(Vatican Radio) On Saturday June 6 (2015) Pope Francis was set to deliver a speech during a meeting in Sarajevo with men and women religious. But after listening to first hand testimonies of persecution suffered by people during the recent war and the challenges facing people in the region today he decided to speak off the cuff. This is Vatican Radio's translation of what he said:
I prepared a discourse for you but after hearing the testimony of the priests and woman religious, I feel I need to speak to you off the cuff. They told us about their experiences, good and bad things, so I shall leave my discourse with the Cardinal Archbishop. It’s a good discourse! The witnesses spoke for themselves. This is the memory of your people. A people that has no memory has no future. This is the memory of your fathers and mothers in the Faith. Only three people spoke but behind them are many others who suffered as well.
Dear sisters and brothers, you must not forget your history, not in order to hold grudges, but in order to create peace. Not to consider that history as something strange, but to love as they loved. In your blood, in your vocation, is the vocation and blood of these three martyrs. There is the blood and the vocation of many religious, priests and seminarians. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews, tells us not to forget those who have gone before us, those who have transmitted the Faith to us. These people have transmitted the Faith to you, and taught you how to live the Faith. The Apostle Paul tells us not to forget Jesus Christ, the first martyr. These people have followed in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. We need to restore memory in order to make peace.
A few words are lodged in my heart: one of these is “forgiveness”. A man and a woman who consecrate their lives to the Lord, but don’t know how to forgive, are worth nothing. Forgiving an enemy who says something bad to you, or a sister who is jealous, isn’t difficult. But forgiving someone who kicks you and hurts you, who threatens your life with a gun, that is hard to forgive. Yet they did this, and they tell us we should do the same. Something else that stays with me is the 120 days in the concentration camp. How many times the spirit of the world causes us to forget those who have preceded us with their suffering? Those days in the concentration camp were counted by the minute because every minute, every hour, was torture: living together, filthy, without food or water, in the heat and the cold, and for so long. And we who complain when our tooth hurts, or because we want a TV in our room, or more creature comforts, or we gossip about the superior because the food isn’t good enough. Don’t forget the testimonies of those who went before. Think how much they suffered. Think about the six-litre blood transfusion the first priest received in order to keep him alive. Carry a cross that is worthy of Jesus Christ. Worldly sisters, priests and bishops are caricatures who are worth nothing because they do not remember the martyrs. They don’t remember Jesus Christ crucified who is our only glory.
I think of (the story we were told about) the militiaman who gave a pear to the sister, and the Muslim woman who lives in America now, and who fed the priest. We are all brothers and sisters, even that cruel man. I don’t know what he was thinking, but he felt the Holy Spirit. Maybe he remembered his mother when he gave that pear to the sister. And that Muslim woman who went beyond religious difference, she believed in God. Seek the God of all. We all have the possibility to seek the seeds of Good, because we are all Children of God. Blessed are you who have these witnesses so close to you. Please never forget them. May our lives grow though these memories. I think of the priest whose parents and sister died, he was left alone but he was the fruit of love, marital love. I think of the sister, she too was a daughter. I think of what the Cardinal Archbishop said: what happens to the Garden of Life? Why doesn’t it flourish? Pray for families so that they may flourish with many children and that there may be many vocations. Finally, I would like to tell you that what we have heard is a story of cruelty. Today, in wars around the world, we see so much cruelty. Be the opposite of cruel: be tender, fraternal, forgiving. And carry the cross of Jesus Christ. That’s what Holy Mother Church wants of you: to be small martyrs, small witnesses of the Cross of Christ. May God bless you and please pray for me.
Off-the-cuff remarks in Sarajevo
"The merciful need not fear judgment"
Talk and behave like people who are going to be judged by the law of freedom, because there will be judgement without mercy for those who have not been merciful themselves; but the merciful need have no fear of judgement.
你們既然按照那使人自由的法律 受審判，就該照這法律說話行 事，因爲審判時對那不行憐憫的人，也不予憐憫；憐憫人的不怕 審判。
Sic loquímini et sic fácite sicut per legem libertátis iudicándi. Iudícium enim sine misericórdia illi, qui non fecit misericórdiam; superexúltat misericórdia iudício.
--James 2:12-13
Community life requires forgiveness
“Forgive, show patience. It's not easy to live in community. The devil takes advantage of your differences. You'll say 'I don't want to be rude, but...' That doesn't work because it doesn't lead anywhere. It leads to division. Take care our your friendship and your love. A monastery shouldn't be a purgatory, it should be a family.”
--Pope Francis, 4 October 2013, to cloistered nuns
http://www.romereports.com/palio/pope-to-cloistered-nuns-smile-show-the-inner-joy-that-comes-from-knowing-jesus-english-11229.html#.Uk973dJkN8E
Beautiful to be forgiven
How beautiful it is to be holy, but also how beautiful to be forgiven.
--Pope Francis, 27 Mar 2013
http://www.news.va/en/news/how-beautiful-it-is-to-be-forgiven
Do not grieve the Spirit of God
Guard against foul talk; let your words be for the improvement of others, as occasion offers, and do good to your listeners, otherwise you will only be grieving the Holy Spirit of God who has marked you with his seal for you to be set free when the day comes. Never have grudges against others, or lose your temper, or raise your voice to anybody, or call each other names, or allow any sort of spitefulness. Be friends with one another, and kind, forgiving each other as readily as God forgave you in Christ.
GOD'S AMAZING FORGIVENESS
However, the mercy of God in the history of his people widens further. If to save Sodom ten righteous were sufficient, the prophet Jeremiah will say, in the name of the Almighty, that just one righteous will suffice to save Jerusalem. "Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note! Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth; that I may pardon her" (5:1). The number has gone down again, God's goodness shows itself even greater. And yet this is still not enough, the superabundant mercy of God does not find the answer of goodness that it seeks, and Jerusalem falls under the siege of the enemy.
--Benedict XVI, Wednesday Audience, 18 May 2011
So let us lift our gaze upward! And with great humility and confidence, let us ask the Spirit to enable us each day to grow in the holiness that will make us living stones in the temple which he is even now raising up in the midst of our world. If we are to be true forces of unity, let us be the first to seek inner reconciliation through penance. Let us forgive the wrongs we have suffered and put aside all anger and contention. Let us be the first to demonstrate the humility and purity of heart which are required to approach the splendor of God’s truth. In fidelity to the deposit of faith entrusted to the Apostles (cf. 1 Tim 6:20), let us be joyful witnesses of the transforming power of the Gospel!
(Benedict XVI, Homily, Votive Mass for the Universal Church, Saint Patrick's Cathedral, New York, 19 April 2008)
Fasting bears no fruit unless it is watered by mercy. Fasting dries up when mercy dries up. Mercy is to fasting as rain is to earth. However much you may cultivate your heart, clear the soil of your nature, root out vices, sow virtues, if you do not release the springs of mercy, your fasting will bear no fruit.
(Saint Peter Chrysologus, bishop, Sermon)