“A parish is a blessed place, where one goes to feel loved”, stressed the Holy Father during the audience, held in the Paul VI Hall in the Vatican, with the faithful of the Parish of Rho in Milan. And also the Holy Father explained what a parish should be like and recalled a memory that he carries “in his heart” from the time he was a parish priest in Argentina.
“Whoever knocks on the door of our churches and our environments seeks, above all, a welcoming smile, open arms and hands, eyes eager to meet and full of affection,” he continued.
The Pope encouraged welcoming the faithful of the parish not to tell people who arrive that they are “after hours”, since “people do not get tired of looking and knocking, and we should not get tired of opening doors and windows”.
“This is the pastoral care of a parish”, stressed Pope Francis.
“In a parish, each one carries his own yoke so that he can share it with someone else and lighten the burden, but also to share the good things he has,” the Holy Father continued.
The Pontiff then warned of a “great enemy in parishes, as in every other place: gossip.”
The Pope encouraged not to fall for it because it “kills” and proposed a “medicine” to deal with it: “If the desire to gossip comes to you, bite your tongue!”
Between 1980 and 1986, Pope Francis was the first parish priest of the Parroquia del Patriarca San José, located in the town of San Miguel in the province of Buenos Aires.
“I was a parish priest for six years and I carry that experience in my heart. I liked Mass with the children”, recalled the Holy Father in today’s audience.
“In that place, there were not many and at Sunday Mass for children, there were about 200, 280 – in those sectors the families had four or five children – and I always began to talk with them,” he said.
Pope Francis later recounted that at a children’s Mass on Pentecost, he asked them if they knew who the Holy Spirit is. One of them replied: “The paralytic!”, to which the Holy Father said: “No dear, it’s the Paraclete, it’s something else.”
“Mass with children is a beautiful thing. Carry her forward always, ”the Pope urged.