Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dec 1, 2017 / 11:59 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a classic off-the-cuff speech to priests and religious in Bangladesh, Pope Francis said it’s sad to see unhappy consecrated people, but he loves looking into the eyes of elderly religious who have spent their lives serving in joy, which is the essence of their vocation.
In his Dec. 2 meeting with the priests and religious, the Pope told them to “have joy of heart,” and said he always feels great affection when he meets elderly priests, bishops, and nuns who have “lived a full life.”
“Their eyes are indescribable, full of joy and peace,” he said, noting that God still watches over those who haven’t lived this way, “but there is that lack of sparkle in their eyes. They haven’t had that joy.”
He said the spirit of joy is essential to consecrated life, and that “you cannot serve God” without it.
“I can assure you it’s very painful when you meet priests, consecrated, bishops, who are really unhappy, with a sad face,” he said, adding that whenever he comes across someone like this, he wants to ask: “what did you have for breakfast today, vinegar?”
These people have “a vinegar face, a soured face,” he said, explaining that the “anxiousness and bitterness of heart” that comes when we focus on promotions or compare ourselves to others is counterproductive, and “there is no joy in that way of thinking.”
Pope Francis spoke to Bangladesh’s consecrated community on the last day of his Nov. 27-Dec. 2 tour of Asia, which included stops in both Burma, and the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka.
He arrived to Dhaka Nov. 30, and has so far met with the country’s civil authorities, ordained 16 priests, spoke to the bishops and led an interreligious encounter where he met with Hindu, Buddhist, Anglican and Muslim leaders, including members of Burma’s persecuted Rohingya minority. Before leaving, he’ll also meet with the nation’s youth, as the last encounter before returning to Rome.
In his meeting with religious, which was held at the Church of the Holy Rosary, one of the oldest churches in Bangladesh, the Pope listened to several testimonies before speaking, including Fr. Abel Rozario, a priest of the Archdiocese of Dhaka; Brother Lawrence; Fr. Franco; Sister Mary Chandra; and Marcellius, a seminarian.
After hearing their stories, Francis said he had prepared an 8-page speech for them, but tossed the remarks, jesting that “we come to listen to the Pope, and not to get bored!”
Speaking off-the-cuff in Spanish with his interpreter, Msgr. Mark Miles, offering simultaneous translation into English, the Pope said that as he was coming in, the image of a plant “sprouting from the stump of Jesse” in next Tuesday’s reading from Isaiah came to mind.
The image of the plant growing in a spirit of wisdom and piety and blooming in a life of faith and service also applies to the life of a consecrated person, he said, noting that it all begins with a seed.
“The seed does not belong to you or to me, God sows the seed, and God is the one who provides for its growth,” he said, explaining that while God is the one who takes the initiative, we have to water the seed in order for it to grow.
In order to water the seed of the vocation we’ve been given, we have to “look after it,” as we would look after a child or someone who is sick or elderly: with tenderness.
“Vocation is looked after with human tenderness in our communities, where we live as priests, parishes,” he said, adding that “if there’s no such tenderness, then the plant is very small, it doesn’t grow and it can dry out.”
“Look after it with tenderness, because every brother in the presbyterate, in the episcopal conference, every religious in community, every brother seminarian, is a seed of God. And God looks at them with the tenderness of a father.”
However, Francis also noted that despite our best efforts, the enemy comes at night and plants weeds along with the good seeds that God has sown.
When these weeds come along, “there is the risk that the seed can be threatened and not grow,” he said, saying it is “awful” and “sad” to see these weeds grow within parishes or episcopal conferences.
In order to prevent the growth of the weeds, we need to know how to tell them apart from the good seeds, the Pope said, explaining that this process is called “discernment.”
“To look after means to discern,” he said, and urged them to pay attention to which direction their “plant” is growing in, and whether there is something – a friend or a community or family member – who is threatening the growth of the plant.
Prayer is also a key part of this discernment process, he said, adding that “to look after also means to pray, and to ask the one who planted the seed how to water that same seed.”
“If I’m having a crisis and falling asleep, we have to ask him to look after us. To pray means to ask the Lord to look after us, that he give us the tenderness that we have to then pass onto others,” he said.
Pope Francis then pointed to the various challenges that arise in parishes, seminaries, episcopal conferences and convents, saying these will always be present because each of us have defects and limitations that threaten the peace and harmony of community life.
Noting how Bangladesh is known for it’s achievements in living and promoting interreligious harmony, he said the same efforts have to be made inside faith communities, and Bangladesh “has to be an example of harmony.”
Bringing up a point he often returns to, especially when speaking to religious, Francis said of the greatest “enemies” of harmony in religious life is gossip.
“The tongue, brothers and sisters, can destroy a community by speaking badly about another person,” he said, noting that “this is not my idea, but 2,000 years ago a certain St. James said that in his letter.”
To talk about the defects of others behind their backs rather than confronting the person about it creates an environment of distrust, jealousy and division, he said, and again referred to gossip as a form of “terrorism.”
It’s terrorism, he said, because “when you speak badly of others, you don’t say it publicly, and a terrorist doesn’t say publicly ‘I’m a terrorist.’ A terrorist says it in a private, crude way, then throws the bomb and it explodes.”
The same thing happens in communities, and often times others pick up the bomb that has been left and they also throw it, he said, and told the religious to “hold your tongue” if they are tempted to speak badly about someone.
“Maybe you’ll hurt you tongue if you bite it, but you won’t hurt the other person.”
If a true correction needs to be made, Francis told them, if possible, to first confront the person face to face in charity, and to also let an authority know, so they can do something about it if needed.
“Say it to the person’s face, and say it to another person who can do something, but with charity. How many communities have been destroyed through the spirit of gossip,” he said, and implored them “please, hold your tongue, bite your tongue.”
Pope Francis closed his address by urging the religious to ask themselves a series of questions: “do I look after the small plant, do I water it? Do I water it in others? Am I afraid of being a terrorist, and therefore never speak badly of others? And do I have the gift of joy?”
He then voiced his hope that the “plant” of their vocation continues to grow so that “your eyes will always sparkle with that joy of the Holy Spirit,” and asked for prayer.
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Well, my goodness me! I think that I shall take up bank robbery for a living, and will go to Cardinal Marx to have my endeavors blessed before I head out for a heist. And while I’m at it, I’ll go out and commit perjury, but I’ll ask him for a blessing ceremony beforehand. And, y’know, there are some people who really annoy me, so I think I’ll poison or knife or shoot them – but I’ll be sure to get Cardinal Marx to “accompany me as an individual” as I do it.
It is a terrible thing to have evil on the loose in the Church, with corrupt leaders cooperating with it.
It must be exhausting to have to juggle so many “concrete situations” at once.
Perhaps I can hide some of those stabbed, poisoned, and shot annoyances in the concrete.
An internal contradiction of immense proportions. It is not possible to square this circle.
To be led away from Christ in the name of “mercy”.
Why doesn’t Cardinal Marx just convert to Anglicanism?
Dr Maike Hickson German born wife of Dr R Hickson and member of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family recently interviewed Dr Josef Seifert for 1Peter5 on his firing in Spain. Seifert cited Prof Gerhard Hover’s repudiation of intrinsic evil [Time is greater than space], the phi theological basis of Pope Francis’ New Paradigm, and basis for Cardinal Reinhard Marx’ position on homosexual union. From my Thomistic perspective “concrete circumstances” frequently cited by Pope Francis as moral determinants however mitigating or thought favorable cannot make an evil act good since the object of the act must be ordered to God. The moral law referencing human acts that are inherently evil reflect the divine law, and God who is neither subject to time or change. Evil is in the will of man, due to a willful privation of direction to a due end. If as Gerhard Hover argues time is reduced to the continuous motion of the Aristotelian tradition [form and absence of form which affects human acts] it must be taken as an excessive limitation [coarctata temporis acceptio]. Time Hover says is actually greater than the space by which it is measured. Human acts are of themselves transient in nature inclusive of their intrinsic moral nature. Time in this sense transcends the limitations of space and consequent restrictions like intrinsic evil. This theorem [Hover’s] effectively denies that evil is in contradiction to God. Evil must then exist as commensurate to the divine nature as good or evil, but dependent on human measurable time. Then nothing is intrinsically and forever evil to God. Since it is man that determines what is good or evil. That is apotheosis. Instead God unchanging undivided Pure Act and First Principle cannot be subject to moral divisibility that mirrors a Zoroastrian good and evil composite of justice, namely what is evil today is good tomorrow. In God there is no Darkness.
Hi ,
I’ve been a Catholic all my life, that’s almost 59 years.
This Cardinal Marx seems to have stopped being a Catholic AND DEFINATLY A CHRISTIAN, with his heinous attack on our Faith. How can you bless someone who quite clearly is facing an eternal punishment for their sin, and then inviting this perversion into any Christian church.
He should be guiding lost souls to the right path.
He is an insult to everything he is supposed to be, but more importantly what the Catholic faith is supposed to be.
I fear this could be a case of ” birds of a feather. He should get out of our Religion instead of soiling the already bad image Catholism already has with crimes against children.
This person or wanna be do gooder is a complete imbecile, if he finds his job too hard to do he should get out ,and stop damaging 2000 years of Christianity.
Hi Father Peter,
I find your comments very very deep and learned, complicated and difficult to understand.
But to simplify.
God does, many many times through the bible point out what is good and what is evil. This to me is where mankind finds the answers to life’s conundrums, so in ” the rule book” or bible every conceivable sin for mankind is addressed.
Now, if an individual commits certain sins throughout their lives and never seeks forgivenesses and most importantly, never ceases these sins – then their soul is lost for eternity. This may sound very harsh BUT this is Gods law and no matter how hurtful any individual may find this, this is the truth.
Now anyone who tries to alter the word and teachings of God is foolish because the Bible is foolproof, but NOT for the foolish.
To be truly fair to anyone who seeks advice and who genuinely does not know the answers it is best to make them fully aware of the dire eternal consequences of leading a sinful life.
God Bless
Brian.
I’m not sure about these German Marxes whether they be Reinhard or Karl. I’d rather take Groucho and Harpo.
Groucho Marx…. ” Love goes out the door and innuendo”.
Hi ,
I’ve been a Catholic all my life, that’s almost 59 years.
This Cardinal Marx seems to have stopped being a Catholic AND DEFINATLY A CHRISTIAN, with his heinous attack on our Faith. How can you bless someone who quite clearly is facing an eternal punishment for their sin, and then inviting this perversion into any Christian church.
He should be guiding lost souls to the right path.
He is an insult to everything he is supposed to be, but more importantly what the Catholic faith is supposed to be.
I fear this could be a case of ” birds of a feather. He should get out of our Religion instead of soiling the already bad image Catholism already has with crimes against children.
This person or wanna be do gooder is a complete imbecile, if he finds his job too hard to do he should get out ,and stop damaging 2000 years of Christianity.