…’I shall be there with you’ (Matthew 18:20) …

 This weekend the Gospel of Matthew further develops the theme of discipleship and our understanding of the community of the Church. In August tens of thousands of young people and those not so young, gathered in Lisbon Portugal for World Youth Day – the largest, inclusive expression of Church in the world in one place, people are able to choose themselves to attend.

 In the midst of the preparation for the Synod on Synodality in Rome in October which signals a change in the culture of the Church – inviting participation by all the baptised – and which has elicited varying responses across the Church, Pope Francis gave the following address to the young people in Lisbon…

In the church, Pope Francis said, “there is space for everyone, and when there isn’t, please, let’s work so that there is — also for who makes mistakes, for who falls, for who it is difficult.” Departing from his prepared speech, he asked all the young people to “repeat with me: ‘Everyone, everyone, everyone!'” before waves of “todos, todos, todos”—” everyone” in Spanish and Portuguese—spread throughout the crowd.

 “That is the church,” he said, “the mother of all; there is room for all.”

 Throughout the crowd there were flags from countries with large Catholic populations such as Spain and Brazil, but also proudly displayed banners from countries where Catholics represent a small portion of the population. After a greeting from Cardinal Manuel do Nascimento Clemente of Lisbon, young people read messages in various languages sent to the pope asking for advice and sharing the personal challenges they face in life and in the faith, from migration problems and hunger to hopelessness and a loss of faith.

 But rather than give direct responses, the pope told the young people that asking questions is “often better than giving answers, because one who asks remains restless, and restlessness is the best remedy for routine, which is sometimes a form of normalcy that numbs the soul.”

 Pope Francis urged them to ask never stop asking themselves questions and to bring them before God in prayer. “Life goes on giving answers, we just have to wait for them,” he said. “I invite you think—this is so beautiful—that God loves us as we are, not how we would like to be or how society wants us to be, as we are,” he said looking up from his prepared text. “He loves us with the limits we have, with the defects we have, and with the desire we have to keep moving forward in life! God loves us like that.”

So let us each reflect personally on what Pope Francis challenges us in his statement:

“That is the church,” he said, “the mother of all; there is room for all.”

Is there indeed room for all in our Church?

Phil Billington