Pope: new "heartfelt appeal to Syrian authorities and the international community” to “silence the weapons"
Vatican City (
AsiaNews) - Remembering Father Frans van der Lugt, who was killed in Homs ,
Syria, on Monday, Pope Francis today launched a new "urgent appeal to the
international community and Syrian authorities" to "silence the
weapons" and space
to humanitarian aid for the civilian population. At
the end of today's general audience, the Pope recalled the murder of "my Dutch
Jesuit brother of 75, who arrived in Syria about 50 years ago, he always good
towards all , with gratitude and love, and therefore
he was loved and respected by Christians and Muslims. His brutal murder - he
added - filled me with profound sorrow and it made me think a lot of people
still suffering and dying in that tormented country, my beloved Syria, already
too long
in the throes of a bloody conflict, which continues to reap death and
destruction. I think also of the many people who have been abducted, Christians
and Muslims, Syrian and from other countries, among which there are bishops and
priests. I ask the Lord that they may soon return to their loved
ones and their families and communities. I cordially invite you all to join me
in prayer for peace in Syria and the region, and launch a heartfelt appeal to
the Syrian authorities and the international community: I beg you, silence the
weapons, put an end to the violence! No more war! No
more destruction! Respect
humanitarian law, care should be taken of the population in need of
humanitarian assistance and the desired peace reached through dialogue and
reconciliation. We
pray to our Mother, Mary, Queen of Peace, to give this gift to Syria. Let us all pray
together ... " .
The
prayer for peace in Syria concluded an audience in which Pope Francis has begun
a series of catechesis dedicated to the "gifts" of the Holy Spirit ,
the first of which is the "wisdom" that is not " human wisdom
" , but "
the grace to be able to see everything through the eyes of God."
60
thousand people were present for the audience, among whom he toured at length as
usual, blessing and kissing babies. He
also alighted from the jeep to greet a group of enthusiastic children from
Argentina. And
responding to a pilgrim who shouted "Francis you're the one and only!"
he said, "you too!, You too are one and only, there is not another like
you."
The
Pope, in his catechesis, said "The Holy Spirit is "God's
gift" par excellence (cf. Jn 4:10) a gift from God, and in turn
communicates different spiritual gifts to those who welcome him. The Church
identifies seven, a number that symbolically speaks of fullness, completeness;
we learn these when preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation and we invoke
them in the ancient prayer called the "Sequence of the Holy Spirit"
the gifts of the Holy Spirit are: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude ,
knowledge, piety and fear of God".
But wisdom is not "merely human wisdom,
no, the fruit of knowledge and experience. In the Bible we are told that, at
the time of his coronation as king of Israel , God asked Solomon what gift he
wanted to receive. Solomon did not ask for wealth, success, fame , or a long
and happy life, instead he asked for "an understanding heart that knows how to
distinguish good from evil" ( 1 Kings 3:9). This is wisdom: it is the
grace of being able to see everything with the eyes of God. It is simply this:
Seeing the world...situations, conjunctures, problems, everything with God's
eyes. This is wisdom. Often we see things as we want to see them or according
to our heart, with love, with hate, with envy... no this is not God's eyes. Wisdom
is what the Holy Spirit does within us so that we can see everything with God's
eyes. This is the gift of wisdom".
"Obviously this gift comes from intimacy with God. For our intimate
relationship with God. From our relationship as children with a Father. And the
Holy Spirit - when we have this relationship - gives us the gift of wisdom. When
we are in communion with the Lord , it is as if the Spirit transfigures our
heart and helps it to perceive all his warmth and predilection".
"The Holy Spirit also makes the Christian "wise". This is, however ,
not in the sense that he or she has an answer for everything, or knows
everything, but in the sense that he or she "knows" of God, how God
acts, they know when something is of God and when it is not. They know this,
they have this wisdom that God gives our heart. The heart of the wise man has
this taste of God. It is so important that our communities have Christians such
as these! Everything about them speaks of God and becomes a beautiful and vital
sign of His presence and His love. And it is something we cannot improvise,
something we cannot obtain by our own merits: it is a gift that God gives to
those who are docile to His Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit in our hearts
we can listen to him or not."
"If we listen to him he teaches us this path of wisdom, he gifts us wisdom which is seeing with God's eyes, listening with God's ears, loving with God's heart, judging things with Gods' judgment. These are the things that Holy Spirit gifts us and we can all have this. We just have to ask the Holy Spirit. Think of a mother at home with her children. One does something and the other thinks otherwise and the poor mother is torn between the two with the children's problems; when the mother is tired and she shouts at her children, is that wisdom? I ask you is that wisdom - what do you say? No! Instead when the mother takes her child to one side and gently rebukes him, and explains this is God's wisdom! Yes! And this is what the Holy Spirit gives us in life".
"In a marriage for example, the couple argue, then they won't look at one
another, or if they do it is with anger...Is that God's wisdom? No! Instead when
they say let the storm pass, let's make peace! That's wisdom, that's the gift
of wisdom, that comes to our homes, to children, to all of us! And it cannot be
learned, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit! This is why we must ask the Lord to
gift us the Holy Spirit and the gift of wisdom that teaches us to see with
God's eyes, to feel with God's heart to speak with God's words! And with this
wisdom we can move forward, build the family, the Church and we can all be
sanctified. Let us ask for this grace of wisdom today. Let us ask Our Lady, who is the Seat
of Wisdom, for this gift".
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