(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis says God has given everybody a Guardian Angel to accompany us and offer advice and protection, an Angel to whom we should listen with meekness and respect. He was speaking during his homily at Mass on Friday (2nd October) celebrated in the Santa Marta Residence.
Taking his cue from Friday’s feast of the Guardian Angels, the Pope’s homily reflected on this divine presence in our lives, describing the Angel as God’s ambassador who accompanies each one of us. He noted how the proof of this was illustrated when God chased Adam out of Paradise: He didn’t leave Adam on his own or say to him: “fend for yourself as best as you can.” The Pope stressed that every person has been given a Guardian Angel by God who stays by our side.
God’s Ambassador by our side
“He is always with us! And this is a reality. It’s like having God’s ambassador with us. And the Lord advises us: ‘Respect his presence!’ And when we, for example, commit a sin and believe that we’re on our own: No, he is there. Show respect for his presence. Listen to his voice because he gives us advice. When we hear that inspiration: ‘But do this … this is better … we should not do that.’ Listen! Do not go against him.”
Pope Francis explained how the Guardian Angel always protects us, especially from evil. Sometimes, he noted, “we believe that we can hide so many things,” “bad things” that in the end will always come to light. The Angel, he continued, is there to advise us and “cover for us” just a friend would do. “A friend who we don’t see but we hear.” “A friend who one day will be with us in the everlasting joy of Heaven.”
Respect him and listen to him
“All he asks is that we listen to him and respect him. That’s all: respect and listening (to him). And this respect and listening to this companion on our journey is called meekness. The Christian must be meek when it comes to the Holy Spirit. Meekness towards the Holy Spirit begins with this yielding to the advice given by this companion on our journey.”
The Pope went on to explain that in order to be meek, we need to become small like children and our Guardian Angel is a companion who teaches us this humility and just like children we should listen to him.
“May we ask the Lord for the grace of this meekness, to listen to the voice of this companion, to this ambassador from God who accompanies us in His name and may we be supported by his help. (We must) always journey forward. And in this Mass where we praise the Lord, let us remember how good our Lord is, who straight after we lost His friendship, did not leave us alone, did not abandon us.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, the head of the Holy See Press Office has released a statement on the brief meeting between Kim Davis and Pope Francis during his visit to Washington, DC.
The full statement is below
The brief meeting between Mrs. Kim Davis and Pope Francis at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, DC has continued to provoke comments and discussion. In order to contribute to an objective understanding of what transpired I am able to clarify the following points:
Pope Francis met with several dozen persons who had been invited by the Nunciature to greet him as he prepared to leave Washington for New York City. Such brief greetings occur on all papal visits and are due to the Pope’s characteristic kindness and availability. The only real audience granted by the Pope at the Nunciature was with one of his former students and his family.
The Pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has expressed gratitude and appreciation for the work of Comboni missionaries and reminded them to take their witness of faith into the peripheries of society.
The Pope’s words of encouragement came as he addressed the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus gahtered for their General Chapter which takes place every six years.
During the Chapter participants are involved in a process of discernment that calls them to be deep in communion with the Holy Spirit in order to take steps forward in the fulfilment of their vocation.
In his discourse Pope Francis described their mission as “servants and messengers of the Gospel” as a gift. He said that at the foundation of their particular vocation is their personal relationship with Christ which is rooted in Baptism, confirmed in Confirmation and for some, strengthened by Ordination.
The Pope described the missionaries as servants of God-who-speaks; of God who wishes to speak to the men and women of today, just as Jesus spoke to the men and women of his time.
He said that the grace of Christ is at the heart of their mission making it authentic: “believing in Him one can transmit the Word of God that animates, sustains and fertilizes the commitment of the missionary”.
“That’s why, dear brothers, we must always nourish ourselves with the Word of God, so that we may be his faithful echo” he said.
And he pointed out that in God’s Word there is the wisdom that comes from above and that allows us to find the right language, the right attitude and the right instruments to respond to the challenges of a changing humanity.
Pope Francis said that as Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus “you contribute with joy to the mission of the Church bringing the witness of Saint Daniele Comboni”.
He encouraged the missionaries to imitate the merciful and meek Jesus and to live their service with a humble heart taking care of those who are most abandoned.
“Never cease asking the Sacred Heart for meekness, which is a daughter of charity, and is patient, kind, hopeful and bears all” the Pope said.
That Sacred Heart, the Pope continued, “pushes you into the peripheries of society to bring witness of the perseverance of patient and faithful love”.
Pope Francis expressed his hope that the contemplation of Jesus’ wounded Heart may always renew the missionaries’ passion for the men and women of our time. A passion that is expressed in solidarity, especially towards the weakest, and in promoting justice, peace and the respect for the dignity of each person.
He concluded his address with the hope that the reflections of General Chapter may enlighten the work of the Institute and its vision for the years to come and help the members always stay in touch with their great patrimony of spirituality and missionary activity.
Recalling the fact that many Comboni missionaries have given their lives as they witnessed the faith, Pope Francis invoked the protection of Our Lady, mother of the Church upon them all.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The Secretary of State of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, visited the 2015 World’s Fair exposition in Milan, Italy, on Wednesday, Sept. 30 th , touring the pavilion of the Holy See and the Caritas Internationalis exhibit therein.
Speaking of the pavilion, Cardinal Parolin said, “It is almost a ‘translation into plastic’ of the invitation that the Holy Father addressed to the UN,” just a few days earlier in New York, during the course of his Apostolic Journey to Cuba and the United States. In that address, the Pope spoke of issues related to the environment and care for creation, and how those issues are linked to the social exclusion of the poorest of the poor. “This pavilion has a special dimension,” he said, “because it is an invitation to reflect on humanity’s great problems and on the responses that the Church gives to these problems.”
Particularly significant to the Cardinal Secretary of State was the exhibit’s insistence on showing and telling the stories of real, flesh-and-blood people. “This gallery of faces, the insistence on the concrete, on people and not on abstract topics, on the difficulties experienced by each person, by entire populations, was most striking,” he said.
The 2015 Expo Milan opened on May 1 st , and closes on October 31 st .
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday received in audience the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato, SDB. During the audience, the Holy Father authorized the Congregation to promulgate decrees regarding:
* the martyrdom of the Servant of God Valentino Palencia Marquina, diocesan Priest, and four Companions, killed “in odium Fidei” on 15 January 1937 near Suances, Spain
* the heroic virtue of the Servant of God Giovanni Folci, diocesan Priest and Founder of the Opera del Divin Prigionero (the Work of the Divine Prisoner); born 24 February 1890 in Cagno, Italy; died at Valle Colorina, Italy, 31 March 1963;
* the heroic virtue of the Servant of God Francesco Blachnicki, diocesan Priest; born in Rybnik, Poland, 24 March 1921; died at Carlsberg, Germany, 27 February 1987;
* the heroic virtue of the Servant of God Giuseppe Rivera Ramírez, diocesan Priest; born 17 December 1925 in Toledo, Spain; and died there 25 March 1991
* the heroic virtue of the Servant of God Giovanni Emanuele Martín del Campo, diocesan Priest; born in Lagos de Moreno, Mexico, 14 December 1917; died at Jalapa, Mexico, 13 August 1996;
* the heroic virtue of the Servant of God Antonio Filomeno Maria Losito; Priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists); born in Canosa di Puglia, Italy, 16 December 1838; died at Pagani, Italy, 18 July 1917;
* the heroic virtue of the Servant of God Maria Benedetta Giuseppa Frey (née Ersilia Penelope), professed nun of the Cistercian Order; born in Rome 6 March 1836; died at Viterbo, Italy, 10 May 1913;
* the heroic virtue of the Servant of God Anna Chrzanowska, laywoman, Oblate of the Ursulines of Saint Benedict; born in Warsaw, Poland, 7 October 1902; died at Krakow 29 April 1973.
(from Vatican Radio)…