"Let us not deprive ourselves of the young face of the Church and of society. Let us not allow those who deal in death to rob the first fruits of this land!" he urged.
Pope Francis compared the Marian shrine, which sits in the foothills of a mountain, to the Mount of the Beatitudes.
"The Beatitudes," he explained, "are like a Christian's identity card. So if anyone asks: 'What must one do to be a good Christian?' the answer is clear. We have to do, each in our own way, what Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount."
"We must also discover anew Christ's call to be 'blessed.' Only joyful Christians awaken in others the desire to follow this path," he said, adding that "the word 'blessed' means 'happy.' It becomes a synonym for 'holy,' for it expresses the fact that those faithful to God and his word, by their self-giving, gain true happiness."
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"When we hear the threatening prognosis that 'our numbers are decreasing,' we should be concerned not so much with the decline of this or that mode of consecration in the Church, but with the lack of men and women who wish to experience happiness on the paths of holiness," Francis said.
He added: "We should be concerned with the lack of men and women who let their hearts burn with the most beautiful and liberating of all messages."
Even Fr. Laval, Francis explained, experienced difficulty and disappointment in the Christian community, but in the end, "the Lord triumphed in his heart. For he had put his trust in the Lord's power."
"Let us pray that that same power may touch the hearts of many men and women of this land, and our hearts as well, so that its newness may always be capable of renewing our lives and our communities."
Pointing to the statue of the Virgin Mary at the shrine, Pope Francis said she "protects and accompanies us, reminds us that she herself was called 'blessed.'"
"Let us ask her for the gift of openness to the Holy Spirit," he concluded. "May she obtain for us that persevering joy that never falters or fades. The joy that constantly leads us to experience and proclaim that 'the Most High has done great things, and holy is his name.'"
ACI Africa (
www.aciafricanews.com) is a service of EWTN News Inc. (
www.ewtnnews.com) along with Catholic News Agency. It was officially inaugurated on Aug. 17, 2019, as a continental Catholic news agency serving the Church in Africa. Headquartered in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, this media apostolate will strive to tell Africa’s news by providing media coverage of Catholic events on the African continent and giving visibility to the activities of the Church across Africa. The editor-in-chief of ACI Africa is Father Don Bosco Onyalla.