The Pope, on the mass in Tacloban and again on weeping. The most moving moment for me, the mass in Tacloban was very moving. Very moving. To see all of God’s people standing still, praying, after this catastrophe. Thinking of my sins and those people, it was moving, a very moving moment. In the moment of the Mass there, I felt as though I was annihilated. I almost couldn’t speak. I felt very little, I don’t know what happened to me, maybe it was the emotion. And then the gestures were moving. Every gesture. When I passed and a father would make this (gesture) and I blessed him, he would say thank you but…for them, a blessing was enough. I thought, but I who have so many expectations, I want this and I want that. This was good for me, no? Moving moments. After I found out that in Tacloban we landed with winds at 70 miles per hour, I took seriously the warning that we needed to leave no later than one o’clock because there was a danger. But I wasnt afraid. The other thing is the weeping. One of the things that is lost when there is too much wealth or when values are misunderstood or we have become accustomed to injustice, to this culture of waste, is the capacity to cry. This is a grace we must ask for. There is a beautiful prayer in the ancient missal, for crying. It went more or less like this: Lord, you who have made it so that Moses with his cane could make water flow from a stone, make it so that from the rock that is my heart, the water of tears may flow. It’s a beautiful prayer. We Christians must ask for the grace to cry, especially well-to-do Christians. And cry about injustice and cry about sins. Because crying opens you to understand new realities, or new dimensions to realities.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 06:00:24 +0000
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