S. John Paul II Homil. 323


APOSTOLIC PILGRIMAGE TO INDIA

EUCHARISTIC CONCELEBRATION AT THE GOLF COURSE OF SHILLONG


Calcutta

Tuesday, 4 February 1986

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want...

He leads me... he refreshes my soul" .

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Christ,

1. With you I wish to direct my thoughts to the one who is our Eternal Father. He is the one who has brought us together. He has led us along our different paths to take our place around the twofold table which he prepares before us". The table of the word of God and of the Eucharist. Together let us thank him.

Dear Archbishop D’Rosario, dear brother bishops, dear brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ: as we gather here this morning in this beautiful setting of the hills of Meghalaya – "the abode of the clouds" – I greet you with great joy in "God who is rich in mercy". He gives me this privilege, to celebrate the Eucharist here in the midst of you who belong to so many different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, so rich in beauty, so varied in expressions.

I gladly welcome and greet the civil authorities present, as well as the distinguished representatives of the various religious traditions.

324 The States that comprise this region of North East India have well been called the " Seven Sisters ", thus giving expression to your sense of unity and solidarity.

2. In every culture God’s works can be known. For you, God is not a mere abstract idea, he is very much a part of your life. Nature herself shows you, in her beauty, his loving presence. Out of love he reveals himself to us. If all of us can speak the one language of love, it is because God first loved us. He has revealed his love to us.

You are also aware that man at one time turned against the Creator through sin, but that God in his mercy did not abandon mankind. Rather he revealed his loving plan of salvation.

In this region of North-East India, particularly, each group has within it a long-standing tradition of God’s communication with mankind through signs and symbols that have assumed a sacred character. In fact, we can picture God as our Shepherd who never abandons his sheep but goes and searches for the scattered ones to bring them all into the unity of the children of God.

The first reading of today’s Liturgy speaks of this in specific terms: "God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ... and raised us up with him" .

God’s self-manifestation reaches its fulness in Jesus Christ, who is the Word of the Father, the eternal Son of God made man. The whole plan of God for the human family is made known through the mystery of the Incarnation. It is in Christ that we come to a fuller knowledge of the Father, for " no one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known".4

3. When Jesus began his ministry among his people, he announced God’s Kingdom: he revealed the Father and himself through words and actions .

As Saint Luke describes in today’s Gospel, Jesus began his ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth by proclaiming that the whole of God’s salvific plan for the human family was being realized in his own person: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" .

Jesus came to announce definitively that people are called to belong to God, to enter the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Jesus gave evidence that what he preached was already a reality in his person. He cured the sick, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, and the lame. He raised the dead to life and filled the hungry. He did all this to reveal God’s love already at work in him.

The revelation of God’s love for us reached its highest expression in Christ’s passion and death: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" . Through love Jesus entered wholly and without reserve into communion with his Father and with mankind. In him there is the total self-communication of God and the total response of man. He has become the foundation of our peace and unity.

4. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, far from being mere words, is the expression of the loving concern that God has for us and that he concretely expressed in the words, works and person of Jesus. It was this Gospel that the Apostles went about preaching after Jesus left our visible world. They dared to do this since they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit who endowed them with fearless zeal to proclaim “that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life... that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ" .

325 The preaching of this message gave birth to communities where the word continued to be proclaimed and believed in; and where faith was expressed concretely in worship and right living. Ever since, that same vision and commitment have led countless courageous priests, religious and lay apostles to go forth all over the earth to preach the Good News of salvation in Christ Jesus, braving innumerable difficulties and obstacles of every kind, even to the extent of shedding their blood.

5. Nearly a hundred years ago the Assam Mission was established and entrusted to the Society of the Divine Saviour whose missionaries laid a solid foundation for the further proclamation of the Gospel. Other enterprising Catholic missionaries, particularly those belonging to the Foreign Missionaries of Paris and of Milan, laboured in this region. We recall here the heroic deaths of Father Krick and Father Broury. Other missionaries of various Christian Churches sometimes preceded Catholics in the work of evangelization. We remember them all with gratitude for the sacrifices they have made in sowing the seed of the word of God in very trying circumstances.

The Salesians of Don Bosco, who were entrusted with the Assam Mission in 1921, have contributed in a special way to the growth of the Church in this area. We treasure with admiration the memory of dedicated men like Leo Piasecki who worked in these plains of Assam, and Constantine Vendrame who is known as the apostle of the Khasi Hills, and scores of others whose sacrifices have enshrined them in the hearts of the people of this region.

This work of evangelization is also continuing today through the untiring and zealous efforts of the diocesan clergy, whose steadily increasing numbers is a sign of the growth and maturity of your local Churches.

The development and present condition of this mission of NorthEast India is also the fruit of the active involvement of various religious congregations of men and women, to whom the Church wishes to express a debt of profound gratitude, respect and love.

What has also marked the history of your mission has been the active involvement of numerous lay men and women, especially the catechists. They have often been the ones who prepared the ground for the spread of the Gospel. In a very real way the truth and values of the Gospel have taken root in the heart and imagination of the young people of these hills.

6. When the first missionaries came to this region they encountered a great variety of peoples and cultures that were quite unfamiliar to them. Yet they zealously implanted the Gospel message into each cultural milieu. Today the proclamation continues and it is being lived out in every corner of this region, in harmonious dialogue with local tradition.

The Gospel that is preached has come to these areas not in order to dominate but to be at the service of every people. The Gospel has come in order to be incarnated in your cultures without doing violence to them. In this process Christian tradition both enriches and is in turn enriched by this contact with the many values that are preserved in the hearts of the peoples of these hills and plains.

What does the Gospel of Jesus Christ say to you? What is its message in the North-East of India?

You are filled with a deep longing to share in God’s life here on earth. You have a profound aspiration for the noblest ideals of human dignity, for respect for your human rights, and for development and peace. Yet you have your share of the universal problems and frustrations that the world faces today: illiteracy, rural poverty, problems arising from rapid urbanization, the tension between the consciousness of your own cultural identity and the many dehumanizing forces at work in society.

Your own traditions and cultures are not without answers to these problems. Building on these, the Gospel, with its unique message of divine filiation, of love and solidarity, embodied in the person of Christ, reveals and makes present " the immeasurable riches" of God’s grace through which we are saved . In this way your human endeavours are imbued with the wisdom and power of the same Holy Spirit who " anointed " Jesus for his messianic work. Christ is God’s answer to man’s highest aspiration: Christ reveals God to man and man to himself .

326 7. Brothers and sisters: the task ahead is still immense. Those who have embraced the saving message of the Gospel have a special duty to work for the inculturation of the Christian message in these areas. In intimate communion with the universal Church, let your local Churches take to themselves, in a wonderful exchange, the perennial values contained in the wisdom, the customs and traditions of your peoples so that "Christian life will be adapted to the mentality and character of each culture" .

With pastoral hope and joy I encourage the evangelical zeal and activity of every priest, religious, catechist and lay apostle. Be united to spread the Kingdom of God in this region. I am happy to know that you are in the middle of a novena of years of preparation for celebrating the centenary of evangelization in this region. May God abundantly bless your efforts! I appeal especially to the young: be filled with the spirit of the Gospel. Learn to love and appreciate your own culture, your language, your past history.

All of you, brothers and sisters, must become heralds of God’s saving presence throughout the hills and plains of North-East India.

8. The Acts of the Apostles reminds us that the first community of Christ’s disciples in Jerusalem "remained faithful to the teaching of the Apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers" .

After nearly two thousand years, we who are gathered here are doing the same thing: we are united in prayer, in listening to the teaching of the Apostles and in celebrating Mass. We are gathered about the table of the word of God and of the Eucharist. And it is the same Eternal Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who brings us together.

His goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our life, so that at the end we may "dwell in the house of the Lord forever" .

Christ himself has promised that he will "prepare a place" for us . This "place" of man in the eternity of the Living God is the end and the goal of our earthly pilgrimage.

May the Lord Jesus Christ, who is coming to you under the appearances of bread and wine, fill your hearts with zeal for everything that ennobles man and leads him to the Father! May the Holy Spirit fill you all with courage and hope!

And may Mary, the Mother of the Church, to whom this region is dedicated, continue to be your inspiration and guide! Amen.

APOSTOLIC PILGRIMAGE TO INDIA

MASS FOR CATHOLIC PEOPLE OF WEST BENGALA


Brigade Parade Grounds Park of Calcutta

Tuesday, 4 February 1986




327 1. “He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor”.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

These are the words originally written by the Prophet Isaiah as he thought about the future Messiah. Messiah means "Anointed One". But here is meant not just an anointing with oil, but an anointing with the Holy Spirit.

And so the Prophet says: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor" .

Anointing with oil signifies the granting of power. The Messiah is the one who is anointed with the Holy Spirit and who comes in the power of the Holy Spirit. He brings to people the Spirit of Truth and the power of this Spirit.

The Messiah is Christ: Jesus Christ. Jesus of Nazareth. Precisely there, in Nazareth, Jesus reads the words of the Prophet Isaiah about the Messiah, about anointing with the Holy Spirit. And he says to his fellow-townsfolk gathered in the synagogue in Nazareth: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" . It was fulfilled in him.

2. Jesus of Nazareth is the one "whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world" The prophecies concerning him have been fulfilled. The expectations of Israel and of the whole of humanity have been fulfilled in him. For he, Jesus Christ, has brought the fullness of life which is from God himself. It is the fullness of life for the spirit, for every created spirit. God, who is himself the infinitely perfect Spirit, opens this fullness before humanity in the Holy Spirit.

Already at the creation of the world " . the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters" , as the Book of Genesis relates. And man created in the image and likeness of God has been called, from the beginning, to share, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the life of God by grace.

When sin sprang up between the human heart and the holiness of God – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – the path to this fullness of life which is from God could be reopened only through the Redemption.

The Redemption of humanity! The Redemption of the world! He who was foretold by Isaiah is the Redeemer. The anointing with the Holy Spirit signifies the power of the Redemption. Only at the price of the Redemption, at the price of the Cross of Christ, could humanity regain this life which is from God, the life which was lost because of sin, the life which is communicated to the human spirit in the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ, through his Death and Resurrection, has revealed this life. He has left it for all people in the mystery of his Church. In this way the Good News of salvation is accomplished: man shares in the divine nature. He receives the life which is from God and receives it "abundantly" .

3. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ our Redeemer: it is the fundamental mission of the Church to proclaim to the world the Good News of the Redemption. And this is why I have come to you: to celebrate with you, especially in the Eucharist, the redemptive mystery of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, and to encourage you in your efforts to bear witness to this mystery before the world.

328 In offering to others the Good New of the Redemption, the Church strives to understand their culture. She seeks to know the minds and hearts of her hearers, their values and customs, their problems and difficulties, their hopes and dreams. Once she knows and understands these various aspects of culture, then she can begin the dialogue of salvation; she can offer, respectfully but with clarity and conviction, the Good News of the Redemption to all who freely wish to listen and to respond. This is the evangelical challenge of the Church in every age.

In visiting India I am happy to come to this great city of its Eastern Region. In the rich mosaic of your many peoples, the people of this region show a distinctive character, and they have contributed in an important way, through the vitality of their culture, to the nation’s history and its dynamism.

From this region have arisen great statesmen and leaders, eminent spokesmen of the aspirations and ideals of your people as they sought national independence and unity. From this region, too, have come artists, poets, and men and women of letters who have spoken to the minds, hearts and imaginations of their countrymen, rousing them to a sense of self-worth and dignity, calling them to values which demand sacrifice and discipline.

4. This region has also produced eminent religious thinkers, among them the well-known Nobel Prize winner, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. These people have helped foster a religious and cultural refinement which has enriched the life of the country. The Church holds them in esteem, together with the religions which they represent. As Pope Paul VI once said of non-Christian religions: "They carry within them the echo of thousands of years of searching for God... They possess an impressive patrimony of deeply religious texts. They have taught generations of people how to pray. They are all impregnated with innumerable ‘seeds of the Word’ and can constitute a true preparation for the Gospel" .

While esteeming the value of these religions, and seeing in them at times the action of the Holy Spirit who is like the wind which "blows where it wills" , the Church remains convinced of the need for her to fulfil her task of offering to the world the fullness of revealed truth, the truth of the Redemption in Jesus Christ.

5. Isaiah speaks and Jesus makes the words of the Prophet his own when he proclaims them at Nazareth: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord"

The Church in Bengal and all India has sought, in various ways, to put into practice this Messianic programme of Jesus Christ, by following her age-old apostolic tradition and meeting the concrete needs of the actual place. I am thinking for example of the significant contribution made by the Church here in the field of education. Last year, Saint Xavier’s College in this city celebrated the completion of a hundred and twenty-five years of service, and it was noteworthy that the entire City and State joined in the celebrations which were honoured by the President of India himself.

The Jesuit Fathers, who are serving in many institutions besides Saint Xavier’s College, were soon followed by the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, better known as the Loreto Nuns. They opened their first school for girls in 1842, and to this day the quality of their educational institutions is well known and appreciated. Many other religious congregations of men and women have since followed and shared in the same well-deserved reputation of excellence and generosity.

All the initiatives of education and service which the Church has undertaken in this region, under the leadership of the bishops, have been made not only on behalf of Christians but of everyone living here. Your institutions, staffed by religious, lay Christians and their collaborators, have helped people of all conditions and creeds. In performing these services you have borne witness to the Gospel of the Redemption. And you have greatly contributed to the unity and development of society.

6. In our time, the Messianic programme of Jesus of Nazareth, the programme of the Gospel, has found precisely here in India, and particularly in Calcutta, an affirmation which is especially eloquent and at the same time a witness. It is a witness which the whole world watches, a testimony which smites the conscience of the world. I am speaking of the witness of the life and work of one, who although she was not born in India is now known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Some years ago, impelled by the love of Christ and a desire to serve him in those suffering the greatest distress and pain, she went forth from one of the educational institutions to establish the Missionaries of Charity. This type of evangelical service to the poorest of the poor fulfils in a concrete way the Messianic programme of Jesus, to bring "good news to the poor" . It has given the world a compelling lesson in compassion and genuine love of our neighbour in need. It has shown the power of the Redemption to inspire men and women to heroic service and to sustain them in it year after year.

Such charity and self-sacrifice, done out of love for Christ, challenges the world, a world which is all too familiar with selfishness and hedonism, with greed for money, prestige and power. In the face of the evils of our modern age, this testimony proclaims not with words but by deeds and sacrifice the preeminent value of love, the love of Christ our Redeemer. It calls the sinner to conversion and invites him to follow the example of Christ, "to preach good news to the poor" .

329 7. But who are the poor of today’s world? The Gospel speaks of " the blind", " the captives " and " those who are oppressed " . And the poor includes all those who live without the basic physical or spiritual necessities of life. In the contemporary world, too, there are millions of refugees exiled from their homelands, and millions more, sometimes complete tribes or peoples, facing total extinction due to drought and famine. And who could fail to recognise the poverty of ignorance suffered by those who never have the opportunity to study? Or the utter powerlessness felt by countless people in the face of injustice and underdevelopment? And there are countless people who are deprived of their right to religious freedom and suffer immensely because they cannot worship God according to the dictates of an upright conscience.

Our age also faces numerous kinds of moral poverty which threaten the freedom and dignity of the human person, like the poverty of those who live without perceiving the meaning of life, the poverty of a misguided or erroneous conscience, the poverty of broken homes and separated families, the poverty of sin.

In this modern world which suffers so many forms of poverty, the Church seeks to "preach good news to the poor". And it does so through the efforts of people like Mother Teresa and others like her, whose love of Christ and service to the poorest of the poor is profoundly prophetic, profoundly evangelical. Such work of self-sacrifice and Christian love is indeed an eloquent way "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" . It is for me and for all the Church an "encouragement in Christ", an "incentive of love", a "participation in the Spirit" .

8. And so, upon seeing this work here, in Calcutta, here where it was born from the great love of Christ in the heart of a simple servant of the Lord, I wish to make my own the exhortation which the Apostle Paul directed to the Christians in Philippi:

"If there is any encouragement in Christ, any incentive of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind" .

Were the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles written only for the Church in Philippi? Only for the Church in Calcutta? No! For all the Churches of the whole world! For all Christians! For the followers of all religions. For all people of good will.

This is the testimony of fraternal love. This is the exhortation of Saint Paul: "Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit" .

Do nothing to perpetuate hatred, injustice or suffering! Do nothing in favour of the arms race! Nothing to promote the oppression of peoples and nations! Nothing inspired by hypocritical forms of imperialism or inhuman ideologies.

Let those who have no voice finally speak!

Let India speak!

Let Mother Teresa’s poor and all the poor of the world speak!

330 Their voice is the voice of Christ! Amen.

APOSTOLIC PILGRIMAGE TO INDIA

EUCHARISTIC CELEBRATION IN HONOUR OF ST JOHN DE BRITTO


Madras

Wednesday, 5 February 1986




"Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you" .

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

1. With these words from today’s liturgy, I wish to give glory to God in this part of your native land. Today, during the course of my apostolic pilgrimage through India, the Lord gives me the privilege of being here in Madras, known for its rich culture and deep religious traditions. I am very pleased to celebrate this Holy Eucharist with you all, commemorating Saint John de Britto, the Saint who preached and was martyred in Tamil Nadu, the Saint known to you as Arul Anandar.

At this stage of my pilgrim journey I greet all of you present here: the bishops, priests, men and women religious, the laity, the young, the old, all of you who confess your faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

I greet the civil authorities and the representatives of the world of art and culture, those engaged in public life, in industry, in education, in every service to their fellow citizens.

I wish to express my esteem for the members of the other Christian Churches and ecclesial Communities, for the representatives of all the religious traditions present in this region. May the words of the Responsorial Psalm be a joint invitation to us all: "Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! ".

2. Brothers and sisters, we have heard the solemn words of Saint Paul re-echoing the central theme of his apostolic preaching: "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descended from David, as preached in my gospel" .

331 In a sense, these words are a summary of the whole of the Church’s proclamation. In this place, at Madras, they draw our minds to another figure, an Apostle of Christ, Saint Thomas, whose ministry is linked precisely to this land. He too was convinced that the word of God – the word concerning Christ’s Resurrection – cannot be fettered . And so, as tradition tell us, he came to this region. Here he was a witness to Christ, to Christ’s saving Passion, Death and Resurrection.

3. This great country, and particularly Tamil Nadu, has had the singular privilege of receiving the Gospel of Jesus Christ through three great Saints and other illustrious pioneers belonging to well-known religious congregation and missionary societies:

– Saint Thomas was martyred near this very city, and his tomb is venerated here;

– Saint Francis Xavier, according to history, worked at the Pearl Fishery Coast and stayed for some time near the tomb of the Apostle, and was here inspired with courage and strength to extend his labours to Japan;

– and finally, Saint John de Britto, whom we are remembering in today’s liturgical celebration, was born in Lisbon in 1647. After entering the Society of Jesus he followed the footsteps of Saint Francis Xavier to India where he chose to work for the humble and needy in what was then called the Madurai Mission. His patient labours, selfless zeal and genuine love for the poor won for him their confidence. Like Jesus he was "a sign of contradiction" and his success created jealousy and opposition. As a result, John de Britto died a martyr on 4 February 1693, bearing witness to Christ.

These saints and innumerable men and women of various religious congregations and societies have made Jesus Christ known and loved in this land. We gladly remember all of them today – especially those who have served even to the extent of laying down their lives for the Gospel, witnesses and martyrs, after the example of the Son of Man, who "came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many" .

4. Christ, in fact, is described in today’s Gospel as the "Good Shepherd" who lays down his life for his sheep.

His sacrifice reveals the infinite mercy of God the Father who raised him from the dead. From death Christ came back to life! And in the triumph of life over death, the infinite love of the Father for the Son and of the Son for the Father is unveiled before our eyes. And in the Holy Spirit we are introduced to the mystery of eternal life itself, for as Jesus exclaimed at the Last Supper: "This is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" .

This was the experience that transformed the disciples after the Resurrection. They saw the darkness of death swallowed up in the light of life. Illumined by this light they set out to proclaim to the whole world the message of God’s merciful love and his call to reconciliation and unity.

5. We too are called to become, like the Apostles, witnesses to this mystery. Witnesses to the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. Witnesses to the saving love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We are called to this task first of all through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. The Apostle says: " If we have died with him, we shall also live with him" . And it is precisely through Baptism that each of us "dies", together with Christ, to sin, in order to rise to new life with him: to the life of grace, to the life of divine sonship! After being "buried" in the waters of Baptism and purified by the power of the Holy Spirit, we emerge as bearers of the new life of Christ for the world.

332 6. The profound transformation that takes place in us through Baptism and Confirmation is the source and the foundation of every apostolate, and in particular of the apostolate of the laity. For we all become, first through Baptism and then in a new way through Confirmation, sharers in Christ’s threefold mission as Prophet, Priest and King .

Because of this, the principal duty of lay men and women – in the words of the Second Vatican Council – "is to bear witness to Christ, and this they are obliged to do by their life and words in the home, in their social group, and in their own professional circle" . The Council goes on to insist that the apostolate of the laity takes place " in the social and cultural framework of their own national traditions. They must be acquainted with this culture. They must heal it and preserve it. They must develop it in accordance with modern conditions, and finally perfect it in Christ, so that the faith of Christ and the life of the Church may no longer be extraneous to the society in which they live" .

This has been true in India for almost two thousand years and it continues to be true today. As I wrote recently in commemoration of the Apostles of the Slavs, Saints Cyril and Methodius: "The Gospel does not lead to the impoverishment or extinction of those things which every individual, people and nation and every culture throughout history recognises and brings into being as goodness, truth and beauty. On the contrary it strives to assimilate and to develop all these values: to live them with magnanimity and joy and to perfect them by the mysterious and ennobling light of Revelation" . The dialogue between faith and culture belongs in a special way to the laity, whose faith inspires their daily service to their fellow citizens and to their country.

7. Saint John de Britto’s life faithfully reflected the life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, for it was a life of service unto death. Today it challenges all of us to continue with fresh vigour the Church’s role of loving service to humanity. The immense and tender love of Jesus Christ for the poor and the downtrodden, for sinners and the suffering, remains a challenge for every Christian. Christ’s unrelenting stand for truth is a compelling example. Above all, the generosity shown in his suffering and death, as the culmination of his service to humanity and the supreme act of Redemption, is the example for us. We are called to serve.

There can be no authentic Christian life without an effective love of our fellow human beings. At the closing of the Vatican Council Pope Paul VI affirmed that " if... in the face of every man, especially when this face is made transparent by his tears and suffering, we can and must recognise the face of Christ, ... and in the face of Christ we can and must recognise the face of our heavenly Father, ... then our humanism becomes a Christianity and our Christianity becomes theocentric. And thus we can also say: to know God it is necessary to know man" .

Today we live at a time of history when peace and harmony between nations and races is constantly threatened. Division and hatred, fear and frustration – these are among the counter-values of our day. The message of love in Christ Jesus in urgently needed. Hence, the Church’s task of proclaiming the Gospel and of being at the service of society is supremely relevant in India today. This task requires the active collaboration of all sectors of the ecclesial community, especially the laity.

8. To each one of you who in a particular way takes part in the mission of Christ and of the Church I wish to repeat the conviction expressed by the Apostle Paul in the first reading of this Mass; "the word of God is not fettered" ; indeed, it can never be fettered.

Through the testimony of your lives, through your words and deeds, the word of God is made known to the minds and hearts of others who seek him, so that "they also may obtain salvation in Christ Jesus with its eternal glory" – that "they may obtain salvation"!

Brothers and sisters, if we die with Christ, we shall live also with him, "if we endure, we shall also reign with him" .

Christ – Shepherd, Prophet and Priest – has sealed our hearts with his call just as he touched the hearts of the apostles, the hearts of Saint Thomas, Saint Francis Xavier and Saint John de Britto. May they intercede for the Church in India, for this beloved country and its people!

We will be happy if we remain faithful. For he, Christ, is faithful: he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself" .

333 Brothers and sisters: you are called to be living witnesses to Christ, living witnesses to God’s word, living witnesses to the saving message of love and mercy that Christ revealed to the world. Amen.

Remarks of the Holy Father during his visit to the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Thomas the Apostle:

Dear Archbishop Arulappa,
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

It is an honour and special grace for me to come to the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Thomas the Apostle here in Madras. As so many pilgrims before me have done, I too come to venerate the Tomb of the Apostle to India. This holy place speaks of the history of the Church in this beloved land. It calls to mind, not only Saint Thomas and his martyrdom, but all the others after him who have dedicated their lives to the preaching of the Gospel, all those who have borne witness to Christ both in word and in deed.

I pray that our faith will be strong like theirs, and that our love for Christ may inspire us to love and serve our neighbour. With joy in our hearts, let us praise God who, through Saint Thomas, has communicated the Good News of salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord.



S. John Paul II Homil. 323