This morning, after having celebrated a private Mass, at 9:15am local time (10:15pm last night EST), the Holy Father, Pope Francis left the Apostolic Nunciature in Dhaka and travelled by car to the Casa Madre Teresa in Tejgaon for a private visit.
Upon his arrival, the Pope was welcomed by the Bishop entrusted with the Pastoral Care of Social Affairs, His Excellency, Paul Ponen Kubi, CSC, Bishop of Mymensingh; the Superior of the Casa Madre Teresa; and the Regional Superior of the Sisters Missionaries of Charity. His Holiness was then accompanied as he visited two floors of the House where some children and elderly who are assisted by the Congregation live. Meanwhile, a choir of children sang a few songs in the courtyard outside the Home.
At the conclusion of the visit, the Holy Father presented a gift to the Casa Madre Teresa. He then walked to the nearby Holy Rosary Church where he met with priests, religious men and women, consecrated persons, seminarians and novices.
At 10:45am local time (11:45pm last night EST), the Holy Father, Pope Francis met with approximately 1500 priests, religious men and women, consecrated persons, seminarians and novices inside Holy Rosary Church, the Cathedral church of the Archdiocese of Chittagong.
Upon his arrival, the Pope was welcomed at the entrance to the church by the Bishop of Khulna, His Excellency, Romen Boiragi; by the Pastor and by the President of the Association of Religious men and women of Bangladesh. The Pope then spoke a few unscripted words to those who were gathered outside the church.
I greet you all and I thank you for this joy, this welcome. Thank you all very much. I wish to ask you something: pray for me. Do you promise to do it? (Yes!) Ah, good. And I want to give you a suggestion, I want to give you some advice. At night, before you go to bed, pray one Hail Mary to the Virgin. Every night, before you go to bed, pray to Our Lady one Hail Mary. Will you do it? (Yes!)
And now, let us pray to Our Lady, all together.
Hail Mary ...
(Blessing)
Thank you very much.
After a welcoming song had been sung and words of welcome had been offered by the Archbishop of Chittagong, His Excellency, Moses M. Costa, CSC, a priest, a missionary, a nun, a male religious and a seminarian each gave their own testimonials. Then the Holy Father shared an unscripted speech. He passed his prepared text to the organizers and asked them to share it with those who were gathered.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I am very happy to be with you! I thank Archbishop Moses Costa for his warm greeting in your name. I especially thank those who offered testimonies and shared with us their love for God. I also express my gratitude to Father Mintu Palma for composing the prayer that we will shortly recite to Our Lady. As the Successor of Peter it is my task to confirm you in faith. But I want you to know that, through your words and presence here today, you also confirm me in faith and bring me great joy.
The Catholic community in Bangladesh is small. But you are like the mustard seed that God brings to fruition in his own time. I rejoice to see how this seed is growing and to witness first-hand the deep faith which God has given you (cf Mt 13:31-32). I think of the dedicated and faithful missionaries who planted and tended this seed of faith for almost five hundred years. I will shortly visit the cemetery here and pray for these men and women who so generously served this local Church. As I look out among you, I see missionaries who continue this holy work. I also see many vocations born in this land; they are a sign of the graces with which God is blessing your land. I am particularly pleased by the presence, and the prayers, of the cloistered nuns among us.
It is good that our meeting takes place in this ancient Church of the Holy Rosary. The rosary is a beautiful meditation on the mysteries of faith that are the lifeblood of the Church and a prayer that shapes our spiritual lives and our apostolic service. Whether we are priests, religious, consecrated men or women, seminarians or novices, the prayer of the rosary inspires us, in union with Mary, to give our lives completely to Christ. It invites us to share in Mary’s attentiveness to God at the annunciation, Christ’s compassion for all humanity as he hangs upon the cross, and the Church’s rejoicing as she receives the Risen Lord’s gift of the Holy Spirit.
Mary’s attentiveness. In all of history, has there ever been anyone as attentive as Mary was at the annunciation? God prepared her for that moment and she responded in love and trust. So too the Lord has prepared us and called each of us by name. Responding to that call is a lifelong process. Every day we have to learn to be more attentive to the Lord in prayer, meditating on his word and seeking to discern his will. I know that your pastoral work and your apostolates demand much of you, and that your days are often long and leave you tired. But we cannot bear Christ’s name, or share in his mission, unless we remain first and foremost men and women rooted in love, fired by love, through a personal encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist and the words of sacred Scripture. Father Abel, you reminded us of this when you spoke of the importance of fostering an intimate relationship with Jesus, for there we experience his mercy and find renewed strength for our service to others.
Attentiveness to the Lord allows us to see the world through his eyes and thus to become more sensitive to the needs of those whom we serve. We begin to understand their hopes and joys, fears and burdens, we see more clearly the many talents, charisms and gifts they bring to the building up of the Church in faith and holiness. Brother Lawrence, when you spoke of your ashram, you helped us to see the importance of assisting people to satisfy their spiritual thirst. May all of you, in the great variety of your apostolates, be a source of spiritual refreshment and inspiration to those you serve, and enable them to share their gifts ever more fully with one another in advancing the mission of the Church.
Christ’s compassion. The rosary draws us into a meditation on the passion and death of Jesus. By entering more deeply into these sorrowful mysteries, we come to know their saving power and are confirmed in our call to share it by our lives of com-passion and self-giving. Priesthood and religious life are not a career. They are not a vehicle for personal advancement. They are a service, a share in Christ’s own sacrificial love for his flock. By conforming ourselves daily to the One we love, we come to appreciate the fact that our lives are not our own. It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us (cf Gal 2:20).
We embody this compassion by accompanying people, especially in their moments of suffering and trial, helping them to find Jesus. Father Franco, thank you for drawing this to the fore – each of us is called to be a missionary, bringing Christ’s mercy and love to all, especially those on the peripheries of our society. I am especially grateful for the many ways in which so many of you are engaged in the areas of social outreach, health care and education, serving the needs of your local communities and of the many migrants and refugees coming to your country. Your service to the wider community, in particular to those most in need, is a precious service to the building of a culture of encounter and solidarity.
The Church’s rejoicing. Lastly, the rosary fills us with joy in Christ’s triumph over death, his ascension to the right hand of the Father and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our world. The whole of our ministry is directed to proclaiming the joy of the Gospel. In our lives and apostolates, we are all too aware of the problems of the world and the sufferings of humanity, but we never lose confidence in the power of Christ’s love to prevail over evil and the Prince of Lies who tries to deceive us. Never be discouraged by your own failures or by the challenges of ministry. If you remain attentive to the Lord in prayer and persevere in offering Christ’s compassion to your brothers and sisters, then the Lord will surely fill your hearts with the comforting joy of his Holy Spirit.
Sister Mary Chandra, you shared with us the joy that flows from your religious vocation and the charism of your religious congregation. Marcelius, you too spoke of the love you and your fellow seminarians have for your vocation to be priests. Both of you reminded us that we are all asked daily to renew and deepen our joy in the Lord by striving to imitate him ever more fully. In the beginning, this may seem daunting, but it fills our hearts with spiritual joy, for each day becomes an opportunity to begin again, to respond anew to the Lord. Never lose heart, for the Lord’s patience is for our salvation (cf 2 Pet 3:15)! Rejoice in the Lord always!
Dear brothers and sisters, I thank you for your fidelity in serving Christ and his Church through the gift of your lives. I assure all of you of my prayers, as I ask you to pray for me. Let us now turn to Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, asking that she may obtain for all of us the grace to grow in holiness and to be ever more joyful witnesses of the power of the Gospel to bring healing, reconciliation and peace to our world.
Dear brothers and sisters,
Thank you to Archbishop Costa for his introduction, and thank you for your witnesses. Here, I have a prepared speech that is eight pages long ... but we have come here to listen to the Pope and not to be bored! Therefore, I will leave the prepared speech with the Cardinal. He will have it translated into Bengali and I will say something that comes from my mind and my heart. I don't know if it will be better or worse, but I assure you that it will be less boring!
When I came in and greeted you, I was thinking of a image of the prophet Isaiah, taken from the first Reading that we will read on Tuesday of this coming week: In those days, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from its roots a bud shall blossom. The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him: a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and of strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord (Is 11:1-2). In a certain sense, Isaiah is describing the great and small aspects of a life of faith, a life of service to the Lord. He speaks of a life of faith and of service to God, and I am looking at you, who are men and women of faith who serve God.
It all begins with the sprout. A sprout that is planted in the ground, and this is the seed. The seed is neither yours nor mine: the seed is sown by God, and God is the one who makes it grow. Every one of us can say: I am the sprout. Yes, but not by your own merit, rather because of the seed that helps you to grow.
And what must I do? Water it, water it so that it can grow and reach its fullness in the spirit. This is what you should continue to give as your witness.
How can we water this seed? By caring for it. Caring for the seed and caring for the shoot that begins to grow! Care for the vocation that we have received. Like we care for a baby, like we care for someone who is sick, like we care for someone who is elderly. We care for a vocation with human tenderness. If in our communities, in our parishes, this dimension of human tenderness is lacking, the shoot will remain small, it will not grow, and perhaps it will even dry up. It needs to be cared for with tenderness, because every one of our brothers in the presbyterate, every brother in the Episcopal Conference, every brother or sister in my religious community, every brother seminarian is one of God's seeds, and God cares for that seed with the tenderness of a father.
It is true: at night, the devil comes and sows another seed, and there is the risk that the good seed will be suffocated by the evil seed. How terrible it is to have weeds within our presbyterates ... how terrible it is to have weeds within our Episcopal Conferences ... how awful it is to have weeds within our religious communities and in our seminaries. Care for the shoots, the shoots that spring from good grain, and watch how they will grow; see how they will be different from bad seeds and from weeds.
One of you - I think it was Marcel - said: to discern every day how I have grown in my vocation. Taking care of your vocation means to discern. And taking account of the level of growth, whether you are moving from one place to another, whether you are growing in a good sense; or whether instead, you are going in the opposite direction, growing in an undesirable way. We need to realize when these things are going wrong, or when we are in company of persons or situations that are a threat to such growth. Discernment. We can discern only when we have a heart that is at prayer. Pray. Caring for means praying, and asking the One who has planted the seeds to teach us how to water. If I am in crisis, or if I've fallen asleep, let a bit of that water fall on me. Praying means asking the Lord to take care of us, to give us the tenderness that we ought to give to others. This is the first idea that I want to share with you: the idea of taking care of the seed so that the shoot can grow into the fullness of God's wisdom. Care for it attentively, care for it with prayer, care for it with discernment. Take care of each other with tenderness, because this is the way in which God will take care of us: with the tenderness of a father.
The second idea that comes to mind is that in this garden of God's Kingdom there is not only one seed: there are thousands and thousands of seedlings, we are all seedlings. It is not easy to build a community. This is not easy. Human passions, defects, limits always threaten community life, always threaten the existence of peace. The community of consecrated life, the community of a seminary, the community of priests and the community of an Episcopal Conference should be able to defend itself against every kind of division. Yesterday, we thanked God for the example that Bangladesh has shown in the field of inter-religious dialogue. One of those who spoke quoted a phrase that was spoke by Cardinal Tauran when he said that Bangladesh is the best example of harmony in inter-religious dialogue (applause). This applause is for Cardinal Tauran. If yesterday, we said this about inter-religious dialogue, will we do the opposite with our Catholic faith, with our Catholic confession, with our communities? Even here in Bangladesh, we must provide an example of harmony!
There are many dangers to harmony, many of them. I would like to mention one example. Perhaps some people may criticize me for being repetitive, but for me this is fundamental. The enemy of harmony in a religious community, in a presbyterate, in an Episcopate, in a seminary is a spirit of gossip ... and I am not the one who invented this. Two thousand years ago, a certain James said this in a letter he wrote to the Church. The tongue, brothers and sisters, the tongue! What destroys a community is speaking badly about others. Pointing out the faults of others. The problem is that such words are not spoken to the person concerned, but to others, and this creates an environment of distrust, and environment in which there is no peace but rather division. There is something that I like to speak of as an image of the spirit of gossip: terrorism. Yes, terrorism, because we don't speak badly about others in public. Terrorism is not spoken of in public: I am a terrorist. And someone who speaks about someone else, does so in hiding: speaking with one person, throwing a bomb and then running away ... and this bomb destroys. And that person runs away, peacefully, to throw other bombs. Dear sister, dear brother, when you longed to speak badly about another, bite your tongue! The most likely thing is that your tongue might swell, but you will not harm your brother or your sister.
The spirit of division. How many times in the Letters of Saint Paul do we read about the suffering that Saint Paul endured when this spirit entered the Church? Certainly, you can ask me: Father, but we see a weakness in a brother, in a sister, and we want to correct them, or we want to speak about it, but we cannot throw the bomb, what can we do? There are two things you can do, don't forget them. The first, if it is possible - because it is not always possible - is to speak about it with the person concerned, face to face. Jesus gives us this advice. It is true that someone might say to me: No, I can't do that Father, because he or she is a complicated person. Like you, complicated. Ok, we can say that for the sake of prudence, it is not possible. The second thing you can do: if you cannot speak about it with the person, tell it to someone who can do something about it, and no one else. Either speak about it face to face, or speak about it with someone who can change the situation, but in private, in charity. How many communities - and I am not speaking based on hearsay, but rather on what I have seen - how many communities have been destroyed by a spirit of gossip! Please, bite your tongue!
And the third thing that I want to say to you - so that at least our time together is not too boring - afterwards, you will have time to be bored with my written text - is trying to have, asking for and having, a spirit of joy. Without joy, we cannot serve God. I ask each one of you - but reply in silence, not in a loud voice: How is your joy? I assure you that it is very sad to meet priests, consecrated men and women, seminarians, bishops who are bitter, with sad faces; I want to ask them: What, did you have vinegar for breakfast this morning? Vinegar faces. Bitterness in the heart, when the bad seed comes forward and says: Ah, look, they made him Superior ... they made her Superior ... they made him a Bishop ... and what about me, did they forget about me? There is no joy there. Saint Teresa - the great - has a phrase that is a curse; she would say to her nuns: Woe to the nun who says: They have been unjust to me! She used a Spanish word: sinrazón, in the sense of injustice. When you meet a Sister who is lamenting because 'they did not give me what I deserve' or 'they did not promote me' or 'they didn't make me prioress' or something else like that, woe to that nun: she is going down the wrong path.
Joy. Joy also in moments of difficulty. The joy that, even if we cannot laugh because to do so would be too painful, at least we are at peace. I am reminded of a scene in the life of the other Teresa, the little one, Teresa of the Child Jesus. She had to accompany one of the elderly nuns every night to the refectory. This nun was always angry, very sick, poor lady, she complained about everything. Anytime that someone touched her, she would say: No, that hurts! One night, while she was accompanying her through the cloister, Teresa heard joyous music coming from one of the nearby homes, music made by people who were having fun, good people, music like she remembered sharing with her family and with her sisters, and she imagined the people dancing, and she said: My great joy is this, and I wouldn't exchange it for anything else. Even in problematic moments, moments of difficulty within the community - supporting a superior who is a bit strange - even in such moments, say: I am content, Lord. I am happy, like Saint Alberto Hurtado used to say.
Joy in the heart. I assure you that it gives me such joy, such tenderness, to meet elderly priests, bishops, sisters who have lived life to the full. Their eyes are indescribable, so full of joy and peace. Those who have not lived life in this way, God is good, God takes care of them, but they are lacking a certain light in their eyes, a light that others who have experienced the joy of life possess. Try to find it - above all we see it in the eyes of women - try to find it in your elderly sisters, in the sisters who have spent their entire lives in service, with such joy and peace: they have shrewd bright eyes, because they possess the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.
The little shoot, in these elderly nuns and priests, has become the fullness of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Remember this next Tuesday, when we hear the passage from the Letter read at Mass, and ask yourselves: Am I taking care of my shoot? Am I watering my shoot? Am I caring for the shoots in others? Am I afraid to be a terrorist and, for that reason, I don't every speak badly about others and open my heart to the gift of joy?
My wish for all of you is that, like good wine, life may help you to mature until the very end, and that your eyes may shine with the good wisdom, joy and the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Pray for me as I pray for you.
At the conclusion of the meeting, at 11:45am local time (12:45am this morning EST), the Holy Father, Pope Francis paid a visit to the parish cemetery where many religious are buried. His Holiness stopped there to pray in silence and then lit a candle. Immediately afterward, the Pope entered the old church of the Holy Rosary, founded by Portuguese missionaries in 1677. It now serves as a Chapel of Perpetual Adoration.
Upon his arrival, the Pope was welcomed there by the Bishop of Dinajpur, His Excellency, Sebastian Tudu; by the Superior General and the Superior of the Institute which supports the nearby orphanage. Inside the Chapel, the Pope met briefly with 200 orphans and a few Sisters who care for them.
At the conclusion of his visit, after the blessing of children, the Pope returned to the Apostolic Nunciature by car. There, he had lunch with members of the Papal party.
Upon his arrival, the Pope was welcomed by the Bishop entrusted with the Pastoral Care of Social Affairs, His Excellency, Paul Ponen Kubi, CSC, Bishop of Mymensingh; the Superior of the Casa Madre Teresa; and the Regional Superior of the Sisters Missionaries of Charity. His Holiness was then accompanied as he visited two floors of the House where some children and elderly who are assisted by the Congregation live. Meanwhile, a choir of children sang a few songs in the courtyard outside the Home.
At the conclusion of the visit, the Holy Father presented a gift to the Casa Madre Teresa. He then walked to the nearby Holy Rosary Church where he met with priests, religious men and women, consecrated persons, seminarians and novices.
At 10:45am local time (11:45pm last night EST), the Holy Father, Pope Francis met with approximately 1500 priests, religious men and women, consecrated persons, seminarians and novices inside Holy Rosary Church, the Cathedral church of the Archdiocese of Chittagong.
Upon his arrival, the Pope was welcomed at the entrance to the church by the Bishop of Khulna, His Excellency, Romen Boiragi; by the Pastor and by the President of the Association of Religious men and women of Bangladesh. The Pope then spoke a few unscripted words to those who were gathered outside the church.
Unscripted greetings of His Holiness, Pope Francis
offered to those gathered outside Holy Rosary Church
I greet you all and I thank you for this joy, this welcome. Thank you all very much. I wish to ask you something: pray for me. Do you promise to do it? (Yes!) Ah, good. And I want to give you a suggestion, I want to give you some advice. At night, before you go to bed, pray one Hail Mary to the Virgin. Every night, before you go to bed, pray to Our Lady one Hail Mary. Will you do it? (Yes!)
And now, let us pray to Our Lady, all together.
Hail Mary ...
(Blessing)
Thank you very much.
After a welcoming song had been sung and words of welcome had been offered by the Archbishop of Chittagong, His Excellency, Moses M. Costa, CSC, a priest, a missionary, a nun, a male religious and a seminarian each gave their own testimonials. Then the Holy Father shared an unscripted speech. He passed his prepared text to the organizers and asked them to share it with those who were gathered.
Prepared text of the speech by His Holiness, Pope Francis
for the meeting at Holy Rosary Church
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I am very happy to be with you! I thank Archbishop Moses Costa for his warm greeting in your name. I especially thank those who offered testimonies and shared with us their love for God. I also express my gratitude to Father Mintu Palma for composing the prayer that we will shortly recite to Our Lady. As the Successor of Peter it is my task to confirm you in faith. But I want you to know that, through your words and presence here today, you also confirm me in faith and bring me great joy.
The Catholic community in Bangladesh is small. But you are like the mustard seed that God brings to fruition in his own time. I rejoice to see how this seed is growing and to witness first-hand the deep faith which God has given you (cf Mt 13:31-32). I think of the dedicated and faithful missionaries who planted and tended this seed of faith for almost five hundred years. I will shortly visit the cemetery here and pray for these men and women who so generously served this local Church. As I look out among you, I see missionaries who continue this holy work. I also see many vocations born in this land; they are a sign of the graces with which God is blessing your land. I am particularly pleased by the presence, and the prayers, of the cloistered nuns among us.
It is good that our meeting takes place in this ancient Church of the Holy Rosary. The rosary is a beautiful meditation on the mysteries of faith that are the lifeblood of the Church and a prayer that shapes our spiritual lives and our apostolic service. Whether we are priests, religious, consecrated men or women, seminarians or novices, the prayer of the rosary inspires us, in union with Mary, to give our lives completely to Christ. It invites us to share in Mary’s attentiveness to God at the annunciation, Christ’s compassion for all humanity as he hangs upon the cross, and the Church’s rejoicing as she receives the Risen Lord’s gift of the Holy Spirit.
Mary’s attentiveness. In all of history, has there ever been anyone as attentive as Mary was at the annunciation? God prepared her for that moment and she responded in love and trust. So too the Lord has prepared us and called each of us by name. Responding to that call is a lifelong process. Every day we have to learn to be more attentive to the Lord in prayer, meditating on his word and seeking to discern his will. I know that your pastoral work and your apostolates demand much of you, and that your days are often long and leave you tired. But we cannot bear Christ’s name, or share in his mission, unless we remain first and foremost men and women rooted in love, fired by love, through a personal encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist and the words of sacred Scripture. Father Abel, you reminded us of this when you spoke of the importance of fostering an intimate relationship with Jesus, for there we experience his mercy and find renewed strength for our service to others.
Attentiveness to the Lord allows us to see the world through his eyes and thus to become more sensitive to the needs of those whom we serve. We begin to understand their hopes and joys, fears and burdens, we see more clearly the many talents, charisms and gifts they bring to the building up of the Church in faith and holiness. Brother Lawrence, when you spoke of your ashram, you helped us to see the importance of assisting people to satisfy their spiritual thirst. May all of you, in the great variety of your apostolates, be a source of spiritual refreshment and inspiration to those you serve, and enable them to share their gifts ever more fully with one another in advancing the mission of the Church.
Christ’s compassion. The rosary draws us into a meditation on the passion and death of Jesus. By entering more deeply into these sorrowful mysteries, we come to know their saving power and are confirmed in our call to share it by our lives of com-passion and self-giving. Priesthood and religious life are not a career. They are not a vehicle for personal advancement. They are a service, a share in Christ’s own sacrificial love for his flock. By conforming ourselves daily to the One we love, we come to appreciate the fact that our lives are not our own. It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us (cf Gal 2:20).
We embody this compassion by accompanying people, especially in their moments of suffering and trial, helping them to find Jesus. Father Franco, thank you for drawing this to the fore – each of us is called to be a missionary, bringing Christ’s mercy and love to all, especially those on the peripheries of our society. I am especially grateful for the many ways in which so many of you are engaged in the areas of social outreach, health care and education, serving the needs of your local communities and of the many migrants and refugees coming to your country. Your service to the wider community, in particular to those most in need, is a precious service to the building of a culture of encounter and solidarity.
The Church’s rejoicing. Lastly, the rosary fills us with joy in Christ’s triumph over death, his ascension to the right hand of the Father and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our world. The whole of our ministry is directed to proclaiming the joy of the Gospel. In our lives and apostolates, we are all too aware of the problems of the world and the sufferings of humanity, but we never lose confidence in the power of Christ’s love to prevail over evil and the Prince of Lies who tries to deceive us. Never be discouraged by your own failures or by the challenges of ministry. If you remain attentive to the Lord in prayer and persevere in offering Christ’s compassion to your brothers and sisters, then the Lord will surely fill your hearts with the comforting joy of his Holy Spirit.
Sister Mary Chandra, you shared with us the joy that flows from your religious vocation and the charism of your religious congregation. Marcelius, you too spoke of the love you and your fellow seminarians have for your vocation to be priests. Both of you reminded us that we are all asked daily to renew and deepen our joy in the Lord by striving to imitate him ever more fully. In the beginning, this may seem daunting, but it fills our hearts with spiritual joy, for each day becomes an opportunity to begin again, to respond anew to the Lord. Never lose heart, for the Lord’s patience is for our salvation (cf 2 Pet 3:15)! Rejoice in the Lord always!
Dear brothers and sisters, I thank you for your fidelity in serving Christ and his Church through the gift of your lives. I assure all of you of my prayers, as I ask you to pray for me. Let us now turn to Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, asking that she may obtain for all of us the grace to grow in holiness and to be ever more joyful witnesses of the power of the Gospel to bring healing, reconciliation and peace to our world.
Unscripted speech of His Holiness, Pope Francis
at the Cathedral of the Holy Rosary
Dear brothers and sisters,
Thank you to Archbishop Costa for his introduction, and thank you for your witnesses. Here, I have a prepared speech that is eight pages long ... but we have come here to listen to the Pope and not to be bored! Therefore, I will leave the prepared speech with the Cardinal. He will have it translated into Bengali and I will say something that comes from my mind and my heart. I don't know if it will be better or worse, but I assure you that it will be less boring!
When I came in and greeted you, I was thinking of a image of the prophet Isaiah, taken from the first Reading that we will read on Tuesday of this coming week: In those days, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from its roots a bud shall blossom. The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him: a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and of strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord (Is 11:1-2). In a certain sense, Isaiah is describing the great and small aspects of a life of faith, a life of service to the Lord. He speaks of a life of faith and of service to God, and I am looking at you, who are men and women of faith who serve God.
It all begins with the sprout. A sprout that is planted in the ground, and this is the seed. The seed is neither yours nor mine: the seed is sown by God, and God is the one who makes it grow. Every one of us can say: I am the sprout. Yes, but not by your own merit, rather because of the seed that helps you to grow.
And what must I do? Water it, water it so that it can grow and reach its fullness in the spirit. This is what you should continue to give as your witness.
How can we water this seed? By caring for it. Caring for the seed and caring for the shoot that begins to grow! Care for the vocation that we have received. Like we care for a baby, like we care for someone who is sick, like we care for someone who is elderly. We care for a vocation with human tenderness. If in our communities, in our parishes, this dimension of human tenderness is lacking, the shoot will remain small, it will not grow, and perhaps it will even dry up. It needs to be cared for with tenderness, because every one of our brothers in the presbyterate, every brother in the Episcopal Conference, every brother or sister in my religious community, every brother seminarian is one of God's seeds, and God cares for that seed with the tenderness of a father.
It is true: at night, the devil comes and sows another seed, and there is the risk that the good seed will be suffocated by the evil seed. How terrible it is to have weeds within our presbyterates ... how terrible it is to have weeds within our Episcopal Conferences ... how awful it is to have weeds within our religious communities and in our seminaries. Care for the shoots, the shoots that spring from good grain, and watch how they will grow; see how they will be different from bad seeds and from weeds.
One of you - I think it was Marcel - said: to discern every day how I have grown in my vocation. Taking care of your vocation means to discern. And taking account of the level of growth, whether you are moving from one place to another, whether you are growing in a good sense; or whether instead, you are going in the opposite direction, growing in an undesirable way. We need to realize when these things are going wrong, or when we are in company of persons or situations that are a threat to such growth. Discernment. We can discern only when we have a heart that is at prayer. Pray. Caring for means praying, and asking the One who has planted the seeds to teach us how to water. If I am in crisis, or if I've fallen asleep, let a bit of that water fall on me. Praying means asking the Lord to take care of us, to give us the tenderness that we ought to give to others. This is the first idea that I want to share with you: the idea of taking care of the seed so that the shoot can grow into the fullness of God's wisdom. Care for it attentively, care for it with prayer, care for it with discernment. Take care of each other with tenderness, because this is the way in which God will take care of us: with the tenderness of a father.
The second idea that comes to mind is that in this garden of God's Kingdom there is not only one seed: there are thousands and thousands of seedlings, we are all seedlings. It is not easy to build a community. This is not easy. Human passions, defects, limits always threaten community life, always threaten the existence of peace. The community of consecrated life, the community of a seminary, the community of priests and the community of an Episcopal Conference should be able to defend itself against every kind of division. Yesterday, we thanked God for the example that Bangladesh has shown in the field of inter-religious dialogue. One of those who spoke quoted a phrase that was spoke by Cardinal Tauran when he said that Bangladesh is the best example of harmony in inter-religious dialogue (applause). This applause is for Cardinal Tauran. If yesterday, we said this about inter-religious dialogue, will we do the opposite with our Catholic faith, with our Catholic confession, with our communities? Even here in Bangladesh, we must provide an example of harmony!
There are many dangers to harmony, many of them. I would like to mention one example. Perhaps some people may criticize me for being repetitive, but for me this is fundamental. The enemy of harmony in a religious community, in a presbyterate, in an Episcopate, in a seminary is a spirit of gossip ... and I am not the one who invented this. Two thousand years ago, a certain James said this in a letter he wrote to the Church. The tongue, brothers and sisters, the tongue! What destroys a community is speaking badly about others. Pointing out the faults of others. The problem is that such words are not spoken to the person concerned, but to others, and this creates an environment of distrust, and environment in which there is no peace but rather division. There is something that I like to speak of as an image of the spirit of gossip: terrorism. Yes, terrorism, because we don't speak badly about others in public. Terrorism is not spoken of in public: I am a terrorist. And someone who speaks about someone else, does so in hiding: speaking with one person, throwing a bomb and then running away ... and this bomb destroys. And that person runs away, peacefully, to throw other bombs. Dear sister, dear brother, when you longed to speak badly about another, bite your tongue! The most likely thing is that your tongue might swell, but you will not harm your brother or your sister.
The spirit of division. How many times in the Letters of Saint Paul do we read about the suffering that Saint Paul endured when this spirit entered the Church? Certainly, you can ask me: Father, but we see a weakness in a brother, in a sister, and we want to correct them, or we want to speak about it, but we cannot throw the bomb, what can we do? There are two things you can do, don't forget them. The first, if it is possible - because it is not always possible - is to speak about it with the person concerned, face to face. Jesus gives us this advice. It is true that someone might say to me: No, I can't do that Father, because he or she is a complicated person. Like you, complicated. Ok, we can say that for the sake of prudence, it is not possible. The second thing you can do: if you cannot speak about it with the person, tell it to someone who can do something about it, and no one else. Either speak about it face to face, or speak about it with someone who can change the situation, but in private, in charity. How many communities - and I am not speaking based on hearsay, but rather on what I have seen - how many communities have been destroyed by a spirit of gossip! Please, bite your tongue!
And the third thing that I want to say to you - so that at least our time together is not too boring - afterwards, you will have time to be bored with my written text - is trying to have, asking for and having, a spirit of joy. Without joy, we cannot serve God. I ask each one of you - but reply in silence, not in a loud voice: How is your joy? I assure you that it is very sad to meet priests, consecrated men and women, seminarians, bishops who are bitter, with sad faces; I want to ask them: What, did you have vinegar for breakfast this morning? Vinegar faces. Bitterness in the heart, when the bad seed comes forward and says: Ah, look, they made him Superior ... they made her Superior ... they made him a Bishop ... and what about me, did they forget about me? There is no joy there. Saint Teresa - the great - has a phrase that is a curse; she would say to her nuns: Woe to the nun who says: They have been unjust to me! She used a Spanish word: sinrazón, in the sense of injustice. When you meet a Sister who is lamenting because 'they did not give me what I deserve' or 'they did not promote me' or 'they didn't make me prioress' or something else like that, woe to that nun: she is going down the wrong path.
Joy. Joy also in moments of difficulty. The joy that, even if we cannot laugh because to do so would be too painful, at least we are at peace. I am reminded of a scene in the life of the other Teresa, the little one, Teresa of the Child Jesus. She had to accompany one of the elderly nuns every night to the refectory. This nun was always angry, very sick, poor lady, she complained about everything. Anytime that someone touched her, she would say: No, that hurts! One night, while she was accompanying her through the cloister, Teresa heard joyous music coming from one of the nearby homes, music made by people who were having fun, good people, music like she remembered sharing with her family and with her sisters, and she imagined the people dancing, and she said: My great joy is this, and I wouldn't exchange it for anything else. Even in problematic moments, moments of difficulty within the community - supporting a superior who is a bit strange - even in such moments, say: I am content, Lord. I am happy, like Saint Alberto Hurtado used to say.
Joy in the heart. I assure you that it gives me such joy, such tenderness, to meet elderly priests, bishops, sisters who have lived life to the full. Their eyes are indescribable, so full of joy and peace. Those who have not lived life in this way, God is good, God takes care of them, but they are lacking a certain light in their eyes, a light that others who have experienced the joy of life possess. Try to find it - above all we see it in the eyes of women - try to find it in your elderly sisters, in the sisters who have spent their entire lives in service, with such joy and peace: they have shrewd bright eyes, because they possess the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.
The little shoot, in these elderly nuns and priests, has become the fullness of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Remember this next Tuesday, when we hear the passage from the Letter read at Mass, and ask yourselves: Am I taking care of my shoot? Am I watering my shoot? Am I caring for the shoots in others? Am I afraid to be a terrorist and, for that reason, I don't every speak badly about others and open my heart to the gift of joy?
My wish for all of you is that, like good wine, life may help you to mature until the very end, and that your eyes may shine with the good wisdom, joy and the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Pray for me as I pray for you.
At the conclusion of the meeting, at 11:45am local time (12:45am this morning EST), the Holy Father, Pope Francis paid a visit to the parish cemetery where many religious are buried. His Holiness stopped there to pray in silence and then lit a candle. Immediately afterward, the Pope entered the old church of the Holy Rosary, founded by Portuguese missionaries in 1677. It now serves as a Chapel of Perpetual Adoration.
Upon his arrival, the Pope was welcomed there by the Bishop of Dinajpur, His Excellency, Sebastian Tudu; by the Superior General and the Superior of the Institute which supports the nearby orphanage. Inside the Chapel, the Pope met briefly with 200 orphans and a few Sisters who care for them.
At the conclusion of his visit, after the blessing of children, the Pope returned to the Apostolic Nunciature by car. There, he had lunch with members of the Papal party.
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