Vatican City, 23 September 2015 (VIS) –
“God’s presence in our lives never leaves us tranquil: it always
pushes to do something. When God comes, He always calls us out of our
house. We are visited so that we can visit others; we are encountered
so as to encounter others; we receive love in order to give love”,
said Pope Francis yesterday in his final homily in Cuba, in the Minor
Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre.
The Pope commented on the Gospel
passage that narrates the episode of Mary's visit to her cousin
Elizabeth. “Mary went in haste, slowly but surely, with a steady
pace, neither too fast nor so slow as never to get there. …
Henceforth this was always to be her way. These lands have also been
visited by her maternal presence. The Cuban homeland was born and
grew, warmed by devotion to Our Lady of Charity”.
“This was what your fellow citizens
also stated a hundred years ago, when they asked Pope Benedict XV to
declare Our Lady of Charity the Patroness of Cuba”, Francis
recalled. “They wrote that 'neither disgrace nor poverty were ever
able to crush the faith and the love which our Catholic people
profess for the Virgin of Charity, for whom, in all their trials,
when death was imminent or desperation was at the door, there arose,
like a light scattering the darkness of every peril, like a
comforting dew, the vision of that Blessed Virgin”.
This Shrine has since kept alive the
memory of God’s holy and faithful pilgrim people in Cuba. “From
here she protects our roots, our identity, so that we may never stray
to paths of despair. The soul of the Cuban people, as we have just
heard, was forged amid suffering and privation which could not
suppress the faith, that faith which was kept alive thanks to all
those grandmothers who fostered, in the daily life of their homes,
the living presence of God, the presence of the Father Who liberates,
strengthens, heals, grants courage and serves as a sure refuge and
the sign of a new resurrection. Grandmothers, mothers, and so many
others who with tenderness and love were signs of visitation, valour
and faith for their grandchildren, in their families”.
“Whenever we look to Mary, we come to
believe once again in the revolutionary nature of love and
tenderness”, he emphasised. “We are asked to live the revolution
of tenderness as Mary, our Mother of Charity, did. We are invited to
'leave home' and to open our eyes and hearts to others. Our
revolution comes about through tenderness, through the joy which
always becomes closeness and compassion, and leads us to get involved
in, and to serve, the life of others. … Our faith, 'calls us out of
our house', to visit the sick, the prisoner and to those who mourn.
It makes us able to laugh with those who laugh, and rejoice with our
neighbours who rejoice”.
“Like Mary, we want to be a Church
who serves, who leaves home and goes forth, who goes forth from her
chapels, her sacristies, in order to accompany life, to sustain hope,
to be a sign of unity. Like Mary, Mother of Charity, we want to be a
Church who goes forth to build bridges, to break down walls, to sow
seeds of reconciliation. Like Mary, we want to be a Church who can
accompany all those 'pregnant' situations of our people, committed to
life, to culture, to society, not washing our hands but rather
walking with our brothers and sisters. All together, serving,
helping. All sons and daughters of God, sons and daughters of Mary,
sons and daughters of this noble Cuban soil”.
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