In tiny East Timor, Pope extols becoming ‘small before God’

DILI – Pope Francis celebrated Mass for East Timor’s overwhelming Catholic majority Tuesday, applauding the country for its high percentage of youth and stressing the importance of becoming small and humble in order for God to work miracles.

Speaking to Catholics during his Sept. 10 Mass at the Esplanade of Taci Tolu in Dili, the pope said, “Let us not be afraid to make ourselves small before God, and before each other, to lose our lives, to give up our time, to revise our schedules, giving up something to help a brother or sister become better and happier.”

“Let us not be afraid to scale down our plans when necessary, not in order to diminish them but to make them even more beautiful through the gift of ourselves and the acceptance of others, with all the unpredictability that this entails,” he said.

True kingship, he said, “is seen in those who give their life out of love.”

Pope Francis celebrated Mass Tuesday afternoon, after meeting with disabled children and holding an encounter with the bishops, clergy and religious of East Timor earlier that morning.

He is in Dili as part of a broader Sept. 2-13 tour of Asia and Oceania that has so far taken him to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, and which will also take him to Singapore before he returns to Rome. It marks the longest and farthest trip of Francis’s papacy.

In a greeting to Pope Francis at Mass, Cardinal Virgilio do Carmo da Silva, Archbishop of Dili who was given a red hat by Pope Francis in 2022, called the pope’s visit a historic moment for East Timorese.

When Pope John Paul II first visited in 1984, the visit “marked the decisive step in our process of self-determination,” he said, calling Francis’s presence less than 25 years after East Timor gained independence in 2002 “a fundamental step in the process of building our country, its identity and its culture.”

The papal visit, da Silva said, is “a sign of God’s closeness to the simple, the poor, the humble and the marginalized.”

“The Catholic Church in Timor carries out her mission of being the voice and the hope of the poor and those most in need,” he said.

Touting the strong relationship between church and state, in a country where some 98 percent of the population of roughly 1.3 million is Catholic, da Silva says this collaboration is essential for the building of society.

“In the process of building the state and the affirmation of identity, we need to listen carefully to the cry of the poor and the marginalized,” he said.

Pope Francis referred to the biblical passage of Isaiah, “A child has been born for us, a son is given to us.”

This passage, he said, represented a prosperous time for Jerusalem, but also a time of “great moral decadence” in which the wealthy and affluent became seduced by their riches and abandoned the poor, leading to infidelity and the loss of genuine religiosity.

“This deceptive façade of a world that at first sight appears to be perfect hides a reality that is much darker, wretched, harsh and cruel. A reality where there is much need for conversion, mercy and healing,” the pope said.

Francis said this is why the prophet Isaiah announces a new beginning for the people, “which God will open before them: a future of hope and joy, where oppression and war will be banished forever” and he will deliver the people “from the darkness of sin that oppresses them.”

“Yet he will do so not with the power of armies, weapons and wealth, but through the gift of a son,” he said, noting that everywhere in the world, the birth of a child is a moment of joy and celebration.

When a new child is born, he said, “even the coldest of hearts is warmed and filled with tenderness; the discouraged find hope again, the downhearted return to dreaming and believing in the possibility of a better life.”

Despite their smallness and fragility, a newborn carries a message of hope so strong that “it touches even the most hardened souls, restoring in them a desire for harmony and serenity.”

Referring to Jesus’s incarnation as an infant, Pope Francis said this was the ultimate sign of love, and speaks of God’s desire to heal wounds, reconcile divisions and lay a new foundation for individuals and communities.

He lauded the high percentage of young people in East Timor, where some 65 percent of the population is under the age of 30, saying, “this is a sign, since making room for little ones, welcoming them, taking care of them, and making ourselves – all of us – ‘small’ before God and before one another, are precisely the attitudes that open us to the Lord’s action.”

“By making ourselves small, we allow the Almighty to do great things in us,” he said, and pointed to the Virgin Mary as an example of this littleness.

Mary, he said, understood the importance of choosing to remain small, rather than making herself the protagonist, “even when this cost her much, even when she did not fully understand what was happening around her.”

Francis invoked the images of the traditional kaibauk headdress worn by Timorese liurai, meaning “rulers,” which is usually made of silver and shaped like the horns of a buffalo, and the belak medallion, which was traditionally awarded by village elders to warriors in honor of their bravery.

The kaibauk, Pope Francis said, speaks of “strength, energy and warmth, and can represent the life-giving power of God,” and it serves as a reminder that “with the light of the Lord’s word and the power of his grace, we too can cooperate, through our choices and actions, in the sublime plan of salvation.”

The belak, he said, which is reminiscent of the shape of the moon, “speaks of peace, fertility and sweetness, and symbolizes the tenderness of a mother, who by her delicate loving gestures makes whatever she touches glow with the same light she receives from God.

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