Vatican City, Jun 29, 2019 / 07:35 am (CNA).- The Catholic Church is Christ’s beloved bride, Pope Francis said Saturday on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul.
“To the Lord we are not a group of believers or a religious organization, we are His bride. He looks at His Church with tenderness, He loves it with absolute fidelity, despite our mistakes and betrayals,” Pope Francis said June 29.
In his Angelus address for the feast of the patron saints of Rome, Pope Francis reflected on Christ’s words to St. Peter, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.”
“Like that day to Peter, today He says to all of us: ‘my Church, you are my Church,’” the pope said. “And we too can repeat it: my Church.”
“Today, through the intercession of the Apostles, we ask for the grace to love our Church,” Pope Francis said.
“We ask for the strength to pray for those who do not think like us,” he added.
Saints Peter and Paul were very different, Pope Francis explained: “a fisherman and a Pharisee with different life experiences, characters, ways of doing things, and very different sensibilities.”
“But what united them was infinitely greater: Jesus was the Lord of both. Together they said ‘my Lord’ to Him who says ‘my Church,’” the pope said.
“Brothers in faith, they invite us to rediscover the joy of being brothers and sisters in the Church,” he said. “How nice it is to know that we belong to each other, because we share the same faith, the same love, the same hope, the same Lord.”
Pope Francis said that the feast of Saints Peter and Paul invites each Catholic to say, “Thank you, Lord, for that person who is different than me: it is a gift for my Church.”
“It is good to appreciate the qualities of others, to recognize the gifts of others without malice and without envy,” he said. “Envy causes bitterness inside, it is vinegar on the heart.”
The pope recommended praying for the intercession of the two saints for “a heart that knows how to welcome others with the tender love that Jesus has for us.”
As early as the year 258, there is evidence of an already lengthy tradition of celebrating the solemnities of both Saint Peter and Saint Paul on the same day. Together, the two saints are the founders of the See of Rome, through their preaching, ministry and martyrdom.
In a sermon in the year 395, St. Augustine of Hippo said of Sts. Peter and Paul: “Both apostles share the same feast day, for these two were one; and even though they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, and Paul followed. And so we celebrate this day made holy for us by the apostles’ blood. Let us embrace what they believed, their life, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith.”
“I ask you, please, say a prayer for me through the intercession of Saints Peter and Paul,” Pope Francis said.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Pope Francis at the general audience in St. Peter’s Square on June 28, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, Jul 5, 2023 / 04:02 am (CNA).
The Vatican announced Wednesday the creation of a commission to research and catalog the stories of Christian martyrs from the third millennium.
In a letter published July 5, Pope Francis said he has established the “Commission of New Martyrs — Witnesses of the Faith” within the Dicastery for the Causes of the Saints.
The commission’s task will be to create an archive of the lives of Christian martyrs, both Catholic and non-Catholic, killed in the last quarter century, the pope said.
Pope Francis noted that he is not modifying canon law on the formal recognition of martyrdom in the Catholic Church, but wants the testimonies of those killed for being Christian to stand “side by side with the martyrs officially recognized by the Church…”
“As I have said many times,” he wrote, “the martyrs ‘are more numerous in our time than in the early centuries:’ they are bishops, priests, consecrated men and women, lay people and families, who in the different countries of the world, with the gift of their lives, have offered the supreme proof of charity.”
The pope said he created the commission in light of the Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year, which will focus on the theme of hope.
“Hope keeps alive the deep conviction that good is stronger than evil because God in Christ has overcome sin and death,” he said.
Francis also recalled that St. Pope John Paul II had formed a similar commission on new martyrs for the Great Jubilee 2000.
The earlier commission, which received 13,000 testimonies of men and women who gave their lives for Christ in the 20th century, shared some of the stories during an ecumenical prayer service in the Colosseum on May 7, 2000.
Pope Francis said the 2025 Jubilee Year will include a similar event in order to remember what he has called the “ecumenism of blood.”
“Even in our time, in which we are witnessing a change of epoch, Christians continue to show, in contexts of great risk, the vitality of Baptism that unites us,” the pope said.
He noted that some Christians, though aware of the danger to their lives, have yet publicly lived their faith and participated in the Sunday liturgy; others have been killed while performing works of charity to the poor; and still others have been “silent victims,” losing their lives in violent upheavals.
“To all of them we owe a great debt and cannot forget them,” he emphasized.
The pope referenced St. John Paul II’s 1994 apostolic letter, Tertio Millennio Adveniente, which said that “everything must be done so that the legacy of the cloud of ‘unknown soldiers of the great cause of God’ is not lost.”
“In a world in which it sometimes seems that evil prevails, I am certain,” he said, “that the elaboration of this catalog, also in the context of the now upcoming Jubilee, will help believers to also read our time in the light of Easter, drawing from the treasure chest of such generous faithfulness to Christ the reasons for life and goodness.”
Pope Francis waves to crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square on June 19, 2022, on Corpus Christi Sunday. / Vatican Media
Denver Newsroom, Jun 19, 2022 / 09:56 am (CNA).
The Feast of Corpus Christi is a time for Christians to remember that God will meet their basic needs to eat and to be filled with the joy and amazement of receiving loving nourishment from Jesus Christ, Pope Francis said Sunday.
At the same time, the pope emphasized, the Eucharist must also move Christians to action.
“We can evaluate our Eucharistic Adoration when we take care of our neighbor like Jesus does,” the pope said Sunday before the recitation of the Angelus at St. Peter’s Square in Rome.
“There is hunger for food around us, but also for companionship; there is hunger for consolation, friendship, good humor; there is hunger for attention, there is hunger to be evangelized. We find this in the Eucharistic Bread — the attention of Christ to our needs and the invitation to do the same toward those who are beside us. We need to eat and feed others.”
The pope’s remarks reflected on Sunday’s Gospel reading, the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes from the Gospel of Luke.
The pope linked the reading to the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. The Eucharist was like “the destination of a journey along which Jesus had prefigured through several signs, above all the multiplication of the loaves narrated in the Gospel of today’s liturgy.”
The pontiff reflected on the manner of the miracle when Jesus fed so many who lacked food.
“The miracle of the loaves and fishes does not happen in a spectacular way, but almost secretly, like the wedding at Cana — the bread increases as it passes from hand to hand. And as the crowd eats, they realize that Jesus is taking care of everything,” said Pope Francis.
“This is the Lord present in the Eucharist. He calls us to be citizens of Heaven, but at the same time he takes into account the journey we have to face here on earth,” he said. “If I have hardly any bread in my sack, he knows and takes care of it himself.”
The pope connected the tangible needs of food with the intangible needs of humankind.
“Sometimes there is the risk of confining the Eucharist to a vague, distant dimension, perhaps bright and perfumed with incense, but rather distant from the straits of everyday life. In reality, the Lord takes all our needs to heart, beginning with the most basic,” he said.
“In the Eucharist, everyone can experience this loving and concrete attention of the Lord. Those who receive the Body and Blood of Christ with faith not only eat, but are satisfied. To eat and to be satisfied: These are two basic necessities that are satisfied in the Eucharist,” he added. “The crowd is satisfied because of the abundance of food and also because of the joy and amazement of having received it from Jesus!”
Jesus Christ’s self-giving presence is key to understanding the Eucharist, the pope said.
“We certainly need to nourish ourselves, but we also need to be satisfied, to know that the nourishment is given to us out of love. In the Body and Blood of Christ, we find his presence, his life given for each of us. He not only gives us help to go forward, but he gives us himself — he makes himself our traveling companion, he enters into our affairs, he visits us when we are lonely, giving us back a sense of enthusiasm.”
“This satisfies us, when the Lord gives meaning to our life, our obscurities, our doubts; he sees the meaning, and this meaning that the Lord gives satisfies us,” the pope explained. Everyone is looking for the presence of the Lord, because “in the warmth of his presence, our lives change,” the pope added.
“Without him, everything would truly be gray,” he said. “Adoring the Body and Blood of Christ, let us ask him with our heart: ‘Lord, give me that daily bread to go forward, Lord, satisfy me with your presence!’”
The pope also prayed that the Virgin Mary may teach us “how to adore Jesus, living in the Eucharist and to share him with our brothers and sisters.”
Statements on Spanish martyrs, Ukraine war
After the Angelus, the pope discussed the Saturday beatification of Dominican religious who were killed in the Spanish Civil War.
“They were all killed in hatred of the faith in the religious persecution that took place in Spain in the context of the civil war of the last century,” the pope said, calling for applause for them. “Their witness of adherence to Christ and forgiveness for their killers show us the way to holiness and encourage us to make their lives an offering of love to God and their brothers and sisters.”
The conflict of Ukraine after the Russian invasion also was a point for prayer, the pope said: “Let us not forget the suffering of the Ukrainian people in this moment, a people who are suffering.”
“I would like you all to keep in mind a question: What am I doing today for the Ukrainian people? Do I pray? Am I doing something? Am I trying to understand? What am I doing today for the Ukrainian people? Each one of you, answer in your own heart,” he asked.
Prayers for Myanmar, World Meeting of Families
Pope Francis also lamented the violence in Myanmar, which has forced many to flee their homes and blocked them from meeting basic needs.
“I join the appeal of the bishops of that beloved land, that the international community does not forget the Burmese people, that human dignity and the right to life be respected, as well as places of worship, hospitals, and schools. And I bless the Burmese community in Italy, represented here today,” he said.
In early 2021 the Myanmar military seized power in the country. Its crackdown on opponents provoked a violent backlash. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has said the conflict has displaced more than 800,000 people from their homes. Of these, 250,000 are children.
Pope Francis also noted that the 10th World Meeting of Families will begin June 22 in Rome and throughout the world. Around 2,000 Catholic families will gather in Rome this week to meet Pope Francis and hear talks on marriage and the faith.
“I thank the bishops, parish priests, and family pastoral workers who have called families to moments of reflection, celebration and festivity,” he said. “Above all, I thank the married couples and families who will bear witness to family love as a vocation and way to holiness. Have a good meeting!”
Christ is the Alpha and the Omega in the Catholic Church.