POPE FRANCIS STUNED BY A GIRLS QUESTION

Tearfully
recounting a young life as yet spent forced to
forage for food from garbage and to sleep
outside on cardboard mats, 12-year-old
Glyzelle Palomar had a simple but profound
question for Pope Francis.
"Why did God let this happen to us?" the
young Filipino asked, covering her face with
her hands as she sobbed.
Speaking on a stage in front of some 30,000
young people as part of a meeting between
Francis and Filipino youth Sunday, Palomar's
intense query visibly affected the pontiff.
Putting aside a text he had prepared for the
occasion in order to respond directly to the
young woman, Francis answered her with a
40-minute reflection on the nature of
suffering, love, and service.
"The nucleus of your question almost doesn't
have a reply," the pontiff said at first, pain
clearly etched on his face as he mentioned
that he had seen her tears.
"Only when we
too can cry
about the
things that you
said are we
able to come
close to
replying to that
question,"
Francis
continued.
"Why did
children suffer
so much?" he asked. "Why do children
suffer?"
"Certain realties in life we only see through
eyes that are cleansed through our tears,"
Francis said.
Addressing the thousands of youth in the
crowd, he continued: "I invite each one of
you to ask yourselves: 'Have I learned how to
weep, how to cry when I see a hungry child,
a child on the street who uses drugs, a
homeless child, an abandoned child, an
abused child, a child that society uses as a
slave?'"
"Let us learn how to weep, as she has shown
us today," said Francis. "Let us not forget this
lesson. The great question of why so many
children suffer. She did this crying. And the
response that we can make today is let us
learn, really learn, how to weep."
Francis' remarks Sunday came in a meeting
with Filipino youth organized as part of his
visit to the country Thursday-Sunday and
held at Manila's Dominican-run University of
Santo Tomas.
Palomar was one of four young people who
gave testimonies about their lives during the
event. Rescued from living on the streets by
a foundation in Manila dedicated to helping
such children, she and a young man helped
by the same foundation spoke of the intense
poverty faced by many Filipino children.
A nation of some 100 million, more than one-
quarter of the population of the Philippines
is estimated to live below the poverty line. A
2009 study by the Philippine Institute for
Development Studies found that 36 percent of
Filipino children live in impoverished
conditions.
In answering Palomar, Francis also said that
Jesus cried often in the stories of the Gospel.
"If you don't learn how to cry, you can't be
good Christians," said the pope. "This is a
challenge."
Francis spoke extemporaneously Sunday in
his native Spanish, with the help of a priest
translating his remarks into English for the
crowd.
Beginning his talk, Francis first asked the
youth at the meeting to offer prayers for the
young woman who died at the end of a Mass
the pontiff celebrated Saturday in Tacloban,
an area about 500 miles southeast of Manila.
Kristel Pasadas, a 27-year-old staff member
for Catholic Relief Services , was killed when
scaffolding holding a speaker used for the
amplification system during the Mass fell on
her.
"I have very sad news today," the pope said
Sunday, before asking that those assembled
take a minute of silence in prayer. "Let us
also pray for her father and mother," Francis
added. "She was the only daughter."
Francis then addressed the fact that besides
Palomar those that gave testimonies at the
youth event were young men.
There was "only a very small representation
of women among you," he said, adding: "too
little."
"Women have much to tell us in today's
society," the pope continued. "Sometimes we
are too machista ... and we don't allow room
for the women."
"When the next pope comes, please more
women among the number!" he asked.
The pope then addressed two other
testimonies given by young men at the event,
one focusing on the struggles young people
face becoming overloaded with information
in the internet age and the other speaking
about volunteering to help survivors of 2013's
Typhoon Haiyan.
Addressing the first testimony, Francis said
there is so much information available now
"but perhaps we don't know what to do with
that information."
"We run the risk of becoming museums of
young people, that have everything but
without knowing what to do with it," he said.
"Which is the most important subject that
you have to learn in university, that you
have to learn in life?" Francis asked,
answering: "To learn how to love. And this is
the challenge that life offers you, to learn
how to love."
The pontiff then said that in order to love,
one has to use three languages: Of the mind,
of the heart, and of the hands.
"What you think you must feel and put into
effect," he continued. "Your information
comes down to your heart and you realize it
in real works."
Francis then said that love also requires
being open to being loved and to surprises.
"Don't be frightened of surprises," he told the
youth. "They shake the ground from
underneath your feet and they make us
unsure, but they move us forward in the
right direction."
Reflecting on the example of St. Francis of
Assisi -- who he said "died with empty
pockets but with a very full heart" -- the pope
said that "real love leads you to spend
yourselves in life, to leave your pockets
empty."
Responding to the man who volunteered after
the Typhoon, one of the most devastating
ever experienced in the Philippines, Francis
told the young people they must not only
learn to give of themselves but to receive
from others.
"Jesus had to come to allow himself to feel
compassion, to be loved," said the pope.
"How many young people are there like this?
You know how to give and yet you haven't
yet learned how to receive."
"You lack only one thing, to become a
beggar," he continued. "This is what you lack,
to learn how to beg."
"To learn how to receive with humility," said
Francis. "To learn to be evangelized by the
poor, those that we help: The poor, the sick,
the orphans, they have so much to offer us.
Have I learned how to beg also for that?"
"Do you let yourselves be evangelized by
those you serve?" he asked. "Or do I feel self-
sufficient or I'm only going to offer
something and think that you have no need
of anything?"
Francis is visiting the Philippines, Asia's
largest Catholic nation, Thursday-Sunday in
the second visit of a two-part Asian voyage
that first saw him visit Sri Lanka earlier in
the week.
Later Sunday the pontiff will celebrate a
public Mass in Manila's Rizal Park, an event
the Vatican has called a "mega Mass" because
of the expected crowds. Millions have
converged since early Sunday morning on the
streets of Manila, under pouring rain, to try
and secure a place in the celebration.
In one sign of the massive operation to
prepare for the event, officials from the
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the
Philippines on Saturday night celebrated a
Mass and consecrated 2.5 million hosts for
distribution Sunday from 20 tents among the
crowd.
Security for the papal visit has been
extraordinarily tight. About 50,000 police and
soldiers have been on patrol and authorities
have been using jamming technology to
prevent use of cellular networks in areas
near where the pope is traveling.
As Francis traveled the some four miles
Sunday between Manila's apostolic
nunciature, where he has been staying
during his visit, and the university for the
youth meeting, crowds pressed in along the
route, with some people coming so close as to
almost touch the pope's hand.
Police were lined shoulder to shoulder along
barricades lining the road, attempting to hold
the crowd in.