miniZibaldone

I would like to say to the young men and women of nowadays who don't feel at ease – (who say) ‘But I’m not that happy with this consumerist and narcissistic culture ….’ ‘But look at the horizon! Look who’s there, look at our missionaries!’ Pray to the Holy Spirit who compels them to go far away, to consume or burn up their lives. From the homily He noted that Paul acknowledges the absolute mastery of the Spirit over his life who has always pushed him to announce the gospel despite the problems and  difficulties. I believe, the Pope said, this excerpt evokes for us the life of missionaries throughout the ages.  “They went forward compelled by the Holy Spirit: a vocation!  And when we went to the cemeteries in those places, we see their tombs: so many of them died at an  early age before they reached 40.  The reason is because they were not used to and couldn’t recover from the diseases present in those places. They gave up their  young lives: they had...

From a General Audience I would like to say a word about the missionaries. Men and women who have left their homeland, everything ... They went there as youths, leading a life of so much, so much work, sometimes sleeping on the ground. At a certain moment, I met a Sister at Bangui who was Italian. One could see she was elderly: “How old are you?” I asked. “81” – “But not so much, two [years] older than me.” This sister was there since she was 23-24 years old: her whole life! And, like her, so many others. She was with a little girl. And the girl said to her in Italian: “Grandmother.” And the sister said to me: “But I, in fact, am not from here, but from the neighboring country, Congo, but I came in a canoe with this girl.” So the missionaries are courageous. “And what do you do, Sister?” “I am a nurse, but then I studied a bit here and became an obstetrician and I made 3,280 children be born,” she said to me. A whole life for life, for the life of others. And there are so many, so ...