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Day: July 12, 2015

Pope Francis celebrates final Mass of his visit to Paraguay

(Vatican Radio)  Pope Francis on Sunday (July 12th) wrapped up his journey to Latin America by celebrating an open-air Mass at Nu Guazu outside Asuncion on the final day of his visit to Paraguay. In his homily at the Mass which was attended by hundreds of thousands of faithful including many from his native Argentina, the Pope stressed the importance of welcoming others, showing hospitality and warned about the evil of isolation which he said eats away at our life and makes us closed in on ourselves. 
 
Please find below an English translation of the Pope’s homily at the Mass:
“The Lord will shower down blessings, and our land will yield its increase”.  These are the words of the Psalm.  We are invited to celebrate this mysterious communion between God and his People, between God and us.  The rain is a sign of his presence, in the earth tilled by our hands.  It reminds us that our communion with God always brings forth fruit, always gives life.  This confidence is born of faith, from knowing that we depend on grace, which will always transform and nourish our land.
                It is a confidence which is learned, which is taught.  A confidence nurtured within a community, in the life of a family.  A confidence which radiates from the faces of all those people who encourage us to follow Jesus, to be disciples of the One who can never deceive.  A disciple knows that he or she is called to have this confidence; we feel Jesus’s invitation to be his friend, to share his lot, his very life.  “No longer do I call you servants… but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you”.  The disciples are those who learn how to dwell in the confidence born of friendship.
                The Gospel speaks to us of this kind of discipleship.  It shows us the identity card of the Christian.  Our calling card, our credentials.
                Jesus calls his disciples and sends them out, giving them clear and precise instructions.  He challenges them to take on a whole range of attitudes and ways of acting.  Sometimes these can strike us as exaggerated or even absurd.  It would be easier to interpret these attitudes symbolically or “spiritually”.  But Jesus is quite precise, very clear.  He doesn’t tell them simply to do whatever they think they can. 
                Let us think about some of these attitudes: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money…”  “When you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place”.  All this might seem quite unrealistic.
                We could concentrate on the words, “bread”, “money”, “bag”, “staff”, “sandals” and “tunic”.  And this would be fine.  But it strikes me that one key word can easily pass unnoticed.  It is a word at the heart of Christian spirituality, of our experience of discipleship: “welcome”.  Jesus as the good master, the good teacher, sends them out to be welcomed, to experience hospitality.  He says to them: “Where you enter a house, stay there”.  He sends them out to learn one of the hallmarks of the community of believers.  We might say that a Christian is someone who has learned to welcome others, to show hospitality.
                Jesus does not send them out as men of influence, landlords, officials armed with rules and regulations.  Instead, he makes them see that the Christian journey is about changing hearts.  It is about learning to live differently, under a different law, with different rules.  It is about turning from the path of selfishness, conflict, division and superiority, and taking instead the path of life, generosity and love.  It is about passing from a mentality which domineers, stifles and manipulates to a mentality which welcomes, accepts and cares.
                These are two contrasting mentalities, two ways of approaching our life and our mission.
                How many times do we see mission in terms of plans and programs.  How many times do we see evangelization as involving any number of strategies, tactics, maneuvers, techniques, as if we could convert people on the basis of our own arguments.  Today the Lord says to us quite clearly: in the mentality of the Gospel, you do not convince people with arguments, strategies or tactics.  You convince them by learning how to welcome them.
                The Church is a mother with an open heart.  She knows how to welcome and accept, especially those in need of greater care, those in greater difficulty.  The Church is the home of hospitality.  How much good we can do, if only we try to speak the language of hospitality, of welcome!  How much pain can be soothed, how much despair can be allayed in a place where we feel at home!  Welcoming the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner (Mt 25:34-37), the leper and the paralytic.  Welcoming those who do not think as we do, who do not have faith or who have lost it.  Welcoming the persecuted, the unemployed.  Welcoming the different cultures, of which our earth is so richly blessed.  Welcoming sinners.
                So often we forget that there is an evil underlying our sins.  There is a bitter root which causes damage, great damage, and silently destroys so many lives.  There is an evil which, bit by bit, finds a place in our hearts and eats away at our life: it is isolation.  Isolation which can have many roots, many causes.  How much it destroys our life and how much harm it does us.  It makes us turn our back on others, God, the community.  It makes us closed in on ourselves.  That is why the real work of the Church, our mother, is not mainly to manage works and projects, but to learn how to live in fraternity with others.  A welcome-filled fraternity is the best witness that God is our Father, for “by this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35).
                In this way, Jesus teaches us a new way of thinking.  He opens before us a horizon brimming with life, beauty, truth and fulfillment.
                God never closes off horizons; he is never unconcerned about the lives and sufferings of his children.  God never allows himself to be outdone in generosity.  So he sends us his Son, he gives him to us, he hands him over, he shares him… so that we can learn the way of fraternity, of self-giving.  He opens up a new horizon; he is the new and definitive Word which sheds light on so many situations of exclusion, disintegration, loneliness and isolation.  He is the Word which breaks the silence of loneliness. 
                And when we are weary or worn down by our efforts to evangelize, it is good to remember that the life which Jesus holds out to us responds to the deepest needs of people.  “We were created for what the Gospel offers us: friendship with Jesus and love of our brothers and sisters” (Evangelii Gaudium, 265).
                On thing is sure: we cannot force anyone to receive us, to welcome us; this is itself part of our poverty and freedom.  But neither can anyone force us not to be welcoming, hospitable in the lives of our people.  No one can tell us us not to accept and embrace the lives of our brothers and sisters, especially those who have lost hope and zest for life.  How good it would be to think of our parishes, communities, chapels, wherever there are Christians, as true centers of encounter between ourselves and God.
                The Church is a mother, like Mary.  In her, we have a model.  We too must provide a home, like Mary, who did not lord it over the word of God, but rather welcomed that word, bore it in her womb and gave it to others.
                We too must provide a home, like the earth, which does not choke the seed, but receives it, nourishes it and makes it grow.
                That is how we want to be Christians, that is how we want to live the faith on this Paraguayan soil, like Mary, accepting and welcoming God’s life in our brothers and sisters, in confidence and with the certainty that “the Lord will shower down blessings, and our land will yield its increase”.
(from Vatican Radio)…

Pope Francis visits Banado Norte slum in Asuncion

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday (June 12th) began his final day in Paraguay with a visit to the Banado Norte slum in the capital, Asuncion. In an address to the inhabitants, he praised their strong sense of solidarity despite their daily struggles and said a faith which does not draw us into solidarity is a dead faith. 
 
Please find below an English translation of the Pope’s prepared remarks to the inhabitants of Banado Norte:
 
Dear Friends,
              I have looked forward to being with you today.  I could not come to Paraguay without spending some time with you, here on your land.
We are meeting in this Parish named after the Holy Family, and I confess that as I arrived, everything reminded me of the Holy Family.  To see your faces, your children, your elderly, and to hear about your experiences and everything you went through to be here, to have a dignified life and a roof over your heads, to endure the bad weather and the flooding of these last few weeks… All this makes me think of the little family of Bethlehem.  Your struggles have not taken away your laughter, your joy and your hope.  Struggles which have not lessened your sense of solidarity but if anything, have made it grow.
                I would like think for a moment about Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem.  They were forced to leave home, families and friends.  They had to leave all that they had and to go somewhere else, to a place where they knew no one, a place where they had no house or family.  That was when that young couple had Jesus.  That was how they gave us Jesus.  They were alone, in a strange land, just the three of them.  Then, all of a sudden, shepherds began to arrive.  People just like them who had to leave their homes to find better opportunities for their families.  Their lives were affected by harsh weather but by other kinds of hardship too.
When they heard that Jesus had been born, they went to see him.  They became neighbors.  In an instant, they became a family to Mary and Joseph. The family of Jesus.
That is what happens when Jesus comes into our lives.  It is what happens with faith.  Faith brings us closer.  It makes us neighbors.  It draws us closer to the lives of others.  Faith awakens our commitment, our solidarity.  The birth of Jesus changes our lives.  A faith which does not draw us into solidarity is a faith which is dead.  It is a faith without Christ, a faith without God, a faith without brothers and sisters.  The first to show this solidarity was our Lord, who chose to live in our midst. 
                I come to you like those shepherds.  I want to be your neighbor.  I want to bless your faith, your hands and your community.  I come to join you in giving thanks, because faith has become hope, and hope in turn kindles love.  The faith which Jesus awakens in us is a faith which makes us able to dream of the future, and to work for it here and now.  That is why I want to urge you to continue to be missionaries, to keep spreading the faith in these streets and alleys.  Be neighbors above all to the young and the elderly.  Be a support for young families and all families which are experiencing difficulty.
                I commend your families to the Holy Family so that its example and its witness may continue to be a light for your path, a encouragement in times of trouble.  May the Holy Family always help us to be “shepherds” who can accompany, support and encourage our families.
                Let us together pray to them.  I ask you to remember to pray for me.
(from Vatican Radio)…

Pope makes unscheduled stops in Paraguay

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is currently in Paraguay’s capital Asunciòn on the last day of his three country Apostolic journey to Latin America which has also taken him to Ecuador and Bolivia. Linda Bordoni is in this nation’s capital and keeps us updated on the less formal and unscheduled activities our Pope of surprises has accustomed us to. Listen to Linda Bordoni’s report from Asunciòn: 

One of the many reasons for which we love Pope Francis is his tendency to disregard protocol and find time and ways to bend and modify his official schedule for things and people he cares about. He’s been doing it here in Paraguay as well! His first stop on Friday, after landing at Asuncion Airport was a brief – unscheduled – visit to the “Buen Pastor” women’s prison where inmates sang for him in an outside courtyard. On Saturday he made changes to his schedule as well, deciding to include an afternoon visit to the “Saint Rafael Foundation”, which cares for poor patients with AIDS and cancer, has a rehabilitation clinic, three centers for abandoned and abused children and homes for the elderly. It is run by Fr. Aldo Trento who met the Pope recently during an audience in Rome, inviting him on that occasion to stop by when in Asuncion. And although it certainly isn’t on the official Papal programme, most people here are pretty sure he will take time on Sunday before his departure to pray and reflect in front of the macabre shell of the devastated Ycua Bolaños supermarket in central Asuncion. It’s where 430 people burnt to death and many others were injured in 2004 when fire broke out and the store’s owners issued orders to lock the doors to prevent looting. The tragedy has left a deep wound in Paraguayan society where anger over the event continues to run high as families of the victims and the population at large believe that a drawn-out judicial process has let culprits off with too light a jail sentence. In Asuncion with Pope Francis, I’m Linda Bordoni (from Vatican Radio)…

One and Half Milllion Argentinians join Pope Francis in Paraguay

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is currently in Paraguay’s capital Asunciòn on the last leg of his three country Apostolic journey to Latin America  which has also taken him to  Ecuador and Bolivia. Linda Bordoni is currently in Asunciòn and tells us how the Pope’s fellow countrymen are far from missing the opportunity to get close to him. Listen to Linda Bordoni’s report: 

What has been happening on the border between Paraguay and Argentina is being described as “historic”. Immigration officials in both countries say some 1.5 million Argentinians are giving life to what is estimated to be the biggest border crossing for any single event in the region’s history. The reason for the exodus of course, is Pope Francis. His fellow countrymen want to get close to him and show him how much they love and appreciate him. That’s why there are so many pale blue and white flags mingled in with the red, white and blue Paraguayan colours and of course the Vatican’s yellow and white. Many Argentinians made their presence felt on Saturday morning at the Marian Shrine of Caacupé where Pope Francis must have felt particularly “at home” also because of the personal connection he has with the Virgin of Caacupé which is rooted in his pastoral work in Buenos Aires. Yes, because when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Bergoglio often visited the “Villa 21” slum where many Paraguayan immigrants live, joining them in their religious processions and celebrating baptisms at their Church: Our Lady of Caacupé. What’s more, making that same trip across the border is also a large contingent of Paraguayans: about one fifth of the roughly one million immigrants living in Argentina today. That’s why Argentina has opened a number of new border control offices and immigration checkpoints en route to Paraguay, a poor country that needs the Pope’s blessing and is receiving him with open arms. In Asuncion with Pope Francis, I’m Linda Bordoni (from Vatican Radio)…