SW News: The Holy Father Pope Francis urged bishops, priests and religious in South Sudan to be prophets, intercessors and companions of the people of God asking them to demonstrate with their life the mystery of God’s closeness to His people. He was speaking to the clergy and consecrated men and women in St Teresa Cathedral in Juba on Saturday, Feb. 4.

He told those gathered to bring the struggles of the people of God before God in prayer and seek forgiveness for them. "Beloved, these prophetic hands, outstretched and raised, demand great effort. To be prophets, companions and intercessors, to show with our life the mystery of God’s closeness to his people, can cost us our lives,” he said.

Pope Francis referred to the image of the Nile which flows through this country. He said, “the waters of the great river symbolizes the sighs and sufferings of your communities, the pain of so many shattered lives, the tragedy of a people in flight, the sorrow and fear in the hearts and eyes of so many women and children."

He also said that the Nile symbolizes salvation as Moses the liberator of the Jews was fetched out of the river by the Pharaoh’s daughter. Pointing out how Moses led the Israelites through the desert, the Holy Father said "let us ask ourselves what it means for us to be ministers of God in a land scarred by war, hatred, violence, and poverty."

“How can we exercise our ministry in this land, along the banks of a river bathed in so much innocent blood, among the tear-stained faces of the people entrusted to us?” The pope said that Moses’ meekness and his intercession before the Lord are the two answers to the above question.

“At times, something similar can happen in our own lives as priests, deacons, religious and seminarians: deep down, we can think that we are at the center of everything, that we can rely on, if not in theory at least in practice, almost exclusively on our own talents and abilities,” he said.

The Holy Father said that courageous, generous souls who are ready to lay down their lives for Africa are the need of the hour.

The pope is in South Sudan as a pilgrim of peace. He is accompanied by the Most Rev. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Rev. Iain Greenshields. It is his fifth visit to Africa.