Vatican City, Apr 8, 2020 / 03:30 am (CNA).- Meditating on Christ’s Passion can help us as we struggle with questions about God and suffering during the coronavirus crisis, Pope Francis said at his general audience Wednesday.
Speaking via livestream due to the pandemic, the pope urged Catholics April 8 to spend time in Holy Week sitting in silent prayer before a crucifix and reading the Gospels.
At a time when churches around the world are closed, “this will be for us, so to speak, like a great domestic liturgy,” he said.
The suffering unleashed by the virus raises questions about God, the pope noted. “What is He doing in the face of our pain? Where is He when everything goes wrong? Why does He not solve our problems quickly?”
“The account of the Passion of Jesus, which accompanies us in these holy days, is helpful to us,” he said.
The people acclaimed Jesus as he entered Jerusalem. But they rejected him when he was crucified because they had expected “a powerful and triumphant Messiah,” rather than a gentle and humble figure preaching a message of mercy.
Today we still project our false expectations on to God, the Pope said.
“But the Gospel tells us that God is not like that. He is different and we could not know Him with our own strength. That is why he came close to us, he came to meet us and precisely at Easter he revealed himself completely.”
“Where? On the cross. There we learn the features of God’s face. Because the cross is God’s pulpit. It will do us good to look at the Crucified One in silence and see who our Lord is.”
The cross shows us that Jesus is “He who does not point the finger at anyone, but opens his arms wide to everyone”, the pope said. Christ does not treat us as strangers, but rather takes our sins upon himself.
“To free ourselves from prejudices about God, let us look at the Crucified One,” he advised. “And then we open the Gospel.”
Some might object that they prefer a “strong and powerful God,” the pope said.
“But the power of this world passes, while love remains. Only love guards the life we have, because it embraces our frailties and transforms them. It is the love of God who at Easter healed our sin with his forgiveness, who made death a passage of life, who changed our fear into trust, our anguish into hope. Easter tells us that God can turn everything to good, that with Him we can truly trust that all will be well.”
“That is why on Easter morning we are told: ‘Do not be afraid!’ [cf. Matthew 28:5]. And the distressing questions about evil do not suddenly vanish, but find in the Risen One the solid foundation that allows us not to be shipwrecked.”
At morning Mass April 8, in the chapel of his Vatican residence, the Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis prayed for those who were taking advantage of others during the coronavirus crisis.
“Today we pray for people who in this time of pandemic exploit the needy,” he said. “They take advantage of the needs of others and sell them: the mafia, loan sharks and many others. May the Lord touch their hearts and convert them.”
On the Wednesday of Holy Week, the Church focuses on Judas, the pope said. He encouraged Catholics not only to ponder the life of the disciple who betrayed Jesus, but also to “think of the little Judas that each one of us has inside of us”.
“Each of us has the ability to betray, to sell, to choose for our own interest,” he said. “Each one of us has the possibility of letting ourselves be attracted by the love of money, or goods, or future well-being.”
After Mass, the pope presided at Adoration and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, leading those watching around the world in a prayer of spiritual communion.
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Who knows who wrote that letter.
This a prank right? There’s a youtube version also …that will hit tomorrow? Here is my worst encounter with the theological formation mentioned:
Paragraph 297, AL: “No one is condemned forever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!”
Aboard the papal plane, Oct 2, 2016 / 06:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- During his flight from Baku, Azerbaijan to Rome on Sunday, Pope Francis:
“Mercy has the last word. I like to tell, I do not know if I told you, because I repeat it so much … in the Church of Santa Maria Maddalena – I told you or no? – There is a beautiful capital, but it is more or less from the thirteenth century. Medieval cathedrals were catechesis with sculptures. And in a part of the capital there is Judas hanged with his tongue out and eyes (bulging) out, and on the other side of the capital there is Jesus the Good Shepherd who takes (Judas) and carries him with him. And if you look closely, the face of Jesus, the lips of Jesus are sad on the one hand, but with a small smile of understanding in the other. They understood what mercy is … with Judas, huh! “
Not so fast. Msgr Dario Edoardo Viganò Prefect of the Secretariat for Communication omitted [deviously?] Benedict’s last paragraph, cited by journalist Socci in a Sandro Magister essay, “However, I do not feel like writing a short and dense theological page on them because in all my life it has always been clear that I would write and express myself only on books that I had also really read. Unfortunately, even for physical reasons, I am not able to read the eleven volumes in the near future, all the more so because I am already waiting for other commitments. I am sure he will have understanding and I greet him cordially” (Benedict XVI). If true it exposes the Vatican attempt to discredit Benedict as a supporter of the papal plan for doctrinal revolution and secularization of the Church.
Traditional Church Teaching can never contradict Itself.
Nor can Pope Benedict XVI who, in his masterpiece Jesus of Nazareth, writes ‘this apodictic law is pronounced in the name of God himself.’ It is divine law that applies at all times.
Not much sign of ‘interior continuity’ between himself and Pope Francis it seems.