Pope to seminarians: Enter into the prisons of existential suffering

By Lorena Leonardi

"Enter into the prisons", not only government prisons, “to offer those incarcerated there the oil of consolation and the wine of hope”, but also into all “those prisons that lock up men and women in our society: ideologies, morals, those that create exploitation, discouragement, ignorance and forgetfulness of God”. With these words Pope Francis addressed seminarians from the Spanish dioceses of Pamplona y Tudela, San Sebastián and Redemptoris Mater, received in audience on Saturday 16 November in the Vatican's Consistory Hall. 

Welcoming around 40 young future priests from the Iberian Peninsula, Pope Francis recalled how a seminary is a place to learn the importance of redemption and to be "a living image of Jesus, a Redeemer with a capital 'R'".

Visiting prisons a priority

Several times the Pope encouraged them to visit those in prison and become involved in that ministry. He recalled how ever since he has been a bishop, on Holy Thursday he visits a prison and washes the feet of inmates as "they are the ones who most need us to wash their feet." The Pope recalled on one occasion he was washing a woman's feet at a female detention facility, and as he was about to move on to the next person, she grabbed his hand and said in his ear, "Father, I killed my son". The Pope underscored the inner dramas affecting the consciences of those who live in prison. And "when you become priests, go to the prisons, it is a priority" and you also will feel the question arising in you "why them and not me?"

Referring to the prisons not only physical but above all mental, emotional and spiritual in which one can find oneself incarcerated, the Pope repeated that one receives priestly anointing precisely "to free prisoners, those who are locked up without realising it by so many things: culture, society, vices, hidden sins."

Docile to the Spirit

The Pope then recalled the meditation for the preparation of future priests in the Gospel of Luke that "encourages us not to be afraid to face the temptation of an idolatrous ministry where we are at the centre, seeking material power or applause" and that instead calls us to "docility to the Spirit" to "pass through the desert to encounter God" and to "empty ourselves of so many things that weigh us down".

Again, like Jesus when he went to Nazareth, "aware that in the eyes of the world he was no more than the son of Joseph, one like us", the Pope urges us never to forget these roots, to be "sons of the people". He said that in our apostolate we cannot make preferential distinctions between people, even more so if they are strangers or even enemies, because in the eyes of God we are all children. He added that when we look at our brother or sister, we recognise the disposition to receive the grace that the Lord offers.

Tireless bearers of mercy

Recalling another Gospel passage, where the Lord grieves for the hardness of heart of his contemporaries who do not understand Jesus' solicitude in freeing a woman kept bound by an evil spirit for many years: “You,” he admonishes the seminarians, "always be ready to bless, to free" and be "courageous, selfless and tireless in bringing God's mercy."