Vatican City, Dec 12, 2018 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis gave an Advent reminder Wednesday that faith should not be just a “decorative” addition to daily life by pointing to how the ‘Our Father’ prayer embodies the essence of life itself.
“Prayer – Jesus teaches us – does not begin in human existence after the stomach is full: rather it lurks wherever there is a man, any man, who is hungry, who cries, who struggles, who suffers and wonders ‘why,’” Pope Francis said in the Paul VI hall Dec. 12.
The ‘Our Father’ prayer’s request for “daily bread,” the pope explained, exemplifies God’s desire to meet man in his concrete reality, in his basic needs.
“Our first prayer, in a sense, was the wail that accompanied the first breath. In that newborn cry, the destiny of our whole life was announced: our continual hunger, our continual thirst, our search for happiness,” he continued.
Pope Francis pointed to the Biblical example of Bartimaeus in Mark’s Gospel – a blind man who begged at the gates of Jericho – whose loud cries for mercy were met by Jesus’ healing.
“Around him he had so many good people who told him to keep quiet, not to disturb the Master with his annoying shouts. But he, demanded with holy insistence, that his miserable condition could finally meet Jesus,” Francis said.
Prayer “frees us from the desperation of those who do not believe in a way out of so many unbearable situations,” he added.
The pope’s teaching on the ‘Our Father’ is a continuation of catechesis he began in the first week of Advent on “the seven questions” found in the “short but bold prayer” full of “filial trust.”
“The Lord Jesus gives us the grace of total trust in God as a compassionate Father who loves us and always remains at our side,” Pope Francis said in Spanish as he greeted pilgrims from Spain and Latin America.
The Paul VI Hall was filled with cheers and waves as the pope mentioned the day’s Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
“May Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose feast we celebrate today, help us to surrender ourselves to the providential love of God and to place all our hope in Him,” Francis prayed.
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Pope Francis at his general audience in St Peter’s Square on May 31, 2023. / Adi Zace/EWTN
Vatican City, May 31, 2023 / 05:30 am (CNA).
Pope Francis dedicated his entire general audience on Wednesday to sharing the life of Venerable Matteo Ricc… […]
Vatican City, Apr 6, 2017 / 12:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- This Holy Thursday, Pope Francis will wash the feet of prison inmates and say Mass at their penitentiary.
The Pope will visit Paliano prison south of Rome the afternoon of April 13. He will make a private visit and say the Mass of the Last Supper, Vatican Radio reports.
For Holy Thursday in 2013, just after becoming Pope, Francis visited the Casal del Marmo youth detention center in Rome and celebrated Mass there. This occasion was notable for being the first time a Pope included females and non-Christians among those whose feet he washed.
At the time, liturgical law permitted only men’s feet to be washed in the Holy Thursday ceremony.
In January 2016, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments modified the Roman Missal to allow for women’s feet to be washed at the Holy Thursday Mass.
The decision was made in concert with Pope Francis.
In a letter to the congregation’s prefect, Cardinal Robert Sarah, Pope Francis wrote: “For some time I have been reflecting on the rite of the washing of the feet, which forms part of the Liturgy of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, with the intention of improving the ways in which it is put into practice, so that we fully express the meaning of the gesture made by Jesus in the Upper Room, his gift of self until the end for the salvation of the world, his boundless charity.”
The Roman Missal’s text was modified to say that “those chosen from among the People of God are accompanied by the ministers”, while it had previously read: “the men chosen are accompanied by the ministers”.
Many parishes around the world had already been including women in the ritual for years; the decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship made the practice licit.
In 2014, Pope Francis said the Holy Thursday Mass at the Don Gnocchi center for the disabled.
In 2015 he visited Rome’s Rebibbia prison for the Holy Thursday Mass.
For Holy Thursday in 2016 Pope Francis visited a center for asylum seekers in Castelnuovo di Porto, a municipality just north of Rome. He washed the feet of refugees, who included Muslims, Hindus, and Coptic Orthodox Christians.
Pope Francis waves during the weekly general audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall on Dec. 28, 2022. / Credit: Vatican Media.
Vatican City, Dec 28, 2022 / 10:30 am (CNA).
Pope Francis Wednesday published a message on St. Francis de Sales, a saint who teaches us that “devotion [to God] is meant for everyone, in every situation.”
The pope’s apostolic letter, titled Totum amoris est, or “Everything Pertains to Love,” was published on Dec. 28, the 400th anniversary of St. Francis de Sales’ death in 1622.
The title comes from the preface of the Swiss saint’s book “Treatise on the Love of God,” in which he wrote that “In Holy Church, everything pertains to love, lives in love, is done for love and comes from love.”
St. Francis de Sales was a priest and bishop who taught against Protestant heresies and encouraged holiness in all people, no matter their vocation. He is known for his spiritual writings, including two books that are still widely read today: “An Introduction to the Devout Life” and “Treatise on the Love of God.” In 1877, he was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church.
“On this anniversary of the fourth centenary of his death, I have given much thought to the legacy of Saint Francis de Sales for our time,” Pope Francis said in his apostolic letter. “I find that his flexibility and his far-sighted vision have much to say to us.”
“Today he bids us set aside undue concern for ourselves, for our structures and for what society thinks about us, and consider instead the real spiritual needs and expectations of our people,” the pope noted.
Saint Francis de Sales, painted by Francisco Bayeu y Subías. Wikimedia (CC0)
Commenting on St. Francis de Sales’ teachings, Pope Francis said “devotion is meant for everyone, in every situation, and each of us can practice it in accordance with our own vocation.”
“As Saint Paul VI wrote on the fourth centenary of the birth of Francis de Sales, ‘Holiness is not the prerogative of any one group, but an urgent summons addressed to every Christian: “Friend, come up higher” (Lk 14:10). All of us are called to ascend the mountain of God, albeit not each by the same path.’”
“Devotion,” Paul VI said, quoting St. Francis, “must be practiced differently by the gentleman, the craftsman, the chamberlain, the prince, the widow, the young woman, the wife. Moreover, the practice of devotion must be adapted to the abilities, affairs and duties of each.”
False Devotion
In his letter, Pope Francis reflected on what St. Francis de Sales called “false devotion” and its relevance for our spiritual lives today.
Saint Francis de Sales. Kelson / Wikimedia (CC0)
“Francis’ description of false devotion is delightful and ever timely. Everyone can relate to it, since he salts it with good humor,” the pope explained.
De Sales wrote: “Someone attached to fasting will consider himself devout because he doesn’t eat, even though his heart is filled with bitterness; and while, out of love for sobriety, he will not let a drop of wine, or even water, touch his tongue, he will not scruple to drench it in the blood of his neighbor through gossip and slander. Another will consider himself devout because all day long he mumbles a string of prayers, yet remains heedless of the evil, arrogant and hurtful words that his tongue hurls at his servants and neighbors. Yet another will readily open his purse to give alms to the poor, but cannot wring an ounce of mercy from his heart in order to forgive his enemies. Another still will pardon his enemies, yet never even think of paying his debts; it will take a lawsuit to make him do so.”
“All these,” Pope Francis said, “of course, are perennial vices and struggles, and they lead the saint to conclude that ‘all these fine people, commonly considered devout, most surely are not.’”
True Devotion
The pope explained that St. Francis de Sales taught that true devotion, instead, is found in “God’s life dwelling within our hearts.”
“True and lively devotion presupposes the love of God; indeed, it is none other than a genuine, and not generic, love of God,” the saint said.
Saint Francis de Sales giving Saint Jeanne de Chantal the rule of the order of the Visitation /. null
Pope Francis said: “In Francis’ lively language, devotion is ‘a sort of spiritual alertness and energy whereby charity acts within us or, we act by means of it, with promptness and affection.’ For this reason, devotion does not exist alongside charity, but is one of its manifestations, while at the same time leading back to it.”
“Devotion is like a flame with regard to fire: it increases the intensity of charity without altering its quality,” the pope said, adding a quote from St. Francis de Sales, who said: “Charity is a spiritual fire that, when fanned into flame, is called devotion. Devotion thus adds nothing to the fire of charity but the flame that makes charity prompt, active and diligent, not only in the observance of God’s commandments but also in the exercise of his divine counsels and inspirations.”
“Understood in this way, devotion is far from something abstract,” the pope said. “Rather, it becomes a style of life, a way of living immersed in our concrete daily existence. It embraces and discovers meaning in the little things: food and dress, work and relaxation, love and parenthood, conscientiousness in the fulfillment of our duties. In a word, it sheds light on the vocation of each individual.”
Love
Pope Francis also reflected on St. Francis de Sales’ teachings on love as “the first act and principle of our devout or spiritual life.”
Mosaic of Sales on the exterior of St. Francis de Sales Oratory in St. Louis, Missouri. RickMorais / Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
“The source of this love that attracts the heart is the life of Jesus Christ,” he explained. “‘Nothing sways the human heart as much as love,’ and this is most evident in the fact that ‘Jesus Christ died for us; he gave us life through his death. We live only because he died, and died for us, as ours and in us.’”
“These words are profoundly moving; they reveal not only a clear and insightful understanding of the relationship between God and humanity, but also the deep bond of affection between Francis de Sales and the Lord Jesus,” the pope said. “The ecstasy of life and action is no abstract reality, but shines forth in the charity of Christ that culminates on the cross. That love, far from mortifying our existence, makes it radiate with extraordinary brightness.”
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