In
a recent address Pope Francis recommended that each day we rediscover with joy
that we are disciples of Jesus and develop “a strong friendship" with him who is our "only
Teacher.” He continued, “In these days of the Resurrection, the word that resounded
often for me in prayer was “Galilee,” where everything began. Peter says in
his first discourse- the things that happened at Jerusalem but which began in
Galilee. Our life also began in a “Galilee”- every one of us has had an
experience of Galilee, an encounter with the Lord…that we do not forget, but
that so many times becomes covered with things, with work, anxieties and also
sins and worldliness. To give witness it is necessary to go often on pilgrimage
to Galilee itself, to take up the memory of that encounter, that astonishment,
and to start again from there. However if we do not follow this path of the
memory, there is the danger of remaining where we are, and there is also
the danger of not knowing why we find ourselves there. This is the discipline of men and women who wish to give witness- to return to Galilee itself,
where I encountered the Lord; to return to that first moment of wonder."
Let us remember always whom we have encountered.
