Cardinal Tagle at Flame 2

our next guest today is a Roman Catholic Cardinal who has travelled right across the world from the Philippines to be with us all today and share his experience please welcome to the stage His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Manila lui Antonio Kaka table' hello hello Wembley it is good to be here and I would like to thank the organizers of this wonderful encounter with the youth for thinking of me and I bring you warm greetings from the Philippines it is good to be with young people with fellow young people believe it or not I am a cardinal so please believe and in a special way I would like to greet my brother bishops Cardinal Michels thank you for taking care of the young people of England and Wales I would like to share with you something about the mercy of God and the joy of the gospel yeah it will take me a whole semester in the university to exhaust a bit of this theme but let me try I have 20 minutes first I would like to ask all of you to look around you not just here but try to recall your homes your parish communities marvel at the many signs of mercy the concrete ways by which men and women show God's mercy to others but at the same time I would like you to open your eyes open your ears open your hearts to the many signs of the lack of Mercy hunger thirst violence the humanizing poverty the victims of human trafficking the abuse of vulnerable people the children women migrants people with disabilities look at this victims and survivors of war imagine the incalculable harm done by lack of mercy to individual persons to families and to whole communities when I encounter someone who has experienced profoundly the lack of mercy from other persons or from institutions what hits me is the sense that nobody cares nobody cares when we are touched by those people who had been wounded by the lack of mercy then we know only mercy can save humanity our hearts break whenever someone says nobody cares for me I am alone nobody cares it is in this context that we proclaim who God is the God proclaimed in Exodus 34 the Lord the compassionate and gracious God slow to anger abounding in love and faithfulness maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness rebellion and sin yet God does not leave the guilty unpunished God is known as a God of mercy of tenderness of compassion yet just are you still awake okay okay I believe you're awake I think I'm talking to myself am I still awake now we turn to God's mercy or the God who is mercy and of course we turn to Sacred Scripture the mercy of God does not have one meat description in scriptures so we can talk about it oblique ly but there are so many images depicting the mercy of God from one perspective the mercy of God is this amazing attachment of God to persons to God's people God is attached to human beings and this attachment is manifested in God's tender compassion which heals sinners the wayward and those in need when we look at scriptures we wonder why is God attached this way in a tender compassionate way even to God's enemies if I were God and I see an enemy if this person doesn't change course I will change course so that I would avoid doing something violent but God is not that way and thank God I am NOT God imagine what will happen to individual persons and to humanity if I were God but why is God like that why is God merciful of course this is a difficult question to answer I don't know whether we should even ask God that question but in scriptures we realize that the tender compassion of God this attachment to the person's the community that God has created is related to his covenant relationship I am your God you are my people you are mine how can I give you up due to that covenant relationship God experiences some sort of an interior duty to be faithful God even recoils from God's sense of justice whenever the pall of fidelity surfaces and this makes God's mercy really an experience of generosity extravagance even on the part of God because those that God loves do not deserve that love the mercy of God is unmerited it is unexpected this makes Mercy the mercy of God really a wonderful mystery and without that mercy of God no one no one can survive God's justice the mercy of God saves us gives us hope God seems to say how can I destroy you you are mine and because you came from me I know there is something good in you and let us work on that good that is in you you if there are school teachers here be merciful all I have been teaching since 1977 and I continue teaching up to this day oh how easy it is to love to remember students who are bright students who are obedient but then I realize these are the students who do not need teachers because they are already bright what do we do with those who are quite slow what do we do with those whom we want to kick out of the school what do we do with those students whom we want to give up asking mark to so that they won't appear next year well God is merciful God will say yes look at Jesus he called his twelve students he taught them for three years and during the final examination they all failed they did not understand they left him alone then he rose from the dead and he told Mary of Magdala gather them in Galilee he will teach them again for forty days and after that he sent the Holy Spirit to continue teaching them you see the mercy of God Neverending God does not give up the mercy of God now all of these things acquired flesh in Jesus Christ remember the parables of mercy in Luke 15 the Gospel reading for today comes from Luke 15 the lost sheep the lost coin and the prodigal son all of these parables ended in joy in feasting where there is mercy there is joy the gospel is really the gospel of mercy hi thank you for remembering the queue you know we had a conversation before this yeah so the joy of the gospel is really about the gospel of joy what brings joy true joy profound joy the joy that the world cannot give it is the mercy of God that makes us whole that gives us hope in Matthew chapter 9 verse 13 after the all of Matthew the public sinner there was again a feast and Jesus said to those who were scandalized that he was eating with sinners he said I desire mercy not sacrifice for I have come not to call the righteous but sinners Luke 19 verse 10 visiting the house of Zacchaeus another public sinner people started murmuring and Jesus said the Son of man came to seek and to save what was lost the lost sheep the lost poem the lost son who has found this way back oh the lost Matthew the lost Zacchaeus why was Jesus wasting his time for these people who were already lost for only one reason you are mine you are mine this lost sheep might be a liability financially speaking but it is my own that lost home may not amount to anything that it belongs to me that son who had squandered everything he is my son this is mercy this is joy no one is alone you belong to God even when others have forgotten My dear young people of England and Wales be the living signs in our world of God's mercy be living signs of the joy of the gospel of mercy recall in your lives how God has been merciful to you proclaim God's mercy and the joy that has come to you because God has been merciful to you I want to share with you openly a few months ago a former professor of mine who taught us church history was near death and he called for me so I visited him when I entered his room he started crying he was sobbing and the nurse whispered to me whenever former students and friends visit father he becomes emotional so I approached him and tried to console him when he had regained his composure he looked at me tenderly and said you know in the Philippines I am called Cheeto as my name is luis luis ito a small luis cheeto I've never grown I've remained small and he said cheeto cheeto you used to sleep in my class and that's the full truth and the whole truth and I said father I'm sorry for having posture distress and he said no don't worry but look at you you are now a cardinal you used to sleep in my class but there is hope for you so whenever whenever whenever I am tempted to be proud to be self-sufficient I just recall why am i a bishop why am i a cardinal it is only because of the mercy of God and the kindness of other people proclaim God's mercy that made you whole that made you who you are and be God's hands eyes ears of Mercy feed the hungry give drink to the thirsty welcome those who do not have homes visit the sick console those in prison there are a lot that you could do in terms of mercy and bringing the joy of the gospel to people be good Samaritans spread the flame of God's mercy and heal the wounded world let me close with again some narrative during the visit of Pope Francis to the Philippines he went to a shelter for Street kids most of them victims of different types of abuse I frequent that shelter in one of my earlier visits a couple a young man and a young woman recently married asked if they could see me so I I allow them to see me in the shelter and there they showed me their baby a cute little boy and there I learned that both of them used to be Street kids themselves and they found new life in that shelter they were able to finish their education they fell in love after graduation they got married now they have a baby and they told me your eminence we know the horror of growing up on the streets we promise you as this shelter took care of us and gave us hope we will take care of this baby we will not allow him to experience the pain and sorrow that we had experienced Mercy begats mercy and finally you know I I was reminded of the youth summer camps that we hold regularly in the Philippines you know there is electricity in the air whenever young people and those who are trying to be young and AH when they get together I remember in my first diocese one such summer camp I gave a talk and after my conference the the floor was open to questions for me to answer the first question was bishop will you sing for us it was totally unrelated to the theme of the of the the gathering because it was a vocation vocation gathering so wait wait a minute please ask sensible questions I told them and okay and the questions arrived then after maybe five or six questions another girl raised her hand and said Oh bishop will you sing for us I said you did not tell me that I'm supposed to sing so let me start a popular song and we will sing together so I started with the first line and everyone followed at the end of the song the young people came to me now in good Filipino fashion they kissed my hand some of them asked for selfie selfie my half photo some as for autographs on their booklets their Bibles some even on their shirts the sleeve of their shirt you know the back of their shirt there was even one young girl who said bishop here sign here I said no no turn around turn around what people might wonder how did that signature get there no no no no no but as this was going on I was getting confused really confused said Who am I what am I am i a bishop am i a singer am i a a celebrity Who am I why are they asking for autographs and everything the answer came a year later in a similar camp one young boy approached me and said bishop you signed my t-shirt last year I have not washed that shirt but every night I fold it I put it under my pillow I have not seen my father in years with that shirt I know I belong to a family the church I know I have a father you dear young people it doesn't cost much even a simple signature can be a sign of joyful mercy to the lost and those who feel nobody cares this is the mercy of God this is the joy of the gospel to close I noticed when we were having an opening celebration they're opening ritual that many of you probably all of you have your cell phones or mobile phones may I play please ask you to take it out of your pockets and please send a message to one or two persons friends I will be paid to you the message that you will send ready you might want to send to your parents to send this text blessed are the merciful we will send them together ready sand okay thank you very much for your patience and the letters ask the Lord to bless us and bless the young people of England and Wales thank you very much

Channel: CYMFed

Views: 183,726

Keywords:

Id: ztxImj_DtOM

Length: 31min 1sec (1861 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 02 2015