In order to water the seed of the vocation we've been given, we have to "look after it," as we would look after a child or someone who is sick or elderly: with tenderness.
"Vocation is looked after with human tenderness in our communities, where we live as priests, parishes," he said, adding that "if there's no such tenderness, then the plant is very small, it doesn't grow and it can dry out."
"Look after it with tenderness, because every brother in the presbyterate, in the episcopal conference, every religious in community, every brother seminarian, is a seed of God. And God looks at them with the tenderness of a father."
However, Francis also noted that despite our best efforts, the enemy comes at night and plants weeds along with the good seeds that God has sown.
When these weeds come along, "there is the risk that the seed can be threatened and not grow," he said, saying it is "awful" and "sad" to see these weeds grow within parishes or episcopal conferences.
In order to prevent the growth of the weeds, we need to know how to tell them apart from the good seeds, the Pope said, explaining that this process is called "discernment."
"To look after means to discern," he said, and urged them to pay attention to which direction their "plant" is growing in, and whether there is something – a friend or a community or family member – who is threatening the growth of the plant.
Prayer is also a key part of this discernment process, he said, adding that "to look after also means to pray, and to ask the one who planted the seed how to water that same seed."
"If I'm having a crisis and falling asleep, we have to ask him to look after us. To pray means to ask the Lord to look after us, that he give us the tenderness that we have to then pass onto others," he said.
Pope Francis then pointed to the various challenges that arise in parishes, seminaries, episcopal conferences and convents, saying these will always be present because each of us have defects and limitations that threaten the peace and harmony of community life.
Noting how Bangladesh is known for it's achievements in living and promoting interreligious harmony, he said the same efforts have to be made inside faith communities, and Bangladesh "has to be an example of harmony."
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Bringing up a point he often returns to, especially when speaking to religious, Francis said of the greatest "enemies" of harmony in religious life is gossip.
"The tongue, brothers and sisters, can destroy a community by speaking badly about another person," he said, noting that "this is not my idea, but 2,000 years ago a certain St. James said that in his letter."
To talk about the defects of others behind their backs rather than confronting the person about it creates an environment of distrust, jealousy and division, he said, and again referred to gossip as a form of "terrorism."
It's terrorism, he said, because "when you speak badly of others, you don't say it publicly, and a terrorist doesn't say publicly 'I'm a terrorist.' A terrorist says it in a private, crude way, then throws the bomb and it explodes."
The same thing happens in communities, and often times others pick up the bomb that has been left and they also throw it, he said, and told the religious to "hold your tongue" if they are tempted to speak badly about someone.
"Maybe you'll hurt you tongue if you bite it, but you won't hurt the other person."