VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE   
   YEAR XXII - # 126   
   DATE 07-07-2015   
      
   Summary:   
   - Pope Francis' first homily in Latin America: for the family, the best is yet   
   to come   
   - Visit to the president of Ecuador and Quito Cathedral   
   - Other Pontifical Acts   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Pope Francis' first homily in Latin America: for the family, the best is yet   
   to   
   come   
    Vatican City, 7 July 2015 (VIS) - Yesterday more than a million people   
   attended   
   the Pope's first Mass in Ecuador, in Guayaquil. He first visited the Shrine of   
   Divine Mercy, the city's second largest place of worship, built at the behest   
   of   
   Archbishop Antonio Arregui Yarza between 2009 and 2014 and able to hold 2,300   
   people.   
    Upon arrival at the Shrine, the Holy Father was welcomed by an immense crowd,   
   with whom he prayed a Hail Mary before leaving the temple, and whom he greeted   
   with the following words: "Now I will celebrate Mass, and I hold you all in my   
   heart. I will ask for each one of you, I will say to the Lord, 'You know the   
   names of those who were there'. I will ask Jesus for great mercy for every one   
   of you; I will ask Him to care for you and to cover you with His mercy. May Our   
   Lady always be by your side".   
    "And now, before I leave - because I am on my way to Mass, and the archbishop   
   tells me we are running out of time - I give you my blessing ... I am not   
   asking   
   you to give me anything! But I ask you, please, to pray for me. Will you   
   promise   
   me? May God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, bless you. Thank   
   you for your Christian witness".   
    The Pope then travelled the 25 kilometres that separate the Shrine from   
   Samanes   
   Park, where he celebrated Holy Mass specially dedicated to families. The Gospel   
   reading recounted the wedding at Cana, and in his homily the Pope focused on   
   Mary who expresses to Jesus her concern as the newly-weds have no wine.   
    "The wedding at Cana is repeated in every generation, in every family, in   
   every   
   one of us and our efforts to let our hearts find rest in strong love, fruitful   
   love and joyful love. Let us make room for Mary, 'the Mother' as the evangelist   
   calls her. Let us journey with her now to Cana.   
    "Mary is attentive, she is attentive in the course of this wedding feast, she   
   is concerned for the needs of the newly-weds. She is not closed in on herself,   
   worried only about her little world. Her love makes her 'outgoing' towards   
   others. She does not seek her friends to say what is happening, to criticise   
   the   
   poor organisation of the wedding feast. And since she is attentive, she   
   discretely notices that the wine has run out. Wine is a sign of happiness, love   
   and plenty. How many of our adolescents and young people sense that these is no   
   longer any of that wine to be found in their homes? How many women, sad and   
   lonely, wonder when love left, when it slipped away from their lives? How many   
   elderly people feel left out of family celebrations, cast aside and longing   
   each   
   day for a little love, from their sons and daughters, their grandchildren,   
   their   
   great grandchildren? This lack of this 'wine' can also be due to unemployment,   
   illness and difficult situations which our families around the world may   
   experience. Mary is not a 'demanding' mother, nor a mother-in-law who revels in   
   our lack of experience, our mistakes and the things we forget to do. Mary,   
   quite   
   simply, is a Mother! She is there, attentive and concerned. It is gratifying to   
   hear this: Mary is a Mother! I invite you to repeat this with me: Mary is a   
   Mother! Once again: Mary is a Mother! And once more: Mary is a Mother!   
    "But Mary, at the very moment she perceives that there is no wine, approaches   
   Jesus with confidence: this means that Mary prays. She goes to Jesus, she   
   prays.   
   She does not go to the steward, she immediately tells her Son of the   
   newly-weds'   
   problem. The response she receives seems disheartening: 'What does it have to   
   do   
   with you and me? My hour has not yet come'. But she nonetheless places the   
   problem in God's hands. Her deep concern to meet the needs of others hastens   
   Jesus' hour. And Mary was a part of that hour, from the cradle to the cross.   
   She   
   was able 'to turn a stable into a home for Jesus, with poor swaddling clothes   
   and an abundance of love'. She accepted us as her sons and daughters when the   
   sword pierced her son's heart. She teaches us to put our families in God's   
   hands; she teaches us to pray, to kindle the hope which shows us that our   
   concerns are also God's concerns.   
    "Praying always lifts us out of our worries and concerns. It makes us rise   
   above everything that hurts, upsets or disappoints us, and helps to put   
   ourselves in the place of others, in their shoes. The family is a school where   
   prayer also reminds us that we are not isolated individuals; we are one and we   
   have a neighbour close at hand: he or she is living under the same roof, is a   
   part of our life, and is in need.   
    "And finally, Mary acts. Her words, 'Do whatever he tells you', addressed to   
   the attendants, are also an invitation to us to open our hearts to Jesus, who   
   came to serve and not to be served. Service is the sign of true love. Those who   
   love know how to serve others. We learn this especially in the family, where we   
   become servants out of love for one another. In the heart of the family, no one   
   is rejected; all have the same value. I remember once how my mother was asked   
   which of her five children - we are five brothers - did she love the most. And   
   she said: it is like the fingers on my hand, if I prick one of them, then it is   
   as if the others are pricked also. A mother loves her children as they are. And   
   in the family, children are loved as they are. None are rejected. 'In the   
   family   
   we learn how to ask without demanding, to say "thank you" as an expression of   
   genuine gratitude for what we have been given, to control our aggressivity and   
   greed, and to ask forgiveness when we have caused harm, when we quarrel,   
   because   
   in all families there are quarrels. The challenge is to then ask for   
   forgiveness. These simple gestures of heartfelt courtesy help to create a   
   culture of shared life and respect for our surroundings'. The family is the   
   nearest hospital; when a family member is ill, it is in the home that they are   
   cared for as long as possible. The family is the first school for the young,   
   the   
   best home for the elderly. The family constitutes the best 'social capital'. It   
   cannot be replaced by other institutions. It needs to be helped and   
   strengthened, lest we lose our proper sense of the services which society as a   
   whole provides. Those services which society offers to its citizens are not a   
   type of alms, but rather a genuine 'social debt' with respect to the   
   institution   
   of the family, which is foundational and which contributes to the common good.   
    "The family is also a small Church, called a 'domestic Church' which, along   
   with life, also mediates God's tenderness and mercy. In the family, we imbibe   
   faith with our mother's milk. When we experience the love of our parents, we   
   feel the closeness of God's love.   
    "In the family, and we are all witnesses of this, miracles are performed with   
   what little we have, with what we are, with what is at hand... and many times,   
   it   
   is not ideal, it is not what we dreamt of, nor what 'should have been'. There   
   is   
   one detail that makes us think: the new wine, that good wine mentioned by the   
   steward at the wedding feast of Cana, came from the water jars, the jars used   
   for ablutions, we might even say from the place where everyone had left their   
   sins ... it came from the 'worst' because 'where sin increased, grace abounded   
   all   
   the more'. In our own families and in the greater family to which we all   
   belong,   
   nothing is thrown away, nothing is useless. Shortly before the opening of the   
   Jubilee Year of Mercy, the Church will celebrate the Ordinary Synod devoted to   
   the family, deepen her spiritual discernment and consider concrete solutions   
   and   
   help to the many difficult and significant challenges facing families today. I   
   ask you to pray fervently for this intention, so that Christ can take even what   
   might seem to us impure, like the water in the jars scandalising or threatening   
   us, and turn it - by making it part of his 'hour' - into a miracle. The family   
   today needs this miracle.   
      
   --- MPost/386 v1.21   
    * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS=Huntsville AL=bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)