The full text of Pope Francis’ catechesis dedicated to the trip to Mongolia | The Catholic Information Agency

2023-09-06 02:00:00

This community has a moving history. It arose, by the grace of God, from the apostolic zeal – on which we are reflecting in this period – of some missionaries who, passionate about the Gospel, some thirty years ago, went to that country they did not know. They learned the language and, even coming from different nations, gave life to a united and truly Catholic community. In fact, this is the meaning of the word “catholic”, which means “universal”. But it is not a question of a universality that homologates, but of a universality that is inculturated. This is catholicity: a embodied universality, who welcomes the good where he lives and serves the people with whom he lives. This is how the Church lives: bearing witness to the love of Jesus with meekness, with life rather than with words, happy for his true riches: the service of the Lord and of the brothers.

This is how this young Church was born: as a result of charity, which is the best testimony of faith. At the end of my visit, I had the joy of blessing and inaugurating the “House of Mercy”, the first charitable work to emerge in Mongolia as an expression of all the components of the local Church. A house that is the visiting card of these Christians, but which reminds each of our communities to be a house of mercy: an open and welcoming place, where the miseries of each one can shamelessly come into contact with the mercy of God that rise and heal This is the testimony of the Mongolian Church, with missionaries from various countries who feel one thing with the people, happy to serve them and to discover the beauties that already exist. Because these missionaries did not go there to proselytize. This is not evangelical. They went there to live like the Mongolian people, to speak the language of these people, to take on the values ​​of this people, to preach the Gospel in Mongolian style with Mongolian words, they went there and became “inculturated”. They took the Mongolian culture to announce the Gospel in that culture.

I have been able to discover a bit of this beauty, also meeting some people, listening to their stories, appreciating their religious search. In this sense, I am grateful for the interreligious and ecumenical meeting on Sunday. Mongolia has a great Buddhist tradition, with many people who in silence live their religiousness in a sincere and radical way, through altruism and the fight against their own passions. Let’s think about how many seeds of good, from the hidden, the world’s garden sprouts, while usually we only hear about the noise of the falling trees! People, we also like scandal: ‘Look, a tree has fallen, the noise it made!’ And don’t you see the forest that grows every day?’ Because growth is silent.