Vatican

Pope Francis speaks during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square on June 28, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Sep 6, 2023 / 03:06 am (CNA).

Pope Francis on Wednesday encouraged people to look for the quiet goodness in the world, even when the tendency is to pay more attention to failure and scandal.

“Just think how many hidden seeds of goodness make the garden of the world flourish, while we usually only hear about the sound of falling trees,” he said during his weekly public audience on Sept. 6.

“People, us too, like scandal. ‘Look at what barbarity, a tree fell, the noise it made!’ But you don’t see the forest that is growing every day. Because the growth is in silence,” the pope added.

He urged people to look “toward the light of the good” in the world and to fight the tendency to only appreciate others to the extent that they share our ideas.

Francis addressed pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter’s Square two days after his return from a trip to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.

Mongolia, a country sandwiched between China and Russia, is sparsely populated with around 3 million people across nearly 604,000 square miles.

The population, which is historically Buddhist, includes fewer than 1,500 Catholics.

“One might ask: why did the pope go so far to visit a small flock of the faithful?” Pope Francis said at the general audience. “Because it is precisely there, far from the spotlight, that we often find the signs of the presence of God, who does not look at appearances, but at the heart.”

“The Lord,” he explained, “does not look for the center-stage, but the simple heart of those who desire him and love him without ostentation, without wanting to tower above others. And I had the grace of meeting, in Mongolia, a humble Church and a joyful Church, which is in the heart of God, and I can testify to their joy of finding themselves also at the center of the Church for a few days.”

The pope recounted what he called the “touching history” of the Christian community in Mongolia.

“It came about, by the grace of God, from apostolic zeal — on which we are reflecting at the moment — of a few missionaries who, impassioned by the Gospel, went about 30 years ago to that country they did not know,” he said.

Francis added that despite the difficulty, the missionaries learned the language and the way of life of the Mongolian people.

He praised the inculturated Catholic community the missionaries formed, saying they did not rely on proselytism to convert people to Christianity but showed how to live the Gospel within the Mongolian culture.

“This is catholicity: an embodied universality, which embraces the good where it is found and serves the people with whom it lives,” he said. “This is how the Church lives: bearing witness to the love of Jesus meekly, with life before words, happy with its true riches: service to the Lord and to brethren.”

Pope Francis was the first pope in history to travel to Mongolia.

During his four days in the large, landlocked Asian country Sept. 1-4, he met with government leaders, engaged in interreligious dialogue with Buddhists and people of other Eastern religions, and presided over the first ever papal Mass for the country’s small Catholic population.

“I was in the heart of Asia, and this did me good. It is good to enter into dialogue with that vast continent, to glean its messages, to know its wisdom, its way of looking at things, to embrace time and space,” Francis said.

“Thinking of the boundless and silent expanses of Mongolia,” he added, “let us be stirred by the need to extend the confines of our gaze, so that we may be able to see the good in others and be capable of broadening our horizons.”

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Pope Francis greets Cardinal Luis Ladaria. / Vatican Media.

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Pope Francis gave a special message to Chinese Catholics at the end of his Mass in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on Sept. 3, 2023. / Vatican Media

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Pope Francis on board the plane that took him from Rome to Mongolia, Aug. 31, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

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Pope Francis delivers a Laudato Si’ video message May 24, 2021. / Screenshot

Vatican City, Aug 30, 2023 / 08:47 am (CNA).

Pope Francis said Wednesday he will release a follow-up environmental document to the 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’ on Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi.

Speaking at the end of his general audience Aug. 30, the pope said he plans “to publish an exhortation, a second Laudato Sì’,” at the end of a Vatican-supported ecumenical initiative that will run Sept. 1–Oct. 4.

The Season of Creation will begin, Pope Francis said, on Sept. 1, which is the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. This year’s theme is “Let Justice and Peace Flow.”

“Let us join our Christian brothers and sisters in the commitment to care for creation as a sacred gift from the Creator,” Francis urged at his public audience.

“It is necessary to stand with the victims of environmental and climate injustice, striving to end the senseless war on our common home, which is a terrible world war,” he added. “I urge all of you to work and pray for it to abound with life once again.”

Pope Francis announced last week that he is writing a second part to his 2015 environmental encyclical Laudato Si’.

The pope said with this new writing he is updating Laudato Si’ to cover current issues.

The Holy See Press Office director, Matteo Bruni, confirmed to CNA on Aug. 21 that “the pope is working on a letter updating Laudato Si’ with regard to the recent environmental crises.”

Laudato Si’ is the second of three encyclicals published in Pope Francis’ pontificate thus far. It was released in June 2015.

The theme of the encyclical, which means “Praise be to you,” is human ecology, a phrase first used by Pope Benedict XVI. The document addresses issues such as climate change, care for the environment, and the defense of human life and dignity. 

Pope Francis said Aug. 30 that the second part to Laudato Si’ would be the kind of papal document known as an “exhortation.”

Francis has so far published five apostolic exhortations during his pontificate, including Evangelii Gaudium and Amoris Laetitia.

The feast of St. Francis of Assisi was also the date in 2020 that Pope Francis chose to release his most recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, about fraternity and social friendship.

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Pope Francis greets newly married couples at the general audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall on Aug. 30, 2023. / Adi Zace/CNA

Vatican City, Aug 30, 2023 / 05:23 am (CNA).

St. Kateri Tekakwitha teaches us to live an ordinary holiness and to confront the suffering of life with patience, Pope Francis said on Wednesday.

At his weekly public audience Aug. 30, the pope spoke about the Native American saint in his continuing series of talks on apostolic zeal.

“Kateri Tekakwitha’s life shows us that every challenge can be overcome if we open our hearts to Jesus, who grants us the grace we need: patience and a heart open to Jesus. This is a recipe to live well,” he said in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.

Francis described the intense difficulties the saint faced — including the loss at age four of her parents and brother from smallpox, and persecution after her baptism and conversion to Christianity — and the way Kateri responded.

“All this gave Kateri a great love for the Cross, the definitive sign of the love of Christ, who gave himself to the end for us,” he said. “Indeed, witnessing to the Gospel is not only about what is pleasing; we must also know how to bear our daily crosses with patience, trust, and hope.”

The pope emphasized that “patience is a great Christian virtue” needed to be a good Christian.

“May we too, like St. Kateri Tekakwitha, draw strength from the Lord and learn to do ordinary things in extraordinary ways, growing daily in faith, charity, and zealous witness for Christ,” he said.

St. Kateri Tekakwitha was the first native North American woman to be canonized in the Catholic Church.

In his catechesis at the general audience, Pope Francis recounted a little bit about her life.

“Born around the year 1656 in a village in upstate New York, she was the daughter of an unbaptized Mohawk chief and an Algonquin Christian mother, who taught Kateri to pray and sing hymns to God,” he said.

The pope pointed out that mothers and grandmothers are often the first people to introduce their children and grandchildren to the faith.

“Evangelism often begins this way: with simple, small gestures, such as parents helping their children learn to talk to God in prayer and telling them about His great and merciful love. The foundation of faith for Kateri, and often for us as well, was laid in this way,” he said.

While still a young child, a smallpox outbreak killed Kateri’s little brother and parents, and left the girl with scars and vision problems.

She was baptized a Catholic on Easter Sunday in 1676, at around 19 years old.

Due to persecution and death threats after her baptism, “Kateri was forced to take refuge among the Mohawks in the Jesuit mission near the city of Montreal,” Francis said.

“There she attended Mass every morning, devoted time to adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, prayed the Rosary, and lived a life of penance,” he continued. “These spiritual practices of hers impressed everyone at the Mission; they recognized in Kateri a holiness that was appealing because it stemmed from her deep love for God.”

Kateri also taught the children of the mission to pray and cared for the sick and elderly.

“Here we see how a vital relationship with the Lord bears fruit in the commitment to perform simple, daily works of mercy, both material and spiritual, toward one’s brothers and sisters, especially the poor and neediest,” he said.

“Faith,” he added, “is always expressed in service.”

Pope Francsis said Kateri’s life shows that apostolic zeal must include “a vital union with Jesus, nourished by prayer and the sacraments, and the desire to spread the beauty of the Christian message through fidelity to one’s particular vocation.”

He also pointed out the beauty of her final words before death: “Jesus, I love you.”

“Let us not forget: each of us is called to holiness, to everyday holiness, to the holiness of the common Christian life,” he encouraged. “Each of us has this call: let us go forward on this path. The Lord will not fail us.”

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