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Vatican shares prayer for Benedict XVI’s health

December 28, 2022 Catholic News Agency 3
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI greets Colombian Cardinal Jorge Enrique Jiménez Carvajal at the retired pope’s Vatican residence on Aug. 27, 2022. / Screenshot from EWTN video

Vatican City, Dec 28, 2022 / 06:30 am (CNA).

The Vatican’s news service posted a prayer for the health of Benedict XVI on Wednesday, after Pope Francis asked Catholics to pray for the “very ill” pope emeritus.

At the end of his weekly public audience on Dec. 28, Pope Francis said: “I ask to all of you a special prayer for the pope emeritus Benedict, who, in silence, is sustaining the Church.”

“Remember him — he is very ill — asking the Lord to console him and to sustain him in this testimony of love for the Church until the end.”

Shortly afterward, the Vatican’s spokesperson, Matteo Bruni, confirmed that the 95-year-old Benedict XVI’s health had worsened “in recent hours.”

“The situation at the moment remains under control, constantly followed by doctors,” Bruni said, noting that Pope Francis had gone to visit Benedict at his home in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery on Vatican grounds.

Below is the text of the prayer shared by Vatican News on Facebook:

A prayer for the health of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

Let us pray.

Almighty and Eternal God,

You are the everlasting health of

those who believe in You.

Hear our prayers for your sick servant Benedict

for whom we implore the aid of Your tender mercy,

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The president of the Italian bishops’ conference, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, said Wednesday the bishops are praying for Benedict XVI.

“At this time of suffering and trial, we gather around the Pope Emeritus,” the cardinal said in a Dec. 28 statement. “We assure remembrance in prayer in our churches, in the knowledge, as he himself had reminded us, that ‘no matter how hard the trials, difficult the problems, heavy the suffering, we will never fall out of the hands of God, those hands that created us, sustain us and accompany us on the journey of existence, because they are guided by an infinite and faithful love.’”

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Vatican: Benedict XVI under medical care as health takes sudden turn

December 28, 2022 Catholic News Agency 1
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Nov. 9, 2022 / Rome’s Secretariat of the Major Archbishop of the Greek Catholic Church

Vatican City, Dec 28, 2022 / 03:48 am (CNA).

The Vatican confirmed Wednesday that pope emeritus Benedict XVI has experienced a sudden decline in his health, but is stable and under medical care.

“I can confirm that in the last few hours there has been a worsening due to advancing age. The situation at the moment remains under control, constantly followed by doctors,” Holy See Press Office director, Matteo Bruni, told journalists Dec. 28.

Bruni added that Pope Francis went to visit the 95-year-old pope emeritus where he lives, in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican, after his general audience on Wednesday morning.

At the end of his weekly public audience, Pope Francis had asked for prayers for Benedict XVI’s health.

“I ask to all of you a special prayer for the pope emeritus Benedict, who, in silence, is sustaining the Church,” he said.

“Remember him — he is very ill — asking the Lord to console him and to sustain him in this testimony of love for the Church until the end.”

In its statement, the Vatican said it joins Pope Francis “in praying for the pope emeritus.”

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Pope Francis, renewing his prayers for peace in Ukraine, calls on Catholics to learn from the martyrs

December 26, 2022 Catholic News Agency 3
Pope Francis waves to the faithful gathered on St. Peter’s Square, Dec. 26, 2022 / Vatican Media

CNA Newsroom, Dec 26, 2022 / 06:07 am (CNA).

Pope Francis on Monday called on Catholics to pray for those who have harmed them — and those persecuted — as he renewed his Christmas call for peace in Ukraine and worldwide. 

Speaking to the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square after praying the Angelus Dec. 26, the pontiff said: “I renew my wish for peace: peace in families, peace in parishes and religious communities, peace in movements and associations, peace for those war-torn peoples, peace for the dear and martyred Ukraine.”

Ukrainian flags waved by visitors on St. Peter's Square, Dec. 26, 2022. Vatican Media
Ukrainian flags waved by visitors on St. Peter’s Square, Dec. 26, 2022. Vatican Media

On the feast of the martyr St. Stephen, the pope said “the martyrs are those most similar to Jesus.” 

“Indeed, the word martyr means witness: the martyrs are witnesses, that is, brothers and sisters who, through their lives, show us Jesus, who conquered evil with mercy. And even in our day, martyrs are numerous, more so than in the early times”, Pope Francis said.

“Today let us pray for these persecuted martyr brothers and sisters, who bear witness to Christ. But it will do us good to ask ourselves: do I bear witness to Christ? And how can we improve in this? We can indeed be helped by the figure of Saint Stephen.”

Stephen, the pontiff noted, spoke of Jesus to those he met and was not intimidated even by the threats of his persecutors. “Charity and proclamation, this was Stephen. However, his greatest testimony is yet another: that he knew how to unite charity and proclamation. He left it to us at the point of his death when, following the example of Jesus, he forgave his killers.” 

St. Peter's Square on the feast of St. Stephen, Dec. 26, 2022. Vatican Media
St. Peter’s Square on the feast of St. Stephen, Dec. 26, 2022. Vatican Media

The faithful “can improve our witness through charity towards our brothers and sisters, fidelity to the Word of God, and forgiveness. Charity, Word, forgiveness. It is forgiveness that tells whether we truly practice charity towards others, and if we live the Word of God.”

Playing on the connection between the Italian word for forgiveness — perdono — and the Italian word for a gift — dono — the pope explained that forgiveness is a gift “we give to others because we belong to Jesus, forgiven by him.”

The pontiff added: “Let us ask the newborn Jesus for the newness of a heart capable of forgiveness: we all need a forgiving heart! Let us ask the Lord for this grace: Lord, may I learn to forgive. Let us ask for the strength to pray for those who have hurt us, to pray for those who have harmed us, and to take steps of openness and reconciliation.”

Pope Francis concluded with a prayer to “Mary, Queen of martyrs” to “help us to grow in charity, in love of the Word and in forgiveness.”

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Pope Francis on Christmas: The manger is a sign that God is with us and loves us

December 24, 2022 Catholic News Agency 3
Pope Francis offers Christmas Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 24, 2021 / Vatican Media

Vatican City, Dec 24, 2022 / 12:20 pm (CNA).

A manger, the Christ Child’s first resting place, can teach us a lot about the meaning of Christmas, Pope Francis said in his Christmas homily.

“In order to rediscover the meaning of Christmas, we need to look to the manger,” he said on Dec. 24.

“Yet why is the manger so important? Because it is the sign, and not by chance, of Christ’s coming into this world,” he said. “It is how he announces his coming. It is the way God is born in history, so that history itself can be reborn.”

Pope Francis celebrated the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord with Mass during the night, held in St. Peter’s Basilica at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 24.

“The Christmas manger, the first message of the divine Child, tells us that God is with us, he loves us and he seeks us. So take heart,” the pope said. “Do not allow yourself to be overcome by fear, resignation or discouragement. God was born in a manger so that you could be reborn in the very place where you thought you had hit rock bottom. There is no evil, there is no sin, from which Jesus does not want to save you.”

The Christmas Mass, which had around 7,000 people in attendance according to the Vatican, began with the chanting of the traditional Kalenda Proclamation of the Birth of Christ from the Roman Martyrology. A statue of the Baby Jesus, displayed in front of the altar, was then unveiled as the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica rang out.

The choir sang the traditional Christmas carols Silent Night, the First Noel, and Adeste Fidelis, among others. The Mass concluded with the traditional Italian carol Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle, which means “You come down from the stars.”

In his homily, Pope Francis said God wants to tell us the following message: “If you feel consumed by events, if you are devoured by a sense of guilt and inadequacy, if you hunger for justice, I, your God, am with you. I know what you are experiencing, for I experienced it myself in that manger. I know your weaknesses, your failings and your history. I was born in order to tell you that I am, and always will be, close to you.” 

The pope focused on the three places in the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke where it mentions the manger.

“First, Mary places Jesus ‘in a manger’ (Lk 2:7); then the angels tell the shepherds about ‘a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger’ (v. 12); and finally, the shepherds, who find ‘the child lying in the manger’ (v. 16),” he said.

Francis explained that by being born in a stable and placed in a manger to sleep, the Son of God showed us that true wealth is found in relationships, not power and money.

“Around the manger there is very little: hay and straw, a few animals, little else. People were warm in the inn, but not here in the coldness of a stable. Yet that is where Jesus was born,” he said. “The manger reminds us that he was surrounded by nothing but love: Mary, Joseph and the shepherds; all poor people, united by affection and amazement, not by wealth and great expectations.”

He said the Church is called to show the same affection toward the poor.

“We are called to be a Church that worships a Jesus who is poor and that serves him in the poor,” he noted, quoting St. Oscar Romero, who said on Jan. 1, 1980: “The Church supports and blesses efforts to change the structures of injustice, and sets down but one condition: that social, economic and political change truly benefit the poor.”

“Certainly, it is not easy to leave the comfortable warmth of worldliness to embrace the stark beauty of the grotto of Bethlehem, but let us remember that it is not truly Christmas without the poor. Without the poor, we can celebrate Christmas, but not the birth of Jesus,” he said.

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