ARGENTINA, mda. In his Pastoral Letter for Holy Week Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires and Primate of Argentina (and since 13 March Pope Francis I) recommended that all Movements and parishes should go out onto the streets “as the living Christ”, to transform our Church into a “Church of open doors”. These doors should not only be open to welcome people, but also for us to go out from closed Church rooms in order to celebrate and help those who do not come in on their own. As he said, “the Church that calls to us unceasingly to evangelise, asks us to make practical gestures to testify to the baptism we have received.” The letter was published by schoenstatt.org in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian at the end of February as a challenge and inspiration in the spirit of the international Pilgrimage Prayer 2014: “Educate us to be your missionaries for this century.”
For years we have all been working towards the Church going out onto the streets, so that the presence of the Living Jesus might be revealed there. It is an expression of the attempt to live what we pray so often in the Canon of the Mass: “Grant that the Faithful may understand the signs of the times and commit themselves wholeheartedly to the Gospel. Make us open for what is important for people, so that we may share their sorrows and fears, their joys and hopes, and as faithful witnesses of the Good News walk with them towards you.” All the parishes have more or less accepted this challenge. Aparecida has confirmed this way and shown us that if it is not to remain a spark, it demands real pastoral conversion. We need to be continually converted, because we often give in to the temptation to return to the fleshpots of Egypt. As we all know, the reality of our parishes is very limited in relation to the number of people who are there in comparison to the numbers we cannot reach. The Church that constantly calls us to evangelise, asks us for practical gestures that testify to the baptism we have received. Remaining in the grace of baptism is determined by our way and our action – action that consists not just in individual deeds, but has become a style that seeks Jesus’ style and aims at sharing in it. Those words “becoming everything to everyone in order to win some for Christ” go in this direction.
Going out, sharing, proclaiming – without doubt this requires an asceticism of renunciation as part of pastoral conversion. Fear and tiredness can play dirty tricks on us and tempt us to remain with what we know and causes us no difficulties, with what offers us a partial view of reality and above all leaves us in peace. On another occasion we are caught in the trap of perfectionism that isolates us from others and offers us such excuses as: “I have so much to do”, “I don’t have anyone”, “If we do this or that, who will carry out the parish business?” etc.
I would like to say as I said already in the year 2000, “Time is of the essence. We have no right to remain stroking our own souls. We have no right to enclose ourselves in our own tiny and narrow little world. We have no right to love one another quietly and calmly among ourselves. We have to go out to the people in the towns and cities and talk to the people who we see standing on the balconies. We have to go out from our eggshells and tell them that Jesus is alive, and that Jesus lives for each one individually, and we have to say it joyfully … even if we sometimes seem to ourselves to be somewhat crazy.
Think of how many old people lead boring lives; think of how many do not have enough money to buy medicines. Think of how many children’s minds are filled with confusing ideas, which we see as great innovations, while in Europe and the USA they were thrown into the dustbin ten years ago, and we consider them pedagogical progress.
Think of how many young people spend their lives between drugs and noise, because they can’t find any meaning in life, and because no one has told them that something great exists. Think of how many people are filled with longing also in our towns and cities, and who need the bars where they drink one thing after another in order to forget.
Think of how many good, but vain people live by outward appearances and are in danger of becoming proud and arrogant.
And we simply want to stay at home? Close ourselves off in our parishes? Get stuck in the gossip and tittle-tattle of the parish, the school, or topics solely concerned with the life in the Church? When so many people are waiting for us! The people of our town or city! A town that has religious potential, a wonderful and beautiful city that is being led astray by evil. We can’t remain just with ourselves, we cannot remain sealed off within the parish or the school.
Holy Week gives us a new opportunity to get rid of a self-contained model of evangelising experience that never changes, and replace it with a Church with open doors. The doors do not just open to receive, but remain open so that we can go out and celebrate, and approach those who do not come in on their own.
With these thoughts I am looking forward to the approaching Palm celebration, the feast in which Jesus went among the people as a blessing to all who met him. I am asking that we do not make this feast a private matter; it is a feast that is there for everyone, not just for some. The Archdiocese has decided to celebrate it in a missionary way on Saturday evening from the missionary stations of the Vicariates. So I ask the parish priests and those responsible for schools and seminaries to mobilise their communities for this powerful moment of faith and proclamation, so that the lives of our Faithful are renewed when they experience the beauty and joy of meeting others in sharing the Faith. It is impossible for a person to accept the Word and surrender himself or herself to God’s kingdom, and not become a person who bears witness and proclaims.
Translation: Mary Cole, England
