The first he meets are the young Peruvians. Pope Leone welcomes the boys and girls who came to Rome for their Jubilee meeting a delegation from his ancient land of mission. Think of the many sacrifices that “your families and the many people of your parish communities have made who certainly helped you” to “make this long -awaited journey possible”.
To them he explains the two parables of the Gospel of today: the one that speaks of the mustard grain and the one that cites the yeast. “As we see, they are two elements, we would say, almost insignificant: yet, with the strength of life that carry in themselves they can transform, grow and serve for the purpose for which they were created”. Leone recalls that, like yeast and mustard, “we are also small, but we are not alone; The Lord wanted him to be part of a large family, the Church family. Incorporated to it in Christ, like the bunches to the vine, we can grow and make fruit, helped by the grace of the Lord ». Rooted in a people, as Sant’Agostino said explaining these parables.
An experience that young people will do this week when they feel not only part of a people, but “part of the universal Church, which envelops and embraces the whole earth, without distinction of race, language or nation; Extending as the shrub of mustard and fermenting like yeast ».
Leone asks that this experience is not individual and only intimate, but that “everything you live in these days” can be shared. “Please,” he says, “that all this does not remain just as a memory, only as some cute photos, only as something of the past. I wish, a vote returned in Perú, floods those lands with the joy and strength of the Gospel, with the good novel of Jesus Christ. That all the people you meet can see in you the face of Christ who loves and gives himself, who continues to be present in every baptized. For this, you love and serve free of charge, in everyday life, in what is small, in what is hidden, so that having experienced the joy of being loved first, and because you have received everything for free from our Father ».
It refers to the backpacks which, “containing only the essentials, are the sign of the mission that today the Pope entrusts you: be missionaries everywhere ancentive, be transparency of the presence of the Lord, as were our beloved Peruvian saints. You know that Pope Francis always spoke of Perú as a land “Ensantada”, many saints, but not only of the past, also saints of today and tomorrow ».
