Vatican City, 17 February 2016 (VIS) –
Yesterday, Tuesday 16 February, the Pope arrived at 8.45 a.m. (local
time, 3.45 p.m. in Rome) in Morelia, capital of the state of
Michoacan, the geographical centre of Mexico and since 1991 a UNESCO
World Heritage site on account of its Hispanic historic centre and
baroque architecture, notably the Cathedral of the Transfiguration
and the Palace of Justice. It is also the seat of an important
university, the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo,
founded in 1551 as the Colegio de San Nicolas, and currently attended
by 45,000 students.
The Pope travelled by popemobile the
nine kilometres separating the airport from the Venustiano Carranza
stadium, which is able to hold 20,000 people. He was awaited by the
priests, men and women religious, consecrated persons and seminarians
of the archdiocese. During the Mass, celebrated by the Holy Father,
the purhepecha language was used for the prayer of the faithful.
The Pope began his homily in a
colloquial fashion: "There is a saying among us which goes 'tell
me how you pray, and I will tell you how you live; tell me how you
live and I will tell you how you pray. Because showing me how you
pray, I will learn to find the God for Whom you live, and showing me
how you live, I will learn to believe in the God to Whom you pray'.
For our life speaks of prayer and prayer speaks of our life; praying
is something learned, just as we learn to walk, to speak, to listen.
The school of prayer is the school of life and in the school of life
we progress in the school of prayer".
He commented that Paul said to his
favourite disciple Timothy, while teaching or encouraging him to live
the faith: “Remember your mother and your grandmother”. "And
seminarians, when entering seminary often used to tell me: 'Father, I
would like to have deeper mental prayer'. 'Look, you carry on praying
as they taught you to at home and then later, little by little, your
prayer will mature, just as you grew up'. Praying is something
learned, just like life".
"Jesus wished to introduce His
companions into the mystery of Life, into the mystery of His life. He
showed them by eating, sleeping, healing, preaching and praying, what
it means to be Son of God. He invited them to share His life, His
interiority, and in His presence among them He allowed them to touch,
in His flesh, the life of the Father. He helped them to experience,
in His gaze, in His going out in power, the newness of saying 'Our
Father'. In Jesus this expression 'Our Father' has no trace of
routine or mere repetition. On the contrary, it contains a sense of
life, of experience, of authenticity. With these two words, 'Our
Father', He knew how to live praying and to pray living. Jesus
invites us to do the same. Our first call is to experience this
merciful love of the Father in our lives, in our experiences. His
first call is to introduce us into the new dynamic of love, of
sonship. Our first calling is to learn to say, 'Our Father', as Paul
insists: Abba. 'Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!', says St.
Paul, 'Woe to me!'. For to evangelise, he continues, is not a cause
for glory but rather a need".
"He has invited us to share in His
life, His divine life, and woe to us consecrated men and women,
seminarians, priests, bishops, woe to us if we do not share it, woe
to us if we are not witnesses to what we have seen and heard, woe to
us. We do not want to be 'administrators of the divine', we are not
and do not want to be employees in God’s firm, for we are invited
to share in His life, we are invited to enter into His heart, a heart
that prays and lives, saying, 'Our Father'. What is our mission if
not to say with our lives ... 'Our Father'?"
He Who is Our Father, it is He to Whom
we pray every day with insistence. And what do we tell Him in one of
the petitions of that prayer? Lead us not into temptation. Jesus
Himself did the same thing. He prayed that His disciples –
yesterday’s and today’s – would not fall into temptation. What
could be one of the sins which besets us? What could be one of the
temptations which springs up not only in contemplating reality but
also in living it? What temptation can come to us from places often
dominated by violence, corruption, drug trafficking, disregard for
human dignity, and indifference in the face of suffering and
vulnerability? What temptation might we suffer over and over again –
we who are called to the consecrated life, to the presbyterate, to
the episcopate – what temptation could might we endure in the face
of all this, in the face of this reality which seems to have become a
permanent system?"
"I think that we could sum it up
in a single word: 'resignation'. And faced with this reality, the
devil can overcome us with one of his favourite weapons: resignation.
'And what are you going to do about it? Life is like that'. A
resignation which paralyses us and prevents us not only from walking,
but also from making the journey; a resignation which not only
terrifies us, but which also entrenches us in our 'sacristies' and
false securities; a resignation which not only prevents us from
proclaiming, but also inhibits our giving praise and takes away the
joy, the joy of giving praise. A resignation which not only hinders
our looking to the future, but also stifles our desire to take risks
and to change. And so, 'Our Father, lead us not into temptation'".
"How good it is for us to tap into
our memories when we are tempted", exclaimed the Pope. "How
much it helps us to look at the 'stuff' of which we are made. It did
not all begin with us, nor will it all end with us, and so it does us
good to look back at our past experiences which have brought us to
the present. And in this remembering, we cannot overlook someone who
loved this place so much, who made himself a son of this land",
he continued, referring to the Spanish Vasco Vazquez de Quiroga,
first bishop of Michoacan. "We cannot overlook that person who
could say of himself: 'They took me from the tribunal and put me in
charge of the priesthood for my sins. Me, useless and quite unable to
carry out such a great undertaking; me, who didn’t know how to use
an oar, they chose me to be the first Bishop of Michoacan'".
"With you, I would like to recall
this evangeliser, first known as 'the Spaniard who became an Indian'.
The situation of the Purhepechas Indians, whom he described as being
'sold, humiliated, and homeless in marketplaces, picking up scraps of
bread from the ground', far from tempting him to listless
resignation, succeeded in kindling his faith, strengthening his
compassion and inspiring him to carry out plans that were a 'breath
of fresh air' in the midst of so much paralysing injustice. The pain
and suffering of his brothers and sisters became his prayer, and his
prayer led to his response. And among the Indians, he was known as
'Tata Vasco', which in the Purhepechan language means, Father".
Father, dad, daddy", invoked the
Holy Father at the end of his homily, "Lead us not into the
temptation of resignation, lead us not into the temptation of falling
into sloth, lead us not into the temptation of losing our memory,
lead us not into the temptation of forgetting our elders who taught
us by their lives to say, 'Our Father'".
After the celebration, the Pope
transferred to the archiepiscopal residence of Morelia where he
lunched, and from there proceeded to the Cathedral of the
Transfiguration (1644-1744), baroque in style with neo-Classical
elements and tiled domes, which dominates the Plaza de las Armas. In
the sacristy, where alongside sixteenth-century paintings, there is a
figure of Christ made using a mix of corn and honey using
pre-Hispanic techniques, Francis met and conversed with fourteen
rectors of Mexican universities and six leaders of other Christian
confessions.
The Holy Father was also greeted by
around one hundred children, catechumens, whom he thanked for their
visit. "I will ask Jesus to let you grow surrounded by love,
like He did", he said. "With much love so as to be true
Christians, to fulfil the commandment that Jesus gave us: to love God
above all else, and our neighbour as Jesus did, as we love ourselves
or better, as He loved us. And we will also ask Our Lady to look
after us and to bless us. Above all, let all of us think in our
hearts of our families and our friends, and even if you are at odds
with any of them, ask the Virgin to care for them all the same; in
this way we make friends rather than enemies, because life is not
good with enemies, and He Whom makes us true friends is God, in our
heart".
Likewise he congratulated the choir
which had dedicated a song to him, commenting that "art and
sport enlarge our hearts and make us grow well, with fresh air and
without crushing life. Continue to be creative", he added, "in
search of beauty, of good things, of that which lasts for ever, and
never let anyone trample on this".
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