ASIA/BANGLADESH - The Pope to the young: ask for wisdom enlightened by faith, not the "wisdom of the world"

Saturday, 2 December 2017 evangelization   youth   mission  

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Dhaka (Agenzia Fides) - The one thing that directs and guides us on to the right path is wisdom, the wisdom born of faith. It is not "the false wisdom of this world". This is the guiding criterion that Pope Francis suggested to the 7 thousand young people who welcomed him with applause, choirs and traditional dances (see photo) at Dhaka, Notre Dame College, during his last public meeting of his trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh. Choosing the right path - the Pope said in his speech, responding to the questions posed to him previously by two young Bangladeshis - "means “journeying” through life, and not “wandering aimlessly”. Our life is not without direction, it has a purpose given to us by God. He guides and directs us with his grace". The wisdom enlightened by faith - the Bishop of Rome suggested to the boys and girls - is the wisdom we see "in the eyes of our parents and grandparents who put their trust in God. As Christians - the Pope added - we can see the light of God’s presence in their eyes, the light that they have discovered in Jesus, who is the very wisdom of God. (...). We receive that wisdom when we start to see things with God’s eyes, listen to others with God’s ears, to love with God’s heart, and to judge things by God’s values".
This wisdom helps us - underlined the Successor of Peter - "to recognize and reject false promises of happiness reject the false promises of happiness" that fill the heart "with darkness and bitterness", and also frees us from the temptation to fall back on ourselves , becoming trapped in the false principle of 'my way or the highway'. When a people, a religion or a society turns into a “little world”, Pope Francis warned, "they lose the best that they have and plunge into a self-righteous mentality of “I am good and you are bad” ".
We Christians - recalled the Pope, in the final part of his speech - "find this wisdom in our personal encounter with Jesus in prayer and in the Sacraments, and in our concrete encounter with Him in the poor, the sick, the suffering and the abandoned. In Jesus we discover the solidarity of God, who constantly walks by our side". (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 2/12/2017)


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