Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Greetings for Dutch pilgrims

At 10:00am this morning, at the Altar of the Chair in the Vatican Basilica, Holy Mass was celebrated for the Pilgrimage of the Dioceses of the Netherlands, organized as part of the activities for the Jubilee Year of Mercy.

At the conclusion of the Eucharistic celebration, the Holy Father, Pope Francis arrived in the Basilica and shared the following greetings with those who are participating in the jubilee pilgrimage.


Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
addressed to Dutch Catholics
on pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee Year of Mercy

Dear brothers and sisters,

I am very happy to greet you here in Saint Peter's Basilica on the occasion of Dutch Day, part of the Jubilee of Mercy.  It is good that you have come together, Pastors and faithful from all the dioceses of the Netherlands, on a common pilgrimage to Rome.  In this way, you demonstrate the life and the communion of the Church in the Netherlands and your unity with the Successor of Peter.

The Holy Year allows us to enter even more into relationship with Jesus Christ, the face of the Father's mercy.  We can never exhaust this great mystery of God's love!  It is the source of our salvation: the whole world, all of us need God's mercy.  It saves us, it gives us life, it recreates us as true sons and daughters of God.  And we experience the saving goodness of God in a particular way in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation.  Confession is the place in which we receive the gift of the forgiveness and the mercy of God, who began the transformation within each one of us and continues to re-form the life of the Church.

I encourage you therefore to open your hearts and to allow yourselves to be shaped by the mercy of God.  In this way, you yourselves will become instruments of mercy.  Embraced by the merciful Father who always offers us his forgiveness, you will be able to bear witness to his love in your everyday life.  Men and women today are thirsty for God; they are thirsty for his goodness and for his love. You too, as canals of mercy, can help to quench this thirst; you can help many people to rediscover Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of mankind; as missionary disciples of Jesus, you can irrigate society with the proclamation of the gospel and with charity, above all toward those who are most in need and those who are abandoned and left to their own devices.

I confide you and the entire Church in Holland to the maternal protection of Holy Mary, our Mother of Mercy, and I bless you with all my heart.  Please, pray also for me.

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