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Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski of Krakow announced on April 14, 2024, the decision to begin the process of beatification and canonization of Helena Agnieszka Kmiec, a young lay missionary murdered in Bolivia in 2017. / Credit: The Helena Kmiec Fo… […]

Pope Francis, pictured in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 14, 2017. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.

Vatican City, Jul 11, 2022 / 05:21 am (CNA).

Pope Francis on Monday invited young people to learn the story of Bl. Franz Jägerstätter, a conscientious objector who was imprisoned and killed for refusing to fight for the Nazis in World War II.

“Despite cajoling and torture, Franz preferred to be killed than to kill. He considered the war totally unjustified. If all the young men called to arms had done as he did, Hitler would not have been able to carry out his diabolical plans. To triumph, evil needs accomplices,” the pope said in a communication published July 11.

Francis’ message was sent to the EU Youth Conference, taking place in Prague, Czech Republic, July 11-13. The theme of the 2022 conference, which is for teens and young adults from the European Union, is “Working Together for a Sustainable and Inclusive Europe.”

The pope invited young people, in light of the war in Ukraine, “to get to know the extraordinary figure of a young objector, a young European with ‘a broad outlook,’” Franz Jägerstätter, who was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007.

“Franz was a young Austrian who, because of his Catholic faith, made a conscientious objection to the injunction to swear allegiance to Hitler and go to war,” Pope Francis said.

He explained that because of his “profound convictions,” when called to fight, Franz refused; “he felt it was unjust to kill innocent lives.”

The husband and father of four girls was eventually executed for his refusal to fight. Pope Francis pointed out that he was killed “in the same prison where his contemporary Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young German Lutheran theologian and anti-Nazi, was also imprisoned and met the same tragic end.”

These two men were killed because they remained faithful to the ideals of their faith, he said.

The pope invited young people “to look upwards and beyond, to keep seeking the real meaning of your life, where you come from and where you are going, and the Truth, because we cannot live authentically if we do not seek the Truth.”

Though Ukraine is not part of the European Union, Francis urged the young adults taking part in the conference to commit themselves to promoting peace and the end of the war.

He said “it is legitimate to rebel” in cases like this, “where, as usual, a few powerful people decide and send thousands of young people to fight and die.”

The pope recalled that someone once said that “if the world were ruled by women, there would not be so many wars, because those who have the mission of giving life cannot make death choices.”

“In a similar vein, I like to think that if the world were ruled by young people, there would not be so many wars,” he added. “Those who have their whole life ahead of them do not want to ruin it and throw it away, but to live it to the full.”

He closed his message by asking young people to be “generous in generating new lives, always and only as the fruit of love.”

“The love of husband and wife, the love of family and children, but also love of Europe, so that it can be for everyone a land of peace, freedom and dignity,” he said.

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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 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.

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.

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