This morning, having left the Apostolic Nunciature, the Holy Father, Pope Francis travelled by car to the Campo San Juan Pablo II (Metro Park) for the concluding Mass of the XXXIV World Youth Day which has as its theme: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to your word (Lk 1:38).
Upon his arrival, the Pope was welcomed by the Archbishop of Panama, His Excellency, José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta, OSA, who accompanied him aboard the popemobile as it made a tour throughout the crowds.
At 8:00am EST, the Holy Father presided over the Eucharistic Celebration for the III Sunday of Ordinary Time. After a few words of thanks offered by the Archbishop of Panama and the proclamation of the gospel, the Holy Father shared his homily.
At the conclusion of the Eucharistic celebration, the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, His Eminence, Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell, offered a few words of greeting to the Holy Father and then announced that the next celebration of the World Youth Day will take place in Portugal in 2022.
Before the final Blessing, the Holy Father offered the youth and the pilgrims who were present a few words of greeting. Then, after having greeted 40 local volunteers, he travelled by car to the Casa Hogar El Buen Samaritano Juan Diaz (the Juan Diaz Good Samaritan Home).
The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them: 'Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (Lk 4:20-21). With these words, the Gospel presents the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. It started in the synagogue that saw him grow up; he was in the midst of neighbours and people he knew, and perhaps even some of his childhood catechists who had taught him the Law. It was an important moment in the life of the Master: the child who was educated and grew up in that community, stood up and took the floor to proclaim and put into action God’s dream. A word previously proclaimed only as a future promise, but now, on the lips of Jesus alone, could be spoken in the present tense, as it became a reality: Today it has been fulfilled.
Jesus reveals the now of God, who comes to meet us and call us to take part in his now of proclaiming good news to the poor... bringing liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, setting at liberty those who are oppressed, announcing the year of the Lord’s favour (Lk 4:18- 19). This is the now of God. It becomes present with Jesus: it has a face, it is flesh. It is a merciful love that does not wait for ideal or perfect situations to show itself, nor does it accept excuses for its appearance. It is God’s time, that makes every situation and place both right and proper. In Jesus, the promised future begins and becomes life.
When? Now. Yet not everyone who was listening felt invited or called. Not all the residents of Nazareth were prepared to believe in someone they knew and had seen grow up, and who was now inviting them to realize a long-awaited dream. Not only that, but they said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ (Lk 4:22).
The same thing can also happen with us. We do not always believe that God can be that concrete and commonplace, that close and real, and much less that he can become so present and work through somebody like a neighbour, a friend, a relative. We do not always believe that the Lord can invite us to work and soil our hands with him in his Kingdom in that simple and blunt a way. It is hard to accept that God’s love can become concrete and can almost be experienced in history with all its painful and glorious vicissitudes (Benedict XVI, General Audience, 28 September 2005).
Often we too behave like the neighbours in Nazareth: we prefer a distant God: nice, good, generous but far-off, a God who does not inconvenience us. Because a close and everyday God, a friend and brother, demands that we be concerned with our surroundings, everyday affairs and above all fraternity. God chose not to reveal himself as an angel or in some spectacular way, but to give us a face that is fraternal and friendly, concrete and familiar. God is real because love is real; God is concrete because love is concrete. Indeed, this concrete manifestation of love is one of the essential elements in the life of Christians (Benedict XVI, Homily, 1 March 2006).
We can also run the same risks as the neighbours at Nazareth, when within our communities the Gospel seeks to be lived concretely. We begin to say: But these young people, aren’t they the children of Mary, Joseph, aren’t they the brothers and sisters of so and so? Are these not the youngsters we saw grow up? That one over there, wasn’t he the one who kept breaking windows with his ball? What was born as prophecy and proclamation of the kingdom of God gets domesticated and impoverished. Attempts to domesticate the word of God occur daily.
You too, dear young people, can experience this whenever you think that your mission, your vocation, even your life itself, is a promise far off in the future, having nothing to do with the present. As if being young were a kind of waiting room, where we sit around until we are called. And in the meantime, we adults or you yourselves invent a hygienically sealed future, without consequences, where everything is safe, secure and well insured. A make-believe happiness. So we tranquilize you, we numb you into keeping quiet, not asking or questioning; and in that “meantime” your dreams lose their buoyancy, they begin to become flat and dreary, petty and plaintive (cf Palm Sunday Homily, 25 March 2018). Only because we think, or you think, that your now has not yet come, that you are too young to be involved in dreaming about and working for the future.
One of the fruits of the last Synod was the enrichment that came from being able to meet and above all to listen to one another. The enrichment of intergenerational dialogue, the enrichment of exchange and the value of realizing that we need one another, that we have to work to create channels and spaces that encourage dreaming of and working for tomorrow, starting today. And this, not in isolation, but rather side by side, creating a common space. A space that is not simply taken for granted, or won in a lottery, but a space for which you too must fight.
You, dear young people, are not the future but the now of God. He invites you and calls you in your communities and cities to go out and find your grandparents, your elders; to stand up and with them to speak out and realize the dream that the Lord has dreamed for you. Not tomorrow but now, for wherever your treasure is, there will your heart also be (cf Mt 6:21). Whatever you fall in love with, it will win over not only your imagination, it will affect everything. It will be what makes you get up in the morning, what keeps you going at times of fatigue, what will break open your hearts and fill you with wonder, joy and gratitude. Realize that you have a mission and fall in love; that will decide everything (cf Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Nada es más práctico). We may possess everything, but if we lack the passion of love, we will have nothing. Let us allow the Lord to make us fall in love!
For Jesus, there is no meantime, but only a merciful love that wants to enter into and win over our hearts. He wants to be our treasure, because he is not a meantime, an interval in life or a passing fad; he is generous love that invites us to entrust ourselves. He is concrete, close, real love. He is festive joy, born of opting for and taking part in the miraculous draught of hope and charity, solidarity and fraternity, despite the paralyzed and paralyzing gaze born of fear and exclusion, speculation and manipulation.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord and his mission are not a meantime in our life, something temporary; they are our life! In a special way throughout these days, Mary’s fiat has been whispering like a kind of music in the background. She not only believed in God and in his promises as something possible, she believed God himself and dared to say yes to taking part in this now of the Lord. She felt she had a mission; she fell in love and that decided everything.
As in the synagogue of Nazareth, the Lord stands up again among us his friends and acquaintances; he takes the book and says to us Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing (Lk 4:21). Do you want to live out your love in a practical way? May your yes continue to be the gateway for the Holy Spirit to give us a new Pentecost for the world and for the Church.
(Video)
Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
at the conclusion of the Mass
At the conclusion of this celebration, I give thanks to God for making it possible for us to share these days and to experience once again this World Youth Day.
In a particular way, I wish to thank the President of Panama, Mister Juan Carlos Varela Rodríguez and the Presidents of other Nations as well as other political and civil authorities for their presence at this celebration.
I thank His Excellency, José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta, Archbishop of Panama, for his availability and his good services in welcoming this celebration in his Diocese, as well as the other Bishops of this country and of neighbouring countries, for all that they have done in their local communities to provide lodgings and help for so many young people.
Thank you to all those who have helped us with your prayer and who have collaborated with their commitment and their work in order to make the World Youth Day in this country a reality.
And to you, dear young people, I offer a great word of thanks. Your faith and your joy have made Panama, America and the entire world vibrate. As we have heard so many times during these days in the World Youth Day hymn, We are pilgrims who have come here today from continents and cities. We are on a journey: keep going along this journey, continue living your faith and sharing it too. Don't forget that you are not the tomorrow, not the meanwhile of God, but rather the now of God.
The location of the next World Youth Day has already been announced. I ask you not to allow what you have experienced during these days to cool off. Return to your parishes and communities, to your families and your friends, ready to share with them what you have experienced, so that others may also vibrate with the strength and the concrete hope that you have found. And with Maria, continue saying yes to the dream that God has planted within you.
And please don't forget to pray for me.
Upon his arrival, the Pope was welcomed by the Archbishop of Panama, His Excellency, José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta, OSA, who accompanied him aboard the popemobile as it made a tour throughout the crowds.
At 8:00am EST, the Holy Father presided over the Eucharistic Celebration for the III Sunday of Ordinary Time. After a few words of thanks offered by the Archbishop of Panama and the proclamation of the gospel, the Holy Father shared his homily.
At the conclusion of the Eucharistic celebration, the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, His Eminence, Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell, offered a few words of greeting to the Holy Father and then announced that the next celebration of the World Youth Day will take place in Portugal in 2022.
Before the final Blessing, the Holy Father offered the youth and the pilgrims who were present a few words of greeting. Then, after having greeted 40 local volunteers, he travelled by car to the Casa Hogar El Buen Samaritano Juan Diaz (the Juan Diaz Good Samaritan Home).
Homily of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
for the concluding Mass of the WYD 2019
The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them: 'Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (Lk 4:20-21). With these words, the Gospel presents the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. It started in the synagogue that saw him grow up; he was in the midst of neighbours and people he knew, and perhaps even some of his childhood catechists who had taught him the Law. It was an important moment in the life of the Master: the child who was educated and grew up in that community, stood up and took the floor to proclaim and put into action God’s dream. A word previously proclaimed only as a future promise, but now, on the lips of Jesus alone, could be spoken in the present tense, as it became a reality: Today it has been fulfilled.
Jesus reveals the now of God, who comes to meet us and call us to take part in his now of proclaiming good news to the poor... bringing liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, setting at liberty those who are oppressed, announcing the year of the Lord’s favour (Lk 4:18- 19). This is the now of God. It becomes present with Jesus: it has a face, it is flesh. It is a merciful love that does not wait for ideal or perfect situations to show itself, nor does it accept excuses for its appearance. It is God’s time, that makes every situation and place both right and proper. In Jesus, the promised future begins and becomes life.
When? Now. Yet not everyone who was listening felt invited or called. Not all the residents of Nazareth were prepared to believe in someone they knew and had seen grow up, and who was now inviting them to realize a long-awaited dream. Not only that, but they said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ (Lk 4:22).
The same thing can also happen with us. We do not always believe that God can be that concrete and commonplace, that close and real, and much less that he can become so present and work through somebody like a neighbour, a friend, a relative. We do not always believe that the Lord can invite us to work and soil our hands with him in his Kingdom in that simple and blunt a way. It is hard to accept that God’s love can become concrete and can almost be experienced in history with all its painful and glorious vicissitudes (Benedict XVI, General Audience, 28 September 2005).
Often we too behave like the neighbours in Nazareth: we prefer a distant God: nice, good, generous but far-off, a God who does not inconvenience us. Because a close and everyday God, a friend and brother, demands that we be concerned with our surroundings, everyday affairs and above all fraternity. God chose not to reveal himself as an angel or in some spectacular way, but to give us a face that is fraternal and friendly, concrete and familiar. God is real because love is real; God is concrete because love is concrete. Indeed, this concrete manifestation of love is one of the essential elements in the life of Christians (Benedict XVI, Homily, 1 March 2006).
We can also run the same risks as the neighbours at Nazareth, when within our communities the Gospel seeks to be lived concretely. We begin to say: But these young people, aren’t they the children of Mary, Joseph, aren’t they the brothers and sisters of so and so? Are these not the youngsters we saw grow up? That one over there, wasn’t he the one who kept breaking windows with his ball? What was born as prophecy and proclamation of the kingdom of God gets domesticated and impoverished. Attempts to domesticate the word of God occur daily.
You too, dear young people, can experience this whenever you think that your mission, your vocation, even your life itself, is a promise far off in the future, having nothing to do with the present. As if being young were a kind of waiting room, where we sit around until we are called. And in the meantime, we adults or you yourselves invent a hygienically sealed future, without consequences, where everything is safe, secure and well insured. A make-believe happiness. So we tranquilize you, we numb you into keeping quiet, not asking or questioning; and in that “meantime” your dreams lose their buoyancy, they begin to become flat and dreary, petty and plaintive (cf Palm Sunday Homily, 25 March 2018). Only because we think, or you think, that your now has not yet come, that you are too young to be involved in dreaming about and working for the future.
One of the fruits of the last Synod was the enrichment that came from being able to meet and above all to listen to one another. The enrichment of intergenerational dialogue, the enrichment of exchange and the value of realizing that we need one another, that we have to work to create channels and spaces that encourage dreaming of and working for tomorrow, starting today. And this, not in isolation, but rather side by side, creating a common space. A space that is not simply taken for granted, or won in a lottery, but a space for which you too must fight.
You, dear young people, are not the future but the now of God. He invites you and calls you in your communities and cities to go out and find your grandparents, your elders; to stand up and with them to speak out and realize the dream that the Lord has dreamed for you. Not tomorrow but now, for wherever your treasure is, there will your heart also be (cf Mt 6:21). Whatever you fall in love with, it will win over not only your imagination, it will affect everything. It will be what makes you get up in the morning, what keeps you going at times of fatigue, what will break open your hearts and fill you with wonder, joy and gratitude. Realize that you have a mission and fall in love; that will decide everything (cf Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Nada es más práctico). We may possess everything, but if we lack the passion of love, we will have nothing. Let us allow the Lord to make us fall in love!
For Jesus, there is no meantime, but only a merciful love that wants to enter into and win over our hearts. He wants to be our treasure, because he is not a meantime, an interval in life or a passing fad; he is generous love that invites us to entrust ourselves. He is concrete, close, real love. He is festive joy, born of opting for and taking part in the miraculous draught of hope and charity, solidarity and fraternity, despite the paralyzed and paralyzing gaze born of fear and exclusion, speculation and manipulation.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord and his mission are not a meantime in our life, something temporary; they are our life! In a special way throughout these days, Mary’s fiat has been whispering like a kind of music in the background. She not only believed in God and in his promises as something possible, she believed God himself and dared to say yes to taking part in this now of the Lord. She felt she had a mission; she fell in love and that decided everything.
As in the synagogue of Nazareth, the Lord stands up again among us his friends and acquaintances; he takes the book and says to us Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing (Lk 4:21). Do you want to live out your love in a practical way? May your yes continue to be the gateway for the Holy Spirit to give us a new Pentecost for the world and for the Church.
(Video)
Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
at the conclusion of the Mass
At the conclusion of this celebration, I give thanks to God for making it possible for us to share these days and to experience once again this World Youth Day.
In a particular way, I wish to thank the President of Panama, Mister Juan Carlos Varela Rodríguez and the Presidents of other Nations as well as other political and civil authorities for their presence at this celebration.
I thank His Excellency, José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta, Archbishop of Panama, for his availability and his good services in welcoming this celebration in his Diocese, as well as the other Bishops of this country and of neighbouring countries, for all that they have done in their local communities to provide lodgings and help for so many young people.
Thank you to all those who have helped us with your prayer and who have collaborated with their commitment and their work in order to make the World Youth Day in this country a reality.
And to you, dear young people, I offer a great word of thanks. Your faith and your joy have made Panama, America and the entire world vibrate. As we have heard so many times during these days in the World Youth Day hymn, We are pilgrims who have come here today from continents and cities. We are on a journey: keep going along this journey, continue living your faith and sharing it too. Don't forget that you are not the tomorrow, not the meanwhile of God, but rather the now of God.
The location of the next World Youth Day has already been announced. I ask you not to allow what you have experienced during these days to cool off. Return to your parishes and communities, to your families and your friends, ready to share with them what you have experienced, so that others may also vibrate with the strength and the concrete hope that you have found. And with Maria, continue saying yes to the dream that God has planted within you.
And please don't forget to pray for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment