Two days before his 88th birthday, Pope Francis received a warm welcome on the Mediterranean island of Corsica for a one day visit to the city of Ajaccio, the capital of the French island region.

During the Dec. 15 trip, the pontiff encouraged the island’s Catholic majority to continue to foster its traditional piety as secular culture grows in Europe — and to use their devotion as fuel to serve others in charity.

The papal visit touched the peripheries of France, where a strongly Catholic population is steeped in Corsican traditions, including songs, both sacred and secular, linked to confraternities.

These religious associations, which have a long history in Corsican culture, continue to pass down the custom of singing. The hymns are usually sung a capella and in Latin.

Traditional Corsican hymns featured throughout Pope Francis’ visit, especially at his Mass with an estimated 7,000 Catholics at Place d’Austerlitz, a park built as a memorial to Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who was born in Ajaccio. Authorities estimate another 8,000 people were following the Mass on jumbo screens around the city.

In his homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, Pope Francis said too much time thinking about ourselves and our own needs is why “we lose the spirit of joy.”

Distress, disappointment, and sadness are widespread spiritual ills, he noted, especially where consumerism is prominent.

“If we live only for ourselves, we will never find happiness,” the pope said, pointing to the recitation of the rosary and the spiritual and corporal works of mercy of the confraternities as an example of how to cultivate faith.

The Mass in a mix of French and Corsican took place as the sun set over Ajaccio, ending by candlelight with purple skies behind the hills bordering the port city.

“May the Gospel of Jesus Christ help you to have hearts open to the world: your traditions are a richness to be cherished and cultivated, but never in order to isolate yourselves, indeed they are always for encounter and sharing,” Pope Francis said in his closing message of thanks to the community.

Pope Francis is the first pope to visit Corsica, which is situated west of the mainland of Italy and north of the Italian island of Sardinia, the nearest land mass.

According to the latest Vatican statistics, the Diocese of Ajaccio, the Mediterranean island’s only diocese, has nearly 344,000 inhabitants, around 85% of whom are Catholic.

Approximately 400 people, many of them members of confraternities, were in the auditorium hall for Pope Francis’ first meeting of the day, the closing speech of a conference on popular piety in the Mediterranean region.

While extolling the French system of “läicité” and the “constructive citizenship” of Christians, Pope Francis underlined that “faith may not be reduced to a private affair, restricted to the sanctuary of the individual’s conscience.”

Francis warned against pitting Christian and secular culture against one another, and praised the “beauty and importance of popular piety” in an increasingly faithless Europe.

After leaving the conference center, Pope Francis stopped along the road to pray and light a candle at a statue of the “Madunuccia,” or “little Madonna,” kept in a niche of a building.

The patroness of Ajaccio, honored under the title of Our Lady of Mercy, protected the city from plague in 1656, a day the city marks with grand festivities every year on March 18.

Pope Francis greeted enthusiastic locals lining the streets of Ajaccio as he traveled in an open-air popemobile to the 16th-century Our Lady of the Assumption Cathedral, just steps from the sea in the city’s historic center.

Inside the Baroque cathedral, Francis prayed the Angelus with French bishops, priests, deacons, seminarians, and religious.

Addressing the island’s clerics and religious before the traditional Marian prayer, the pope emphasized the need for those whose lives are devoted to service to also spend time in “care for themselves” — including daily time for prayer, Mass, solitude, heartfelt exchanges with a person of trust, and a healthy hobby.

He also encouraged the priests, bishops, and religious to find the most efficacious routes for evangelization today.

“Do not be afraid of changing, of reassessing the old methods, of renewing the language of faith and realizing that the mission is not a question of human strategies, but above all a question of faith, of passion for the Gospel and God’s Kingdom,” the pontiff said.

After a day surrounded by the warmth of the people of Corsica, Pope Francis concluded his trip with a brief one-on-one meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, before returning to Rome.

This article was originally published by Catholic News Agency.

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