In what ground did the seed fall? What fruit will it give?

“You must be attentive to the fruit, care for the wheat, and not lose the peace because of the weeds…. Search for the way in which the Word becomes incarnate in concrete situations and produces the fruit of new life, even if it appears to be imperfect or incomplete.”

Prayer for national reconciliation, 7^th September 2017, Bogotá

The parable of the sower

Five months have gone by since the visit of our dear Pope Francis to this land of Colombia. During the six months before the visit, the Church had prepared itself using the parable of the sower in Mark 4, 1 – 20. Today this seed that was sown is being watered and cultivated. His visit was an event that has invited us to think about ourselves as Christians and as Catholics.

His message and his gestures have nurtured the faith of Church and non-church groups alike. Today his message has something to say about the issues that preoccupy us as a society and as a Church. They are current issues such as the elections, the Venezuelan migrants, the peace talks. They are issues which bring into play our faith and our Christian commitment

Sowing the seed

This seed was sown when he said:

• To the young, “Don’t accept to be mediocre, fly high and dream big.”
• To the religious congregations, “May you have as many vocations as you have tortillas for breakfast.”
• To the victims of violence, “Thank you for the profound lesson in theology that I have learned from you.”

He made it known to the bishops, priests, members of the government, the military and to society in general that God reaches out to them and invites them to follow him. Today we ask ourselves,

• “In what way can his message transform and renew our institutions, our way of living and deciding?”
• “How can we act in favour of those who are suffering, the excluded and the marginalized?”

 

 

The “broken” Christ of Bojaya

The spirit of his visit continues to give the impulsion and hope that we can take on the attitude of Jesus Christ, in particular the broken and mutilated Christ of Bojaya, a village in Choco and scene of a massacre in 2002. The Pope invites us to listen to Christ and contemplate him on the way to the Cross, the Christ who suffered with the massacred on that day and whose wounds still need healing.

Sowing the faith in the broken and mutilated Christ of Bojaya invites us to be Christians who take decisions that favour peace, truth, pardon, and mercy. It is only by taking this pascal way of a Christ broken and mutilated but then resuscitated, that it will be possible to liberate Colombia from despair and renew the faith we have received. There, where there is unfinished business, it will make “taking the first step” possible with each gesture and decision.

 

It is up to each one of us to then take the second step, by taking care of our personal and community ‘plot’, so that the message of Jesus that Pope Francis came to sow may bear good and abundant fruit.

 

Hna Viviana Carolina Forero Angulo hj

Colombia