Assisi: with the clergy

In the early part of yesterday afternoon, following his visit with the poor of Assisi, Pope Francis left the Caritas Centre at the church of Saint Mary of the Angels and traveled by car to the Hermitage.  Welcomed by the religious community who lives there, the Pope then paid a private visit to the Hermitage and prayed in the cell where Saint Francis once lived.

He then travelled by car to the Cathedral of San Rufino where he met (at 3:30pm) with the clergy, consecrated persons and members of various pastoral councils within the diocese.

Following some words of welcome which were spoken by His Excellency, Domenico Sorrentino, Archbishop of that place, the Holy Father then spoke to the gathered community.

Speech of His Holiness, Pope Francis

with the clergy, consecrated persons and

members of pastoral councils, Assisi

Dear brothers and sisters of the Diocesan community, good afternoon!

Thank you for your welcome, priests, religious men and women and lay people involved in pastoral councils!  How necessary it is to have pastoral councils!  A bishop cannot guide a diocese without pastoral councils.  A pastor cannot guide the parish without a parish council.  It is essential!  We are here in the Cathedral!  Here, we keep the baptismal font where Saint Francis and Saint Clare were baptized; at the time it was located in the Church of Saint Mary.  The memory of our baptism is important!  Baptism is the moment of our birth as sons and daughters of Mother Church.  I want to ask you: who among you knows the date when you were baptized?  Only a few!  Now, here's your homework.  Ask your mother and your father: when was I baptized?  It's important because it was the day of your birth as a son or a daughter of God.  There is one Spirit, one baptism but a variety of gifts and ministries.  What a wonderful gift the Church is, what a wonderful gift it is to be part of the People of God!  We are all the People of God.  In harmony, in the communion of diversity, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is harmony, and the Holy Spirit creates harmony: harmony is a gift from the Spirit, and we must be open to receiving this gift.

The Bishop is the guardian of this harmony.  The Bishop is the custody of this gift of harmony in diversity.  For this reason, Pope Benedict wanted the pastoral activity within the Franciscan Papal Basilicae to be integrated with the diocesan pastoral activity ... because it was his duty to create harmony: it's up to the pope, it's his task and his vocation, and he has the special gifts necessary to create this harmony.  I'm happy that you have travelled this road well, to the benefit of everyone, serenely collaborating together, and I want to encourage you to continue.  This pastoral visit which is almost completed and the diocesan Synod which you are about to celebrate are both significant moments of growth for this Church, which God has blessed in a particular way.  The Church grows, but not by proselytizing.  The Church grows through attraction, the attraction of the witness of faith provided by each one of us who are part of the People of God.

Now, I would like to briefly point out a few aspects of your community life.  I have nothing new to share with you, but I want to confirm in you a few of the important things that characterize your diocesan journey.

The first thing is listen to the Word of God.  This is the Church - the community - I said that the Bishop - the community listens with faith and with love to the Lord who speaks. The pastoral plan that you are experiencing together emphasizes this fundamental dimension.  It is the Word of god that inspires faith, feeds it, gives it life.  The Word of God touches the heart, converts the heart to God and to his reasoning which is so different from our own thoughts; it is the Word of God that continually renews our community ...

I think that all of us can be a little bit better in this aspect: all of us becoming better listeners to the Word of God, in order to be less enriched by our own words and more enriched by his Word.  I think of priests who have the task of preaching.  How can you preach if you haven't first opened your heart, if you haven't first listened in silence to the Word of God?  Stop giving interminable, boring homilies which are incomprehensible.  This is for you!  Think of the fathers and mothers, the primary educators:  how can they teach if their own consciences haven't been illuminated by the Word of God, if their way of thinking and of acting is not guided by the Word; what kind of example can they give to their children?  This is important, because fathers and mothers will lament: this son ... But you, what witness have you provided?  How have you spoken to them?  Have you shared the Word of God or the words of a newscast?  Fathers and mothers must speak the Word of God!  And I think of catechists, of all the teachers: if their hearts are not warmed by the Word, how can they warm the hearts of others, of children, of young people, of adults?  It's not enough to read Sacred Scripture, we must listen to Jesus who speaks within us: it is Jesus himself who speaks in the Scripture, it is Jesus who speaks within us.  We must be antennae which receive this Word, tuned to the Word of God, in order to also be transmitting antennae!  We receive and we transmit.  The Spirit of God brings the scriptures alive, allows us to plumb their depths, to grasp their full and true sense.  Let us ask ourselves, as one of the questions for the Synod: what place does the Word of God have in my life, my everyday life?  Am I tuned into God or am I preoccupied by buzz words only, or am I only concerned about myself?  This is a question that all of us must ask ourselves.

The second aspect is that of walking.  This is one of the words I like to use when I think of Christians and the Church.  But for you, this word has a special meaning: to enter into the Synod and to live a synod implies walking together.  I think that this is truly the most beautiful experience that we can have: to be part of a people who are on the way, on the way through history, together with their Lord, who walks alongside us!  We are not isolated, we do not walk alone, but we are part of the one flock of Christ which walks the road together.

Here again, I think of you priests, and I must number myself among you too.  What better thing is there for us than to walk with our people?  It's beautiful!  When I think of pastors I knew who knew the names of the people of their parishes, who would go out to seek and find them; it's like one of the priests used to say to me: I know the name of every family's dog, even the name of the dog, they knew them!  How good it was!  What better thing can there be?  I repeat again: walk with our people, sometimes in front of them, sometimes in the midst of them: in front, to guide the community; in the middle, to encourage and sustain them; in their midst, to keep them together because the people have noses. They have noses for smelling out new paths along which they can and should walk, they have the sensus fidei which provides theological understanding.  What better thing can there be?  In a Synod, there should also be a sense of listening to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the laity, to the People of God, to all of us.

But the most important thing is to walk together, to collaborate, to help one another; beg pardon, recognize each other's mistakes and ask for forgiveness, but also accept the apologies of others and forgive them - how important it is to forgive!  Think from time to time of married couples who after so many years separate from one another.  Ah ... no, i mean ... we grew apart.  Perhaps they were not able to apologize in time.  Maybe they didn't know how to forgive in time.  I always tell newly-weds: Fight if you must.  If he or she wants to throw dishes, let him - let her, but never finish the day without making peace!  Never!  And if spouses learn to say: Excuse me, I was tired .. or even through the smallest of gestures if words are not possible, make peace, and start life again the next day.  This is a beautiful secret, one way to avoid painful separation.  How important it is to walk the road of life together, not leaping forward, without constantly looking backward nostalgically at the past.  And while we walk, we also talk, we get to know one another, we tell stories to each other, we grow and become a family.  Let us ask ourselves: how do we walk?  How is our diocese walking the road?  Are we walking together?  What am I doing to help us truly walk the road together?  I don't want to enter today into arguments or idle chatter, but you know that idle chatter and gossip always divides!

So listen, walk and the third aspect is be missionaries: proclaim the good news, even to the peripheries.  Even this I have taken from you, from your pastoral work.  The Bishop hasn't spoken of it recently, but I want to point it out because it is an element that I have seen many times when I was in Buenos Aires: the importance of going out toward the other, even to the peripheries, which can be far away, but there are people in special life situations who need our help.  It was like that in dioceses where I used to serve: in Buenos Aires.  One of the peripheries that I always found difficult was to find middle class families, children who didn't know how to make the sign of the Cross.  This is a real periphery!  I ask you: here, in this diocese, are there children who don't know how to make the sign of the Cross?  Think of them, pray for them.  These are truly on the periphery of existence, where God cannot be found.

In a sense, the peripheries of this diocese, for example, are the zones of the diocese that are at risk of being on the edges, away from the spotlight.  But they are also the persons, the human realities of living on the margins, even being despised.  There are people who might be physically located near the centre of the action but who are really far away.

Don't be afraid to go out, to go out and meet these people, to involve yourselves in these situations.  Don't allow prejudices, habits, mental or pastoral rigidity, or of the famous it's always been done this way to stop you from going out to meet the people who need you.  You can only go to the peripheries if you bring the Word of God with you in your heart and if you walk in step with the Church, like Saint Francis did.  Otherwise, we carry ourselves, not the Word of God, and this is not good, it doesn't help anyone!  We are not the ones who will save the world: only the Lord can save it!

There you are, my friends, I haven't given you any new recipe. I don't have any, and don't believe anyone who says that they do:  there are no such things.  However, I've found in the life of your Church some beautiful and important aspects which will help you to grow and which I want to confirm.  Listen to the Word, walk together fraternally, proclaim the gospel in the peripheries! May the Lord bless you, may the Madonna protect you, and may Saint Francis help you all to live the joy of being disciples of the Lord.  Thank you.