Pope Francis reflected that "God always enters clothed in poverty, littleness." The statue of Our Lady of Aparecida "appears with a black face," in a nation that had been "divided by the shameful wall of slavery."
The Pope reminded his fellow bishops that the Church is alwys called to be a means of reconciliation. He added that God's plan is revealed "slowly, quietly," and that the Church also "has to learn how to wait."
He said the fishermen "bring the mystery home," adding "ordinary people always have room to take in the mystery."
He cautioned against Catholics reducing "our way of speaking about mystery" to merely "rational explanations."
"For ordinary people the mystery enters through the heart," he said. "In the homes of the poor, God always finds a place."
Pope Francis recounted that the fishermen "bundled up" the statue of Our Lady "as if she were cold and needed to be warmed."
"God asks for shelter in the warmest part of ourselves: our heart. God himself releases the heat we need, but first he enters like a shrewd beggar."
The fishermen were drawn by God's beauty and mystery, the Pope said, and "they call their neighbors" to see the "rediscovered beauty" of the statue of Our Lady of Aparecida.
"The Church needs constantly to relearn the lesson of Aparecida," Pope Francis reflected. "She must not lose sight of it. The Church's nets are weak, perhaps patched … yet God wants to be seen precisely through our resources, scanty resources, because he is always the one who acts."
The Pope said that pastoral work depends not on "a wealth of resources," but rather "on the creativity of love." While affirming the necessity of work and planning, "first and foremost we need to realize that the Church's power does not reside in herself."
"It is hidden in the deep waters of God, into which (the Church) is called to cast her nets."
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He added that if the Church will not speak of Mystery with simplicity, not only will "she herself remain outside the door of the mystery … she proves incapable of approaching" those who seek God in her.
"At times we lose people because they don't understand what we are saying, because we have forgotten the language of simplicity and import an intellectualism foreign to our people," the Pope reflected.
"Without the grammar of simplicity, the Church loses the very conditions which make it possible 'to fish' for God in the deep waters of his Mystery."