He Pope Francis presided over an open-air mass this Sunday in Papua New Guineawhich was attended by nearly 35,000 faithfulThe event took place at Port Moresby Stadium in the country’s capital and featured various displays of local traditions, such as the entrance procession of the concelebrants, accompanied by music and dances typical of the country.
The audience included a mix of clerics in green cassocks, white-clad worshippers and members of indigenous tribes singing songs to the beat of kundu drums. “It is a once-in-a-lifetime event, we had to be here. The country is not doing well, we have many problems and that is why we are here.” We need the Pope’s message to encourage us and give us the strength we need to move forward,” said one of the audience members in a hopeful tone.
On this occasion, the homily chosen by the Supreme Pontiff was based on the theme that motivated his 12-day tour of Oceania and Southeast Asia: Bringing faith to the “peripheries” of the world. Thus, he began addressing those present and said: “You who live on this great island overlooking the Pacific Ocean, perhaps you have sometimes thought that it is a distant, faraway land, located at the ends of the world.”
However, he added later, “given this distance, God responds with the closeness of Jesus”. “In his Son, God wants to show us above all this: that He is the close, compassionate God, who cares for our lives, who overcomes all distance.. The Lord touches those who are impure and, in this way, establishes a contact, cancels the distance to become closer“This is the closeness of Jesus, who comes to touch our lives and overcome all distance,” he said.
That is why “today, the Lord, as he did with the deaf, wants to get closer to you, to bridge the gapto make them feel that they are at the center of his heart and that each one is important to Him, he wants to heal their deafness and their muteness,” he promised and insisted: “To each one of you he says: Open up.”
Francis pointed out, however, that God’s will cannot always be fulfilled because “there is an inner deafness and a muteness of the heart that depend on everything that encloses us within ourselves, that closes us off from God and others,” such as “the selfishnessthe indifferencethe fear of taking risks and getting involved, the resentmenthe hateand the list could go on.”
“All this distances us from God, from our brothers and sisters, from ourselves, and from the joy of living,” he warned the faithful before ending.
The majority of Papua New Guinea’s 12 million people are Christian (over 90 percent), with 30 percent even considering themselves Catholic. All these people are spread across a vast territory, with over 600 islands, where the level of inequality recorded is higher than any other in Asia and the Pacific, with one of the lowest Human Development Indices in the world.
(With information from AFP and EFE)
