Pope Francisco in Peru.
Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord!
It is a gift from God to have had the opportunity to live the Holy Mass in which we are allowed to unite ourselves in the sacrifice of Christ and nourish ourselves with His body and blood, celebrated by Pope Francis and surrounded by thousands of people including children, teenagers, adults, and the elderly from different places in northern Perú. It impressed me very much to see the simplicity, the humbleness, and the closeness that Pope Francis had for all of us, despite the fatigue, the heat and the sun which was no obstacle for him. Love overcomes all obstacles.
In the homily of the Mass in Trujillo, Perú, Pope Francis gave us a great message, here is part of this message and it is what God asks of each one of us: “I know that at the time of darkness when you felt the catastrophic effects of El Niño, this country knew how to get moving, and had the mindfulness to run and help each other as true brothers. There was a sense of solidarity and generosity that set the country in motion and just as the Lord commands, you offered countless concrete gestures of help. In the midst of the darkness, there were living ‘candles’ that illuminated the path with open and available hands, to alleviate the pain and share what little they had (…) the soul of a community is measured in how it manages to unite to face difficult moments of adversity, to keep hope alive, that attitude is the greatest evangelical witness. The Lord tells us: In all this, it is recognized that you are my disciples in the love you have for one another; because Faith enables us to have concrete love, not ideas, concrete love of works, of outstretched hands, of compassion that know how to build and rebuild hope when it seems that everything is lost. Thus we become participants in the divine action, which the apostle John describes when he shows us God wiping the tears of his children. This divine task of God is done with the same tenderness that a mother seeks to dry the tears of her children . What a beautiful question the Lord can ask each one of us at the end of the day. How many tears have you dried today?”
This great question demands a response from each one of us. Participate in the divine action as a measurement that our lives are of God, for God, in God and with God and filled with His Holy Spirit to be living candles that light the way for others.
Gissela Calle
20 January 2018.