(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said the cornerstone of life for Christians is Jesus who is praying for us, pointing out that Jesus always turned to prayer at all the key moments in his life. His remarks came during his Mass celebrated on Friday morning in the chapel of the Santa Marta residence.
Taking his cue from the Gospel reading recounting how Jesus spent the night in prayer before choosing his disciples, the Pope’s homily reflected on the fundamental importance of prayer for Christians. He said whilst Jesus is the cornerstone of the Church and there is no Church without Him, the key to this cornerstone is Jesus who is praying for us.
The cornerstone of the Church is Jesus in front of the Father who is praying for us
“‘Jesus went up to the mountain to pray and he spent the night in prayer to God.’ And then the rest followed, the crowds, the choosing of his disciples, the healings, the casting out of demons… Yes, the cornerstone is Jesus but Jesus who prays. Jesus is praying. He prayed and he continues to pray for the Church. The cornerstone of the Church is our Lord in front of the Father who intercedes on our behalf, who is praying for us. We pray to Him but the key thing is that He is praying for us.”
Our security is Jesus praying for each one of us
Pope Francis went on to describe how Jesus always prayed for his followers, be it at the Last Supper or before performing a miracle such as when he prayed to the Father before raising Lazarus from the dead.
“Jesus prayed on the Mount of Olives, on the Cross, he ended praying: his life ended in prayer. And this is our security, this is our foundation, this is our cornerstone: Jesus who is praying for us! Jesus who is praying for me! And each of us can say this: I am certain that Jesus is praying for me; that he is in front of the Father and naming me. This is the cornerstone of the Church: Jesus in prayer.”
Another example of Jesus praying for his followers, said the Pope, came before his Passion when Jesus told Peter he had been praying for him to withstand Satan’s temptation and for his faith to hold firm.
“And what Jesus tells Peter, he tells you and you and me, everybody: ‘I have prayed for you, I am praying for you, I am now praying for you’ and when He comes onto the altar, He comes to intercede, to pray for us. As he did on the Cross. And this gives us a great sense of security. I belong to this community that’s solid because Jesus is its cornerstone, Jesus who is praying for me, who is praying for us. Today we’d do well to reflect on the Church, reflect on this mystery of the Church. We are all like a building but its foundation is Jesus, Jesus who is praying for us, Jesus who is praying for me.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis met in the Vatican on Thursday with participants at an international conference on combatting human trafficking. The Santa Marta Group , which organised the two day conference, was established in 2014 to pledge closer cooperation on anti-trafficking initiatives between the Catholic Church and law enforcement agencies worldwide.
At a concluding press conference Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster , one of the founding members of the group, and two survivors of human trafficking spoke of the progress that has been made over the past couple of years.
Listen to Philippa Hitchen’s report:
In his words to the group of bishops and religious, police and security officials, Pope Francis described trafficking as “one of the major challenges of our time” and he praised participants for the important contribution they’re making to end this scourge of modern slavery.
The number of victims, he noted, keeps growing year by year and it’s essential both to support victims of trafficking, but also to tackle the complex problems that lead to their exploitation.
Cardinal Nichols told journalists the group had presented the pope with the a report of positive developments in the 30 countries that are now part of the Santa Marta process …
“ Above all perhaps, what this report shows is that human slavery and trafficking is not so hidden as it used to be. There is an increasing awareness that this, in the phrase of the Holy Father, is an open wound in the flesh of humanity, and that voices that were once completely hidden are now being heard ”.
Those voices include that of Nigerian survivor Princess Inyang , who was trafficked into Italy in 1999 and forced into prostitution, until she was able to escape, with help from a priest working in the northern city of Asti. She shared her story at the conference and called for deportation of the traffickers, as well as more education and skills training for vulnerable girls in her home country…
“ The women are vulnerable because of the poverty in Nigeria, the background of the polygamy system of the families, the non-employment, and now we know that the traffickers go into the rural areas to get these young women because of their serious problems ”.
Another survivor, who also works to help others avoid the traffickers, is former Premier League player Al Bangura , originally from Sierra Leone. A keen footballer from an early age, he was tricked into going to England with promises of a dream career. He managed to escape the traffickers and now serves as ambassador for a UK based charity called Sport for Freedom.
“ With everything I’ve been through, I want to be out there to share my story, to educate kids and talk to parents who’re desperate for their kids to achieve….we also work with the Premiership… to make sure the kids are going in the rights direction and make sure we stop this slavery thing .”
From Africa to Latin America, from Asia to Europe, the U.S. and the Middle East, the conference heard many encouraging stories of success in combatting the trade in people for prostitution, forced labour or sale of their body parts. But as their report also underlines, there is much frustration too, coupled with a renewed determination to work more effectively together for an end to what Pope Francis himself describes as a “crime against humanity”.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said God weeps over the calamities and over the wars waged nowadays to worship ‘the idol of money’ and for the many innocent victims killed by the bombs. He stressed that God weeps because humanity does not understand “the peace that He offers us.” His words came during the Mass celebrated on Thursday morning in the chapel of the Santa Marta residence.
Taking his inspiration from a reading from the gospel of Luke where Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, the “closed” city that “kills the prophets and stones those sent” to it, Pope Francis’ homily reflected on some of the moments of weeping during Christ’s ministry. He explained that Jesus had the tenderness of His Father looking at his children when he wept over the city of Jerusalem in the gospel account saying: “How many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling.”
“Somebody said that God became man in order to be able to weep, to weep over what His children had done. The weeping in front of the tomb of Lazarus is the weeping of a friend. This is the weeping of the Father.”
In the same way, the Pope continued, we can look at the behaviour of the father of the prodigal son and what happens when this son asks for his inheritance and leaves home. He said the father did not go to his neighbours to say “Look what has happened to me! This horrible thing he did to me! But I will curse this son…” Pope Francis said he is certain that the father did not do this although maybe he went “to weep alone in his bedroom.”
“And why do I tell you this? Because the Gospel does not talk about this, it says that when his son returned home, he saw him from afar: this means that the Father was continually going up onto the terrace to look at the road to see if his son was coming back. And a father who does this is a father who lives in tears, waiting for his son to return home. This is the weeping of God the Father. And with his weeping, the Father recreates through his Son all of creation.”
Turning next to the moment when Jesus is carrying the cross to Calvary, Pope Francis reflected on the pious women who were weeping, saying they were not weeping over Him but over their own children. He stressed that this weeping like that of a father and of a mother is one that God still continues to do in our times.
“Even nowadays in front of the calamities, the wars waged in order to worship the god of money, the many innocent people killed by the bombs launched by those who worship the idol of money, God still weeps and He also says: ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, my children, what are you doing?’ And he also says this to the poor victims, to the arms traffickers and to all those who sell the life of people. We’d do well to think both about how God our Father became man in order to be able to weep and how God our Father weeps nowadays: he weeps over humanity that ends up not understanding the peace that He offers us, the peace of love.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis addressed the administration, faculty, students, and staff of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in Rome on Thursday, at the opening of the Institute’s academic year.
The Holy Father’s address was also in view of the Institute’s upcoming 35 th anniversary, to be marked in November.
In remarks prepared for the occasion and delivered on Thursday morning in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, Pope Francis described the Church’s understanding of the family based on marriage as an expression and fulfilment of human nature and ordered to the general flourishing of the human race as a “great treasure” that is in need of “ransom” from several alarming intellectual, cultural, and social trends threatening it in many political societies around the world.
“It is necessary,” said Pope Francis, “to apply ourselves with greater enthusiasm to the work of rehabilitating – I would almost say the ‘ransom’ of this amazing ‘invention’ – of this divine creation,” which is marriage and the family. “This work of ransom must be taken seriously,” he said, “both in the doctrinal sense in the practical senses of ministry and witness: the dynamics of the relationship between God, man and woman, and their children, are the golden key to understanding the world and history, with all that they contain.”
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Pope Francis went on to explain that, as we are about our work in the world, we must not be unmindful of the frailty and wickedness in human nature. “Let us bear always in mind that we carry this treasure in ‘vessels of clay’,” he said.
Quoting from his recent post-Synodal exhortation, Amoris laetitia , Pope Francis went on to say, “At times we have also proposed a far too abstract and almost artificial theological ideal of marriage, far removed from the concrete situations and practical possibilities of real families. This excessive idealization, especially when we have failed to inspire trust in God’s grace, has not helped to make marriage more desirable and attractive, but quite the opposite.”
“Theology and pastoral solicitude go hand-in-hand,” said Pope Francis. “A theological doctrine that does not let itself be guided and shaped by the evangelizing purpose and the pastoral concern of the Church is just as unthinkable as a pastoral plan for the Church that does not know how to make a treasure of revelation and tradition with a view to the better understanding and transmission of the faith.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday reminded the faithful that the month of October is dedicated to the Rosary and invited all believers to recite the Marian prayer.
In a tweet, just a few days ago, on the day when the Church celebrates the feast of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary, the Pope said “the Rosary is the prayer that always accompanies my life: it is also the prayer of simple people and saints…it is the prayer of my heart”.
At the conclusion of the weekly General Audience , he explained that the Rosary is “a synthesis of Divine Mercy”:
“With Mary, in the mysteries of the Rosary we contemplate the life of Jesus which irradiates the mercy of the Father. Let us rejoice in His love and forgiveness, let us recognize it in foreigners and in those who are needy, let us live His Gospel every day”.
And greeting the young, the sick and the newly wedded, Pope Francis said:
“May this simple Marian prayer show you, young people, the way to give life to God’s will in your lives; dear sick people, love this prayer because it brings consolation for the mind and the heart; and dear newly wedded spouses, may it represent a privileged moment of spiritual intimacy within your new family”.
Pope Francis gives all people he meets a Rosary. “Our Lady – he says – is always close to Her children and ready to help when we pray to her, when we ask for her protection… let us remember she is always ready to serve and never keeps anyone waiting”.
(from Vatican Radio)…