Pope Francis: A Christian’s life should point to truth

Pope Francis prays during his general audience address in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican on Dec. 27, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Jan 2, 2024 / 13:50 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis’ prayer intention for the month of January is for… […]

Vatican City, Apr 4, 2018 / 03:31 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis said the Eucharist is key to living an authentic Christian witness, and that those who leave Mass unchanged, continuing to gossip or hold onto unholy habits, have missed the point.

“While the Mass ends, the commitment for Christian witness opens. We leave the church to go in peace to bring the blessing of God to our daily activities, to our homes, to our work, to the affairs of the earthly city, glorifying the Lord with our lives,” the pope said April 4.

The Mass, he said, is not just a weekly commitment that can be forgotten about once people go out the church doors.

“No. Christians go to Mass to participate in the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord, and to live as better Christians,” he said. “If we leave the church gossiping” or talking badly about other people, then “the Mass didn’t enter into my heart, because I am not capable of living Christian testimony.”

“Every time I leave Mass I must leave better than I went in,” he said, adding that the Eucharist should leave a person with a better heart, a better spirit and “a stronger desire to live as a Christian.”

Pope Francis spoke to pilgrims in a rainy St. Peter’s Square for his weekly general audience, which this week fell during the Octave of Easter and was dedicated to his last round of catechesis on the Mass.

Francis opened with an aside wishing pilgrims a happy Easter and saying the flowers adorning the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica are representative of the joy and happiness that blossom after Christ’s resurrection.

He asked pilgrims to join him in wishing retired Pope Benedict XVI — who he said was watching the audience on television — a happy Easter, and told them to give his predecessor a big round of applause.

In his speech, the pope focused on the concluding rite of Mass, in which believers are told to “go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

The Mass, particularly with this commission, “finds fulfillment in the concrete choices one makes [and] involves us first-hand in the mysteries of Christ,” he said.

“We cannot forget that we celebrate the Eucharist to learn to become Eucharistic men and women,” he said, explaining that this means allowing Christ to act in and through the choices one makes, taking on his thoughts, feelings and actions.

St. Paul expresses this clearly when he speaks of his own assimilation to Jesus, saying he no longer lives, but Christ lives in him, Francis said, explaining that the apostle’s experience “also illuminates us.”

“In the measure in which we mortify our egoism, meaning we allow what opposes the Gospel and the love of Jesus to die, greater space is created in us for the power of his Spirit,” he said.

And while the liturgy is a prime way to gain great unity with Jesus, Francis noted that the presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine “does not end with the Mass.” Rather, the Eucharist is kept in the tabernacle in order to give communion to the sick who are unable to attend Mass, and it is also kept for moments of “silent adoration” through the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.

“Eucharistic worship outside of the Mass, whether in private or in community, helps us to remain in Christ” and imitate his words and actions, Francis said, adding that Christians are men and women “who allow their soul to grow with the strength of God.”

“Not these small, tight, egoistic souls,” he said, but “great souls” who allow themselves to grow with the strength of the Holy Spirit and after being washed by the body and blood of Christ.

The Eucharist also separates us from sin, he said, because “the more we participate in the life of Christ and progress in his friendship, the more difficult it is to separate ourselves from him with mortal sin.”

Community is also an essential element of the Mass, he said, because the Eucharist “makes the Church,” and ought to lead to an increased commitment in service of the poor, who bear the flesh of Christ.

Pope Francis closed his audience asking pilgrims to give thanks to the Lord “for the path of rediscovering the holy Mass which he has given us to walk together,” and prayed that each person would allow themselves “to be attracted with a renewed faith to this real encounter with Jesus, died and risen for us.”

“May our lives always flourish like this, like Easter, with flowers of hope and good works, that we always find the strength for this in the Eucharist, in union with Jesus.”

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Pope Francis prays the Angelus on Jan. 7, 2024, and offers pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square a reflection on baptism. / Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jan 7, 2024 / 10:04 am (CNA).

Pope Francis said Sunday that if you do not know the date of your baptism, you need to look it up so that you can celebrate the anniversary of becoming a child of God and heir to the kingdom of heaven.

Speaking from the window of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the pope said on Jan. 7 that the anniversary of one’s baptism should be celebrated each year “like a birthday.”

“At baptism, it is God who comes into us, purifies and heals our heart, makes us forever His children, His people and family, heirs to Paradise,” Pope Francis said.

“Let us ask ourselves: am I aware of the immense gift I carry within me through baptism?” he added.

The pope spoke on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which commemorates Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River by St. John the Baptist.

Earlier in the day, Pope Francis baptized 16 babies in the Sistine Chapel, where he said that baptism is “the most beautiful gift” that parents can give to their children.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes baptism as the “basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit … and the door which gives access to the other sacraments.”

In his Angelus address, Pope Francis said that each sign of the cross is a reminder of one’s baptism that “traces in us the memory of the grace of God, who loves us and desires to be with us.”

Pope Francis urged people to reflect and ask themselves: “Do I acknowledge, in my life, the light of the presence of God, who sees me as His beloved son, His beloved daughter?”

He also encouraged Catholics to thank God for their parents who brought them to the baptismal font and gave them the gift of the sacrament. 

“It is important to remember the day of our baptism, and also to know the date. I ask all of you, each one of you to think: ‘Do I remember the date of my baptism?’” he said.

“If you do not remember, when you go back home, ask what it is, so as not to forget it anymore because it is a new birthday, because with your baptism you were born into the life of grace.”

After praying the Marian prayer with the crowd huddled together under umbrellas in St. Peter’s Square below, the pope urged people to continue praying for peace in Ukraine, Palestine, and Israel.

Pope Francis also asked for prayers for “the unconditional liberation” of all people who have been kidnapped in Colombia and expressed his closeness to the people affected by the recent flooding in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The pope wished a merry Christmas to the Eastern Orthodox Christians who are still following the Julian calendar and are celebrating Christmas this year on Jan. 7.

“With a spirit of joyful fraternity, I wish that the birth of the Lord Jesus fills them with light, charity, and peace,” he said.

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