Pope: "Strong prayers” to overcome “spiritual desolation"

At the end of the Angelus prayer, Pope Francis urges people to take part in the Assisi meeting  on September 20 as "a day of prayer for peace". In life we choose "between two roads: between honesty and dishonesty, between fidelity and infidelity, between selfishness and selflessness, between good and evil." A greeting to the participants in the National Eucharistic Congress of Genova. The beatification of Elizabeth Sanna.

Francis met participants at the annual training course organised jointly by the Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for Eastern Churches. Mercy is a "summary of what God offers to the world."

Japanese paper comments on Renho Murata’s nomination at the helm of Japan's main opposition party. For Fukuoka priest, “everyone in Japan thinks only about the economy. We’ll have to wait to see what she decides”. A former model and TV anchor-woman, she is Taiwanese on her father’s side. This is good change in the country’s evolution.

"We are afraid to accept and bear the ultimate consequences to the flesh of Christ. a spiritualistic piety is easier, a gossamer pietism; but to enter into the logic of the flesh of Christ, this is difficult. And this is the logic of the day after tomorrow. We will be resurrected as Christ is risen, with our flesh".

For three days, 106 papal representatives will take part in seminars and moments of spirituality. Francis will receive them on Saturday, but the diplomats will have more opportunities to meet with him. A Jubilee day will be held on 18 November for the nunciature employees.

In the current "crisis of a great orphahood", "We Christians have a Mother, the same as Jesus; we have a Father, the same as Jesus. We are not orphans. "

 

"It is not the spirit of Jesus”, who  instead "reaches out to the humble, to the little ones, the poor, the needy, because he himself  became small and humble. He includes the poor and the suffering because He himself is poor and tried by pain". Those who pass through the Door of Mercy seek Jesus, the friendship of Jesus. "This path expresses the conversion of every disciple who endeavors to follow Jesus. And conversion is always a discovery of God's mercy."

Francis celebrated Mass in suffrage for Father Jacques Hamel, killed July 26 in the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, and the entire community of Rouen. "Today in the Church there are more Christian martyrs than in the early days. Today there are Christians who are murdered, tortured, imprisoned, slaughtered because they will not deny Jesus Christ".

"Not just see but look. Not just hear but listen. Not just meet and pass by but stop. And don’t just say ‘what a shame, poor people,’ but allow ourselves to be moved by pity.  And then draw near, touch and say in the language that comes to each one of us in that moment, the language of the heart: ‘Do not weep,’ and donate at the very least a drop of life".

"Sewing jealousies, ambitions, ideas, but to divide! Or sow greed. " And as happens after a war "everything is destroyed. And the devil goes away happy. And we - naive, we are to his game. " "The divisions in the Church do not let the Kingdom of God grow; do not let the Lord show how good He is. "


 

The development of a guidelines template for the protection of minors and the progress of the training programs at the center of the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Children (PCPM) held in the Vatican from 5 to 11 September.

 

Before the Angelus, Francis commented the "Chapter of mercy", the 15th in Luke's Gospel, which presents us with parables with which Christ responds to the whispers of the scribes and the Pharisees: the lost sheep, the coin, and the prodigal son. There is no sin in which we have fallen, the pope said, " from which, by the grace of God, we cannot rise again; there is no individual beyond redemption because God never ceases to want our good, even when we sin!” After the Marian prayer, he dedicates a prayer for Gabon and speaks about the beatification of Ladislaus Bukowinski, in Kazakhstan.

In today’s jubilee audience, Francis looked at the "illusion" of those who think they are free. How many illusions are being sold under the pretext of freedom, and how many new forms of slavery are being created in our time in the name of a false freedom!” Only the liberation that comes from God is needed. After the catechesis, the pontiff turned his thoughts to the members of Italy’s Civil Protection Service, “who were supposed to be present, but cancelled to continue the valuable work of aid and assistance to people affected by the 24 August earthquake. I thank them for their dedication and the generous help offered these days! Thank you, brothers and sisters!”

Receiving the bishops attending the refresher seminar sponsored by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Francis recommended they ensure that everything is put in place for evangelization and the various pastoral activities "are not damaged or nullified by existing divisions or those that can be created. " "The devil enters through our pockets and destroys with tongues, with gossip that divides and the habit of gossip is a habit of terrorism."

Proclaiming the Gospel is not proselytizing, it should not be reduced to "functionalism" nor an “easy” task". It is  "becoming all things to all", it is "going out and sharing in the lives of others, accompanying them; accompanying their journey of faith, to grow in the journey of faith. "