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Monday, April 10, 2017
ANGELUS POPE FRANCIS
Visit in the city of Carpi and Mirandola, Italy Fifth Sunday of Lent, 2 April 2017



APPEAL
I am deeply saddened by the tragedy that has struck Colombia, where a gigantic mudslide, caused by torrential rains, engulfed the city of Mocoa, claiming many lives and causing injuries. I pray for the victims and assure my closeness and yours to those who are grieving the loss of their loved ones, and I thank all those who are striving to render assistance.

News continues to arrive of the bloody armed conflicts in the Kasai Region of the Democratic Republic of Congo: clashes which are resulting in many deaths and forced displacement, and which have also struck people and property of the Church: churches, hospitals, schools.... I assure my closeness to this nation and I exhort everyone to pray for peace, that the hearts of the perpetrators of these criminal acts do not remain slaves to hatred and violence, because hatred and violence always destroy.

In addition, I am closely following the events in Venezuela and Paraguay. I pray for those peoples, who are very dear to me, and I invite everyone to tirelessly persevere, in avoiding all hostility, in seeking political solutions.

Dear brothers and sisters, I would like to thank you for coming here, to this Mass. I wish to thank everyone, all those who worked for this double “marathon”: last Sunday [for the inauguration of the restored Cathedral] and this Sunday. Thank you very much! And I would like to thank you, sick people. There are 4,500 sick people here! Thank you, who, through your suffering, help the Church to carry the Cross of Christ. Thank you! Thank you very much!
At the end of this celebration, may our thoughts turn to the Blessed Virgin, whom you venerate in the Cathedral Church dedicated to her. Let us offer to Mary our joys, our sorrows and our hopes. Let us ask her to fix her merciful gaze upon those among us who are suffering, particularly upon the sick, the poor, and those who lack dignified work.

Recalling the apostolic zeal of the two lay figures of your land, Blessed Odoardo Focherini and Venerable Marianna Saltini, witnesses of Christ’s charity, I greet you with gratitude, dear lay people. I encourage you to be protagonists in the life of your communities, in communion with your priests: always focused on what is essential in proclaiming and witnessing to the Gospel.

I thank you, dear Bishop Francesco, and all of you, Bishops of the Emilia-Romagna Region, for your presence, and above all the Pastor of this diocese, Bishop Francesco Cavina: I exhort you to stand alongside your priests through listening, tenderness and attentive closeness.

Lastly, I would like to thank each and every one of you, dear faithful, priests, men and women religious, the Authorities and, in a special way, those who have contributed to the organization of this visit, with a particular thought to agesci [Italian Association of Catholic Guides and Scouts] and the choir, composed of all the choirs of the diocese, which enlivened this liturgy.

Let us entrust our life and the future of the Church and of the world to Mary, our Mother, reciting together the Angelus prayer.

© Copyright - Libreria Editrice Vaticana


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Wednesday, April 05, 2017
GENERAL AUDIENCE POPE FRANCIS
Saint Peter's Square Wednesday, 29 March 2017

Vatikan, FOTO: pixabayfree

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!
The passage from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans that we have just heard offers us a great gift. Although we are used to recognizing in Abraham our father in the faith; today the Apostle enables us to understand that Abraham is for us a father in hope; not only father in faith, but father in hope. And this is so because in his life story we are already able to perceive an announcement of the Resurrection, of the new life that conquers evil and death itself.

In the text, it states that Abraham believed in God “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom 4:17); and then it explains: “He did not weaken in faith even when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead ... or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb” (v. 19). Indeed, this is the experience we too are called to live. The God who reveals himself to Abraham is the God who saves, the God who delivers from despair and from death, the God who calls into life. In the story of Abraham, everything becomes a hymn to the God who sets free and regenerates, everything becomes prophecy. It becomes so for us, because we now recognize and celebrate the fulfilment of all of this in the mystery of Easter. God in fact “raised from the dead Jesus” (v. 24), so that in Him we too might pass from death to life. Thus, truly, Abraham can be called the “father of many nations”, inasmuch as he shines as an announcement of a new humanity — us! — delivered by Christ from sin and from death, and introduced once and for all into God’s loving embrace.

At this point, Paul helps us to focus on the extremely close bond between faith and hope. In fact, he states of Abraham that “in hope he believed against hope” (v. 18). Our hope is not based on rationale, foresight and human confidence; it appears where there is no longer hope, where there is no longer anything to hope in, just as happened to Abraham, facing his imminent death and the barrenness of his wife Sarah. The end was approaching for them; they could not have children, in that situation. Abraham believed and had hope against all hope. And this is great! Great hope is rooted in faith, and for this very reason it is able to transcend all hope. Yes, because it is not based upon our words, but on the Word of God. In this sense too then, we are called to follow the example of Abraham, who — despite all the evidence of a reality in which he seems bound to die — trusts in God, “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (v. 21). I would like to ask you a question: Are we, all of us, convinced of this? Are we convinced that God loves us and that he is willing to bring to fulfilment all that he promised us? But Father, how much do we have to pay for this? There is a single price: “open your heart”. Open your hearts and this power of God will lead you forward; he will do miraculous things and will teach you what hope is. This is the single price: open your heart to faith, and he will do the rest.

This is the paradox, and at the same time the strongest element, our highest hope! A hope based on a promise that, from the human point of view, seems uncertain and unpredictable, but which never fails, not even in the face of death, when the One who promises is the God of the Resurrection and Life. Not just anyone promises this! The One who promises this is the God of the Resurrection and life.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, today we ask the Lord for the grace to remain grounded, not so much in our own certainties, our own abilities, but in the hope that springs from God’s promise, as true children of Abraham. When God promises, he brings to fulfilment what he has promised. He never fails to keep his word. Then our lives will take on a new light, in the awareness that the One who resurrected his Son, will also raise us and will truly make us one with Him, together with all our brothers and sisters in faith. We all believe. Today we are all in the Square; let us praise the Lord. We will sing the Our Father, then we will receive the blessing.... But this passes. This too is a promise of hope. If today we have an open heart, I assure you that all of us will encounter, in the Square, the Heaven that never ends; it is forever. This is God’s promise and this is our hope, if we open our hearts. Thank you.

Special greetings:
I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, particularly the groups from England, Scotland, Finland, Norway, the Philippines and the United States of America. I offer a special welcome to the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Holy See, with appreciation for their work. With prayerful good wishes that this Lent may be a time of grace and spiritual renewal for you and your families, I invoke upon all of you joy and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ. God bless you all!

May your visit to the Eternal City arouse in each of you communion with the Universal Church and with the Successor of Peter.

Lastly, I express a special greeting to young people, to the sick and to newlyweds. Dear young people, the Lenten period is a precious time to rediscover the importance of faith in daily life. Dear sick people, unite your suffering to Jesus’ Cross for the building of the civilization of love. And you, dear newlyweds, promote the presence of God in your new family.

© Copyright - Libreria Editrice Vaticana


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Monday, April 03, 2017
ANGELUS POPE FRANCIS
Saint Peter's Square – IV Sunday of Lent (Laetare), 26 March 2017



Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

At the centre of the Gospel this Fourth Sunday of Lent we find Jesus and a man blind from birth (cf. Jn 9:1-41). Christ restores his sight and performs this miracle with a type of symbolic ritual: first, He mixes dirt with saliva and spreads it on the blind man’s eyes; then, He orders him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. The man goes, washes, and regains his sight. He was blind from birth. With this miracle, Jesus manifests himself, and He manifests himself to us as the Light of the World. The man blind from birth represents each one of us, who was created to know God; but due to sin has become blind; we are in need of a new light; we are all in need of a new light: that of faith, which Jesus has given us. Indeed, that blind man in the Gospel, by regaining his sight, is opened to the mystery of Christ. Jesus asks him: “Do you believe in the Son of man?” (v. 35). “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”, the healed blind man replied. “You have seen him, and it is he who speaks to you” (v. 37). “Lord, I believe”, [the blind man said,] and he prostrated himself before Jesus.

This episode induces us to reflect on our faith, our faith in Christ, the Son of God; and at the same time, it also refers to Baptism, which is the first Sacrament of faith: the Sacrament which makes us “come to the light”, by being reborn through the water and through the Holy Spirit; as happens to the man born blind, whose eyes are opened after being cleansed in the water of the pool of Siloam. The man born blind and healed represents us when we do not realize that Jesus is the light; he is “the Light of the World”, when we are looking elsewhere, when we prefer to entrust ourselves to little lights, when we are groping in the dark. The fact that the blind man has no name helps us to see our face reflected and our name in his story. We too have been “illuminated” by Christ in Baptism, and thus we are called to behave as children of the light. Acting as children of the light requires a radical change of mind-set, a capacity to judge men and things according to another scale of values, which comes from God. The Sacrament of Baptism, in fact, requires the choice of living as children of the light and walking in the light. If I were to ask you: “Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Do you believe that he can change your heart? Do you believe that he can show reality as he sees it, not as we see it? Do you believe that he is light, that he gives us the true light?”. How would you answer? Each of you, respond in your heart.

What does it mean to have the true light, to walk in the light? First of all it means abandoning false lights: the cold, vain light of prejudice against others, because prejudice distorts reality and ladens us with aversion to those whom we judge without mercy and condemn without appeal. This is our daily bread! When you gossip about others, you do not walk in the light, you walk in shadows. Another false light, because it is seductive and ambiguous, is that of self-interest: if we value men and things on the basis of usefulness to us, of pleasure, of prestige, we are not truthful in our relationships and situations. If we go down this path of seeking self-interest, we are walking in shadows.

May the Blessed Virgin, who was the first to welcome Jesus, the Light of the World, obtain for us this grace of welcoming anew the light of faith this Lent, rediscovering the inestimable gift of Baptism, which all of us have received. And may this new illumination transform us in attitude and action, so that we too, beginning with our poverty, our narrow-mindedness, may be bearers of a ray of the light of Christ.

After the Angelus:
Dear brothers and sisters, yesterday in Almería, Spain, José Álvarez-Benavides y de la Torre and 114 companion martyrs were beatified. These priests, religious and lay people were heroic witnesses to Christ and his Gospel of peace and fraternal reconciliation. May their example and their intercession sustain the commitment of the Church in edifying the civilization of love.

Regarding Milan, I would like to thank the Cardinal Archbishop and all the people of Milan for the warm welcome yesterday. I truly felt at home, with everyone, believers and non-believers. I thank you all, dear people of Milan, and I will tell you something: I attest that it is true what they say: “In Milan you are welcomed with an open heart!”.

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