Vatican City, May 10, 2020 / 05:30 am (CNA).- We must always remember that we are made for heaven, Pope Francis said in his Regina Coeli address Sunday.
Speaking in the library of the Apostolic Palace due to the coronavirus pandemic, the pope said May 10: “God is in love with us. We are his children. And for us He has prepared the most worthy and beautiful place: paradise.”
“Let us not forget: the dwelling place that awaits us is paradise. Here we are passing through. We are made for heaven, for eternal life, to live forever.”
In his reflection before the Regina Coeli, the pope focused on Sunday’s Gospel reading, John 14:1-12, in which Jesus addresses his disciples at the Last Supper.
He said: “At such a dramatic moment Jesus began by saying: ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.’ He says this to us too in the dramas of life. But how can we make sure that our hearts are not troubled?”
He explained that Jesus offers two remedies for our turmoil. The first is an invitation to us to have faith in him.
“He knows that in life, the worst anxiety, turmoil, comes from the feeling of not being able to cope, from feeling alone and without reference points before what happens,” he said.
“This anxiety, in which difficulty is added to difficulty, cannot be overcome alone. That is why Jesus asks us to have faith in Him, that is, not to lean on ourselves, but on Him. Because liberation from anguish passes through trust.”
The Pope said that Jesus’ second remedy is expressed in his words “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places … I am going to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).
“This is what Jesus did for us: He reserved us a place in heaven,” he said. “He took upon Himself our humanity to take it beyond death, to a new place, in heaven, so that where He is, we might be there also.”
He continued: “Forever: it’s something we can’t even imagine now. But it is even more beautiful to think that this forever will be all in joy, in full communion with God and with others, without any more tears, without rancor, without division and upheaval.”
“But how to reach Paradise? What is the way? Here is the decisive phrase of Jesus. Today he says: ‘I am the way’ [John 14:6]. To ascend to heaven, the way is Jesus: it is to have a living relationship with Him, to imitate Him in love, to follow in His footsteps.”
He urged Christians to ask themselves which way they were following.
“There are ways that do not lead to heaven: the ways of worldliness, the ways of self-assertion, the ways of selfish power,” he said.
“And there is the way of Jesus, the way of humble love, of prayer, of meekness, of trust, of service to others. It is to go ahead every day asking: ‘Jesus, what do you think of my choice? What would you do in this situation, with these people?’”
“It will do us good to ask Jesus, who is the way, the directions for heaven. May Our Lady, Queen of Heaven, help us to follow Jesus, who opened heaven for us.”
After reciting the Regina Coeli, the pope recalled two anniversaries.
The first was the 70th anniversary on May 9 of the Schuman Declaration, which led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community.
“It inspired the process of European integration,” he said, “enabling the reconciliation of the peoples of the continent after the Second World War and the long period of stability and peace from which we benefit today.”
“The spirit of the Schuman Declaration cannot fail to inspire all those with responsibilities in the European Union, called upon to face the social and economic consequences of the pandemic in a spirit of harmony and cooperation.”
The second anniversary was that of St. John Paul’s first visit to Africa 40 years ago. Francis said that on May 10, 1980, the Polish pope “gave voice to the cry of the people of the Sahel, harshly tried by drought.”
He praised an initiative by young people to plant a million trees in the Sahel region, forming a “Great Green Wall” to combat the effects of desertification.
“I hope that many will follow the example of solidarity of these young people,” he said.
The pope also noted that May 10 is Mother’s Day in many countries.
He said: “I want to remember all mothers with gratitude and affection, entrusting them to the protection of Mary, our heavenly Mother. My thoughts also go out to the mothers who have passed to the other life and accompany us from heaven.”
He then called for a moment of silent prayer for mothers.
He concluded: “I wish everyone a good Sunday. Please don’t forget to pray for me. Have a good lunch and goodbye for now.”
Afterwards, he offered his blessing while overlooking an almost empty St. Peter’s Square.
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Pope Leo and everyone else just need to relax. It was an accident. If you doubt that, you’re an anti-Semite.
If you doubt such sarcasm is antisemitic, you’re antisemitic.
WOW, 🤯 that was blunt!!! It’s possible to love the Jews but condemn the State of Israel! And many Jews do it!
Tony W. Arn’t you open to a dissenting opinion?
Because we know that shrapnel never causes collateral damage…
I can assure you that I am not an antisemite and having a missile strike a Catholic church full of innocent people is not acceptable. What kind of people have we become when we can shrug off this type of collateral damage as “an accident.”
Shrapnel does not a missile make.
How many churches were damaged by the allies during WW2? War is heck.
So Netanyahu called Pope Leo, eh?
Would it be too much trouble to let us know what Netanyahu said to him?
Yes, bineyman, it’s reported that a call was made but then tells us nothing of substance. A waste of precious ink.
I wonder why Leo XIV doesn’t ask Netanyahu to send his foreign minister to Castelgondolfo for a meeting with the leader of Hamas to end the ighting? Leo should invite the leader of Hamas.
“Fragments of a projectile”? Looks like a direct hit. The Church is completely destroyed. Well they’ve been itching to get rid of it since the war started. Never mind, There’s probably somebody sheltering there who might say something rude about Tel Aviv in the future. Prevention is better than cure, eh? Come to think of it, there’s probably people in Tierra del Fuego or Timbuctu who might also say rude things. Perhaps they need a few bombs too. Words are so hard to bear. Oh dear.
Yes, it was a direct hit from an explosive (i.e. shrapnel-filled) tank shell.
Israel is employing its usual diabolical sophistry (“the unaimed shrapnel did it!”) to excuse itself.
Diabolical?
If the problem that developed in Nigeria is because of a direct deliberate withholding of intelligence by Israelis, noticing it as it becomes apparent would not be from “hating Israel” or from being a “hate Israel firster”. If the US also has been withholding it doesn’t mean reacting against that is being hateful of the US.
I am skeptical of Israel’s explanation of the attack being an “accident”. They gave the same excuse, when they deliberately and intentionally attacked the USS Liberty and killed our sailors.
Why does the American media give so little coverage to these all
too frequent “mistakes” by the Israeli military forces”?
The Judophobia is strong in this comment section.
Pius XII did say we were all spiritual Semites, but he rejected Zionism, and Tel Aviv’s jurisdiction over Jerusalem, which remain the Church’s positions to this day. The Church began diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv a few decades ago (as did the Palestinians), but only as recognition of a political situation on the ground, not as a Jewish state per se. Catholics (unlike certain evangelical groups) ought to keep to the Church’s official, constant position on this issue; it’s based on faith, not politics. The Church has supported a two state solution (outside Jerusalem) ever since it became an option. The continuation of the war in Gaza for years after Gaza’s foray outside itself was defeated, has only one purpose – to make a two state solution impossible. But a just war does not entitle even an aggrieved party to annihilate another nation by ethnic cleansing.
But the main question the Christian West should be asking is: what about our sacred places? What about the Christians in Palestine? That should be the focus of our tears and anger.
I do not particularly care to embrace the political positions of any pontiff, as they are far outside the realm of his infallibility and are frequently outside the realm of good sense.
(Incidentally, you are thinking of Pius XI, not XII, as the pontiff of “spiritually we are all Semites”.)
In a word, “the Church’s” (really “the Vatican’s”) position on Zionism and the two-state solution and jurisdiction over Jerusalem is not authoritative for Catholics and enjoys all the sense of the Vatican’s position on the United Nations. A two-state solution was feasible eighty years ago and was rejected by the Arabs. The idea that it will work now is pure geopolitical folly. Israel has a better historical claim to Judea and Samaria than it does to the Mediterranean coast, and any Palestinian state would unquestionably be either a state sponsor of terror or ineffective in stopping it.
You parrot the common blood libel of “ethnic cleansing” (and it is blood libel), blissfully ignorant of the requirements of urban warfare and apparently of the large Arab Israeli population.
The war in Gaza is to destroy one of the most notorious terror organizations in the world. It is every bit as jest as the Allied crusade against Nazism or Japanese militarism.
It is furthermore fallacious to claim that the war in Gaza has or will make a two-state solution impossible. Hamas made it impossible by showing what a Palestinian state would do.
Thank you Spiritual Semite for stating the facts of the matter with brevity and clarity. Hamas, by their shocking actions over many years now have clearly demonstrated with hideous clarity that the ‘2 state solution’ is an absolute impossibility. A lot of contributors to this thread need to ask themselves why it is that to this day no Arab state has taken in a single refugee from Gaza.
Good post, Mr. Cervantes, an excellent summary.
There is no ethnic cleansing taking place, and it’s inappropriate to make that false accusation. The Palestinians have consistently rejected a two state solution, so their situation is largely their own doing.
It almost never fails.
Let’s not call it a phobia, but what it is: hatred.
It’s a disorder I believe. Scapegoats provide a rationalization for our failures. It’s easier to blame others for life’s disappointments and our own weaknesses.
I had a family member who ended up like that. Everything wrong with the world became the fault of Jews and immigrants. It’s sad.
I really hope the pope will also urge the release of Israeli civilian hostages.
I stand corrected. Saying a two-state solution is impossible because of the regime in the smaller part of Palestine, Gaza, is Luke saying that a German star was forever impossible because of the Nazi regime. Hamas was defeated is conventional warfare a few weeks into the conflict. That it is still able to conduct guerilla warfare is no teaspn the ethnically cleanse Gaza. If you affirm this, then you affirm that the English would have been right to ethnically cleanse the Irish, who continued for many generations to conduct rather deadly guerilla campaigns against the occupation and its local allies. These campaigns repeatedly killed far more than the 400 civilians and 300 soldiers Hamas did three years ago, and which you seem to consider a kind of Year Zero.
The Catholic Church’s position on Zionism and Zionism’s jurisdiction over Jerusalem isn’t politics, as you claim. Catholicism can’t identify the OT people with a Mitteleuropan political movement based on secular nationalism. Nor would it identify the OT state with contemporary Orthodox Judaism. The only claim Tel Aviv can have is its might is right notion, which the Vatican accommodates with its support for a two-state solution. This solution is politics, yes, and leaves untouched the Church’s position on Zionism and jurisdiction over Jerusalem.
Your second paragraph is risible bunk. The Church has no authority whatever to declaim on a geopolitical solution to the Zionist question. If anything, she can only affirm the special relationship of the Jewish nation to its land.
Your first paragraph repeats again the malicious lie that Israel is interested in “ethnically cleansing” Gaza, then compounds this with the military nonsense that counterinsurgency must under my view necessitate or justify such “cleansing.” This is preposterous. Military operations can and do, however, often necessitate urban warfare to uproot an entrenched enemy. You ought to familiarize yourself with military history.
“Catholicism can’t identify the OT people with a Mitteleuropan political movement based on secular nationalism. Nor would it identify the OT state with contemporary Orthodox Judaism. ”
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I don’t think Israelis are over-concerned about what some Catholics may believe about this. Attempting to assimilate & placate the prevailing class is what doomed many German Jews. It was a fool’s errand. Jews have always been the perfect scapegoat & Israel has been the only place they can feel relatively safe. Even there they still have to watch their backs.
The discussion with the other writer only concerned Catholic views on the issue. We are allowed to have views and discuss them? Thanks there.
The Vatican is a sovereign state which recognise other states if it chooses.The Church can and must try to intervene in secular affairs when higher principles are seriously violated by civil societies. It always has.
Netanyahoo’s Deight at Trump’s proposal to deport Gaza’s population only confirmed what his policies on the ground are doing. Do you agree that the removal of Gaza’s population to other countries would be immoral?
I can’t tell who your question is addressed to Mr Cervantes, but I personally believe Gaza should be completely evacuated. It’s unsafe for human habitation. To keep civilians there in harm’s way is immoral. But every civilian death scores Hamas propaganda points so they have no incentive to encourage the people to leave.
It’s unlikely any people would consent to being ethnically cleansed. The bravery of the Palestinians is incredible.
Jews have survived a very long history of attempts to exterminate and “ethnically cleanse ” them. They’ve know the reality of those words. Not the political invention.
Gaza needs to be evacuated ASAP and the hostages released. But Hamas has no incentive to do that because their sources of revenue would dry up.
The incredibly brave Palestinians of Gaza don’t need to be ethnically cleansed.
To call the Palestinians “brave” is, in the main, a despicable misuse of the word. The true bravery lies with the Israeli people and their righteous war.
The voluntary emigration of Palestinians from Gaza is certainly not immoral and would be excellent politics.
If you seriously believe their exit would be voluntary, there’s little point discussing the issue. But do you believe the removal of Gaza’s population to other countries would be moral? Last chance to give a straight answer.