The Filipino community continues to celebrate at the Vatican. Last week they commemorated 500 years since Christianity reached the country, and this March 22, the Pontifical Filipino College's 60th anniversary. It's an institution that offers formation and housing to priests studying in Rome.
The pope met with their community and encouraged them to not limit themselves to simply waiting for the present to pass.
POPE FRANCIS
Do not be eternal procrastinators, who always wait for, in an ideal hypothetical condition—the bad utopia—who always wait for a perfect and decisive moment to do something good; and do not live in constant “apnea.”
He reminded them that the present is the only moment in our hands, and that we are called to take advantage of it as an opportunity for conversion and sanctification. He said now is the time to take action.
POPE FRANCIS
We are called to live today, with all its contradictions, suffering and misery—even our sins—which shouldn't be escaped from or avoided, but accepted and embraced as opportunities that the Lord offers us to be more closely united to Him, even on the cross.
The Filipino College was founded by St. John XXIII. Pope Francis reminded them of the advice this pope gave them 60 years ago: that all priests find in this institution faith and culture in abundance, and fraternity, and thus equipped, return to their country, as chosen announcers of the truth.
Daniel Díaz Vizzi
