Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was in the parish of Our Lady of Consolation and wished the Augustinian Recollect community “a new centenary where the friars would not stand still but be full of courage”.
“Listen to the dreams of the young people, open their hearts to the wise memory of their elders” added the archbishop who was greeted with thunderous applause by the faithful, some of whom filmed or took photos of the ceremony.
The Mass was concelebrated by the parish priest of Belgrano, Mon Horacio Benitez Astoul, and more than twenty priests, in the Parish of Our Lady of Consolation. THE Church was full to such an extent that it was standing room only, many having to occupy the galleries at the top.
The Vicar of the Order in Argentina, Carlos María Domínguez, thanked the Recollects of Santa Fé, Rosario, Mar del Plata, San Andrés and Villa Maipú before the Mass finished and explained that a plenary indulgence had been granted to all those present who had communion, confession and prayed for the intentions of Pope Benedict XVl.
Centenary
The Cardinal invited the people to ask the question “ are our hearts in movement or are we standing still, are we protagonists?” A question he put “today in a special way, as we reach the hundred years since the restoration of the Province of the Augustinian Recollects”.
“The message of the Gospel is not to be kept in a sealed tin” Bergoglio pointed out. The Cardinal in his homily, commented on a passage from St. John’s gospel that says that “from deep within streams of living water will flow” and explained that the text referred to the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit pushes. Through the Spirit the dynamic of the Kingdom happens, always expanding”, the Cardinal continued bringing to mind the parables of the sower and the seed and the one about the yeast.
“The Spirit is the one who accompanies us, who gives us hope, makes us change, the one who groans deep within” he reflected . “The Spirit does not leave us in peace. It doesn’t allow Christian communities to be still, nor our hearts” he assured the people.
“When you come across a person, a community or a church that are too quiet, then the Holy Spirit isn’t with them. The Spirit of life is missing, the one who pushes them outwards”.
The Cardinal explained that “in every stage of life the Spirit acts in different ways making the older generations mark out the path, making them pro active and not reactive, allowing them to pour out their wise memory, and allowing the young people to have dreams, utopias that will mark out horizons”