{"id":341946,"date":"2013-05-19T09:18:48","date_gmt":"2013-05-19T07:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/the-invitation-of-pope-francis-to-go-out\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:09:18","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:09:18","slug":"the-invitation-of-pope-francis-to-go-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/the-invitation-of-pope-francis-to-go-out\/","title":{"rendered":"The invitation of Pope Francis to \u201cGo out!\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" Four questions and answers off the cuff. <\/strong>The Pope\u2019s words were the most touching moment of the Pentecost Vigil at which 200,000 faithful from many ecclesial groups gathered on May 18, 2013. \u201cI know your questions. . . it\u2019s the truth!\u201d Yet his answers were spontaneous, and they engaged those present in profound silence. He was first questioned on how he reached the certainty of faith and how we are to overcome our fragility. He responded with a story: \u201cI had the grace to grow up in a family where the faith was lived out in a very simple and concrete way. It was especially my grandmother who taught me the path of faith.\u201d \u201cShe spoke to us about Jesus and taught us the catechism. On Good Friday she brought us to the candle procession. At the end of the procession came the dying Jesus, and our grandmother would make us kneel. She would tell us: he is dead, but tomorrow he will rise! I first received the Christian message from my grandmother!\u201d\u00a0 Then came the Pope\u2019s invitation to abandon all fear: \u201cWe\u2019re fragile, we know that, but He is stronger. With the Lord we are certain, the faith grows with the help of the Lord. . .\u201d\u00a0 .<\/strong> What is the most important thing on which we should fix our sights?<\/strong> \u201cThe most important thing? Jesus. If we move forward with an organization, but without Jesus, we go nowhere.\u201d And he invited all to live in \u201csynergy with the Holy Spirit\u201d. Not so much to talk but to give testimony by the way we live.<\/strong>   How should we live so that the Church may be a poor Church and for the poor? What can our contribution be to the Church and to society in this time of crisis that involves public ethics? <\/strong>\u201cLiving the Gospel is the main contribution we can give. The Church is not a political movement, nor a well-organized structure. We aren\u2019t an NGO, and when the Church becomes an NGO it loses its salt and has no taste, it\u2019s only an empty organization made up of many structures.\u201d \"\"Among the greatest dangers mentioned by the Pope were those of efficiency and of closing in on itself. <\/strong>Such closing in on oneself leads to illness: \u201cThe Church needs to come out of itself and start moving toward the peripheries of society. Obviously, when you go out, there will be accidents: \u201cBut I prefer a thousand times more a Church that is damaged than a Church that is sick from closing in on itself. Go out, go out!\u201d This was the path the Pope was inviting all to follow in order to move away from a culture of confrontation and fragmentation and a \u201cculture of waste\u201d, and toward living a culture of encountering others, encountering Jesus and all our brothers and sisters, beginning from the poor, looking in their eyes and touching them with our hands in order to \u201ctouch the flesh of Christ and to take upon ourselves the sufferings of the poor.\u201d How are we to confess the faith?<\/strong> \u201cTo confess the faith two virtues are needed: courage and patience, as we were reminded by the testimony of Brother Shabhaz Bhatti, Pakistan Minister who was murdered in 2011. We\u2019re all on the path of martyrdom. Some give testimony to Christ by giving up their physical lives, some by living small martyrdoms throughout the day.\u201d \u201cA Christian should always respond to evil with good.\u201d \u201cLet us make these brothers and sisters feel that we are deeply united with this situation.\u201d \u201cDo you pray for these brothers and sisters in your daily prayers?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

During the final words to Pope Francis by leaders of the communities and ecclesial movements, Maria Voce<\/strong><\/a> also expressed her gratitude to the Holy Father<\/strong> and the Focolare\u2019s commitment to \u201cgive a courageous and joyful testimony to the Christian life.\u201d She shared some of her impressions<\/strong> with us: \u201chis words touched our hearts\u201d especially his continued insistence on the encounter with Jesus and prayer, which he came back to in all his answers, underscoring \u201cthe spiritual dimension of the Christian person: prayer and the encounter with Jesus that happens through people on the peripheries of society, on the outside. He rejected excuses and table strategies, while never denying the challenges. We need to look to Jesus and the rest will come as a consequence.\u201d The president of the Focolare underscored the atmosphere of friendship and joy among the representatives of communities and movements. \u201cI believe that the Pope, when he arrived, felt this joyful heart of the Church.\u201d Giancarlo Faletti, co-president of the Focolare, stressed that the Pope emphasized the love of Jesus and of neighbour as the dynamic of life of those who look outwards: \u201cHe did not look at the movements just as a particular part of the Church, but he addressed all Christianity.\u201d See the CTV transmission replay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two hundred thousand Christians from a variety of ecclesial movements, associations and lay organizations gather in dialogue with Pope Francis. Maria Voce\u2019s message: The Focolare is committed to offering a courageous and joyful testimony of Christian life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}