Pope in the United States: San Junipero Serra embodied "outward bound Church", joy of going out and proclaiming
Washington (AsiaNews) - Father Junipero Serra, the 18th century Franciscan friar, evangelizer of California, canonized by Pope Francis this afternoon in the American capital, is the model for living a life of joy and not "resignation", of going out to encounter all, " worthy or not of receiving His message," announcing "the merciful embrace of the Father."
The canonization Mass took place in front of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, an imposing building of the first decades of the '900, in the presence of many bishops, priests and faithful of America, including many Latin American immigrants.
The language of the liturgy was Spanish, as well as most of the songs, performed with great nobility and precision by several choirs. The prayers of the faithful were instead in many immigrant languages: Korean, Vietnamese, Creole, Indian, Filipino, Chinese ...
Junipero embodies all the ecclesial elements that Pope Francis tried to describe in his exhortation "Evangelii Gaudium," quoted in abundance in his homily.
San Junipero " was the embodiment of “a Church which goes forth”, a Church which sets out to bring everywhere the reconciling tenderness of God. Junípero Serra left his native land and its way of life. He was excited about blazing trails, going forth to meet many people, learning and valuing their particular customs and ways of life"
At the beginning of his homily, the Pope asks how to defeat the " glum apathy which gradually becomes a habit, with a fatal consequence: our hearts grow numb." The answer is to experience the "joy" of mission.
" The joy of the Gospel is something to be experienced, something to be known and lived only through giving it away, through giving ourselves away". Then he added:
"For the source of our joy is “an endless desire to show mercy, the fruit of our own experience of the power of the Father’s infinite mercy” (Evangelii Gaudium, 24). Go out to all, proclaim by anointing and anoint by proclaiming. ."
The other issue highlighted is the "all": "Jesus sends his disciples out to all nations. To every people. We too were part of all those people of two thousand years ago. "
The "all" is no exclusions: " Jesus did not provide a short list of who is, or is not, worthy of receiving his message, his presence. Instead, he always embraced life as he saw it. In faces of pain, hunger, sickness and sin. In faces of wounds, of thirst, of weariness, doubt and pity. Far from expecting a pretty life, smartly-dressed and neatly groomed, he embraced life as he found it. It made no difference whether it was dirty, unkempt, broken”.
“Go out to the highways and byways, go out to tell the good news fearlessly, without prejudice, without superiority, without condescension, to all those who have lost the joy of living. Go out to proclaim the merciful embrace of the Father. Go out to those who are burdened by pain and failure, who feel that their lives are empty, and proclaim the folly of a loving Father who wants to anoint them with the oil of hope, the oil of salvation. Go out to proclaim the good news that error, deceitful illusions and falsehoods do not have the last word in a person’s life. Go out with the ointment which soothes wounds and heals hearts".
"Mission - he continued - is always the fruit of a life which knows what it is to be found and healed, encountered and forgiven. Mission is born of a constant experience of God’s merciful anointing. The Church, the holy People of God, treads the dust-laden paths of history, so often traversed by conflict, injustice and violence, in order to encounter her children, our brothers and sisters. The holy and faithful People of God are not afraid of losing their way; they are afraid of becoming self-enclosed, frozen into élites, clinging to their own security. They know that self-enclosure, in all the many forms it takes, is the cause of so much apathy".
In the days leading up to this event, controversy stormed over the canonization given that missons at the time were part of the wider colonization, which led to the risk of genocide of the Indians of the New World. Historically, the missionaries had a function to soothe the violence and often save the lives of the natives. The Pope mentions this in his homily: " Junípero sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it. Mistreatment and wrongs which today still trouble us, especially because of the hurt which they cause in the lives of many people".
The invitation of the Pope to the faithful of the Church in America is that they be " heirs to the bold missionary spirit of so many men and women who preferred not to be “shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security… within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving” (Evangelii Gaudium, 49)”.
For this reason the Pope appealed to all to take on the motto of Junipero Serra, who is famous for having traveled at least 10 thousand kilometers to evangelize: “siempre adelante! Keep moving forward! For him, this was the way to continue experiencing the joy of the Gospel, to keep his heart from growing numb, from being anesthetized. He kept moving forward, because the Lord was waiting. He kept going, because his brothers and sisters were waiting. He kept going forward to the end of his life. Today, like him, may we be able to say: Forward! Let’s keep moving forward!. "
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