Pope Francis arrived in a Lexus to the national stadium in Bangkok. Inside, crowds were excitedly cheering, waving Vatican and Thai flags and yelling “Viva il papa!”
The Holy Father traveled around the stadium in the pope mobile. He greeted all those who came out to the evening Mass, his first liturgical celebration of his trip.
While all 60,000 attendees could not be contained inside, the pope also visited another “overflow” stadium nearby.
Before the ceremony began, the stadium rose to sing the Thai National Anthem.
Then, the hymn for the 2016 Year of Mercy accompanied the priests, bishops and pope as they made their way to the altar.
The Mass marks the 350th anniversary of the first Catholic Church jurisdiction in the Kingdom of Siam, which is now Thailand. Christianity in the country is centered around mission, a theme Pope Francis mentioned during his homily.
The pope questioned the attendees on who is included in “family.” He said missionaries who originally came to this land in the 16th century sought to make a family that went beyond blood lines, culture and ethnicity.
POPE FRANCIS
Without that encounter, Christianity would have lacked your face. It would have lacked the songs and dances that portray the Thai smile, so typical of your lands. The missionaries came to understand more fully the Father’s loving plan, which is greater than all our human calculations and predictions.
Pope Francis said God's love expands to everyone, even those forgotten or marginalized by society.
POPE FRANCIS
Here I think of children and women who are victims of prostitution and human trafficking, humiliated in their essential human dignity. I think of young people enslaved by drug addiction and a lack of meaning that makes them depressed and destroys their dreams. I think of migrants, deprived of their homes and families, and so many others, who like them can feel forgotten, orphaned or abandoned.
He invited Christians to include all these people as a part of their family, opening the doors to them through God's mercy.
Near the end, the president of the Thai Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Francis-Xavier Kriengsak Kovithavanij thanked the pope for coming.
As a final goodbye to the pope's first liturgical celebration in Thailand, 800 Thai women danced traditional, elegant dance for Pope Francis. They represented various aspects of their culture and life.
There were five dances. First was a dance with blue and pink parasols. Next came a green and gold dragon. Third was a dance with big gold plates, before a fourth in gold hats. The final dance included everyone together.
It was a very graceful dance, marked with various music. The final song was “Let Love Be the Bridge,” to which the attendees held up their phones as flashlights, waving them back and forth.
Melissa Butz
