At 12:35pm local time (6:35am EDT), in the Clementine Hall at the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience those who are participating in an international meeting of Academic Centres, Movements and Associations of the New Evangelization. The gathering was organized by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization and has been taking place from 19 to 21 September 2019 at the New Synod Hall at the Vatican. The theme of the meeting is To meet God, is it possible? Paths of New Evangelization.
Dear brothers and sisters,
I welcome you and I thank His Excellency, Rino Fisichella for the words he has offered in your name.
You have reflected on a central theme for evangelization: how to ignite the desire to meet God despite the signs that obscure his presence. In this sense, the Gospel of Luke offers us a good starting point, when it speaks of the two disciples who went to Emmaus: there was Christ walking with them, but because of the discomfort they had in their heart they were not able to recognize him (cf Lk 24:13-27). It is also true for many of our contemporaries: God is close to them, but they cannot recognize him. It is said that once upon a time Pope John, meeting a journalist who told him he did not believe, answered him: Quiet! You say that! God does not know it, and God considers you equally as a child for him to love. The secret, then, lies in feeling, together with one's own uncertainties, the wonder of this presence. It is the same astonishment that the disciples of Emmaus caught: Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us along the way, when he explained the Scriptures to us? (Lk 24:32). Our challenge is to make other people's hearts burn.
It often happens that the Church is a cold memory for men and women today, if not a bitter disappointment, as was the story of Jesus for the disciples of Emmaus. Many, especially in the West, have the impression of a Church that does not understand them, one that is far from their needs. Some, then, who would like to support the less evangelical logic of relevance, consider the Church too weak towards the world, while others see it still too powerful compared to the great poverty of the world. I would say that we are right to worry, but above all to take care, when we perceive a worldly Church, that is, a Church that follows the criteria of success defined by the world, and a Church that forgets that it does not exist to announce itself, but rather to proclaim Jesus. A Church concerned with defending its own good name, one that struggles to renounce what is not essential, no longer feels the ardor of bringing the Gospel down today. And it ends up being more a beautiful museum exhibit than the simple and festive house of the Father. Oh, the temptation of museums! And also the temptation to conceive the living tradition of the Church as a museum, the temptation to keep things so that everything is in its place: I am a Catholic because ... I digested the Denzinger (A collection of Symbols, Definitions and Declarations on the topics of faith and morality), let's face it.
Yet there are so many children who the Father wants to feel at home; they are our brothers and sisters who, while benefiting from many technical achievements, live absorbed in the vortex of a great frenzy. And while they carry deep wounds and struggle to find a stable job, they find themselves surrounded by an external well-being that numbs us from inside and distracts us from courageous choices. How many people live next to us, and are slaves to what should serve them better and forget the taste of life: the beauty of a large and generous family, which fills the day and the night but dilates the heart; the brightness found in the eyes of children, which no smartphone can give; the joy of simple things; the serenity that leads to prayer. What our brothers and sisters often ask us, perhaps without even being able to ask the question, corresponds to the deepest needs: to love and to be loved, to be accepted for what we are, to find peace of heart and a longer lasting joy of entertainment.
We have experienced all of this in one word, even in one person, Jesus. We who, while fragile and sinful, have been flooded by the river in the fullness of God's goodness, we have this mission: to meet our contemporaries to tell them about his love. Not so much teaching, never judging, but making us fellow travellers. Like the deacon Philip, who - the Acts of the Apostles recounts - got up, set off, ran towards the Ethiopian and, as a friend, sat down next to him, entering into dialogue with that man who had a great desire for God in the midst of many doubts (cf Acts 8: 26-40). How important it is to feel challenged by the questions of today's men and women! Without pretending to have immediately responded and without giving ready-made answers, but sharing words of life, not aimed at making converts, but rather leaving space for the creative power of the Holy Spirit, which frees the heart from the slavery that oppresses and renews it. Transmitting God, then, is not merely talking about God, it is not justifying His existence: even the devil knows that God exists! Proclaiming the Lord is witnessing the joy of knowing him, it is helping to live the beauty of meeting him. God is not the answer to an intellectual curiosity or a commitment to the will, but an experience of love, called to become a story of love. Because - it applies to us above all - once we have met the living God, we need to look for him again. The mystery of God is never exhausted, it is as immense as his love.
God is love (1 Jn 4: 8), says the Scripture. Use the verb to be, because God is like that; God does not vary depending on how we behave: it is unconditional love, it does not change, despite all that we can combine. As the Psalm says: His love is forever (Psalm 136:1). It is love that is not consumed, as in the scene of the burning bush when God, revealing his name for the first time, having already used the verb to be: I am who I am (Ex 3:14). How beautiful it is to proclaim this faithful God, a fire that is not consumed, to the brothers who live in lukewarmness because their initial enthusiasm has cooled. How nice it is to tell them: Jesus Christ loves you, he gave his life to save you, and now he lives by your side every day (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 164).
In the light of this kerygma the life of faith develops, which is not a complicated construction made up of so many bricks to be put together, but the ever new discovery of the fundamental nucleus, the throbbing beat of the heart of the Gospel: the beauty of the saving love of God manifested in Jesus Christ who died and rose again (EG, 36). The Christian life is always renewed with this first announcement. I like to reiterate before you that when we say that this announcement is the first, it does not mean that it is at the beginning and afterwards it forgets or replaces itself with other content that surpasses it. It is the first in a qualitative sense, because it is the main announcement, the one that must always return to listening in different ways and that one must always return to proclaim during catechesis in one form or another, in all its stages and its moments (EG, 64). Otherwise, the subtle presumption hides that to be more solid means to become educated, experts in sacred things (cf Christus Vivit, 214). But the wisdom of God is granted to the poor in spirit, to those who remain with Jesus, loving everyone in his name.
One last thing I would like to share with you. Faith being life that is born again and again from the encounter with Jesus, what in life is an encounter helps us to grow in faith: to draw closer to those in need, to build bridges, to serve those who suffer, to take care of the poor, to anoint those around us with patience, comforting those who are discouraged, blessing those who harm us ... In this way, we become living signs of the Love we proclaim. I thank you, dear brothers and sisters, because you want to spread the joy of being loved by God and of loving as he taught us. I accompany you with my blessing and, please, do not forget to pray for me. Thank you.
Testo originale nella lingua italiana
Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
offered on the subject of the New Evangelization
Dear brothers and sisters,
I welcome you and I thank His Excellency, Rino Fisichella for the words he has offered in your name.
You have reflected on a central theme for evangelization: how to ignite the desire to meet God despite the signs that obscure his presence. In this sense, the Gospel of Luke offers us a good starting point, when it speaks of the two disciples who went to Emmaus: there was Christ walking with them, but because of the discomfort they had in their heart they were not able to recognize him (cf Lk 24:13-27). It is also true for many of our contemporaries: God is close to them, but they cannot recognize him. It is said that once upon a time Pope John, meeting a journalist who told him he did not believe, answered him: Quiet! You say that! God does not know it, and God considers you equally as a child for him to love. The secret, then, lies in feeling, together with one's own uncertainties, the wonder of this presence. It is the same astonishment that the disciples of Emmaus caught: Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us along the way, when he explained the Scriptures to us? (Lk 24:32). Our challenge is to make other people's hearts burn.
It often happens that the Church is a cold memory for men and women today, if not a bitter disappointment, as was the story of Jesus for the disciples of Emmaus. Many, especially in the West, have the impression of a Church that does not understand them, one that is far from their needs. Some, then, who would like to support the less evangelical logic of relevance, consider the Church too weak towards the world, while others see it still too powerful compared to the great poverty of the world. I would say that we are right to worry, but above all to take care, when we perceive a worldly Church, that is, a Church that follows the criteria of success defined by the world, and a Church that forgets that it does not exist to announce itself, but rather to proclaim Jesus. A Church concerned with defending its own good name, one that struggles to renounce what is not essential, no longer feels the ardor of bringing the Gospel down today. And it ends up being more a beautiful museum exhibit than the simple and festive house of the Father. Oh, the temptation of museums! And also the temptation to conceive the living tradition of the Church as a museum, the temptation to keep things so that everything is in its place: I am a Catholic because ... I digested the Denzinger (A collection of Symbols, Definitions and Declarations on the topics of faith and morality), let's face it.
Yet there are so many children who the Father wants to feel at home; they are our brothers and sisters who, while benefiting from many technical achievements, live absorbed in the vortex of a great frenzy. And while they carry deep wounds and struggle to find a stable job, they find themselves surrounded by an external well-being that numbs us from inside and distracts us from courageous choices. How many people live next to us, and are slaves to what should serve them better and forget the taste of life: the beauty of a large and generous family, which fills the day and the night but dilates the heart; the brightness found in the eyes of children, which no smartphone can give; the joy of simple things; the serenity that leads to prayer. What our brothers and sisters often ask us, perhaps without even being able to ask the question, corresponds to the deepest needs: to love and to be loved, to be accepted for what we are, to find peace of heart and a longer lasting joy of entertainment.
We have experienced all of this in one word, even in one person, Jesus. We who, while fragile and sinful, have been flooded by the river in the fullness of God's goodness, we have this mission: to meet our contemporaries to tell them about his love. Not so much teaching, never judging, but making us fellow travellers. Like the deacon Philip, who - the Acts of the Apostles recounts - got up, set off, ran towards the Ethiopian and, as a friend, sat down next to him, entering into dialogue with that man who had a great desire for God in the midst of many doubts (cf Acts 8: 26-40). How important it is to feel challenged by the questions of today's men and women! Without pretending to have immediately responded and without giving ready-made answers, but sharing words of life, not aimed at making converts, but rather leaving space for the creative power of the Holy Spirit, which frees the heart from the slavery that oppresses and renews it. Transmitting God, then, is not merely talking about God, it is not justifying His existence: even the devil knows that God exists! Proclaiming the Lord is witnessing the joy of knowing him, it is helping to live the beauty of meeting him. God is not the answer to an intellectual curiosity or a commitment to the will, but an experience of love, called to become a story of love. Because - it applies to us above all - once we have met the living God, we need to look for him again. The mystery of God is never exhausted, it is as immense as his love.
God is love (1 Jn 4: 8), says the Scripture. Use the verb to be, because God is like that; God does not vary depending on how we behave: it is unconditional love, it does not change, despite all that we can combine. As the Psalm says: His love is forever (Psalm 136:1). It is love that is not consumed, as in the scene of the burning bush when God, revealing his name for the first time, having already used the verb to be: I am who I am (Ex 3:14). How beautiful it is to proclaim this faithful God, a fire that is not consumed, to the brothers who live in lukewarmness because their initial enthusiasm has cooled. How nice it is to tell them: Jesus Christ loves you, he gave his life to save you, and now he lives by your side every day (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 164).
In the light of this kerygma the life of faith develops, which is not a complicated construction made up of so many bricks to be put together, but the ever new discovery of the fundamental nucleus, the throbbing beat of the heart of the Gospel: the beauty of the saving love of God manifested in Jesus Christ who died and rose again (EG, 36). The Christian life is always renewed with this first announcement. I like to reiterate before you that when we say that this announcement is the first, it does not mean that it is at the beginning and afterwards it forgets or replaces itself with other content that surpasses it. It is the first in a qualitative sense, because it is the main announcement, the one that must always return to listening in different ways and that one must always return to proclaim during catechesis in one form or another, in all its stages and its moments (EG, 64). Otherwise, the subtle presumption hides that to be more solid means to become educated, experts in sacred things (cf Christus Vivit, 214). But the wisdom of God is granted to the poor in spirit, to those who remain with Jesus, loving everyone in his name.
One last thing I would like to share with you. Faith being life that is born again and again from the encounter with Jesus, what in life is an encounter helps us to grow in faith: to draw closer to those in need, to build bridges, to serve those who suffer, to take care of the poor, to anoint those around us with patience, comforting those who are discouraged, blessing those who harm us ... In this way, we become living signs of the Love we proclaim. I thank you, dear brothers and sisters, because you want to spread the joy of being loved by God and of loving as he taught us. I accompany you with my blessing and, please, do not forget to pray for me. Thank you.
Testo originale nella lingua italiana
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