Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Jesus says in the Gospel to his disciples,
Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.
For I say to you, many prophets and kings
desired to see what you see and did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
The disciples indeed were greatly fortunate
to live in the company of Jesus and hear his words,
but to see him and to see his actions,
the power of the character of Jesus and the person of Jesus.
They were blessed indeed, and we would be too if we saw,
but we still are blessed indeed
because we are blessed.
We are blessed indeed because we have the Christian message.
We have the Catholic faith, or we've been born with it
or found out about it and converted to it.
We are blessed indeed to have the truth,
the wonderful blessings of the Christian faith and the Gospel.
We have it, and we should cherish it
and thank God for it every day,
for the salvation that we have in our hands,
our own salvation, our happiness in this life and in the next,
to serve God.
To have God, to have him in our hearts,
to have him in our grasp,
to have him to not squander and hold to ourselves,
but to spread to the world,
to spread to the world, to evangelize,
to reach out and bring the beauty of our faith,
the beauty of Jesus himself to the world
in generosity and joy,
spreading the Gospel of the faith.
This is what our mission is,
not to squander what we have,
but to give it away,
to give it away immediately, right away,
to share it to the world,
to share it to everyone,
to share it in ways that are going to benefit our neighbor,
that are going to attract them to Jesus,
not repel them.
So we can't be preachy,
we can't be restrictive
and not understanding the situation that other people are in.
We have to understand them
and to be...
discerning of what we should say
and where they're at and helping them.
It's all about charity.
Evangelizing is all about charity,
giving them the faith and the joy and the happiness of the Gospel
and Jesus to others.
That's a charity,
but it's also a charity to figure out the best way
to present it to them,
to attract them to our faith.
The Holy Father has just come out with a new apostolic exhortation,
Evangelii Gaudium,
Evangelizing with Joy,
and it gives us many different helps.
I haven't read it all yet,
but many different helps on how we should present the faith today,
in today's world,
today's people,
with joy, certainly.
With joy we want to,
and he does mention we need to not be preachy,
but to attract people to the faith,
to spread it with mercy,
with love,
with charity and with joy.
So we must learn.
Learn how to do it in the best way.
We can't be in our little box.
We can't be restricted in the ways we do things.
We need to learn.
We need to figure out and we need to discern.
We need to be clever.
We need to be creative.
He mentions that in his exhortation.
We need to be clever.
We need to be creative.
We need to be creative in how we present the faith to the world today.
So we need to think of new ways to do it.
New ways and not use the old ways all the time.
Use the old ways sometimes if they work today.
But everything in charity and to spread,
to spread the faith with joy.
Today's the memorial of St. Francis Xavier,
who exactly did that.
Spread the faith to the ends of the earth,
going all the way to Asia, India, Japan, China,
wanted to go.
And he was so sad that he was the only one to do it
with only a few followers.
And he said, I wanted to go.
I really feel tempted to go into Europe
and to all the universities in Europe,
especially Paris and to scream and say,
come, come, spread the faith to Asia,
to the pagans who need it and who are going to heaven.
Who are going to hell perhaps
because they don't have anyone to bring the faith to them.
And that's all they need is someone to bring the faith
to the Asian people who are eager and willing to listen.
And so he did it and he's that example of evangelizing today.
So we can certainly underline our calling
to spread the faith through his example on this day.
Thank you.
Thank you.