Holy Mass at the Institute Charles de Foucauld

On Monday, 19 August 1985, in Casablanca, Morocco, the Holy Father celebrated Holy Mass at the Institution 'Charles de Foucauld. In his homily the Pope reflected on what distinguishes the Christian Faith from that of Muslims.

 Praise be to Jesus Christ!

I cordially greet my compatriots who are in this Eucharistic community and who welcomed me with the song: “Under your protection, Heavenly Father”.

I wish to commend you all, dear brothers and sisters here, in Morocco “under the protection of the heavenly Father”. “As I have loved you, so also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:34-35).

1. These words of Jesus are at the very heart of the Gospel message. They express the spirit in which Christians gather. They are a permanent appeal to welcome the love with which God loves us in the person of his Son Jesus, to share him in our community, to live him with all the brothers who surround us.

It is a joy for me to meet you to celebrate the Eucharist and to meditate on the word of God. I thank the Lord for this opportunity to be in the midst of the Catholic Church of Morocco, formed by families who have lived here for several generations as well as people who came to work, participate in development projects, teach. I greet in you the community that for centuries has been a guest of this country with traditions of hospitality and tolerance. I address a fraternal greeting to Monsignor Hubert Michon, archbishop of Rabat, and to Monsignor Antonio José Peteiro Freire, Archbishop of Tangier. I express my cordial greeting to the priests, men and women religious, lay people, those who are present today and to those who live in other regions or are momentarily absent from Morocco.

2. You form a small community of Jesus’ disciples in a country where the vast majority of those who host you and your neighbors follow the Islamic religion. As the Second Vatican Council taught us, and as I have repeated many times following my predecessor Paul VI, there are many positive and holy aspects in what Muslims live. You are respectful witnesses of the example they give by their prayer of worship of God. Not sure how they try to put into practice the directions from him, through obedience to his law. You see the simplicity of life and the generosity towards the poor practiced by devout Muslims. It is a living testimony of their faith.

Animated by the spirit of love that is at the very heart of the Gospel, Christians are able to place in truth what is brought by the daily encounter with their brothers and sisters of Islam. You have a knowledge of the culture and religious inspiration lived in this country, that knowledge that is acquired in fraternal relations in the workplace and in social life in general with a people of another religion. This allows you to promote a better understanding even in Western countries where Muslim workers and students reside. What is deepened here naturally leads to positive extensions elsewhere, throwing bridges between different traditions. This is one of the aspects of service that is the vocation of the Christians of Morocco, in a world in which respectful dialogue between the two sides is not always easy.

3. However, to you, who constitute the community of the Church present in this country, I wish to ask to reflect on what is peculiar to you in our Christian faith. What should characterize our personal life and our Church life?

“Before the feast of Easter, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, after having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1). These words of the Evangelist John suggest to us the fundamental orientation of our Christian existence. Following Christ, we are called to “pass from this world to the Father,” and we are called to love our brothers and sisters with all our being at every moment.

Be here the living body of Christ! Live with him, through him, the great offering of humanity to the Father, in the Eucharistic gathering that is at the center of the Church’s life. Let the presence of Jesus enter into you and his word enlighten you. For it is through him that man fully attains his condition as a son; it is through him that his brothers are united and loved to the end. It is through him that God fills us with his grace when we celebrate the sacraments of salvation, thanks to which man is sanctified, reconciled.

In order to accept the gifts of faith with full awareness, in order to arrange for yourselves to respond to the reason for the hope that is in you (cf. 1 Pt 3, 15), deepen the Gospel message together. I know that you form many groups in which you pray, in which you study Scripture, in which you reflect, in the light of faith, on the meaning of your life, in which you contribute to the Christian formation of young people, in which you take care of those brothers and sisters who need support. I deeply encourage you to these many activities, around priests, men and women religious, animators and lay catechists. Together, through prayer, reflection and the fulfillment of ecclesiastical tasks, you truly constitute the family of Christ’s disciples and help each other to be witnesses of the Master who lived in the midst of men an authentic love and became a servant of his brothers.

4. What characterizes the testimony we give to Jesus Christ? St. Paul tells us: “I will show you a better way than all” (cf. 1 Cor 12, 31). And it’s about love, as we heard in the first reading.

For you, Christians of Morocco, we could paraphrase St. Paul: if we are well prepared, if we put in place with competence good development programs, if we have valid projects in the field of health, if we understand the mystery of salvation and if we do a right theological analysis of God’s plan, if we have a strong enough faith to overcome the obstacles, even if we give our lives for what we believe, but nevertheless we do not have love, our presence here is not an empty witness. “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is the first witness that must characterize our life as Christians.

Love must not become an empty word of meaning by force of use. We must let God’s greatest gift blossom from our daily lives. St. Paul lists the qualities of love (cf. 1 Cor 13: 4-7): it is patient and good to everyone, even when relationships are not easy. Far from boasting about his own actions or the greatness of his own heritage, the Christian faithful to the gift of love bans all arrogance, all selfishness; he rejects intolerance towards customs or customs other than his own. He does not rejoice at the weaknesses or errors of his brothers; he is understanding, he trusts. Respecting the fate of each person and his particular path, “you find joy in what is true.” When the weight of life becomes great, love “bear all up, it hopes for everything.” Knowing how to see the signs of hope, he does not give up rendering service.

5. All the other gifts and gifts we have received have their limits. The time will come when their fragility will appear. The work will continue, or perhaps will not continue. But what is always remains is that testimony of love that you could have given in the name of Christ. The Spirit of God resides in the heart of those who exercise charity in the concrete acts of every day; that love which animates you to work in all the human works of this country.

Jesus asks us today: “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and you say well, because I am. If I, the Lord and the Teacher, have washed your feet, you must wash one another’s feet” (Jn 13:12-14). Jesus, the Master, became himself a servant. This is also our vocation if we are to be his disciples. If you want to live like those who bear his name in this country, you must have a lot of love to be able to serve. Work for the good of all. Work on a work that is essentially common, in a climate of respect for everyone. Work without hoping for any reward, for “it is the Lord you serve” and your Father who is in heaven sees that you do it. Work with hope, but without asking to see the results of your work: “Neither he plants nor who irrigates is something, but God who makes he grow” (1 Cor 3:7). Dear brothers and sisters! You have brought here the image of St. Maximilian Kolbe, patron of our times. This saint, who always looked at the image of the Lady of Jasna Gora (his painting you brought with you), represents this truth of which the liturgy today speaks to us. It is the truth of love through which everyone will understand that we are the disciples of Christ. Precisely this love proved St. Maximilian, when he gave his life to a brother at Auschwitz. This love Christ, through the heart of his Mother, has grafted into the heart of this son of our earth. And he wants to graft this love even in all the children of our land, of the Polish land, of our nation, wherever they are. This is the Gospel message that I want to convey to you here today, in Morocco, where you are as children of our Polish nation and as members of this Christian community.

6. Dear friends, you who wish to be conquered by Christ, who wish to love and serve according to his example and thanks to his gifts, you will find the breathers and models in particular in the heritage of your community. I think of all those who have lived here the Franciscan tradition. I am also thinking of those poor and disinterested monks and those friends of the Moroccan people who were Charles de Foucauld and Albert Périguère.

I would like to thank you, the Catholic Church of Morocco, because your presence in this country bears witness to the universality of the Church. It shows how different are the situations in which the Church finds itself in the different nations of the world. I urge you to continue to live your Christian vocation with joy, witnessing that the Christian is a man of prayer, that the Gospel is an appeal to charity, to universal brotherhood, and that it supports the integral promotion of man.

May the Virgin Mary intercede for you; she was totally servant of the Lord; she kept in her heart the announcement of the wonders of love that spreads from generation to generation through the Saviour Christ!

Amen.

Copyright . Dicastery for Communication