Vatican City, Sep 21, 2019 / 10:59 am (CNA).- No one is lost to Jesus, neither should they be considered lost to the Church and her members, Pope Francis told Catholics in Albano Laziale Saturday.
The pope reflected on the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector, whom Jesus remembered, sought out, and invited to dine with him.
“If we avoid those who seem lost to us, we are not of Jesus,” he said Sept. 21. “We ask for the grace to meet everyone as a brother and not to see anyone as an enemy.”
“How wonderful it would be if our neighbors and acquaintances felt the Church is their home!” he added, speaking during Mass at the Cathedral of St. Pancras in Albano Laziale, a town just south of Rome on Lake Albano.
The pope visited the cathedral to mark its 159th anniversary of elevation to a minor basilica by Pope Pius IX in September 1865.
In his homily, Pope Francis said it is an easy temptation to close one’s circle, to become an elite group, “but there are so many brothers and sisters who are homesick, who do not have the courage to approach, perhaps because they have not felt welcomed.”
“The Lord wants his Church to be a home among houses, a hospitable tent where every man, a wayfarer of life, meets Him who has come to dwell among us,” he said.
“We give freely, we love the poor and those who cannot repay us,” Francis urged, then “we will be rich in the eyes of God.”
He explained that Zacchaeus was probably hated by the people, “in their eyes, Zacchaeus was the worst…” He added: “But not in the eyes of Jesus, who calls him by his own name, Zacchaeus, which means ‘God remembers.’ In the forgotten city, God remembers the greatest sinner.”
And “the Lord first of all remembers us,” the pope went on. “He does not forget us, he does not lose sight of us despite the obstacles that can keep us away from him. No obstacle makes Jesus forget the essential, the man to love and save.”
“Like Jesus, do not be afraid to ‘cross’ your city, to go to those who are most forgotten, to those who are hidden behind the branches of shame, of fear, of loneliness, to tell them: ‘God remembers you,’” he urged.
Pope Francis also emphasized that Jesus should be the priority. As the Church, he said, let us ask ourselves if Jesus or our own structures and agendas come first.
He advised that, “if like Zacchaeus you are looking for a meaning to life but, not finding it, [and] you are throwing yourself away with ‘surrogates of love,’ such as riches, career, pleasure, some addiction, let yourself be looked at by Jesus.”
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Pope Francis embraces a man in a wheelchair at the Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square on June 10, 2015. / L’Osservatore Romano.
Vatican City, Nov 25, 2021 / 10:00 am (CNA).
In his message for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Pope Francis said that the Catholic Church needs the participation of everyone, and the disabled must not be excluded from the sacraments.
“As we celebrate your International Day, I would like to speak directly to all of you who live with any condition of disability, to tell you that the Church loves you and needs each of you for the fulfillment of her mission at the service of the Gospel,” the pope said on Nov. 25.
Quoting his 2013 exhortationEvangelii gaudium, he said: “The worst form of discrimination … is the lack of spiritual care.”
“Sometimes, as certain of you have unfortunately experienced, this has taken the form of denying access to the sacraments,” he said in his message.
“The Church’s magisterium is very clear in this area, and recently the Directory for Catechesis stated explicitly that ‘no one can deny the sacraments to persons with disabilities.’”
The theme of Pope Francis’ message for the day is friendship with Jesus, which he said is “an undeserved gift” that all have received and that can help those experiencing discrimination.
Friendship with Christ “redeems us and enables us to perceive differences as a treasure. For Jesus does not call us servants, women and men of lesser dignity, but friends: confidants worthy of knowing all that he has received from the Father,” he said.
Antonietta Pantone, 31, a Rome resident who uses a wheelchair, told journalists it was clear to her from the pope’s message that he considers it important that people with disabilities be part of the Church and not leave the Church.
She shared her personal journey of faith, which included finding a community in the Christian disability group Fede e Luce.
Pope Francis meets with Foi et Lumière members on Oct. 2, 2021. Vatican Media/CNA
Fede e Luce is the Italian branch of the French association Foi et Lumière (known as Faith and Light in the English-speaking world), which began 50 years ago with a pilgrimage for people with disabilities to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France. The movement has now expanded to five continents.
“I always say: In the eyes of God, we are all equal,” Pantone said, noting that in her journey of faith, friendship has been fundamental.
Friendship with others “demonstrates the closeness of God,” she said.
Pantone also explained how losing physical contact with friends because of the COVID-19 pandemic has been very hard for her and other disabled people, especially her friends who live in residences and not with family.
In his message, Pope Francis addressed the difficulty of the coronavirus outbreak for the disabled.
“I think, for example, of your being forced to stay at home for long periods of time; the difficulty experienced by many students with disabilities in accessing aids to distance learning; the lengthy interruption of social care services in a good number of countries; and many other hardships that you have had to face,” he wrote.
He mentioned in particular those who live in residential facilities, separated from loved ones. “In those places, the virus hit hard and, despite the dedication of caretakers, it has taken all too many lives,” he said.
He also emphasized the importance of confronting these challenges by finding consolation in prayer and friendship with Jesus.
“I would like to speak personally to each of you, and I ask that, if necessary, your family members or those closest to you read my words to you, or convey my appeal,” he said. “I ask you to pray. The Lord listens attentively to the prayers of those who trust in him.”
“Prayer is a mission, a mission accessible to everyone, and I would like to entrust that mission in a particular way to you. There is no one so frail that he or she cannot pray, worship the Lord, give glory to his holy Name, and intercede for the salvation of the world. In the sight of the Almighty, we come to realize that we are all equal,” he stressed.
Pope Francis also noted the continued presence of discrimination, ignorance, and prejudice at all levels of society, assuring people with disabilities that through baptism they are “a full-fledged member of the Church community, so that all of us, without exclusion or discrimination, can say: “I am Church!’”
“The Church is truly your home!” he said.
At a Nov. 25 press conference, Fr. Alexandre Awi Mello said that the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life is trying to do more to improve pastoral care for those with disabilities.
“This message, in recognizing that people with disabilities have their place in the holy faithful People of God, is a great invitation, for us in the dicastery, but above all for parish, diocesan and associative realities to take new paths with pastoral creativity,” Awi Mello said.
Fr. Alexandre Awi Mello, secretary of the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life, speaks at a Vatican press conference, May 18, 2021. Gianluca Teseo/CNA.
“It is a door that opens to think of pastoral care no longer for, but with…”
On Dec. 6, the dicastery will launch a video campaign with the hashtag #IamChurch. In five videos, Catholics with disabilities from different parts of the world will share about their experiences in the Church.
Pantone, who participated in one of the Vatican’s videos, told CNA that she would like to see the Catholic Church do more to develop courses that allow people with all kinds of disabilities to participate in parish life, such as formation courses to become a catechism teacher.
“I still had some ways to study [to become a catechist],” she said, “but it depends on the type of disability, so if another disabled person wants to be a catechist, the Church should give him all the appropriate tools.”
Pantone said that the Church can do a lot for the disabled, but the recently begun Synodal Journey “is already a step forward which the world of disability sees positively.”
Pope Francis said in his message that “having Jesus as a friend is an immense consolation. It can turn each of us into a grateful and joyful disciple, one capable of showing that our frailties are no obstacle to living and proclaiming the Gospel.”
“In fact, a trusting and personal friendship with Jesus can serve as the spiritual key to accepting the limitations that all of us have, and thus to be at peace with them,” he said.
Vatican City, Mar 9, 2018 / 12:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- At his annual Lenten penitential service on Friday, Pope Francis said that it is not God who abandons us when we sin, but we who separate ourselves from him by choosing to sin, and that no matter what we do, God never stops loving us.
“We know that the state of sin distances us from God. But in fact, sin is the way that we distance ourselves from him. Yet that does not mean that God distances himself from us,” the Pope said March 9.
“The state of weakness and confusion that results from sin is one more reason for God to remain close to us,” he continued. “The certainty of this should accompany us throughout our lives.”
Pope Francis gave a brief homily during an annual Lenten penitential service in St. Peter’s Basilica. He reflected on a passage from the first letter of John, which speaks about God’s love for his children.
God’s love is greater than anything we can imagine, reaching beyond even the worst sins we find within us, he said.
“His is an infinite love, one that knows no bounds,” he reflected. “The words of the Apostle are a reassuring confirmation that our hearts should trust, always and unhesitatingly, in the Father’s love: ‘No matter what our hearts may charge us with, God is greater than our hearts’ (1 Jn. 3:20).”
Following the homily, Pope Francis led a silent examination of conscience. Then, as in other years, the Pope was the first to go and make his confession to a fellow priest before hearing the confessions of several others.
Other priests were also available throughout the basilica to hear individual confessions.
The penitential service also marked the beginning of the “24 Hours for the Lord” initiative held yearly on the fourth Friday and Saturday of Lent.
Led by Pope Francis, “24 Hours for the Lord” is a worldwide initiative that points to confession as a primary way to experience God’s merciful embrace. It was launched in 2014 under the auspices of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization.
The event gives Catholics an opportunity to go to confession and take part in Eucharistic adoration at participating churches. This year’s theme is “With you is forgiveness” taken from Psalm 130.
Earlier on March 9, Pope Francis spoke to participants in the Apostolic Penitentiary’s annual course on the internal forum, which is attended primarily by young priests, seminarians, and penitentiary priests specifically appointed to hear confessions and administer penance.
This year, ahead of the Synod of Bishops on youth, the course focused on the relationship between sacramental confession and vocational discernment.
In his speech, Francis noted how young priests have an “advantage – so-to-speak” when it comes to hearing the confessions of other young people, a proximity of age “favors even sacramental dialogue.”
On the other hand, there are limitations and challenges to being at the beginning of their ministry and therefore lacking in the experience of an older confessor, he said.
With these thoughts in mind, he asked, how do we go about listening to sacramental confessions, especially of the young, when it comes to vocational discernment?
“First of all, I would say that it is always necessary to rediscover, as St Thomas Aquinas says, the instrumental dimension of our ministry,” he said. “The priest confessor is not the source of Mercy or of Grace; he is certainly the indispensable tool, but always just an instrument!”
Being intentionally aware of this can help keep priests from becoming what Francis called “masters of consciences” instead of humbly listening to the Holy Spirit. He emphasized that seeing oneself as an instrument is not a lessening of the priest’s role in confession, but “the full realization of [the ministry].”
The Pope also stressed that confessors should listen carefully to any questions before offering answers, and when these two elements come together in sacramental dialogue, it can help to open up the journey of prayer and prudence that is vocational discernment.
Concluding, he encouraged the present and future confessors to be “witnesses of mercy, humble hearers of young people and God’s will for them, always respectful of the conscience and freedom of those who approach the confessional.”
He reminded them to entrust penitents to Mary, “who is the Refuge of sinners and Mother of mercy.”
Vatican City, Feb 14, 2017 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A special invitation to visit Egypt was delivered to Pope Francis by Coptic Catholic bishops during their ad limina visit Feb. 6, during which they also gave a report on the state of the Church in… […]
Good old Zacchaeus inspires hope.