Speaking to bishops, cardinals and pastoral care workers, Thursday, at the International Pastoral Congress, on the World's Big Cities, Pope Francis urged them to be creative in order that everyone in these cities can feel the closeness and mercy of God.

He told the Barcelona meeting that the Church needs new maps to help us reposition our thoughts and attitudes.

However, Francis warned, it is important "we must not be disoriented."

"(Disorientation) would lead us to take the wrong road", confusing the people who are looking for life, truth and a sense of purpose, the pope told the Big City Pastoral Congress.

Building on his experience as Bishop of Buenos Aires, with a population of 13 million, Francis highlighted four challenges facing Big City mission as:

• making a change in our pastoral mentality
• dialogue with multiculturalism
• religiousness of people, and
• the urban poor.

"Today we are not the only ones that produce culture, we are not the first nor most listened to", he told the pastoral congress.

Francis told the participants the Church needs to transform itself in order to evangelise in the big cities.

"It's all about going out and meeting God who lives in cities with the poor. Meeting, listening to, blessing, walking with the people; facilitating the encounter with the Lord".

Asking for a concrete witness of mercy and tenderness, Francis said we can go where culture is born and sow the mustard seed in the heart of new cultures generated by urban reality.

In concluding, he proposed a two-fold pastoral nuclei

• Go out and facilitate, and
• The Samaritan Church. To be there.

"God lives in cities. We must go and look for him and remain where He is operating" ... We must not ignore or despise experiences of God that may be dispersed or mixed up: these experiences ask to be "revealed and not constructed", Pope Francis said.

Source

• News.va

"This (waking up the world) is a priority needed right now," the Jesuit Pope wrote in his letter to mark the November 30 start of the year.

However to be so bold, Francis is urging religious communities to "step more courageously from the confines of their institutes," to put aside pettiness, gossip and jealousy and to work together, and along with 'other vocations' in the Church.

The Holy Father says he is expecting religious orders to examine their presence in the Church and respond to the new demands constantly being made on them, and in particular the cry of the poor.

Francis stressed that looking to recreate the past will not provide answers for present, and he is calling on religious communities to see the signs of today and modify their structures and routines in order to respond to what God is asking now.

In his speech he said the church must be bold in recognising and changing "the structures that give us a false sense of protection and that condition the dynamism of charity," as well as "the routines that distance us from the flock we are sent to and prevent us from hearing the cry of those awaiting the good news of Jesus Christ."

"In that portion of the Lord's vineyard represented by those who have chosen to imitate Christ most closely... new grapes have matured and new wine has been pressed."

Pope Francis said religious are called "to discern the quality and the vintage of the 'new wine' that was produced in this long period of renewal (since Vatican II) and, at the same time, to evaluate if the wineskins that contain it - represented by the institutional forms present in consecrated life today - are adequate to hold this 'new wine' and promote its full maturation."

The pope met congregation members on November 27, three days before the opening of the Year of Consecrated Life.

Sources

• Vatican Radio (incl Official translation of his message)
• CNS
• Image: Congregation the sisters of St Joseph of Peace