Hajja Salesjana July-September 2020

5 “When evening had come” (Mk. 4, 35). The Gospel passage we have just heard begins like this. For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice it in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. On this boat… are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with one voice, saying “We are perishing” (v. 38), so we too have realized that we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this. On this boat… are all of us. It is easy to recognize ourselves in this story. What is harder to understand is Jesus’ attitude. While his disciples are quite naturally alarmed and desperate, he stands in the stern, in the part of the boat that sinks first. And H AJJA S ALESJANA Photo: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo 02 “When evening had come” (Mk. 4, 35) Underneath a dull, bleak sky with pouring rain, with ambulance sirens wailing in the nearby streets and echoing in the empty large St. Peter's piazza, usually heaving with crowds, Pope Francis delivered this epic, stunning homily during a special Urbi et Orbi liturgical function held on Friday, 27th March 2020 at the Vatican in Rome. He may have been physically all alone in the rain drenched, cold, deserted St. Peter's piazza, but he was surely joined and accompanied by millions around the world through social media, during this momentous event in time that will remain forever etched in our collective memory. Here is the full text of his powerful homily that reverberated in the hearts of millions....