00:00Music
00:30Hello dear brothers and sisters! We are here in Rome, in St. Peter's Square.
00:51Behind me, you will be able to see the Great Basilica of St. Peter, center and culmination of Christianity.
01:00Here, where we are now making this film, is where almost two thousand years ago,
01:08Our first Christians, the first martyrs, expressed their faith in a full way.
01:15Here, where the Great Basilica of St. Peter now stands, once stood the Circus of Nero.
01:22People mistakenly think that the martyrs were martyred, as Hollywood usually portrays it, in the Colosseum.
01:32And the Colosseum really was a place of games, it was a place of fun.
01:36Although the topic of Christian martyrdom was also seen somewhat as entertainment.
01:41However, they were martyred, the vast majority of them, in Nero's Circus.
01:46which stood exactly where we are standing now.
01:50Behind me would be the Circus of Nero, which was the place where our first Christians expressed their faith.
01:59During the first centuries, the Church experienced great persecution.
02:04Hence there is a Latin saying that goes, Sanguinis mártires, semen cristianorum.
02:11The blood of our martyrs was the seed of the new Christians.
02:16And in this place, many of our brothers gave their lives professing our faith.
02:23Today we ask ourselves, here with the Great Basilica behind us,
02:28with which it was intended to honor all those martyrs, including Peter,
02:33He would be martyred here in Nero's Circus.
02:36Today, looking at this majestic construction, we ask ourselves,
02:40Where has that primitive Christianity gone?
02:43Where has that Christianity gone, the Christianity of those men and women who were willing to give their lives for Christ?
02:51Those men and women who were martyred for attending mass.
02:55Those men and women who were martyred for openly professing their belief in Jesus Christ.
03:03Today we sadly find ourselves with a cold Christianity,
03:07with a Christianity that even struggles to attend mass,
03:10who wonders why he has to go to mass.
03:13When he does it, it's often simply to fulfill a commitment.
03:19a requirement of being baptized.
03:22While the first Christians in this place gave their lives,
03:27because many of them were caught in the act of celebrating Mass.
03:32As also happened in Mexico, during the time of the Cristero War,
03:35when priests had to hide and remain incognito,
03:41celebrating masses secretly in some homes,
03:44because religion was prohibited in our country.
03:47Where has that zeal gone now?
03:50Where does that desire to witness to Jesus Christ go?
03:55We see a world turning away from God,
03:59to a world that is turning away from Jesus Christ.
04:01We see our own Christians as cold and indifferent.
04:05We need to return to this first truth,
04:09to this first moment when Christians felt truly proud to be so.
04:16Christians who were even willing to give their lives.
04:22Christians who preferred to be martyred rather than renounce Jesus.
04:28We, the Christians of the 21st century,
04:31We need to change our way of thinking, our way of participating in faith.
04:38We need to feel proud to be Christians again.
04:43and be able to bear witness, perhaps not to the point of shedding blood.
04:48We will hardly have to bear witness to the point of shedding blood in our country, at least not right now.
04:53but not to feel bad at parties, at gatherings,
04:58to say that we are Christians,
05:01of professing ourselves as such,
05:03by not allowing people to speak ill of the church,
05:06by not allowing people to make jokes about Jesus Christ or his Blessed Mother,
05:11to have the courage and bravery to stop a meeting and say,
05:15Brothers, perhaps this will not offend you,
05:19Perhaps if you are not truly Christians,
05:22It really offends me, it offends my God, it offends my church.
05:26So I ask that we change the subject.
05:30Let's change the subject, because this offends our faith.
05:35May we once again have the courage to be rejected.
05:39Perhaps we will not be stoned, nor thrown to the lions,
05:43but we will probably be excluded from our social groups.
05:47We will probably be rejected by those we considered to be friends,
05:54But we have major differences when it comes to the profession of faith.
06:00Let us look today at this magnificent place, the center of Christianity.
06:06Thousands upon thousands of people come from all over the world,
06:11They do not come to profess their faith, they do not come to pray.
06:15They come as tourists,
06:17They come to discover this wonderful place, so full of history.
06:21But they do not come to give reasons and testimony of the faith.
06:25Most of them aren't even Christians.
06:29They come because this is a tourist destination that represents the cradle of Christianity.
06:37The place from which Christian life develops,
06:41not in this building, but within it.
06:45Within it are not only all these centuries of history,
06:51but behind it all is the Pope.
06:55Today Pope Francis,
06:57which invites us to return to a simple faith,
07:01to a simple faith,
07:02that we may be able to show that we are truly Christians,
07:07not simply because we carry a cross
07:09or because we carry a Bible under our arm,
07:12but because of our actions, our faith,
07:16manifested especially in those in need,
07:19They prove it.
07:19Let us remember what Jesus told us in the Gospel of Saint Matthew.
07:25He told us that we are the light and the salt of this earth.
07:30And if the salt becomes tasteless, then it no longer has any purpose.
07:34We must once again become the light and salt of this world.
07:37We need to illuminate the criteria of this world
07:40who today seeks in materialism and consumerism
07:44to find the reason for its existence.
07:46We Christians are the hope of peace.
07:51We are the hope for a different world.
07:54Let's return to our origins.
07:56Let us allow the Holy Spirit to touch our hearts.
07:59and that we regain that zeal,
08:02that joy and that strength
08:04to bear witness to Jesus Christ
08:05as Lord of our lives.
08:11Amen.
08:13Thanks for watching the video.
