The members of Italian Catholic Action gathered in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican to participate in an event with Pope Francis, celebrated under the title “With open arms,” nearly sixty thousand association members were gathered.
The Holy Father toured the crowded square in the popemobile while a music band animated the event. After greeting the faithful, he gave a speech proposing creating a “hug culture.”
In the beginning, he urged the thousands of faithful not to forget the people who suffer, and noted that “the hug is one of the most spontaneous expressions of the human experience.”
“Man’s life opens with a hug, that of his parents, the first gesture of welcome, which is followed by many others, which give meaning and value to the days and years, until the last one, that of abandoning the earthly path. And, above all, he is enveloped by the great embrace of God,” said the Pontiff.
Later, Pope Francis asked: “What would be our life and how could the mission of the Church be realized without these hugs?”
Along these lines, the Holy Father distinguished between 3 types of hugs: the one that is missing, the one that saves and the one that changes lives.
Regarding the first, Pope Francis lamented that, at times, “the arms become rigid and the hands tighten threateningly, becoming no longer vehicles of fraternity, but of rejection, of opposition, even violent at times, a sign of distrust.” towards others, near and far, until conflict.”
“When the hug turns into a fist, it is very dangerous. At the origin of wars there are usually lost or rejected hugs, followed by prejudices, misunderstandings, suspicions, to the point of seeing the other as an enemy,” he noted.
Regarding the hug that saves, he stated that “hugging means expressing positive and fundamental values such as affection, esteem, trust, encouragement, reconciliation, but it becomes even more vital when we experience it in the dimension of faith.”
“Indeed, at the center of our existence is the merciful embrace of God who saves, the embrace of the good Father who has revealed himself in Christ and whose face is reflected in each of his gestures: of forgiveness, of healing, of liberation. , of service and whose unveiling reaches its culmination in the Eucharist and the Cross,” said the Pontiff.
Pope Francis invited them to “never lose sight of the embrace of the Father who saves, paradigm of life and heart of the Gospel, model of the radicality of love, which is nourished and inspired by the free and always superabundant gift of God.”
Finally, the Pontiff assured that “a hug can change lives, show new paths, paths of hope.”