Pope Francis: ‘The beatitudes always bring joy’

January 29, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 3 Print

Vatican City, Jan 29, 2020 / 04:45 am (CNA).- The beatitudes should be a defining feature of a Christian’s identity because they reveal the way that Jesus lived his life, Pope Francis said Wednesday.

“The beatitudes always bring joy; they are the way to joy,” Pope Francis said Jan. 29.

“It will do us good to take the Gospel of Matthew today, chapter five verses one to eleven, and read the beatitudes — perhaps a few more times during the week — to understand this road so beautiful, so sure of the happiness that the Lord offers us,” he said in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.

Pope Francis said that the beatitudes should be considered “a Christian’s identity card”  because they reveal “the face of Jesus himself.”

“There are eight beatitudes,” he said. “It would be nice to learn them by heart to repeat them, to have precisely in mind and heart, this law that Jesus gave us.”

Pope Francis began a new series of catechesis on the eight beatitudes from Matthew’s Gospel. In this series, the pope will reflect on one beatitude per week over the next two months in his Wednesday general audiences.

The pope said that the beatitudes are a message for all of humanity. 

“It's hard not to be touched by these words of Jesus, and it is a just desire to want to understand them and to welcome them more fully,” he said.

Francis clarified that the beatitudes bring one the true joy of being “blessed,” which is different from worldly happiness.

“It is the Easter joy,” the pope said.

In giving himself to us, God often chooses “unthinkable paths” that test our limits, bringing tears or defeat, the pope said. It is the joy of one who "has the stigmata, but is alive, one who has died to himself and experienced the power of God.”

“But what does the word 'blessed' mean? The original Greek term makarios does not indicate one who has a full belly or is doing well, but is a person who is in a condition of grace, who progresses in the grace of God,” he said.

The pope noted that Jesus taught the Beatitudes as a part of his “Sermon on the Mount,” adding that the mountain is an allusion to Sinai, where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments.

“Jesus begins to teach a new law: to be poor, to be meek, to be merciful. These 'new commandments' are much more than norms. In fact, Jesus does not impose anything, but reveals the way of happiness,” Pope Francis said.

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Pope Francis in Hiroshima: ‘Never again war’

November 24, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Hiroshima, Japan, Nov 24, 2019 / 05:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis prayed for peace Sunday at the site of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, where he called for an end to war and the threat of nuclear weapons.

“How can we propose peace if we constantly invoke the threat of nuclear war as a legitimate recourse for the resolution of conflicts?” Pope Francis said Nov. 24 in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park.

“May the abyss of pain endured here remind us of boundaries that must never be crossed. A true peace can only be an unarmed peace,” the pope said.

On August 6, 1945 American armed forces dropped a uranium atomic bomb dubbed “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan killing an estimated 80,000 people instantly.

More than 90% of Hiroshima’s buildings were destroyed by the blast. By the end of 1945, the death toll rose to 140,000 with people developing intestinal bleeding and leukemia from the residual radiation that followed.

“In a single plea to God and to all men and women of good will, on behalf of all the victims of atomic bombings and experiments, and of all conflicts, let us together cry out: Never again war, never again the clash of arms, never again so much suffering,” Pope Francis said after a moment of silence for the victims of Hiroshima.

“Indeed, if we really want to build a more just and secure society, we must let the weapons fall from our hands,” he said.

Pope Francis quoted Gaudium et Spes, which states that “peace is not merely the absence of war … but must be built of ceaselessly.” He added that the lessons of history show that peace is the fruit of justice, development, solidarity, care for our common home, and promotion of the common good.

“I am convinced that peace is no more than an empty word unless it is founded on truth, built up in justice, animated and perfected by charity, and attained in freedom,” he said.

Within a week of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the Japan announced its unconditional surrender brining World War II to a close on August 15, 1945.

Peace Memorial Park, located on the epicenter of the atomic explosion, opened ten years after the bombing. The Japanese parliament named Hiroshima a “city of peace” in 1949.

“I felt a duty to come here as a pilgrim of peace, to stand in silent prayer, to recall the innocent victims of such violence, and to bear in my heart the prayers and yearnings of the men and women of our time, especially the young, who long for peace, who work for peace and who sacrifice themselves for peace,” Pope Francis said.

“With deep conviction I wish once more to declare that the use of atomic energy for purposes of war is today, more than ever, a crime not only against the dignity of human beings but against any possible future for our common home,” he said.

The pope repeated: “The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possession of atomic weapons is immoral, as I said two years ago. We will be judged on this.”

Earlier on Sunday, Pope Francis visited the site of the atomic bombing in Nagasaki where he denounced the ‘unspeakable horror’ of nuclear weapons

“The Catholic Church is irrevocably committed to promoting peace between peoples and nations,” the pope said in Nagasaki.

“Peace and international stability,” he stated, “are incompatible with attempts to build upon the fear of mutual destruction or the threat of total annihilation.”

Twenty survivors of the Hiroshima bombing attended the ceremony. Among them was Kojí Hosokawa, who was less than one mile from the epicenter of the bombing and the only survivor in his building. He is now 91 years old.

“Although there is little time left for me, I believe that passing on the experience of Hiroshima to
the next generation is the final mission assigned to us A-bomb survivors,” she shared at the pope’s peace meeting.

Pope Francis addressed the survivors in Hiroshima: “Here I pay homage to all the victims, and I bow before the strength and dignity of those who, having survived those first moments, for years afterward bore in the flesh immense suffering, and in their spirit seeds of death that drained their vital energy.”

“We cannot allow present and future generations to lose the memory of what happened here,” Pope Francis said.

[…]

3 Comments

  1. “Jesus begins to teach a new law: to be poor, to be meek, to be merciful.”

    Jesus The Christ, fulfills The Law.

    Jesus Fulfills the Law

    “17Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled. 19He therefore that shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But he that shall do and teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

    Christ Has Revealed, Through His Life, His Passion, And His Death On The Cross, That No Greater Love Is There Than This, To Desire Salvation For One’s Beloved.

    Reply

  2. We are heartened to read: “that the beatitudes should be considered ‘a Christian’s identity card’ because they reveal ‘the face of Jesus himself.’ […] The pope noted that Jesus taught the Beatitudes as a part of his ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ adding that the mountain is an allusion to Sinai, where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments.”

    But, then, we also read from Pope Francis: “Jesus begins to teach a new law: to be poor, to be meek, to be merciful. These ‘new commandments’ are much more than norms. In fact, Jesus does not impose anything, but reveals the way of happiness.”

    Now, very hypothetically but possibly to clarify, in what instances, exactly, might the latter and “much-more-than-norms” Beatitudes possibly replace the earlier (and imposed?) commandments on Sinai? (As also proposed in one early outline, then rejected, for the new Catechism of the Catholic Church.)
    In 1993, and with explicit clarity, Pope John Paul II already presented the Beatitudes as Christ’s “self-portrait…”

    “These latter [the Beatitudes] are above all PROMISES, from which there also indirectly flow NORMATIVE [!] INDICATIONS for the moral life. In their originality and profundity they are a sort of SELF-PORTRAIT OF CHRIST […]” Also, “…THERE IS NO SEPARATION OR OPPOSITION between the Beatitudes and the commandments: both refer to the good, to eternal life” (Veritatis Splendor, 16, CAPS shown as italics in the original).

    Should the reader now wait to see (?), if between the lines and in strategic omissions, Pope Francis’ new and co-authored book on St. John Paul II conjures Marc Antony as well as Pachamama: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

    Reply

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