On the pilgrimage to Lake Santa Ana, Francis triyete to the maternal face of inculturation. “Also in Guadeloupe, she is the Mother who spoke to the indigenous people in her own language, without violence or impositions. “”We want a Church that does not pass in front of anyone but passes to everyone. “
Edmonton (AsiaNews) – The inculturation of religion has a maternal face. And there has been no time in the history of the Church when she has not spoken the language of grandmothers. Pope Francis said last night a new level of his pilgrimage among Canadian Indigenous Peoples. After celebrating Mass in the morning at the Great Stadium of Edmonton in front of more than 50,000 people, in the afternoon – at the dinner of Saints Anne and Joachim – he made a pilgrimage to St. Anne’s Lake, an expensive place for the spiritualities of Canada’s Aborigines. A privileged position to address the issue of the encounter between the Gospel and the cultures of the peoples of the world.
A lake that Pope Francis reconnected with the lake of the Gospel crossed many times by Jesus in the “Galilee of the Gentiles,” “the most remote position, geographically and culturally, of devout purity, which was concentrated in Jerusalem, near the temple. ” We can then think of this lake, the Sea of Galilee, as a position full of diversity: fishermen and tax collectors, centurions and slaves, Pharisees and the poor, men and women of very varied backgrounds and social strata, all coming. but to peoples who then, as today, came from other places, in a theater of herbs like this, he preached and welcomed everyone. “a revolution that brings death and harm in its wake, but a revolution of love. “Because “fraternity is true if it unites the remote. “
But in this fraternity, precisely in the call of St. Anne, Pope Francis wanted to emphasize above all the role of women: “in indigenous communities: they occupy a preponderant place as blessed resources not only of physical life but also of non-secular life. Thinking of your kokum, I am also my own grandmother. From her I first got the message of religion and learned that the gospel is communicated through the love and wisdom of life. ‘
Mothers and grandmothers are also the ones who heal the wounds of the heart. ” In the dramatic moment of the conquest, Our Lady of Guadalupe transmitted the true religion to the indigenous peoples, speaking her own language and dressed in her own clothes, without violence. or imposition. Soon after, with the advent of the printing press, the first grammars of books and catechisms in indigenous languages were produced. How much intelligence has been made in this regard through those missionaries who, as original evangelizers, have preserved indigenous languages and cultures in many parts of the world!”
This is what “maternal inculturation” consists of. The Church is also a woman, a mother. In fact, there has never been a time in its history when religion has been transmitted in mother tongues, transmitted through mothers and grandmothers. However, part of the painful legacy we face lately comes from the fact that indigenous grandmothers have been prevented from transmitting religion in their own language and culture. “
To rediscover this face is also to recognize that ‘all of us, as a Church, now want healing: healing from the temptation to close ourselves in ourselves, to protect the established than to seek the truth, to prefer the force of the global to the service of the Gospel’. With God’s help, let us help each other to offer our own contribution to the construction of a Mother Church that pleases her: capable of embracing each of her sons and daughters; a Church open to all and speaking to all; a Church that opposes no one, and that meets everyone.
“TooArray,” Francis added, “let ourselves be guided by the interests of a few who feel comfortable. We will have to turn more towards the peripheries and pay attention to the cry of the smallest of our brothers and sisters. We will have to inform ourselves to pay attention to the pain of those in our overcrowded and depersonalized villages who shout in silence: “Do not abandon us!”bad health to whom death is administered instead of affection, is the silent plea of other young people more questioned than attended, who delegate their freedom to a cell phone, while in the same streets other young people wander, lost, aimless, plagued by addictions that only depress and frustrate them, unable to believe in themselves or love themselves for what they are, or appreciate the good looks of their lives. Don’t abandon us! This is the cry of those who need greater globalism and don’t know where to start. “
“Dear indigenous brothers and sisters,” the Pope concluded, “I have come here as a pilgrim also to tell you how valuable they are to me and to the Church. I need the Church to be intertwined with each other, as closely woven together as the threads of the colored bands that many of you use. May the Lord lead us forward in the healing process, towards an increasingly healthy and renewed future.
On the pilgrimage to Lake Santa Ana, Francis triyete to the maternal face of inculturation. “Also in Guadeloupe, she is the Mother who spoke to the indigenous people in her own language, without violence or impositions. “”We want a Church that does not pass in front of anyone but passes to everyone. “