Pope: Praise, Eucharist and asceticism for a new lifestyle

Francis sends a message to the Forum of the Laudato Si communities, engaged this year on the theme of the Amazon and its exploitation: "Man cannot remain an indifferent spectator in the face of this destruction, nor can the Church remain silent: the  cry of the poor must resound from her mouth ”.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Doxology, Eucharist and ascesis: these are the three words given by Pope Francis to the participants of the II Forum of the Laudato Si communities that takes place today in Amatrice, three words indicated by the pontiff as a recipe for a new and sustainable  lifestyle.

The meeting takes place in Amatrice: "A territory devastated by the earthquake that hit central Italy in August 2016 and which more than others paid a very high price in number of victims.  It is a sign of hope that we find ourselves in Amatrice, whose memory is always present in my heart, focusing on the imbalances that devastate our 'common home' ”.

"Not only - writes the pope - it is a sign of closeness to so many brothers and sisters who still live in the ford between the memory of a terrible tragedy and the reconstruction that is slow to take off, but also expresses the desire to make proclaim loud and clear that  it is the poor who pay the highest price of environmental devastation.  The wounds inflicted on the environment are inexorably wounded to the most defenseless humanity.

The meeting, adds Francis, focuses on "the grave and no longer sustainable situation of the Amazon and the peoples who inhabit it.  [...] The situation in Amazonia is a sad paradigm of what is happening in many parts of the planet: a blind and destructive mentality that prefers profit to justice;  highlights the predatory attitude with which man relates to nature.  Please do not forget that social justice and ecology are deeply interconnected! ".

What is happening in the Amazon, in fact, "will have repercussions on a planetary level, but it has already prostrated thousands of men and women robbed of their territory, who have become foreigners in their own land, depleted of their own culture and traditions, breaking the balance  millennial that united those people to their land.  Man cannot remain an indifferent spectator in the face of this destruction, nor can the Church remain silent: the cry of the poor must resound from her mouth, as Saint Paul VI already pointed out in his Encyclical Populorum progressio ”.

To foster new and sustainable lifestyles, Francis gives the participants three words: "The first word is doxology In the face of the good of creation and especially before the good of man who is the summit of creation, but also custodian, it is necessary to assume the  attitude of praise.  In the face of so much beauty, with renewed wonder, with childlike eyes, we must be able to appreciate the beauty we are surrounded by and of which man is also woven.  Praise is the fruit of contemplation, contemplation and praise lead to respect, respect becomes almost veneration before the goods of creation and its Creator ”.

The second word is the Eucharist: "The Eucharistic attitude before the world and its inhabitants knows how to grasp the gift status that every living being carries within itself.  Everything is delivered to us for free, not to be plundered and swallowed up, but to become in turn a gift to be shared, a gift to be given so that joy may be for everyone and, for this reason, be greater ”.

The third word, he concludes, "is asceticism.  Every form of respect arises from an ascetic attitude, that is, from the capacity to know how to renounce something for a greater good, for the good of others.  Asceticism helps us to convert the predatory attitude, always lurking, to take the form of sharing, ecological, respectful and polite relationship ".