In a video message recorded in January, but published on Sunday, six days after his death, Pope Francis encouraged young people to work on listening well to others.
In the Jan. 8 video, shared by the Italian weekly magazine “Oggi,” the pope addressed teens and young adults, telling them, “One of the most important things in life is to listen — to learn how to listen.”
“People don’t listen. Halfway through an explanation, they’ll answer, and that doesn’t help peace. Listen — listen a lot,” he urges.
Francis also told young people to listen to their grandparents, who “teach us so much.”
The posthumous papal message was made public as an estimated 200,000 people, many of them teenagers, attended Mass in St. Peter’s Square on the morning of April 27.
The Mass was celebrated both as part of the Church’s second day of the “novendiales,” nine days of mourning, for Pope Francis, and as part of the Jubilee of Teenagers, which took place in Rome April 25-27.
The day after the late pope’s funeral and burial, tens of thousands of people visited his tomb in the Basilica of St. Mary Major. In the afternoon, Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, coadjutor archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, led vespers in a packed basilica.
The College of Cardinals also attended.(Reuters)
