Vatican
City, 7 June 2013
(VIS) – This morning in the Paul VI Audience Hall, Pope Francis
received students from Jesuit-run schools in Italy and Albania
accompanied by their teachers and family members. It was a moment of
affection and spontaneity prompting the Holy Father to say: “I've
prepared a text but it's five pages and that's a little long. Let's
do this: I'll give it to the Provincial Father and Fr. Federico
Lombardi [director of the Holy See Press Office] so that you all can
have it written and then some of you will ask me questions and I'll
answer them. That way we can talk.”
In
his address, which we offer ample excerpts from below, the Pope had
written:
“School
is one of the educational environments where one grows by learning
how to live, how to become grown-up, mature men and women. …
Following what St. Ignatius teaches us, the main element in school is
learning to be magnanimous … This means having a big heart, having
a greatness of soul. It means having grand ideals, the desire to
achieve great things in response to what God asks of us and,
precisely because of this, doing everyday things, all our daily
actions, commitments, and meetings with people well. [It means] doing
the little everyday things with a big heart that is open to God and
to others.”
“School
broadens not only your intellectual dimension, but also the human
one. I think that Jesuit schools in particular are careful to develop
the human virtues: loyalty, respect, and commitment. I would like to
focus on two fundamental values: freedom and service. Before all else
be free persons! … Freedom means knowing how to reflect on what we
do, knowing how to evaluate … which are the behaviours that make us
grow. It means always choosing the good. … Being free to always
choose the good is challenging, but it will make you persons with a
backbone, who know how to face life, courageous and patient persons.”
“The
second word is service. In your schools you participate in various
activities that prepare you not to be wrapped up in yourselves or in
your own little world, but to open yourselves to others, especially
to the poorest and most in need, to work to improve the world we live
in.” Spiritual formation is the requirement for all this, and in
the text he urges the students to “always love Jesus Christ more
and more! Our lives are a response to his call and you will be happy
and will build your lives well if you know how to answer that call.
Feel the Lord's presence in your lives. … In prayer, in dialogue
with him, in reading the Bible you will discover that He is truly
close to you. And you should also learn to read God's signs in your
lives. He is always speaking to us, even through the events of our
times and our everyday existence. It's up to us to listen to him.”
In
his address, he also directs his thoughts to all the educators:
Jesuits, teachers, workers in the schools, and parents. “Don't be
discouraged by the difficulties that the educational challenge
presents! Educating isn't a profession but an attitude, a way of
being. In order to educate you must go out of yourselves and be
amidst the young, accompanying them in the stages of their growth,
standing beside them.”
In
the text Francis asks them to give their students hope and optimism
by teaching them “to see the beauty and goodness of creation and of
humanity, which always retains the Creator's imprint. But above all,
witness with your lives what you are communicating.” He also
reminds them that educators “impart knowledge and values with their
words but it will be more influential on the kids if your words are
accompanied by your witness, by being consistent in your lives. It
isn't possible to educate without being consistent! ... School can
and should function as a catalyst, being a place of encounter and
convergence of the entire educational community with the single
objective of shaping and helping [the students] to grow as mature,
simple, honest, and competent persons who know how to love
faithfully, who know how to live their lives as a response to God's
call and their future professions as a service to society.”
In
a section that he also spoke at the audience—humorously noting that
he had already reached the last page—he encourages the educators
“to seek new forms of non-conventional education according to 'the
needs of the places, times, and persons'.” The text closes with the
reminder that “the Lord is always nearby, lifting you up after you
fall and pushing you to grow and to make ever-better choices 'with
great courage and generosity', with magnanimity. Ad Maiorem Dei
Gloriam.” [For the greater glory of God, the Jesuit motto].
The
floor was then given to several students and professors who asked the
Pope unscripted questions. To the first student, who asked about the
doubts regarding belief that he sometimes has and what he could do to
help him grow in faith, Francis answered: “Journeying is an art
because, if we're always in a hurry, we get tired and don't arrive at
our journey's goal. If we stop, if we don't go forward and we also
miss the goal. Journeying is precisely the art of looking toward the
horizon, thinking where I want to go but also enduring the fatigue of
the journey, which is sometimes difficult … There are dark days,
even days when we fail, even days when we fall. [Sometimes] one falls
but always think of this: don't be afraid of failures. Don't be
afraid of falling. What matters in the art of journeying isn't not
falling but not staying down. Get up right away and continue going
forward. This is what's beautiful: this is working every day, this is
journeying as humans. But also, it's bad walking alone: it's bad and
boring. Walking in community, with friends, with those who love us,
that helps us. It helps us to arrive precisely at that goal, that
'there where' we're supposed to arrive.”
An
elementary school girl asked if the Pope continued to see his friends
from grade school. “But I've only been Pope for two and a half
months,” he answered. But he understood her concern and continued
“My friends are 14 hours away from here by plane, right? They're
far from here, but I want to tell you something, three of them came
to find me and greet me and I see them and they write to me and I
love them very much. You can't live without friends, that's
important.”
The
next question, also from a grade school girl, was if he wanted to be
Pope. He responded by asking her: “Do you know what it means if
someone doesn't love themselves very much?” He continued: “Someone
who wants, who has the desire to be Pope doesn't love themself. ...
But I didn't want to be Pope.”
Another
girl asked why he had forsaken the wealth of the papacy, living at
the Domus Sanctae Marthae instead of the Apostolic Palace apartments,
and other similar choices. He answered: “It's not just about
wealth. For me it's a question of personality. I need to live among
people and if I lived alone, perhaps rather isolated, it wouldn't be
good for me. A professor asked me this question: 'Why don't you go
live there?' and I answered, 'Listen, professor, it's for psychiatric
reasons.' Because … that's my personality. That apartment [in the
Apostolic Palace] isn't so luxurious either, don't worry. But I can't
live alone, do you understand? And well, I believe that, yes, the
times talk to us of so much poverty in the world and this is a
scandal. Poverty in the world is a scandal. In a world where there is
so much wealth, so many resources to feed everyone, it is
unfathomable that there are so many hungry children, that there are
so many children without an education, so many poor persons. Poverty
today is a cry. We all have to think if we can become a little
poorer, all of us have to do this. How can I become a little poorer
in order to be more like Jesus, who was the poor Teacher?”
Returning to the original question, he finished: “It's not a
question of my personal virtue. It's just that I can't live alone.”
All the rest, not having so many things, “is about becoming a
little poorer”.
The
Pope also answered questions related to his choosing to become a
Jesuit, but the last of the eight questions was from a young man who
asked how young people should deal with the material and spiritual
poverty that exists in the world. The Holy Father responded: “First
of all I want to tell you something, tell all you young persons:
don't let yourselves be robbed of hope. Please, don't let it be
stolen from you. The worldly spirit, wealth, the spirit of vanity,
arrogance, and pride … all these things steal hope. Where do I find
hope? In the poor Jesus, Jesus who made himself poor for us. And you
spoke of poverty. Poverty calls us to sow hope. This seems a bit
difficult to understand. I remember Fr. Arrupe [Father General of the
Jesuits from 1965-1983] wrote a letter to the Society's centres for
social research. At the end he said to us: 'Look, you can't speak of
poverty without having experience with the poor.' You can't speak of
poverty in the abstract: that doesn't exist. Poverty is the flesh of
the poor Jesus, in that child who is hungry, in the one who is sick,
in those unjust social structures. Go forward, look there upon the
flesh of Jesus. But don't let well-being rob you of hope, that spirit
of well-being that, in the end, leads you to becoming a nothing in
life. Young persons should bet on their high ideals, that's my
advice. But where do I find hope? In the flesh of Jesus who suffers
and in true poverty. There is a connection between the two.”
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