Pope Francis: Faith is a treasure that must be shared with joy

Pope Francis directed an emotional message to the pilgrims who have traveled to Rome from Slovakia to participate in the Jubileo de la Esperanza, reminding them that “faith is a treasure that must be shared with joy.”

After regretting that due to their convalescence he could not meet them, the Holy Father expressed their closeness in prayer.

For the pontiff, the pilgrimage is “a specific sign of the desire to renew faith, to strengthen the link with the successor of Peter and to testify with joy the hope that does not disappoint, because it is born from the spill of spilled from the heart transferred of Christ and communicated to us by the Holy Spirit.”

In this sense, he stressed that the Holy Year “calls us to be pilgrims of hope throughout our life.” Specifically, the trip to Rome, with the passage through the holy doors and the visit to the tombs of the apostles and martyrs, “is a symbol of this daily way oriented towards eternity.”

Pope Francis indicated to the Slovak Pilgrims that this is an itinerary that is inserted in the rich Christian tradition of his land, “fertilized by the testimony of the Saints Cyril and Methodium and of so many other saints and holy, which for more than a thousand years has been riddled with the Gospel of Christ.”

“Faith is a treasure that must be shared with joy. Every time brings challenges and difficulties, but also opportunities to grow in trust and abandonment in God,” he said below.

He encouraged the faithful to imitate Mary’s “yes” and become “an instrument in the hands of God to perform something great.”

“To host your design does not mean having all the answers, but to trust that, where he guides us, it also precedes us with his grace. Saying ‘yes’ today can open new horizons of faith, hope and peace, both for us and for those who the Lord puts on our way,” he said next.

He also invited them to listen with synodal “what the spirit says to their churches, without fear of the new, but discerning in it the initiative of God, which always surprises us.”

“That the Virgin Mary, Patroness of Slovakia, whom they venerate especially as the Virgin of the Seven Dolores and that, because of her union with the passion of her son, she is the mother of hope, guides and protects them,” concluded the Holy Father.