(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is scheduled to visit the Pontifical North American College on May 2 to celebrate Mass during a Day of Reflection with the title “Fra Junípero Serra: Apostle of California, and Witness to Sanctity.” Pope Francis has announced he intends to canonize Blessed Junípero Serra during his visit to the United States…
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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis greeted members of “The Papal Foundation” on Friday. They are in Rome on their annual pilgrimage.
The Papal Foundation was founded in the United States in 1988 to establish an endowment to support the mission of the Holy Father. The endowment has grown to over $220 million, with a total of $111 million awarded in grants and scholarships.
“The wide variety of projects supported by the Foundation gives witness to the ceaseless efforts of the Church to promote the integral development of the human family, conscious as she is of the immense and ongoing needs of so many of our brothers and sisters,” Pope Francis said.
He also praised the Foundation for the “sizeable percentage” of its resources used for the education and formation of young priests, religious and lay men and women in places where the local churches are in need of help.
Pope Francis said this support would help hasten the day when these Churches may be self-supportive “and, indeed, pass on the fruits of such generosity to others.”
The full text of the Pope’s remarks to The Papal Foundation are below
Greetings of the Holy Father
to “The Papal Foundation”
17 April 2015
Your Eminence,
Dear Friends,
I offer a warm welcome to you, the Members and Trustees, and Stewards of Saint Peter of The Papal Foundation who have come to Rome for your annual pilgrimage. Your visit to the tombs of the Apostles is a reverent sign of the communion with the See of Peter which has been the hallmark of the Foundation since its beginning. I pray that this experience may deepen your faith, and encourage you to give fresh expression in your living and transmitting the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith that comes to us from the Apostles.
The wide variety of projects supported by the Foundation gives witness to the ceaseless efforts of the Church to promote the integral development of the human family, conscious as she is of the immense and ongoing needs of so many of our brothers and sisters. Wisely does The Papal Foundation devote a sizeable percentage of its resources to the education and formation of young priests, religious and lay men and women, hastening the day when their local Churches may be self-supportive, and, indeed, pass on the fruits of such generosity to others. I wish to reaffirm my gratitude for the hard work and sacrifice that your offering entails, and to assure you of my heartfelt prayers for you, your loved ones, and all those whom you support.
As the Church prepares for the coming Jubilee of Mercy, I ask our Lord Jesus Christ, “the face of the Father’s mercy” (Misericordiae Vultus, 1), to refresh and renew each one of you through his mercy, the greatest of his many gifts. May each of you experience the healing and freedom that come from the encounter of forgiveness and gratuitous love offered in the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist. I commend each of you and your families to the loving intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and that of Saint Peter. Upon you, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of peace in Christ Jesus the Risen Savior.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis greeted members of “The Papal Foundation” on Friday. They are in Rome on their annual pilgrimage. The Papal Foundation was founded in the United States in 1988 to establish an endowment to support the mission of the Holy Father. The endowment has grown to over $220 million, with a total of…
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(Vatican Radio) Humiliation for its own sake is masochism, but when it is suffered and endured in the name of the Gospel it makes us like Jesus. That was what Pope Francis said in his homily at the Mass at Casa Santa Marta, as he invited Christians to never cultivate sentiments of hatred, but to give themselves time to discover within themselves sentiments and attitudes that are pleasing to God: love and dialogue.
Is it possible for people to react to difficult situations the way God does? It is, the Pope said, and it is all a question of time. Time to allow ourselves to be permeated by the sentiments of Jesus. Francis explains this by looking at the episode in the days reading from the Acts of the Apostles. The Apostles were called before the Sanhedrin, accused of preaching the Gospel that the doctors of the law did not want to hear.
Don’t give hatred time
However, one of the Pharisees, Gamaliel, suggested frankly that the Apostles should be allowed to continue to preach, because if the teaching of the Apostles “were of human origin, it would destroy itself,” which would not happen if it came from God. The Sanhedrin accepted the suggestion – that is, the Pope said, they chose to take “time.” They did not react by following the instinctive sentiments of hatred. And this, Pope Francis said, is a correct “remedy” for every human being:
Give time to time. This is useful for us when we have wicked thoughts about others, wicked feeling, when we have hostility, hatred, to not allow it to grow, to stop it, to give time to time. Time puts things in harmony, and makes us see things in the right light. But if you react in a moment of anger, it is certain you will be unjust. You will be unjust. And you will hurt yourself, too. Here’s some advice: time, time in the moment of temptation.
The one who pauses gives God time
When we nurse resentments, Pope Francis noted, it is inevitable that there will be outbursts. “It will burst out in insults, in war,” he observes, and “with these evil thoughts against others, we are battling against God;” while God, on the other hand, “loves others, loves harmony, loves love, loves dialogue, loves walking together.” It even “happens to me,” the Pope admitted: “When something is not pleasing, the first feeling is not of God, it is wicked, always.” Instead, we need to give ourselves pause, he said, and we must give “space to the Holy Spirit,” so that “we might get it right, that we may arrive at peace.” Like the Apostles, who were scourged and left the Sanhedrin “rejoicing” at having suffered “dishonour for the sake of the Name” of Jesus.
Pride of being first leads you to want to kill others; humility, even humiliation, leads you to become like Jesus. And this is one thing that we don’t think. In this moment in which so many of our brothers and sisters are being martyred for the sake of Jesus’ Name, they are in this state, they have, in this moment, the joy of having suffered dishonour, and even death, for the Name of Jesus. To fly from the pride of being first, there is only the path of opening the heart to humility, to humility that never arrives without humiliation. This is one thing that is not naturally understood. It is a grace we must ask for.”
Martyrs and the humble resemble Christ
It is the grace, the Pope concluded, of the “imitation of Christ.” It is not only the martyrs of today who bear witness to this imitation; but also those “many men and women who suffer humiliation each day, and for the good of their own family,” and who “shut their mouths, who don’t speak, suffer for their love of Jesus”:
And this is the sanctity of the Church, this joy that humiliation gives, not because humiliation is beautiful, no, that would be masochism, no: it is because with that humiliation, you imitate Jesus. Two attitudes: that of closing what brings you to hatred, to wrath, to want to kill others; and that of being open to God on the path of Jesus, that makes us accept humiliations, even very serious humiliations, with that interior joy that makes you of being on the path set out by Jesus.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The Director of the Holy See’s Press office, Father Federico Lombardi confirmed on Friday that Pope Francis was considering the possibility of a Cuba leg during his upcoming visit to the United States in September. At the same time, he noted that talks with the Cuban authorities are still at an initial stage and therefore it’s too early to say that a decision has been taken or that there is an operational plan underway.
(from Vatican Radio)…