APOSTOLIC JOURNEY TO RIO DE JANEIRO
ON THE OCCASION OF THE XXVIII WORLD YOUTH DAY
ON THE OCCASION OF THE XXVIII WORLD YOUTH DAY
HOLY MASS IN THE
BASILICA OF THE SHRINE OF
OUR LADY OF THE CONCEPTION OF APARECIDA
OUR LADY OF THE CONCEPTION OF APARECIDA
HOMILY OF HIS
HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
Wednesday, 24 July 2013
Your Eminence,
My Brother Bishops and Priests,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
My Brother Bishops and Priests,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
What joy I feel as I come to the house of the Mother of every
Brazilian, the Shrine of our Lady of Aparecida! The day after my election as
Bishop of Rome, I visited the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome, in order to
entrust my ministry to Our Lady. Today I have come
here to ask Mary our Mother for the success of
World Youth Day and to place at
her feet the life of the people of Latin America.
There is something that I would like to say first of all. Six years
ago the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the
Caribbean was held in this Shrine. Something beautiful took place here, which I
witnessed at first hand. I saw how the Bishops – who were discussing the theme
of encountering Christ, discipleship and mission – felt encouraged, supported
and in some way inspired by the thousands of pilgrims who came here day after
day to entrust their lives to Our Lady. That Conference was a great moment of
Church. It can truly be said that the Aparecida Document was born of this
interplay between the labours of the Bishops and the simple faith of the
pilgrims, under Mary’s maternal protection. When the Church looks for Jesus,
she always knocks at his Mother’s door and asks: “Show us Jesus”. It is from
Mary that the Church learns true discipleship. That is why the Church always
goes out on mission in the footsteps of Mary.
Today, looking forward to the World Youth Day which has brought me
to Brazil, I too come to knock on the door of the house of Mary – who loved and
raised Jesus – that she may help all of us, pastors of God’s people, parents and
educators, to pass on to our young people the values that can help them build a
nation and a world which are more just, united and fraternal. For this reason I
would like to speak of three simple attitudes: hopefulness, openness to being
surprised by God, and living in joy.
1. Hopefulness. The second reading of the Mass presents a
dramatic scene: a woman – an image of Mary and the Church – is being pursued by
a Dragon – the devil – who wants to devour her child. But the scene is not one
of death but of life, because God intervenes and saves the child (cf. Rev
12:13a, 15-16a). How many difficulties are present in the life of every
individual, among our people, in our communities; yet as great as these may
seem, God never allows us to be overwhelmed by them. In the face of those
moments of discouragement we experience in life, in our efforts to evangelize or
to embody our faith as parents within the family, I would like to say
forcefully: Always know in your heart that God is by your side; he never
abandons you! Let us never lose hope! Let us never allow it to die in our
hearts! The “dragon”, evil, is present in our history, but it does not have the
upper hand. The one with the upper hand is God, and God is our hope! It is
true that nowadays, to some extent, everyone, including our young people, feels
attracted by the many idols which take the place of God and appear to offer
hope: money, success, power, pleasure. Often a growing sense of loneliness and
emptiness in the hearts of many people leads them to seek satisfaction in these
ephemeral idols. Dear brothers and sisters, let us be lights of hope! Let us
maintain a positive outlook on reality. Let us encourage the generosity which
is typical of the young and help them to work actively in building a better
world. Young people are a powerful engine for the Church and for society. They
do not need material things alone; also and above all, they need to have held up
to them those non-material values which are the spiritual heart of a people, the
memory of a people. In this Shrine, which is part of the memory of Brazil, we
can almost read those values: spirituality, generosity, solidarity,
perseverance, fraternity, joy; they are values whose deepest root is in the
Christian faith.
2. The second attitude: openness to being surprised by God.
Anyone who is a man or a woman of hope – the great hope which faith gives us –
knows that even in the midst of difficulties God acts and he surprises us. The
history of this Shrine is a good example: three fishermen, after a day of
catching no fish, found something unexpected in the waters of the ParnaĆba
River: an image of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. Whoever would have
thought that the site of a fruitless fishing expedition would become the place
where all Brazilians can feel that they are children of one Mother? God always
surprises us, like the new wine in the Gospel we have just heard. God always
saves the best for us. But he asks us to let ourselves be surprised by his
love, to accept his surprises. Let us trust God! Cut off from him, the wine of
joy, the wine of hope, runs out. If we draw near to him, if we stay with him,
what seems to be cold water, difficulty, sin, is changed into the new wine of
friendship with him.
3. The third attitude: living in joy. Dear friends, if we walk
in hope, allowing ourselves to be surprised by the new wine which Jesus offers
us, we have joy in our hearts and we cannot fail to be witnesses of this joy.
Christians are joyful, they are never gloomy. God is at our side. We have a
Mother who always intercedes for the life of her children, for us, as Queen
Esther did in the first reading (cf Est 5:3). Jesus has shown us that
the face of God is that of a loving Father. Sin and death have been defeated.
Christians cannot be pessimists! They do not look like someone in constant
mourning. If we are truly in love with Christ and if we sense how much he loves
us, our heart will “light up” with a joy that spreads to everyone around us. As
Benedict XVI said here, in this Shrine: “the disciple knows that without Christ, there is no light,
no hope, no love, no future” (Inaugural Address, Fifth General Conference
of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, Aparecida, 13 May 2007, 3).
Dear friends, we have come to knock at the door of Mary’s house.
She has opened it for us, she has let us in and she shows us her Son. Now she
asks us to “do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5). Yes, Mother, we are
committed to doing whatever Jesus tells us! And we will do it with hope,
trusting in God’s surprises and full of joy. Amen.
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