Vatican City, May 15, 2019 / 05:01 am (CNA).- Pope Francis greeted an international group dedicated to Jewish-Catholic dialogue Wednesday, calling dialogue “the way better to understand one another.”
“I offer you my encouragement, for dialogue is the way … to work together in building a climate not only of tolerance but also of respect between religions,” the pope said May 15 in St. Peter’s Square while greeting the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee, which is holding its 24th meeting.
“From the promulgation of Nostra aetate until now, Jewish-Catholic dialogue has borne good fruit” Francis maintained.
He said that “we share a rich spiritual patrimony that can and must be ever more esteemed and appreciated as we grow in mutual understanding, fraternity and shared commitment on behalf of others.”
The pope urged the committee to discuss “timely issues such as our approach to refugees and how best to help them, the fight against the troubling regrowth of anti-Semitism, and concern for the persecution of Christians in various parts of the world.”
“Our strength is the gentle strength of encounter, not of the extremism emerging in certain quarters today, which leads only to conflict,” he reflected. “One never errs in seeking dialogue.”
Francis quoted from Proverbs: “deceit is in the mind of those who plan evil, but those who counsel peace have joy”, and concluded: “I pray that your gathering may be an encounter in peace and for peace. May the blessing of the Most High be with you, grant you the tenacity of gentleness and the courage of patience. Shalom!”
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Pope Francis prayed the Regina Caeli in St. Peter’s Square on April 23, 2023. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Apr 23, 2023 / 05:10 am (CNA).
Pope Francis recommended making an examination of conscience at the end of each day as a way to invite Jesus into the joys and struggles of daily life.
“Indeed, for us to it is important to reread our history together with Jesus: the story of our life, of a certain period, of our days, with its disappointments and hopes,” the pope said April 23.
“There is a good way of doing this, and today I would like to propose it to you: it consists of dedicating time, every evening, to a brief examination of conscience,” he said. “What happened inside of me today? That is the question. It means rereading the day with Jesus.”
Pope Francis addressed around 30,000 people during the Regina Caeli in St. Peter’s Square on April 23, 2023. Vatican Media
Pope Francis addressed a crowd of around 30,000 people on Sunday from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
After his brief message, he prayed the Regina Caeli, a Latin antiphon honoring the Virgin Mary which is usually prayed during the Easter Season.
Francis said making an examination of conscience is a way of “rereading my day, opening the heart, bringing to him people, choices, fears, falls, hopes, and all of the things that took place; to learn gradually to look at things with different eyes, with his eyes and not only our own.”
A nightly examination of conscience is also sometimes known as a daily examen, a part of the spirituality developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola.
The pope spoke about the spiritual practice in the context of the Gospel passage for the Third Sunday of Easter, which recounts Jesus’ appearance to two of his disciples while they were walking from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus.
Pope Francis addressed around 30,000 people during the Regina Caeli in St. Peter’s Square on April 23, 2023. Vatican Media
At first, the disciples did not recognize the resurrected Lord, who asked them to explain what had happened to make them so sad.
Jesus, the pope said, “wants to listen to their account. Then, while they are walking, he helps them reinterpret the facts in a different way, in the light of prophecy, in the light of the Word of God.”
“We too, like those disciples, faced with what happens to us, can find ourselves lost in the face of these events, alone and uncertain, with many questions and worries, disappointments, many things,” he explained.
“Today’s Gospel invites us to tell Jesus everything,” he continued, “sincerely, without worrying about bothering him — he listens — without fear of saying something wrong, without being ashamed of our struggle to understand.”
Pope Francis explained that the Lord is happy when we open ourselves to him, because he wants to accompany us, and to make our hearts burn within us, like happened with the disciples on the road to Emmaus.
By making an examen, we are able to reread our day and life in the light of Christ’s love, he said.
“Even that which seems wearisome and unsuccessful,” he explained, “can appear in another light: a difficult cross to embrace, the decision to forgive an offense, a lost opportunity, the toil of work, the sincerity that comes at a price, and the trials of family life can appear to us in a new light, the light of the Crucified and Risen, who knows how to turn every fall into a step forward.”
But, he added, we have to drop our defenses and leave space for Jesus.
“We can begin today, to dedicate this evening a moment of prayer during which we ask ourselves: how was my day?” he said.
“What joys, what sadnesses, what monotonies, how was it, what happened?” are some of the questions we can ask ourselves, he said, together with “what were its pearls, possibly hidden, to be thankful for? Was there a little love in what I did? And what are the falls, the sadness, the doubts and fears to bring to Jesus so that he can open new ways to me, to lift me up and encourage me?”
“May Mary, wise Virgin, help us to recognize Jesus who walks with us and to reread, ‘reread’ is the word, every day of our life in front of him,” he said.
Vatican City, Jan 12, 2020 / 04:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis baptized 32 babies in the Sistine Chapel Sunday, telling parents not to worry if their children cry at Mass.
“Let the children cry,” the pope said. “It is a beautiful homily … […]
Vatican City, Nov 26, 2018 / 10:14 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a meeting with seminarians Saturday, Pope Francis said it is necessary for priests to maintain an open and filial discussion with their bishop, since he is the unifying figure of the diocese.
“You cannot be a good priest without a filial dialogue with the bishop. This is something non-negotiable,” the pope said in the Vatican’s Consistory Hall.
“As someone likes to say, ‘No, I am an employee of the Church.’ You are wrong,” he continued. “Here there is a bishop, there is not an assembly where the position is negotiated. There is a father who unifies: like Jesus wanted things. A father who unifies.”
Pope Francis set aside his prepared speech during a Nov. 24 meeting with seminarians of the Diocese of Agrigento, in order to, he said, “speak a little spontaneously,” on the relationship between a diocesan priest and his bishop.
The bishop “is not the owner of a company;” he is not “the one who commands” while some obey, others pretend to obey, and still others do nothing, Francis said. “No, the bishop is the father, he is fruitful, he is the one who generates the mission.”
He noted that the term “mission” is a loaded one, signifying the will of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, advising seminarians to “learn to see in the bishop the father who was there to help you grow, to move forward and to accompany you in the moments of your apostolate.”
Whether the bishop is there “in beautiful moments, in bad moments,” he said, “but to accompany you always; in moments of success, in the moments of defeat you always have in life… This is something very, very important.”
The pope said the only way this accompaniment can happen, is if priests have a relationship with their bishop; that he knows them as they are, with their own virtues and faults, personalities, and ways of feeling and thinking.
Since it is the bishop who gives the priests of his diocese their parish or other assignment, Pope Francis emphasized the importance of the bishop knowing his priests, so he can make the right choice in the mission he assigns.
But do not meddle in the bishop’s decision, he warned. “Leave the bishop to sort it out: to organize [things] in the Spirit.”
He emphasized that this is not the same as arranging things into an “organizational chart,” though sometimes the Church may use organizational tools for functionality. “But the Church goes beyond the organizational chart, it is another thing: it is life, life ‘sorted’ in the Holy Spirit.”
The pope also made an analogy between the men in formation for the priesthood and the clay pot, which if not right, the potter can reshape or remake – but only before the clay has been baked.
The seminary is a time of training, he explained, and if they have a disagreement about something or do not understand, they should express it appropriately to the rector. “This is important, to say what you feel,” he advised.
This is so that they each can be truly become “a vessel full of grace,” he said, warning that if they “stay silent and do not talk, do not say your difficulties, do not tell your apostolic anxieties and all you want, a silent man, once ‘baked,’ cannot be changed.”
“And all life is like this,” he continued. “It is true that sometimes it is not pleasant for the potter to intervene decisively, but it is for your own good. Let yourself be trained, let yourself be formed.”
Dialogue is the way forward.