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ANGELUS POPE FRANCIS 14 AUGUST 2016

Gordy Afri Monday, August 22, 2016

ANGELUS POPE FRANCIS

Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 14 August 2016

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

The Gospel for this Sunday (Lk 12:49-53) is part of Jesus’ teachings to the disciples during his journey to Jerusalem, where death on the cross awaits him. To explain the purpose of his mission, he takes three images: fire, baptism and division. Today I wish to talk about the first image: fire.

Jesus expresses it with these words: “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!” (v. 49). The fire that Jesus speaks of is the fire of the Holy Spirit, the presence living and working in us from the day of our Baptism. It — the fire — is a creative force that purifies and renews, that burns all human misery, all selfishness, all sin, which transforms us from within, regenerates us and makes us able to love. Jesus wants the Holy Spirit to blaze like fire in our heart, for it is only from the heart that the fire of divine love can spread and advance the Kingdom of God. It does not come from the head, it comes from the heart. This is why Jesus wants fire to enter our heart. If we open ourselves completely to the action of this fire which is the Holy Spirit, He will give us the boldness and the fervor to proclaim to everyone Jesus and his consoling message of mercy and salvation, navigating on the open sea, without fear.

In fulfilling her mission in the world, the Church — namely all of us who make up the Church — needs the Holy Spirit’s help so as not to let herself be held back by fear and by calculation, so as not to become accustomed to walking inside of safe borders. These two attitudes lead the Church to be a functional Church, which never takes risks. Instead, the apostolic courage that the Holy Spirit kindles in us like a fire helps us to overcome walls and barriers, makes us creative and spurs us to get moving in order to walk even on uncharted or arduous paths, offering hope to those we meet. With this fire of the Holy Spirit we are called to become, more and more, communities of people who are guided and transformed, full of understanding; people with expanded hearts and joyful faces. Now more than ever there is need for priests, consecrated people and lay faithful, with the attentive gaze of an apostle, to be moved by and to pause before hardship and material and spiritual poverty, thus characterizing the journey of evangelization and of the mission with the healing cadence of closeness. It is precisely the fire of the Holy Spirit that leads us to be neighbours to others, to the needy, to so much human misery, to so many problems, to refugees, to displaced people, to those who are suffering.

At this moment I am thinking with admiration especially of the many priests, men and women religious and lay faithful who, throughout the world, are dedicated to proclaiming the Gospel with great love and faithfulness, often even at the cost of their lives. Their exemplary testimony reminds us that the Church does not need bureaucrats and diligent officials, but passionate missionaries, consumed by ardour to bring to everyone the consoling word of Jesus and his grace. This is the fire of the Holy Spirit. If the Church does not receive this fire, or does not let it inflame her, she becomes a cold or merely lukewarm Church, incapable of giving life, because she is made up of cold and lukewarm Christians. It will do us good today to take five minutes to ask ourselves: “How is my heart? Is it cold? Is it lukewarm? Is it capable of receiving this fire?”. Let us take five minutes for this. It will do everyone good.

Let us ask the Virgin Mary to pray with us and for us to the Heavenly Father, that he dispense upon all believers the Holy Spirit, the divine flame which warms hearts and helps us to be in solidarity with the joys and the sufferings of our brothers and sisters. May we be sustained on our journey by the example of St Maximilian Kolbe, martyr of charity, whose feast day is today: may he teach us to live the fire of love for God and for our neighbour.

After the Angelus:

Dear brothers and sisters, I warmly greet you all, people of Rome and pilgrims who are present!

Today I also had the joy of greeting several groups of young people: first of all the Scouts from Paris; then the young people who came to Rome on pilgrimage on foot or on bicycle from Bisuschio, Treviso, Solarolo, Macherio, Sovico, Vall’Alta di Bergamo and the Seminarians from the Minor Seminary of Bergamo. To you too I repeat the words that were the theme of the great meeting in Krakow: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”; always strive to forgive and have a compassionate heart.

I wish everyone a happy Sunday and a good lunch. Please do not forget to pray for me. Arrivederci!

ANGELUS

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GENERAL AUDIENCE POPE FRANCIS 10 AUGUST 2016

Gordy Afri Thursday, August 18, 2016

GENERAL AUDIENCE POPE FRANCIS

Paul VI Audience Hall
Wednesday, 10 August 2016

PHOTO: picssr.com

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

The passage from the Gospel of Luke that we have listened to (7:11-17) presents us with a truly great miracle of Jesus: the resurrection of a young man. However, the heart of this narrative is not the miracle, but Jesus’ tenderness toward the mother of this young man. Here, mercy takes the form of great compassion for a woman who had lost her husband and now is accompanying her only son to the cemetery. This deep sorrow of a mother moves Jesus and causes him to perform the miracle of resurrection.

In introducing this episode the Evangelist dwells on many details. At the gate of the small town of Nain — a village — two large groups meet. They come from opposite directions and have nothing in common. Jesus, followed by the disciples and by a large crowd, is about to enter the residential area, while coming out of it is a procession accompanying a dead man, with his widowed mother and many people. At the gate the two groups brush by each other, each going its own way, but it is then that St Luke notes Jesus’ feelings: “when the Lord saw her [the woman], he had compassion on her and said to her: ‘Do not weep’. And he came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still” (vv. 13-14). Great compassion guides Jesus’ actions: he stops the procession, touches the bier and, moved by profound mercy for this mother, decides to confront the reality of death, so to speak, face to face. And he will confront it definitively, face to face, on the Cross.

During this Jubilee, it would be a good thing if, in passing through the Holy Door, the Door of Mercy, pilgrims were to remember this episode of the Gospel, which occurred at the gate of Nain. When Jesus sees this mother in tears, she enters his heart! Every one arrives at the Holy Door carrying their own life, with its joys and suffering, plans and failures, doubts and fears, in order to present it to the Lord’s mercy. We are certain that, at the Holy Door, the Lord comes near to meet each one of us, to bring and offer his powerful consoling words: “Do not weep!” (v. 13). This is the Door of the encounter between the pain of humanity and the compassion of God. Crossing the threshold we fulfil our pilgrimage into the mercy of God who, as to the deceased young man, repeats to all: “I say to you, arise”! (v. 14). To each of us he says: “Arise!”. God wants us to stand upright. He created us to be on our feet: for this reason, Jesus’ compassion leads to that gesture of healing, to heal us, of which the key phrase is: “Arise! Stand up, as God created you!”. Standing up. “But Father, we fall so often” — “Onward, arise!”. This is Jesus’ word, always. In passing through the Holy Door, let us try to feel this word in our heart: “Arise!”.

The powerful word of Jesus can make us rise again and can bring about in us too the passage from death to life. His word revives us, gives us hope, refreshes weary hearts, opens us to a vision of the world and of life which transcends suffering and death. The inexhaustible treasure of God’s mercy is inscribed for each one on the Holy Door!

Touched by the word of Jesus, “the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother” (v. 15). This phrase is so beautiful: it shows Jesus’ tenderness: “he gave him to his mother”. The mother recovers her son. Receiving him from Jesus’ hands she becomes a mother for the second time, but the son who is now restored to her is not the one who received life from her. Mother and son thus receive their respective identities thanks to the powerful word of Jesus and to his loving gesture. Therefore, especially in the Jubilee, Mother Church receives her children, recognizing in them the life given by the grace of God. It is due to this grace, the grace of Baptism, that the Church becomes mother and that each one of us becomes her child.

Before the young man, revived and restored to his mother, “fear seized them all; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen among us!’ and ‘God has visited his people!’” (v. 16). What Jesus does is thus not only a saving action intended for the widow and her son, or a gesture of goodness limited to that town. In Jesus’ merciful care, God meets his people, in Him all of God’s grace appears and will continue to appear to mankind.

Celebrating this Jubilee, which I wished to be lived in all the particular Churches, that is in all the churches of the world, and not only in Rome, it is as if all the Church spread throughout the world were joined in one hymn of praise to the Lord. Today too the Church recognizes that she is visited by God. For this reason, by setting out for the Door of Mercy, each one is able to set out for the door of the merciful heart of Jesus: He indeed is the true Door that leads to salvation and restores us to new life. Mercy, both in Jesus and in ourselves, is a journey which starts in the heart in order to reach the hands. What does this mean? Jesus looks at you, he heals you with his mercy, he says to you: “Arise!”, and your heart is new. What does it mean to make a journey from the heart to the hands? It means that with a new heart, with the heart healed by Jesus I can perform works of mercy through the hands, seeking to help, to heal the many who are in need. Mercy is a journey that starts in the heart and ends in the hands, namely in the works of mercy.

I have said that mercy is a journey that goes from the heart to the hands. In the heart, we receive the mercy of Jesus who forgives us everything, because God forgives everything and lifts us up, gives us new life and infects us with his compassion. From that forgiven heart and with the compassion of Jesus, the journey to the hands begins, namely through the works of mercy. A bishop, the other day, told me that in his cathedral and in other churches he had made entry and exit doors of mercy. “Why did you do this?” — “Because one door is to enter by, to ask forgiveness, and to receive Jesus’ mercy; the other is the door of mercy to exit by, in order to take mercy to others, with our works of mercy”. This bishop is intelligent! Let us also do the same with the journey that goes from the heart to the hands: let us enter the church through the door of mercy, to receive the forgiveness of Jesus, who tells us: “Arise! Go, go!”; and with this “Go!” — on foot — let us leave through the exit door. It is the Church going forth: the journey of mercy which goes from the heart to the hands. Make this journey!

Special greetings:

I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, particularly those from England, Malta, Indonesia and the United States of America. With prayerful good wishes that the present Jubilee of Mercy will be a moment of grace and spiritual renewal for you and your families, I invoke upon all of you joy and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ.

I hope that every one may live this Extraordinary Holy Year by fostering the culture of encounter, recognizing the presence of the Lord’s flesh particularly in the poor and in the needy.

Lastly I address a greeting to young people, to the sick and to newlyweds. Last Monday we recalled the figure of St Dominic de Guzmán, whose Order of Preachers is celebrating the eighth centenary of its foundation. May the enlightened word of this Great Saint inspire you, dear young people, to listen to and to live Jesus’ teachings; may his inner strength sustain you, dear sick people, in times of discomfort; and may his apostolic devotion remind you, dear newlyweds, of the importance of Christian education in your family.

GENERAL AUDIENCE

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ANGELUS POPE FRANCIS 7 AUGUST 2016

Gordy Afri Monday, August 15, 2016

ANGELUS POPE FRANCIS

Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 7 August 2016

PHOTO: obitelj-malih-marija.com

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

In the text of today’s Gospel (Lk 12:32-48), Jesus speaks to his disciples about the attitude to assume in view of the final encounter with him, and explains that the expectation of this encounter should impel us to live a life full of good works. Among other things he says: “Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys” (v. 33). It is a call to give importance to almsgiving as a work of mercy, not to place trust in ephemeral goods, to use things without attachment and selfishness, but according to God’s logic, the logic of attention to others, the logic of love. We can be so attached to money, and have many things, but in the end we cannot take them with us. Remember that “the shroud has no pockets”.

Jesus’ lesson continues with three short parables on the theme of vigilance. This is important: vigilance, being alert, being vigilant in life. The first is the parable of the servants waiting for their master to return at night. “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes” (v. 37): it is the beatitude of faithfully awaiting the Lord, of being ready, with an attitude of service. He presents himself each day, knocks at the door of our heart. Those who open it will be blessed, because they will have a great reward: indeed, the Lord will make himself a servant to his servants — it is a beautiful reward — in the great banquet of his Kingdom He himself will serve them. With this parable, set at night, Jesus proposes life as a vigil of diligent expectation, which heralds the bright day of eternity. To be able to enter one must be ready, awake and committed to serving others, from the comforting perspective that, “beyond”, it will no longer be we who serve God, but He himself who will welcome us to his table. If you think about it, this already happens today each time we meet the Lord in prayer, or in serving the poor, and above all in the Eucharist, where he prepares a banquet to nourish us of his Word and of his Body.

The second parable describes the unexpected arrival of the thief. This fact requires vigilance; indeed, Jesus exhorts: “You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (v. 40).

The disciple is one who awaits the Lord and his Kingdom. The Gospel clarifies this perspective with the third parable: the steward of a house after the master’s departure. In the first scene, the steward faithfully carries out his tasks and receives compensation. In the second scene, the steward abuses his authority, and beats the servants, for which, upon the master’s unexpected return, he will be punished. This scene describes a situation that is also frequent in our time: so much daily injustice, violence and cruelty are born from the idea of behaving as masters of the lives of others. We have only one master who likes to be called not “master” but “Father”. We are all servants, sinners and children: He is the one Father.

Jesus reminds us today that the expectation of the eternal beatitude does not relieve us of the duty to render the world more just and more liveable. On the contrary, this very hope of ours of possessing the eternal Kingdom impels us to work to improve the conditions of earthly life, especially of our weakest brothers and sisters. May the Virgin Mary help us not to be people and communities dulled by the present, or worse, nostalgic for the past, but striving toward the future of God, toward the encounter with him, our life and our hope.

After the Angelus:

Dear brothers and sisters, unfortunately news of civilian victims of war continues to arrive from Syria, from Aleppo in particular. It is unacceptable that so many defenceless people — even many children — must pay the price of the conflict, the price of closing the heart and of the lack of will of the powerful for peace. Let us be close in prayer and solidarity with our Syrian brothers and sisters, and let us entrust them to the maternal protection of the Virgin Mary. Let us all pray a bit in silence and then recite a Hail Mary.

I greet all of you, people of Rome and pilgrims from various countries! Quite a lot of flags are visible!

Today various groups of young men and women are present. I greet you with great affection!

I wish everyone a happy Sunday. Please do not forget to pray for me. Enjoy your lunch. Arrivederci!

ANGELUS

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