September 10, 2024 // National
Pope Francis Continues Tour of Asian Island-Nations
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNS) – Even members of the most remote, smallest, and poorest Christian communities are called to share the Gospel and to do so, first, by the way they live, Pope Francis told the Catholics of Indonesia.
With tens of thousands of people gathered in Jakarta’s Gelora Bung Karno Stadium on Thursday, September 5 – and thousands more watching on screens from Madya Stadium, a smaller venue nearby – Pope Francis celebrated his only public Mass in Indonesia. The following morning, he flew to nearby Papua New Guinea as he continued the longest trip of his pontificate, during which he also was scheduled to visit Timor-Leste and Singapore before returning to Rome on Friday, September 13.
Pope Francis greets a child in traditional dress during a welcome ceremony at the presidential palace in Dili, Timor-Leste, Sept. 9, 2024. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
In his homily, Pope Francis urged Indonesian Catholics “to sow seeds of love, confidently tread the path of dialogue, continue to show your goodness and kindness with your characteristic smile, and be builders of unity and peace.”
“In this way,” he said, “you will spread the fragrance of hope around you.”
Pope Francis asked the crowd not to forget that “the first task of the disciple is not to clothe ourselves with an outwardly perfect religiosity, do extraordinary things, or engage in grandiose undertakings. The first step, instead, is to know how to listen to the only word that saves, the word of Jesus.”
Jesus’ example and teaching, he said, “cannot remain as a fine abstract idea or stir up only a passing emotion.” Instead, the pope said, “it asks us to change our gaze and allow our hearts to be transformed into the image of Christ’s heart. It calls us to cast courageously the nets of the Gospel into the sea of the world, running the risk of living the love that He first lived and in turn taught us to live.”
Learning the ‘Language of Love’
In Papua New Guinea, Pope Francis said the term “wantok” means people who share a language and culture, and that is what Christians should be, but only in the sense of sharing the language and culture of love.
Before leaving Papua New Guinea on Monday, September 9, the pope returned to Sir John Guise Stadium in Port Moresby, where he had celebrated Mass the day before. His second visit was to spend time with an estimated 10,000 young people and to hear their concerns.
About 60 percent of Papua New Guinea’s population is younger than 25.
A man in traditional dress holds up a card with Pope Francis’ image on it before Mass in Sir John Guise Stadium in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Sept. 8, 2024. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
Pope Francis repeatedly interrupted reading his prepared text to ask the young people questions and have them shout their replies, telling them, “I don’t hear you!”
His questions included: Do you want harmony or confusion? How many languages do the people of Papua New Guinea speak? Can a young person make mistakes?
People must “learn a common language, the language of love,” he said, because the words people use can divide them or even become weapons that destroy families.
“Dear young people,” he said, “it is my hope that you learn the language of love and thus transform your country, because love brings about change, makes you grow, and opens paths to the future.”
The day before, on Sunday, September 8, Pope Francis flew 600 miles to a remote outpost of Papua New Guinea to spend an afternoon with a group of missionaries and their people.
He brought with him about a ton of medicine, clothing, toys and other aid for the missionaries to distribute, Vatican press officials said.
After flying over forests, mountains, and the ocean on his way from Port Moresby to Vanimo, Pope Francis told the people, “One cannot help but be amazed by the colors, sounds, and scents, as well as the grandiose spectacle of nature bursting forth with life, all evoking the image of Eden!”
“The Lord entrusts this richness to you as a sign and an instrument, so that you too may live united in harmony with Him and with your brothers and sisters, respecting our common home and looking after one another,” the pope told them.
“An even more beautiful sight,” though, he said, is “that which grows in us when we love one another.”
Turning ‘Sorrow into Joy’
On September 9, upon landing in Dili, the capital city of Timor-Leste, the pope was welcomed at the airport by both President José Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão, as well as two children who offered him flowers, customary for when he arrives in a country, but also a “tais” – a traditional scarf.
Of the four nations the pope was visiting September 3-13, Timor-Leste was the only one with a Catholic majority. According to Vatican statistics, close to 96 percent of the population is Catholic.
After Timor-Leste was granted independence from Portugal in 1975, Indonesian troops invaded; after more than 25 years of struggle and the deaths of as many as 100,000 people, Timor-Leste became an independent, democratic nation in 2002.
“You remained firm in hope even amid affliction and, thanks to the character of your people and your faith, you have turned sorrow into joy,” Pope Francis told government officials and leaders of civil society.
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