Holy Father takes the floor after listening to some testimonies. And he asks the catechist who has just finished to remain at his side for a moment.
Then the Holy Father crossed the central nave and reached the altar, while the choir intoned a song. The President of the Episcopal Conference greeted Pope Francis, followed by the testimonies of a priest, a nun, a catechist and a catechist. Then the Pope gave his speech.
At the end, after the blessing, the group photo with the Bishops and the final song, the Pope went to Piazza Maria, at the side exit of the Cathedral, to bless the faithful gathered in the square.
The Holy Father takes the floor after listening to some testimonies. And he asks the catechist who has just finished to remain at his side for a moment.
FULL TEXT speech that the Holy Father gave during the meeting with the Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Consecrated Men and Women, Seminarians and Catechists:
With you here in front of me, I would like to tell you something.
The Church - we must think this -, the Church is carried forward by the catechists. The catechists are those who go forward, who go forward. Then come the nuns - immediately after the catechists -; then come the priests, the bishop... But the catechists are "at the front", they are the strength of the Church.
Once, during one of the trips to Africa, a President of the Republic told me that he had been baptized by his father who was a catechist. Faith is transmitted at home. Faith is transmitted in dialect. And the catechists, together with mothers and grandmothers, carry forward this faith. I thank all the catechists so much: they are good, they are very good! Thank you!
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Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
There are cardinals, there are bishops, there are priests, there are nuns, there are lay people, there are children, but we are all brothers. The Pope, the cardinal, the bishop are no longer important… All brothers. Each has his own task to make the people of God grow. Understood?
I greet the Cardinal, the Bishops, the priests, the deacons, the consecrated men and women, the seminarians and the catechists present. I thank the President of the Episcopal Conference for his words, and also the brothers and sisters who shared their testimonies with us.
As has been recalled, the motto chosen for this Apostolic Visit is “Faith, fraternity, compassion”. I think that these are three virtues that express well both your journey as a Church and your nature as a people, ethnically and culturally very diverse, but at the same time characterized by an innate tension towards unity and peaceful coexistence, as the traditional principles of Pancasila testify. I would like to reflect with you on these three words.
The first is faith. Indonesia is a large country, with enormous natural riches, in terms of flora, fauna, energy resources and raw materials, and so on. Such great wealth could easily be transformed, read superficially, into a reason for pride and presumption, but, if considered with an open mind and heart, it can instead be a reminder of God, of his presence in the cosmos, in his life and in our life, as Sacred Scripture teaches us (see Gen 1; Sir 42:15-43:33). It is the Lord, in fact, who gives all this. There is not an inch of the wonderful Indonesian territory, nor an instant in the life of each of its millions of inhabitants that is not a gift from the Lord, a sign of his free and foreseeing love as a Father. And looking at all this with the humble eyes of children helps us to believe, to recognize ourselves as small and loved (see Psalm 8), and to cultivate feelings of gratitude and responsibility.
Agnes spoke to us about this, regarding our relationship with creation and with our brothers, especially the most needy, to be lived with a personal and community style marked by respect, civility and humanity, with sobriety and Franciscan charity. After faith, the second word of the motto is fraternity. A twentieth-century poet used a very beautiful expression to describe this attitude: she wrote that being brothers means loving each other while recognizing each other as "different as two drops of water". [1] Beautiful! And that's exactly how it is. There are no two drops of water alike, nor are there two brothers, not even twins, completely identical. Living fraternity, then, means welcoming each other while recognizing each other as equal in diversity.
With you here in front of me, I would like to tell you something.
The Church - we must think this -, the Church is carried forward by the catechists. The catechists are those who go forward, who go forward. Then come the nuns - immediately after the catechists -; then come the priests, the bishop... But the catechists are "at the front", they are the strength of the Church.
Once, during one of the trips to Africa, a President of the Republic told me that he had been baptized by his father who was a catechist. Faith is transmitted at home. Faith is transmitted in dialect. And the catechists, together with mothers and grandmothers, carry forward this faith. I thank all the catechists so much: they are good, they are very good! Thank you!
_____________________________________________
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
There are cardinals, there are bishops, there are priests, there are nuns, there are lay people, there are children, but we are all brothers. The Pope, the cardinal, the bishop are no longer important… All brothers. Each has his own task to make the people of God grow. Understood?
I greet the Cardinal, the Bishops, the priests, the deacons, the consecrated men and women, the seminarians and the catechists present. I thank the President of the Episcopal Conference for his words, and also the brothers and sisters who shared their testimonies with us.
As has been recalled, the motto chosen for this Apostolic Visit is “Faith, fraternity, compassion”. I think that these are three virtues that express well both your journey as a Church and your nature as a people, ethnically and culturally very diverse, but at the same time characterized by an innate tension towards unity and peaceful coexistence, as the traditional principles of Pancasila testify. I would like to reflect with you on these three words.
The first is faith. Indonesia is a large country, with enormous natural riches, in terms of flora, fauna, energy resources and raw materials, and so on. Such great wealth could easily be transformed, read superficially, into a reason for pride and presumption, but, if considered with an open mind and heart, it can instead be a reminder of God, of his presence in the cosmos, in his life and in our life, as Sacred Scripture teaches us (see Gen 1; Sir 42:15-43:33). It is the Lord, in fact, who gives all this. There is not an inch of the wonderful Indonesian territory, nor an instant in the life of each of its millions of inhabitants that is not a gift from the Lord, a sign of his free and foreseeing love as a Father. And looking at all this with the humble eyes of children helps us to believe, to recognize ourselves as small and loved (see Psalm 8), and to cultivate feelings of gratitude and responsibility.
Agnes spoke to us about this, regarding our relationship with creation and with our brothers, especially the most needy, to be lived with a personal and community style marked by respect, civility and humanity, with sobriety and Franciscan charity. After faith, the second word of the motto is fraternity. A twentieth-century poet used a very beautiful expression to describe this attitude: she wrote that being brothers means loving each other while recognizing each other as "different as two drops of water". [1] Beautiful! And that's exactly how it is. There are no two drops of water alike, nor are there two brothers, not even twins, completely identical. Living fraternity, then, means welcoming each other while recognizing each other as equal in diversity.
This too is a value dear to the tradition of the Indonesian Church, which manifests itself in the openness with which it relates to the various realities that compose and surround it, at a cultural, ethnic, social and religious level, valuing everyone's contribution and generously giving its own in every context. This, brothers and sisters, is important, because announcing the Gospel does not mean imposing or contrasting one’s faith with that of others, it does not mean proselytizing, it means giving and sharing the joy of the encounter with Christ (see 1 Pt 3:15-17), always with great respect and fraternal affection for everyone. And in this I invite you to always remain like this: open and friends of all – I like that expression so much: “hand in hand”, going like this, as Don Maxi said –, prophets of communion, in a world where instead the tendency to divide, impose and provoke each other seems to be growing more and more (see Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, 67). And on this I want to tell you something: do you know who is the person who creates the greatest divisions in the world? Do you know who he is? The great divider, who always divides, divides… Jesus unites and this divides. He is the devil. Be careful!
It is important to try to reach everyone, as Sister Rina reminded us, with the hope of being able to translate into Bahasa Indonesia, in addition to the texts of the Word of God, also the teachings of the Church, to make them accessible to as many people as possible. And Nicholas also highlighted this, describing the mission of the catechist with the image of a “bridge” that unites. This struck me, and made me think of the marvelous spectacle, in the great Indonesian archipelago, of thousands of “bridges of the heart” that unite all the islands, and even more to millions of such “bridges” that unite all the people who live there! Here is another beautiful image of fraternity: an immense embroidery of threads of love that cross the sea, overcome barriers and embrace every diversity, making everyone “one heart and one soul” (cf. Acts 4:32). The language of the heart, do not forget it!
And we come to the third word: compassion, which is closely linked to fraternity. Compassion means suffering with others, sharing feelings: it is a beautiful word! As we know, in fact, compassion does not consist in dispensing alms to needy brothers and sisters, looking down on them, looking at them from our own securities and privileges, but on the contrary, compassion means making ourselves close to one another, stripping ourselves of everything that can prevent us from bending down to truly enter into contact with those who are down, and thus lift them up and give them hope (cf. Encyclical Letter Fratelli tutti, 70). And this is important: touching poverty. When I confess, I always ask adults: “Do you give alms?”, and they usually say yes, because they are good people. But the second question is: “When you give alms, do you touch the hand of the beggar? Do you look into his eyes? Or do you throw him the coin from a distance so as not to touch him?” This is something we all need to learn: compassion means suffering, to endure, to accompany in the feelings of those who are suffering and to embrace them, to accompany them. And not only that: it also means embracing their dreams and desires for redemption and justice, taking care of them, becoming their promoters and cooperators, involving others as well, widening the “network” and the boundaries in a great expansive dynamism of charity (see ibid., 203). And this does not mean being a communist, this means charity, it means love.
There are those who are afraid of compassion, there are people who are afraid of compassion, because they consider it a weakness – suffering with another is a weakness – and instead exalt, as if it were a virtue, the cunning of those who look after their own interests by keeping their distance from everyone, not allowing themselves to be “touched” by anything or anyone, thinking in this way that they are more lucid and free in achieving their own goals. Unfortunately, I remember a very rich person, very rich, in Buenos Aires, but who had the habit of taking, taking, taking, more and more money. He died and left an enormous inheritance. Do you know what jokes people made? “Poor thing, they couldn’t close the coffin!” He wanted to take everything and he took nothing. It’s funny, but don’t forget one thing: the devil always comes in through your pockets! It’s true. Having riches as security is a false way of looking at reality. What drives the world forward is not calculations of interest – which generally end up destroying creation and dividing communities – but charity that is given. This is what drives us forward: charity that is given. And compassion does not obscure the real vision of life, on the contrary, it makes us see things better, in the light of love, that is, it makes us see things better with the eyes of the heart. And I would like to repeat it, please, be careful, don’t forget: the devil always comes in through your pockets!
The portal of this Cathedral, in its architecture, seems to me to sum up very well what we have said, in a Marian key. In fact, it is supported, at the center of the pointed arch, by a column on which is placed a statue of the Virgin Mary. Thus, he shows us the Mother of God first of all as a model of faith, while symbolically supporting, with her small “yes” (cf. Lk 1:38), the entire edifice of the Church. Her fragile body, leaning on the column, on the rock that is Christ, seems in fact to carry with Him the weight of the entire construction, as if to say that it, the work of man’s work and ingenuity, cannot support itself alone. Mary then appears as an image of fraternity, in the gesture of welcoming, in the middle of the main portal, all those who wish to enter. She is the mother who welcomes. And finally, she is also an icon of compassion, in her watching over and protecting the people of God who, with their joys and sorrows, their toils and hopes, gather in the house of the Father. She is the mother of compassion.
Dear brothers and sisters, I would like to conclude this conversation by repeating what Saint John Paul II, visiting here a few decades ago, said precisely when addressing the bishops, priests, and men and women religious. He quoted the verse from the Psalm: “Laetentur insulae multae” – “Let all the islands rejoice” (Ps 96:1) and invited his listeners to make it happen, “bearing witness to the joy of the Resurrection and giving […] life so that even the most distant islands can “rejoice” in hearing the Gospel, of which you are true preachers, teachers and witnesses” (Meeting with the Bishops, Clergy and Religious of Indonesia, Jakarta, 10 October 1989).
I also renew this exhortation to you, and I encourage you to continue your mission strong in faith, open to all in fraternity and close to each one in compassion. Strong, open and close, with the strength of faith. The openness to welcome everyone, everyone! I am so struck by that parable from the Gospel, when the wedding guests did not want to come and did not come. What does the Lord do? Does he become bitter? No, that man understood something and sent his servants: “Go to the crossroads and bring everyone, everyone, everyone inside. Everyone inside, with this beautiful style that is moving forward with brotherhood, with compassion, with unity… Everyone. And I think of so many islands, so many islands… And the Lord says to the good people, to you: “Everyone, everyone” – “But, Lord, that one…” – “Everyone, everyone”. Indeed, the Lord says: “good and bad”, everyone!
I also renew this exhortation to you and encourage you to continue your mission, strong in faith, open to everyone in brotherhood and close to each one in compassion. Faith, brotherhood and compassion. Three words that I leave you, and you think about them later. Faith, brotherhood and compassion. I bless you, I thank you for all the good that you do every day in all these beautiful islands! I pray for you. I pray but, please, I ask you to pray for me. And be careful about one thing: pray for, not against! Thank you.
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[1] W. Szymborska, “Nothing Happens Twice”, in The Joy of Writing. All the Poems (1945-2009), Milan, 2009, p. 45.
Translated from the Italian
Source: Vatican News and Vatican.va Bulletin with Vatican Media Screenshot
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