Lombardi: Pope in Mexico "messenger of mercy,
peace"
(Vatican Radio) On the last
day of his pastoral visit to Mexico, Pope Francis on Wednesday visits inmates
at a prison in Ciudad Juarez on the U.S.-Mexico border. Before heading back to
Rome Wednesday evening, he will also meet people from the working world and
celebrate Mass in the city located just across the border from El Paso.
On Tuesday, the Holy Father visited Morelia in central Mexico where he
celebrated Mass with religious, consecrated people and seminarians and later
was greeted by tens of thousands of young people at the local stadium.
Director of the Holy See
Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi sj says
the Pope has come to Mexico as “a messenger of mercy and of peace.” Even
through his gestures and small actions, the Pope “was teaching love and
demonstrating love and mercy of God… not only through his words,” adds Fr.
Lombardi. In this way, continues the Vatican spokesman, the Pope
“has contributed very much to the harmony and reconciliation of a society
that has dramatic tensions and problems with violence and internal conflicts
and disparities of situations in the society.”
In an interview with Vatican
Radio’s Veronica Scarisbrick, Fr. Lombardi notes that Pope Francis has made his
mark in Mexico “in a very pastoral way, not as a politician, not as a person
who comes with easy solutions for problems that are so incredibly
difficult. But he demonstrates understanding for the situation, for the
people and the temptations that they have: [the] discouragement [they feel] in
this situation. And he encourages them, and he witnesses the love of God,
and invites [them] to the profound devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe that is
in the heart of Mexicans.”
Pope challenges Mexicans
to put love, hope into practice
Pope Francis has also been
challenging Mexicans to embrace this witness concretely, in their own lives, in
their families and in society, Fr. Lombardi affirms: “I think he leaves
to the Mexican people a treasure of hope – a horizon of hope for the
future.” It was this message that the Pope stressed in a particular way
to the young people he has encountered, “because they are the majority of
the society and the future is concretely in their hands even if they have
difficulties [in finding] their way in this society.”
Fr. Lombardi observes that
one of the things that has impressed Pope Francis the most on this trip is “the
love of the people [on the streets] for him.” For the Pope, theirs is a
gratuitous, freely-given love: “they come to demonstrate spontaneously in the
street to demonstrate sincerely that they love the Pope, the Church. That
they desire to be a community which hopes [for] a better situation.” Pope
Francis, Fr. Lombardi adds, is “grateful for the witness of love that he has
received and he has tried to give his contribution to [the Mexican people] to
overcome this historical, difficult moment.”
Moving moments
Fr. Lombardi admits that he
personally, found two moments of the trip particularly moving: “the silent
dialogue between the Pope and the Virgin of Guadalupe” in the Basilica of Our
Lady of Guadalupe at the end of Saturday’s Mass in Mexico City. And
the moment during Monday’s meeting with families in Tuxtla Gutiérrez,
when a severely disabled child in a wheelchair was brought towards the
Pope. The episode, Fr. Lombardi remarks, reminded him of the Gospel story
“in which the people bring the paralytic to Jesus: the Pope has seen this and
then came down from the podium to encounter this child and to bless him…. It
was a very [special] moment: the witness of faith of the people bringing this
sick young man to the Pope and the love of the Pope” who interrupted the
testimonials of families “to go down where he sees this desire of blessing for
a person that was in very, very particularly grave sickness.”
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