Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Pope Leo XIV had made this request in Lourdes last week: to pray the Holy Rosary for peace during the month of October. He reiterated this call this morning – after reciting the Angelus, looking out from the window of the Vatican Apostolic Palace – “with the special intention that wars may cease and peace may be built”. In particular, the Pope asked for prayers “for the Holy Land and for the innocent victims of violence”.
Furthermore, Provost recalled the boys and girls who have joined – and will join – the initiative. He made this statement before some 15,000 faithful who had gathered in St Peter’s Square, looking up towards the sky. With particular reference to the charity Aid to the Church in Need and its campaign entitled “A million children pray the Holy Rosary”: “Let us all follow their example, invoking the intercession of the Virgin Mary so that peoples may be freed from the scourge of war.”
Amoris laetitia, ten years on
After the Angelus, Prevost also mentioned the meeting to be held at the Vatican in the coming days to mark the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia (2016). It will be attended by Heads of the Eastern Catholic Churches and Presidents of Episcopal Conferences from around the world. “It will be a time of synodal discernment, to identify the steps to be taken to proclaim the Gospel today amongst families and the younger generations,” he said. Before entrusting to prayer “families, who, with God’s help, are a sign of hope and an inestimable treasure for the Church and for society”.
Today, 4 October, marks the liturgical memorial of St Francis of Assisi. The Pope said he was “delighted” by the many initiatives celebrating the eighth centenary of the Poverello’s passing. “I recall, in particular, those that took place in Assisi, attended by the highest authorities of the Italian State,” said Leo XIV. “And I also greet the amateur radio operators of Assisi and Foligno who are spreading St Francis’s message of peace.”
St Francis continues to bear fruit today
Before the Marian prayer, the Pope commented on the parable of the wicked tenants, taken from the Gospel of the day (Mt 21:33–43). In his words, Jesus himself recalls the psalm which says, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’. ‘What is cast aside becomes the foundation that sustains everything. This is how the Almighty guides history, coming to our aid in all our falls: God never discards our lives!’, he said.
Leo XIV explained that the “vineyard to be cultivated with justice” presented in the parable “is the Church, which we either build up or damage through our choices”. He thus recalled “a labourer who worked with great fruitfulness in the Lord’s vineyard: Saint Francis of Assisi, whom Jesus himself asked to repair his Church”. This comes precisely on the eighth centenary of his death. “First and foremost, he built his own life upon the foundation of Christ, sharing in his poverty, joy and sufferings, right up to the mystical sign of the stigmata,” he added. Francis repaired the Church “by healing the rifts of discord through the witness of brotherly love”.
“Dear friends, the charism of St Francis continues to bear fruit today, eight centuries on: this is borne out not only by the great and vibrant Franciscan family, but also by the many gifts that his spiritual legacy bestows upon the People of God,” the Pope continued this morning, before the Angelus. “As we therefore celebrate the Franciscan Jubilee Year, let us persistently ask for the gift of peace and sincerely commit ourselves to building harmony amongst peoples.”
