0
0
Image: Mother Mary and Baby Jesus in Betawi traditional costume in Jakarta Cathedral
Pope Francis’ address to those present ….cardinal, bishops priests, nuns…. lay people and catechists.
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption (Jakarta, Indonesia)Wednesday, 4 September 2024
“The motto chosen for this Apostolic Visit is “Faith, Fraternity, Compassion“
The Holy Father took the floor after listening to some testimonies.
And he asks the catechist who has just concluded to stay at his side for a moment.
With you before me, I would like to tell you something.
The Church – we must remember this – is carried forward by catechists.
Catechists are those who go forward, who go forward.
Then come the nuns – immediately after the catechists -;
then come the priests, the bishop…
But catechists are “at the front”, they are the strength of the Church.
Once, during one of my trips to Africa, a president told me that he had been baptized by his father, a catechist.
The Faith is transmitted at home.
Faith is transmitted in dialect.
And catechists, together with mothers and grandmothers, transmit this faith.
I am very grateful to all the catechists: you are very good! Thank you!
_____________________________________________
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
There are cardinals, there are bishops, there are priests, there are nuns, there are lay people, there are children, but we are all brothers and sisters.
The Pope, the cardinal, the bishop is no longer important… All brothers.
Each one has his or her own task to make the people of God grow. Do you Understand?
I greet the Cardinal, the Bishops, the priests, the deacons, the consecrated men and women, the seminarians and the catechists present.
I thank the President of the Episcopal Conference for his words, and also the brothers and sisters who have shared their testimonies with us.
As you know, the motto chosen for this Apostolic Visit is “Faith, Fraternity, Compassion“.
I believe that these are three virtues well express both your journey as a Church and your character as a people, ethnically and culturally very diverse, but at the same time characterized by a natural tension towards unity and peaceful coexistence, as the traditional principles of Pancasila testify.
I would like to reflect with you on these three words.
The first is faith.
Indonesia is a large country, with enormous natural wealth, in terms of flora, fauna, energy resources and raw materials, and so on.
Such great wealth could easily become a source of pride and arrogance, but if we look at it with an open mind and heart, it can instead be a reminder of God, of his presence in the cosmos, in his life and in ours, as Sacred Scripture teaches us (see chapter 1 of Genesis and Sir 42:15-43:33).
It is the Lord, in fact, who gives all this.
There is not an inch of the marvellous territory of Indonesia, nor a moment in the life of each of its millions of inhabitants that is not a gift from the Lord, a sign of his gratuitous and preventive fatherly love.
And looking at all this with the humble eyes of children helps us to believe, to recognize that we are small and loved (cf. Ps 8), and to cultivate feelings of gratitude and responsibility.
Agnes spoke to us about this, about our relationship with creation and with our brothers and sisters, especially the most needy, to be lived with a personal and community style marked by respect, civilization and humanity, with sobriety and Franciscan charity.
The Second is fraternity.
After faith, the second word of the motto is fraternity.
A twentieth century poet used a very beautiful expression to describe this attitude: she wrote that to be brothers is to love each other by recognising that we are “different as two drops of water“
(W. Szymborska, “Nothing happens twice”, in The joy of writing). Beautiful! And that’s exactly how it is.
No two drops of water are the same, nor are there two brothers, not even twins, are completely identical. To live fraternity, then, is to welcome one another, to recognise each other as equal in diversity.
This is also a value dear to the tradition of the Indonesian Church, which manifests itself in the openness with which it relates to the various realities that compose and surround her, on the cultural, ethnic, social and religious levels, valuing the contribution of all and generously giving its own in every context.
This is important, brothers and sisters, because proclaiming the Gospel does not mean imposing or opposing one’s own faith to that of others, it does not mean proselytizing, it means giving and sharing the joy of the encounter with Christ (cf. 1 Pet 3:15-17), always with great respect and fraternal affection for all.
And in this I invite you always to remain like this: open and friends of all – I like that expression very much: “hand in hand”, to walk like this, as Fr Maxi said – as prophets of communion, in a world om which the tendency to divide, to impose and to provoke one another seems to be increasking more and more (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 67).
And I would like to tell you one thing about this: do you know who is the person who makes the greatest divisions in the world? Do you know who he is?
The great divider, who always divides, divides… Jesus unites and he divides. It’s the devil. Be careful!
It is important to try to reach everyone, as Sister Rina reminded us, with the hope of being able to translate into Bahasa Indonesia, not only the texts of the Word of God, but also the teachings of the Church, to make them accessible to as many people as possible.
And Nicholas also highlighted this, describing the mission of the catechist with the image of a “bridge” that unites.
This struck me, and made me think of the wonderful spectacle, in the great Indonesian archipelago, of thousands of “bridges of the heart” uniting all the islands, and even more so of millions of such “bridges” uniting all the people who live there!
Here is another beautiful image of fraternity: an immense embroidery of threads of love that cross the sea, overcoming barriers and embracing every diversity, making everyone “of one heart and soul” (cf. Acts 4:32). The language of the heart, don’t forget!
The Third is Compassion
And we come to the third word: compassion, which is very much linked to fraternity.
Compassion means to suffer with the other, to share feelings: it is a beautiful word!
In fact, as we know, compassion does not consist in giving alms to brothers and sisters in need, looking down on them, looking at them from our own security and privileges.
On the contrary, compassion means bringing us closer to one another, stripping ourselves of everything that can prevent us from stooping down to really touch the person on the ground, thus uplifting him and restoring hope (cf. Encyclical Letter, n. Fratelli tutti, 70).
And this is important: to touch poverty.
When I go to confession , I always ask the adults: “Do you give alms?”, and they tell me yes, generally, because they are good people.
But the second question is: “When you give alms, do you touch the hand of the beggar?
Do you look into his eyes? Or do you throw the coin at him from afar so as not to touch him?
This is something we must all learn: compassion means suffering, suffering, accompanying those who are suffering in their feelings and embracing them, accompanying them.
And not only that: it also means embracing their dreams and desires for redemption and justice, caring for them, becoming promoters and collaborators, involving others as well, widening the “network” and the boundaries in a great expansive dynamism of charity (cf. ibid., n. 203).
And this does not mean being a communist, this means charity, it means love.
There are those who are afraid of compassion.
There are those who are afraid of compassion, because they consider it a weakness – to suffer with the other is a weakness – and instead they exalt, as if it were a virtue, the wisdom of those who look after their own interests by keeping their distance from everyone, not letting themselves be “touched” by anything or anyone, thinking that this will make them clearer and freer in achieving their goals.
Unfortunately, I remember a very rich, very rich person in Buenos Aires, but who had the habit of taking, taking, taking, more and more money. He died and left a huge legacy.
Do you know what jokes people used to make? “Poor thing, they couldn’t close the coffin!”.
He wanted to take everything and he didn’t take anything.
It’s funny, but don’t forget one thing: the devil always gets in through your pockets! It’s true.
The fact of having wealth as security is a false way of looking at reality.
What moves the world forward is not the calculation of interest – which usually ends up destroying creation and dividing communities – but the charity that is given.
This is what he drives it forward: the charity that gives himself.
And compassion does not obscure the true vision of life, on the contrary, it makes us see things better, in the light of love, that is, it makes us see things better with the eyes of the heart.
And I would like to repeat it, please, be careful, don’t forget: the devil comes in through the pockets!
The portal of this cathedral, in its architecture, seems to me to summarize very well what we have said, in a Marian key.
In fact, it is supported, in the center of the pointed arch, by a column on which a statue of the Virgin Mary is placed.
In this way she shows us the Mother of God first of all as a model of faith, while symbolically supporting the whole edifice of the Church with her small “yes” (cf. Lk 1:38),.
Her fragile body, leaning on the pillar, on the rock that is Christ, seems to bear the weight of the whole construction, as if to say that it, the work of man’s labor and ingenuity, cannot support itself.
Mary then appears as an image of fraternity, in the gesture of welcoming, at the centre of the main portal, all those who wish to enter. She is the mother who welcomes.
Finally, she is also an icon of compassion, in her vigilance and protection of the People of God who gather in the house of the Father with their joys and sorrows, their struggles and their hopes.
She is the Mother of Compassion.
Dear brothers and sisters, I would like to conclude this conversation by echoing the words of Saint John Paul II, who visited this place a few decades ago, when he addressed the bishops, priests and men and women religious.
He quoted the verse from the Psalm: “Laetentur insulae multae” – “Let all the islands rejoice” (Ps 96:1) and invited his listeners to live it, “bearing witness to the joy of the Resurrection and giving […] so that even the most distant islands may ‘rejoice’ in hearing the Gospel, of which you are true preachers, teachers and witnesses” (Meeting with the Bishops, Clergy and Religious of Indonesia, Jakarta, 10 October 1989).
I too renew this exhortation to you, and I encourage you to continue your mission strong in faith, open to all in fraternity and close to each one in compassion.
Strong, open and close, with the strength of faith. Open to welcome everyone, everyone!
I am so impressed by that Gospel parable of the wedding guests who did not want to come and did not come. What does the Lord do? Is he bitter? No! That man understood something and sent his servants: “Go to the crossroads and bring everyone, everyone, everyone inside. All inside, with this beautiful style that is to go forward with brotherhood, with compassion, with unity… Everybody. And I think of so many islands, so many islands… And the Lord says to good people, to you: “Everyone, everyone” – “But, Lord, that…” – “Everyone, everyone”. In fact, the Lord says: “good and bad”, everyone!
I too renew this exhortation and encourage you to continue your mission, strong in faith, open to all in fraternity and close to each one in compassion.
Three words that I leave you to reflect on, Faith, Fraternity and Compassion.
I bless you, I thank you for the great good you do every day in all these beautiful islands!
I pray for you. I pray but, please, I ask you to pray for me.
And be careful about one thing: pray for, not against! Thank you.
______________________________________
[1] W. Szymborska, “Nothing happens twice”, in The joy of writing. Tutte le poesie (1945-2009), Milan, 2009, p. 45.
