Pope Francis meets members of the Pauline Family in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall, Nov. 25, 2021. / Vatican Media.
Vatican City, Nov 25, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis urged members of the Pauline Family on Thursday to remember that prayer is “the most important means of communication.”
The papal audience in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall marked the 50th anniversary of the death of the group’s founder, Bl. James Alberione, who sought to spread the Gospel through modern media.
Vatican Media.
“Fifty years after his birth into heaven, the celebrations for your founder offer you the opportunity to recognize even better the prophetic value of his witness,” the pope said.
“Following his example and through his intercession, you too choose the media as your ‘pulpit,’ so that, as he himself said, you may make Jesus Christ known to the people of our time by the means of our time.”
“I thank you for your commitment and, above all, pray. Do not forget prayer. It is the most important means of communication: communicate there,” the pope said, pointing heavenwards.
He added: “If I communicate with the whole world and not with the Lord, it does not work. Work and prayer, so that God’s holy people may feed more and more on the Word of God.”
Pope Francis recalled his predecessor Paul VI’s description of Alberione when he conferred an award on him in 1969.
The Italian pope said: “There he is: humble, silent, tireless, always vigilant, recollected in his thoughts, which run from prayer to action; always intent on scrutinizing the ‘signs of the times,’ that is, the most creative ways to reach souls.”
Vatican Media.
Paul VI visited Alberione shortly before the priest’s death on Nov. 26, 1971, kneeling by his bedside, praying and offering his blessing.
The 50th anniversary of Alberione’s death is being marked by events throughout November in Rome.
The Pauline Family is composed of five religious congregations, four secular institutes, and a lay association.
Pope Francis praised the organization’s many apostolates. But he also encouraged its members to keep in face-to-face contact with people.
“Technological development has indeed led the entire ecclesial community to take on the modern tools of communication as elements of ordinary pastoral care,” he said.
“Nevertheless, your presence is still necessary today — indeed, I would say increasingly so — animated by your own charism and enriched by the experience of working ‘in the field.’ This is decisive.”
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Pope Francis at the general audience at St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 18, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Oct 18, 2023 / 09:57 am (CNA).
Pope Francis drew upon the example of St. Charles de Foucauld during his general audience Wednesday in his ongoing catechesis on apostolic zeal to stress the importance of centering our lives on Jesus.
At the end of his remarks at his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 18, the pope called for peace in the Middle East and announced that Oct. 27 has been designated as a day of prayer and fasting.
Before the assembled faithful, the pope said the “first step” for evangelization and conversion is putting “Jesus at the center of one’s heart.”
The pope, however, admonished that “we risk talking about ourselves, our group, a morality, or, even worse, a set of rules, but not about Jesus, his love, his mercy.”
He added, in unscripted remarks: “I see this in some new movements that are arising: They talk about their vision of humanity, they talk about their spirituality and they feel they are on a new path… But why don’t you talk about Jesus? They talk about many things, about organization, about spiritual paths, but they don’t know how to talk about Jesus.”
Pope Francis presides over his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Oct. 18, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media
Epitomizing this love for the Eucharist was St. Charles de Foucauld, who was canonized by Pope Francis in 2022. Born in 1858, he dedicated his life to missionary work in the Sahara, living and working among the Tuareg people (a subgroup of Berber people).
After serving in the French cavalry, he went on to become a Trappist, going to serve the poor in Syria, an experience that had a profound impact on him and helped define his understanding of poverty. He later discerned out of the Trappists and went to Palestine, where he went to live close to the Poor Clares.
“It is in Nazareth that he realizes he must be formed in the school of Christ. He experiences an intense relationship with him, spends long hours reading the Gospels, and feels like his little brother. And as he gets to know Jesus, the desire to make Jesus known arises in him,” the pope said.
It was this time in Palestine that provided him with the inspiration to write his prolific works, including “Letters from the Desert,” “Hope in the Gospels,” and “Meditations of a Hermit.” These writings became the essence of his spiritual legacy, inspiring the formation of numerous future religious congregations. He was assassinated in 1916 at his hermitage in Tamanghasset in southern Algeria after being kidnapped by an armed tribal group associated with the Senussi Bedouins.
Pope Francis closed his 2020 encyclical on fraternity and social action Fratelli Tutti with a reflection on the saint, writing: “Blessed Charles directed his ideal of total surrender to God towards an identification with the poor, abandoned in the depths of the African desert. In that setting, he expressed his desire to feel himself a brother to every human being, and asked a friend to ‘pray to God that I truly be the brother of all.’ He wanted to be, in the end, ‘the universal brother.’ Yet only by identifying with the least did he come at last to be the brother of all. May God inspire that dream in each one of us.”
Pope Francis greets pilgrims at his general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Oct. 18, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media
Pope Francis, in today’s catechism, noted that while de Foucauld lived “a youth far from God” he converted “by accepting the grace of God’s forgiveness in confession.” He was someone who “drawing upon his intense experience of God, made a journey of transformation towards feeling a brother to all,” the pope said, quoting Fratelli Tutti.
In contrast to the life of de Foucauld, the pope lamented the loss of Eucharistic devotion today. “I am convinced that we have lost the sense of adoration; we must take it up again, starting with us consecrated people, the bishops, the priests, the nuns, and all the consecrated people. ‘Wasting’ time in front of the tabernacle, to take up again the sense of adoration,” the pope said in an unscripted remark.
The pope presented the life of de Foucauld as an antidote to this tendency, saying that we “by kneeling and welcoming the action of the Spirit, who always inspires new ways to engage, meet, listen and dialogue, always in collaboration and trust, always in communion with the Church and pastors.”
“Every Christian is an apostle,” the pope said, quoting de Foucauld. In this way, he continued, “Charles foreshadows the times of Vatican Council II. He intuits the importance of the laity and understands that the proclamation of the Gospel is up to the entire people of God.”
The Holy Father concluded Wednesday’s general audience by renewing his appeal for peace in the Holy Land. “My thoughts turn to Palestine and Israel. Victims are increasing and the situation in Gaza is desperate. Please do everything possible to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe,” the pope pleaded.
He added: “War does not solve any problem… It increases hatred and multiplies revenge. War erases the future; it erases the future.”
In calling for a day of prayer and fasting , the pope invited members of other faiths to join an interfaith prayer vigil for peace on Oct. 27 at 6 p.m. in St. Peter’s Square.
Washington D.C., Jul 14, 2021 / 18:00 pm (CNA).
The Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton will hold its 40th annual conference later this month, with keynote speakers including the CEO of the Christian satirical web… […]
Pope Francis greets pilgrims at the Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 22, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Jun 3, 2023 / 05:30 am (CNA).
The Vatican announced Saturday that Pope Francis will visit Mongolia, the world’s most sparsely populated sovereign country.
The pope is set to travel to Mongolia from Aug. 31 to Sept. 4. The trip will make Pope Francis the first pope to visit the Asian country that shares a 2,880-mile border with China, its most significant economic partner.
Mongolia has a population of about 1,300 Catholics in a country of more than 3 million people.
The first modern mission to Mongolia was in 1922 and was entrusted to the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But under a communist government, religious expression was soon thereafter suppressed, until 1992. Mongolia’s first native priest was ordained in 2016.
Roughly the size of Alaska, Mongolia has five people per square mile. About 30% of its population is nomadic or semi-nomadic. Bordering Russia to the north and China to the south, Mongolia is also the second-largest landlocked country in the world with the vast Gobi Desert covering one-third of its territory.
Pope Francis will also travel to Lisbon, Portugal, for World Youth Day this August with a visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.
The pope is also expected to travel to Marseille to preside over a Mass on Sept. 23 as part of a meeting of Mediterranean bishops in the port city in southern France.
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