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Pope Francis during his appearance for the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square on June 29, 2022, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jun 29, 2022 / 08:40 am (CNA).
The journey of faith is never easy for anyone, not even for the Apostles Peter and Paul, Pope Francis said in his Angelus address on Wednesday.
“The journey of faith is not a walk in the park, but is instead demanding, sometimes arduous,” he said on June 29.
The pope prayed a mid-week Angelus to mark the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, the patron saints of the city of Rome.
In his message before the Marian prayer, he reflected on a passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew, when Peter says to Jesus: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
“It is a profession of faith, which Peter pronounces not on the basis of his human understanding, but because God the Father inspired it in him,” he said.
When Jesus then reveals to his disciples that he will suffer, die, and on the third day be raised, Peter rebukes him, saying, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”
Pope Francis recalled that Jesus’ response to Peter was: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a scandal to me, because you do not think according to God, but according to men!”
“Does not the same thing happen to us?” the pope said. “We repeat the Creed, we say it with faith, but when faced with the harsh trials of life, everything seems to falter.”
“We are inclined to protest to the Lord,” Francis added, “telling him that it is not right, that there must be other, more direct, less strenuous ways.”
St. Peter needed time to mature, moving from first horror at the cross to a courageous embrace of his own death, he said, noting that “the Apostle Paul also had his own path, and he too passed through a slow maturation of faith, experiencing moments of uncertainty and doubt.”
“The journey of faith is never a walk in the park, for anyone, not for Peter nor for Paul, not for any Christian,” he said.
The pope concluded his message with two questions for reflection.
“In the light of this experience of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, each of us can ask ourselves: When I profess my faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, do I do so with the awareness that I must always be learning, or do I assume that I ‘already have it all figured out’?” he said.
“And again,” he continued, “in difficulties and trials do I become discouraged, do I complain, or do I learn to make them an opportunity to grow in trust in the Lord? For he, in fact — as Paul writes to Timothy — delivers us from all evil and brings us safely to heaven.”
The pope addressed an estimated 15,000 people from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, according to the Vatican. During the Angelus and his remarks afterward, he sometimes placed his right hand on the windowsill and leaned his weight on his right arm.
The 85-year-old pope, who has an injury in his right knee, has used a wheelchair for many of his public audiences for almost two months. He has recently walked short distances with the support of a cane.
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Pope Francis greets Kiko Argüello during a meeting with the Neocatechumenal Way in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, June 27, 2022. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jun 27, 2022 / 10:30 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Monday met and ratified the assignments of families, priests, and seminarians of the Neocatechumenal Way preparing to become missionaries in foreign countries.
“Do not forget the gaze of Jesus, who sent each of you to preach and obey the Church,” Pope Francis said on June 27.
“We have heard Jesus’ mission, ‘Go, bear witness, preach the Gospel,’” he said. “And from that day the Apostles, the disciples, the people all went forth with the same strength as Jesus had given them: it is the strength that comes from the Spirit: ‘Go and preach, baptize.’”
The pope’s brief remarks were made during the Neocatechumenal Way missionary confirmation and sending, a meeting which included prayer and song, in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.
The Neocatechumenal Way is an ecclesial movement which draws its inspiration from the practices of the early Church, providing post-baptismal Christian formation in some 40,000 small, parish-based communities.
The movement is present all over the world, and says it has an estimated membership of more than 1 million people. It was founded by Kiko Argüello and Carmen Hernández in Spain in 1964.
Argüello introduced the gathering and announced that the first stage of the cause of beatification of Hernández, who died in 2016 at the age of 85, will soon be opened.
The 83-year-old movement leader also listed the missionary families’ countries of destination, which spanned Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas.
Several students of Neocatechumenal Way seminaries will be doing missionary work in China, Argüello said.
Pope Francis encouraged the new missionaries to let a Christian community grow “in its own ways, in its own culture.”
“This is the story of evangelization,” he continued. “All are equal in terms of faith: I believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Son who became incarnate, died and rose again for us, the Spirit who helps us and makes us grow: the same faith. But all with the mode of their own culture or the culture of the place where the faith was preached.”
He said the multi-cultural richness of the Gospel is the story of the Church: “So many cultures but the same Gospel. So many peoples, the same Jesus Christ.”
The pope thanked the families for their willingness to share the Gospel as missionaries, and encouraged them to be docile to the Holy Spirit and obedient to Christ and his Church through the local bishop.
“This is the spirituality that must accompany us always: to preach Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit in the Church and with the Church,” Francis said.
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