Skip links

‘Sail boldly into sea of evangelization,’ pope tells clergy, religious in Lisbon

Acknowledging the discouragement that can be experienced by Catholic leaders in secularizing societies, Pope Francis on Wednesday urged a gathering of Portuguese clergy, consecrated people, and pastoral workers to stay in the boat with Jesus and revive their “restless” enthusiasm for spreading the Gospel.

“This is not the time to stop and give up, to drag the boat to shore or to look back,” said the Holy Father, who arrived in Lisbon earlier in the day ahead of his visit to World Youth Day.

The pope delivered the encouraging message in his homily for Wednesday vespers, or evening prayer, to bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated persons, seminarians, and pastoral workers gathered in the church of Lisbon’s iconic Mosterio dos Jerónimos, a former monastery now used as a public ceremony hall and museum space.

His message drew significantly from both St. Luke’s account of the miraculous catch and Portugal’s own substantial missionary heritage.

Fishing with Jesus

The pope began his homily by noting that, like the disciples after they fished all night without success, Church leaders in Portugal might be discouraged. Compared with other western European nations, many in the country of 10.3 million are still at least nominally Catholic, but the effects of secularization on belief and practice are deepening.

“There are moments in our ecclesial journey when we can feel a similar weariness, when we seem to be holding only empty nets,” the pope said, speaking off script about the dangers of “functionalism.”

“Whenever we feel discouraged, we can feel tempted to leave the boat and become entangled in the nets of resignation and pessimism.”

But pointing to Luke’s Gospel, Pope Francis emphasized that in these moments of disappointment, Christ wishes to join the faithful in the boat and to aid them in their task of evangelization. Instead of giving in to the temptation to give up, “we need to bring those struggles and tears to the Lord,” confident that “Jesus is ever ready to hold out his hands and lift up his beloved Spouse.”

“We are surely living in difficult times,” the pope continued, “but the Lord is asking this Church: ‘Do you want to leave the boat and plunge into disillusion, or will you let me enter and allow the newness of my words once more to take the helm? Do you want only to preserve the past which lies behind you, or do you want once again to lower the nets with enthusiasm for the catch?”

Pointing to great Portuguese missionaries such as Father António Vieira, a 17th-century Jesuit priest who founded missions in Brazil and fought against the exploitation of natives, Pope Francis said that evangelizers must be animated by an “eagerness to set out from the shores, not to conqueror the world but to make it exult in the comforting joy of the Gospel.”

Read more at Catholic News Agency 

Share with Friends: