At 5pm Pope Francis met families in Manila. He rode 6km in the Pope-mobile to greet faithful who lined the streets. The Mall of Asia Arena is an indoor sports stadium for 20,000 & belongs to SM chain of shopping centres which broadcast the Popes meeting live to all its cinemas. Songs, testimonies, readings & floral tributes to the Pope were the culminating moments. Pope Francis: “Dear families, dear friends in Christ, Im grateful for your presence here this evening & the witness of your love for Jesus & his Church. I thank Bishop Reyes for his words of welcome on your behalf & those who presented testimonies & shared their life of faith with us. The Scriptures seldom speak of St. Joseph, but when they do, we often find him resting, as an angel reveals God’s will to him in his dreams. In the Gospel passage we just heard, we find Joseph resting not once, but twice. This evening Id like to rest in the Lord with all of you & reflect with you on the gift of the family. Joseph’s rest revealed God’s will to him. In this moment of rest in the Lord, as we pause from our many daily obligations & activities, God is also speaking to us. He speaks to us in the reading we have just heard, in our prayer & witness & in the quiet of our hearts. Lets reflect on what the Lord is saying to us. There are 3 aspects of this passage which Id ask you to consider: resting in the Lord, rising with Jesus & Mary & being a prophetic voice. Resting in the Lord. Rest is so necessary for the health of our minds & bodies & often so difficult to achieve due to many demands placed on us. But rest is also essential for our spiritual health, so we can hear God’s voice & understand what he asks of us. Joseph was chosen by God to be the foster father of Jesus & husband of Mary. As Christians, you too are called, like Joseph, to make a home for Jesus. You make a home for him in your hearts, your families, your parishes & your communities. To hear & accept God’s call, to make a home for Jesus, you must be able to rest in the Lord. You must make time each day for prayer. But you may say: Holy Father, I want to pray, but theres so much work to do! I must care for my children; Ive chores at home; Im too tired even to sleep well. This may be true, but if we dont pray, we wont know the most important thing of all: God’s will for us & for all our activity, our busyness, without prayer well accomplish very little. Resting in prayer is especially important for families. It is in the family that we first learn how to pray. There we come to know God, to grow into men & women of faith, to see ourselves as members of God’s greater family, the Church. In the family we learn how to love, to forgive, to be generous & open, not closed & selfish. We learn to move beyond our own needs, to encounter others & share our lives with them. Thats why its so important to pray as a family! Thats why families are so important in God’s plan for the Church! Next, rising with Jesus & Mary. Those precious moments of repose, of resting with the Lord in prayer, are moments we might wish to prolong. But like St. Joseph, once weve heard God’s voice, we must rise from our slumber; get up & act. Faith doesnt remove us from the world, but draws us more deeply into it. Each of us has a special role in preparing for the coming of God’s kingdom in our world. Just as the gift of the Holy Family was entrusted to Saint Joseph, so the gift of the family & its place in God’s plan is entrusted to us. The angel of the Lord revealed to Joseph the dangers which threatened Jesus & Mary, forcing them to flee to Egypt & to settle in Nazareth. So too, in our time, God calls upon us to recognize the dangers threatening our own families & protect them from harm. The pressures on family life today are many. Here countless families still suffer the effects of natural disasters. The economic situation has caused families to be separated by migration & search for employment & financial problems strain many households. While all too many people live in dire poverty, others are caught up in materialism & lifestyles which are destructive of family life & the most basic demands of Christian morality. The family is also threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life. Our world needs good, strong families to overcome these threats! The Philippines need holy, loving families to protect the beauty & truth of the family in God’s plan & be a support & example for other families. Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. The future of humanity, as St. John Paul II often said, passes through the family. So protect your families! See in them your country’s greatest treasure. Nourish them always by prayer & grace of the sacraments. Families will always have their trials, but may you never add to them! Instead, be living examples of love, forgiveness & care. Be sanctuaries of respect for life, proclaiming the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death. What a gift this would be to society, if every Christian family lived fully its noble vocation! So rise with Jesus & Mary & set out on the path the Lord traces for each of you. Finally, the Gospel we have heard reminds us of our Christian duty to be prophetic voices in the midst of our communities. Joseph listened to the angel of the Lord & responded to God’s call to care for Jesus & Mary & so played his part in God’s plan & became a blessing not only for the Holy Family, but for all humanity. With Mary, Joseph served as a model for the boy Jesus as he grew in wisdom, age & grace. When families bring children into the world, train them in faith & sound values & teach them to contribute to society, they become a blessing in our world. God’s love becomes present & active by the way we love & the good works we do; we extend Christ’s kingdom in this world & so we prove faithful to the prophetic mission we have received in baptism. During this year which your bishops have set aside as the Year of the Poor, Id ask you, as families, to be especially mindful of our call to be missionary disciples of Jesus. This means being ready to go beyond your homes & care for our brothers & sisters who are most in need. I ask you especially to show concern for those who do not have a family of their own, the elderly & children without parents. Never let them feel isolated, alone & abandoned, but help them to know that God has not forgotten them. You may be poor yourselves in material ways, but you have an abundance of gifts to offer when you offer Christ & the community of his Church. Dont hide your faith, dont hide Jesus, but carry him into the world & offer the witness of your family life! Dear friends in Christ, know that I pray for you always! I pray that the Lord may continue to deepen your love for him & that this love may manifest itself in your love for one another & the Church. Pray often & take the fruits of your prayer into the world, that all may know Jesus Christ & his merciful love. Please pray also for me, for I truly need your prayers & will depend on them always”.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 00:07:00 +0000
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