(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Friday morning greeted participants taking part in a conference organised by the Vatican Observatory entitled “Black Holes, Gravitational Waves and Space-Time Singularities. The conference is taking place from 9-12 May at the Observatory at Castelgandolfo in the Roman Hills.
Please find below the English translation of the Pope’s words to participants
Greeting of His Holiness Pope Francis to participants at the Conference organized by the Vatican Observatory
12 maggio 2017
Dear friends,
I extend a heartfelt welcome to you all, and I thank Brother Guy Consolmagno for his kind words.
The issues you have been addressing during these days at Castel Gandolfo are of particular interest to the Church, because they have to do with questions that concern us deeply, such as the beginning of the universe and its evolution, and the profound structure of space and time, to name but a few. It is clear that these questions have a particular relevance for science, philosophy, theology and for the spiritual life. They represent an arena in which these different disciplines meet and sometimes clash.
As both a Catholic priest and a cosmologist, Mgr Georges Lemaître knew well the creative tension between faith and science, and always defended the clear methodological distinction between the fields of science and theology. While integrating them in his own life, he viewed them as distinct areas of competence. That distinction, already present in Saint Thomas Aquinas, avoids a short-circuiting that is as harmful to science as it is to faith.
Before the immensity of space-time, we humans can experience awe and a sense of our own insignificance, as the Psalmist reminds us: “What is man that you should keep him in mind, the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps 8:5). As Albert Einstein loved to say: “One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility”. The existence and intelligibility of the universe are not a result of chaos or mere chance, but of God’s Wisdom, present “at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old”. (Prov 8:22).
I am deeply appreciative of your work, and I encourage you to persevere in your search for truth. For we ought never to fear truth, nor become trapped in our own preconceived ideas, but welcome new scientific discoveries with an attitude of humility. As we journey towards the frontiers of human knowledge, it is indeed possible to have an authentic experience of the Lord, one which is capable of filling our hearts.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Tens of thousands of pilgrims are descending on the Marian Shrine of Fatima ahead of Pope Francis’ visit later on Friday. The Holy Father is due to fly to Portugal from Rome’s Fiumicino Airport this afternoon and is expected to arrive at the air base of Monte Reale at 16.20 local time.
Our Correspondent in Fatima, Chris Altieri has been out and about and sends this report on the powerful devotion at this beloved Marian Shrine.
Listen:
All throughout the day on Thursday, as afternoon turned to twilight and twilight gave way to evening, and even after night fell, a steady and slowly but visibly increasing stream of pilgrims built.
Tens of thousands of pilgrims are now descending on the great square that stretches between the “new sanctuary” – the Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity – and the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary – both imposing structures of some grace and genius, the former in a decidedly modern style and the latter a harmonious blend of elements established in many architectural traditions and periods, including a bell tower, vaulted ceilings, a colonnade, and more than a dozen pieces of impressive statuary – the centrepiece of which is the statue of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in the niche of the tower: it is the work of the Dominican priest-sculptor Thomas McGlynn (a US citizen), crafted according to the indications of the seer and Discalced Carmelite Sister Lucia herself, and paid for by the Catholic faithful of the United States.
The story of the statue makes for great reading.
It is this reporter’s first time here, though, and the thing that has been the most powerfully affecting particular of the sanctuary complex is the chapel of the apparitions, built on the exact spot of the apparitions in Fatima in 1917.
Pilgrims of every age and state of life in the Church – some flush with the exuberance of youth, some filled with gratitude for the graces of a life abundantly blessed, and others, too – people who, to look them in the eyes, have doubtless “seen the elephant” – approach the tiny covered chapel all day long – many of them on their knees – circumambulating the site, pausing, praying, hearing Mass and offering their Rosaries, sometimes singly and in silence, and more often in groups.
The most startling thing about it is how there is … nothing strange or starling about it, really: Our Blessed Lady seems to the pilgrims I’ve observed to be a daily companion, familiar, even – their faith is as comfortable as a sturdy old pair of walking shoes, and definitely simple – simple as the Divine nature itself, which Mary carried in her womb, the bottomless secrets of which she, and she alone, has contemplated with such perfect intimacy.
Here, though, in this place, one hundred years ago, the sun danced in the sky at the command of the Queen of Heaven, who had come to visit simple shepherd children.
It is here that Pope Francis is coming as a pilgrim among pilgrims – and here, we have a powerful interpretative key to the programme of his Pontificate.
Time, and tie again, the Holy Father has encouraged popular devotion – those ancient and venerable practices of piety that Catholics can’t quite seem to quit, and everyone else doesn’t seem to “get” – and here, in Fatima, he is coming to recall the attention of the world to the power of a simple prayer.
“With Mary, I come as [a] pilgrim in hope and in peace,” Pope Francis has said in the motto of this voyage, which he himself has insisted is a pilgrimage.
He is, in other words, trusting the power of popular devotion to move the faithful, and – who knows? – perhaps even move the world once again from the brink of self-destruction.
He is also trusting the faithful to be powerful agents of change in the world, precisely by means of the prayerful witness of faith, which opens hearts to the work of charity.
In Fatima, awaiting Pope Francis, I’m, Chris Altieri
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is just hours away from his departure for Fatima, Portugal, where he will lead celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady there. Our special envoy Chris Altieri is in Fatima, and sent us this report.
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“If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes.” That’s sound advice any time one finds oneself about 20 miles from the Atlantic coast at nearly 1,000 ft. elevation.
We took rain off and on all morning, as we went from one side of the shrine complex to the other: first getting an unscheduled stop at the Carmel where Pope Francis is to stay the night Friday, then our hunt for our lodgings and then the press centre for accreditation and then the refectory for a quick bite to eat.
Cick below to hear our report
That’s par for the course on a journey like this – a pilgrimage, really – though I promise to be here from start to finish, God-willing, to bring you all the story – and it is as a pilgrim that Pope Francis is coming to this place in the hills north of Lisbon, where 100 years ago this weekend the Mother of God appeared to shepherd children , in the midst of what was the most costly and destructive conflict yet in human history, to show the whole human race once again the way to her Divine Son, Jesus Christ.
“With Mary, as a pilgrim of hope and peace I travel to Fatima,” said Pope Francis in a tweet on the eve of his departure. “Let us see in her that everything is God’s gift and He is our strength.”
Here, in Fatima, there is an uncanny mixture of constant bustle and tense calm, with groups of pilgrims of every age and state of life in the Church milling about, now completing this devotion, now moving to another – some braving wind and rain to cross the plaza on their knees – others seeking shelter, others heading home – at least for the day.
The shrine complex is getting busier by the hour, it seems, with volunteers and the inevitable security checkpoints adding to the bustle.
The Rosary of Our Lady, meanwhile, is in the air – quite literally – visibly in the great white sculpture that rises some 80 feet high over the square – and audibly, in the prayers of the pilgrims, whether piped through the public address, or whispered at arm’s length.
In Fatima, awaiting Pope Francis, I’m, Chris Altieri
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said the life of every Christian is a journey and a process during which to deepen the faith.
Speaking during the homily at morning Mass at the Casa Santa Marta , the Pope reflected on the liturgical reading of the day in which St. Paul tells the story of Salvation leading up to Jesus.
During the course of history, Pope Francis said, many of our conceptions have changed. Slavery, for example, was a practice that was accepted; in time we have come to understand that it is a mortal sin.
“God has made himself known throughout history” he said, “His salvation” goes back a long way in time. And he referred to Paul’s preaching in the Acts of the Apostles when he tells the God-fearing children of Israel about the journey of their ancestors from the Exodus from Egypt until the coming of the savior, Jesus.
The Pope said salvation has a great and a long history during which the Lord “guided his people in good and in bad moments, in times of freedom and of slavery: in a journey populated by “saints and by sinners” on the road towards fullness, “towards the encounter with the Lord”.
At the end of the journey there is Jesus, he said, however: “it doesn’t end there”.
In fact, Francis continued, Jesus gave us the Spirit who allows to “remember and to understand Jesus’ message, and thus, a second journey begins.
Slavery and the death penalty were once accepted; today they are considered mortal sins
This journey undertaken “to understand, to deepen our understanding of Jesus and to deepen our faith” serves also, Francis explained, “to understand moral teaching, the Commandments.”
He pointed out that some things that “once seemed normal and not sinful, are today conceived as mortal sins:
“Think of slavery: at school they told us what they did with the slaves taking them from one place and selling them in another…. That is a mortal sin” he said.
But that, he said, is what we believe today. Back then it was deemed acceptable because people believed that some did not have a soul.
It was necessary, the Pope said, to move on to better understand the faith and to better understand morality.
And reflecting bitterly on the fact that today “there are no slaves”, Pope Francis pointed out there are in fact many more of them…. but at least, he said, we know that to enslave someone is to commit a mortal sin.
The same goes for the death penalty: “once it was considered normality; today we say that it is inadmissible” he said.
The people of God are always on a journey to deepen their faith
The same concept, he added, can be applied to “wars of religion”: as we go ahead deepening our faith and clarifying the dictates of morality “there are saints, the saints we all know, as well as the hidden saints.”
The Church, he commented, “is full of hidden saints”, and it is their holiness that will lead us to the “second fullness” when “the Lord will ultimately come to be all in all”.
Thus, Pope Francis said “The people of God are always on their way”.
When the people of God stop, he said, “they become like prisoners in a stable, like donkeys”. In that situation they are unable to understand, to go forward, to deepen their faith – and love and faith do not purify their souls.
And, he said, there is a third “fullness of the times: ours”.
Each of us, the Pope explained, “is on the way to the fullness of our own time. Each of us will reach the moment in which life ends and there we must find the Lord. Each of us is on the go.”
“Jesus, he noted, has sent the Holy Spirit to guide us on our way” and he pointed out that the Church today is also on the go.
Confession is a step in our journey on the way to meet the Lord
Pope Francis invited the faithful to ask themselves whether during confession there is not only the shame for having sinned, but also the understanding that in that moment they are taking a “step forward on the way to the fullness of times”.
“To ask God for forgiveness is not something automatic” he said.
“It means that I understand that I am on a journey, part of a people that is on a journey” and sooner or later “I will find myself face-to-face with God, who never leaves us alone, but always accompanies us” he said.
And this, the Pope concluded, is the great work of God’s mercy.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a message of greeting to the people of Portugal as he prepares to travel to Fatima on the 100th anniversary of the first apparition of Mary to three shepherd children on May 13th 1917.
In a video-message released just two days before his journey the Pope said that “Just hours from my pilgrimage to Our Lady of Fatima, I find myself in a state of joyful expectation for our upcoming encounter at the house of the Mother”.
I am well aware, he said, of the fact that you would like to welcome me into your homes, into your communities and into your towns as well: “I received your invitation!”
However, he continued, “I would have liked to be able to accept that invitation but it is impossible, and I thank you for the understanding with which my decision to keep my visit circumscribed to the Fatima Sanctuary, where I hope to meet you at the feet of the Virgin Mother, has been received”.
“It is in my role as universal pastor, Pope Francis said, that I am about to present myself to her and I need to feel you close, physically or spiritually so that we are one heart and one mind”.
In his message the Pope also said he is entrusting all Portuguese faithful to Our Lady asking her to “whisper into the ears of each one of them, and assure them that her Immaculate Heart is a refuge and a path leading them to God”.
“With Mary, I come as pilgrim in hope and in peace” is the logo of this pilgrimage, Pope Francis said, expressing his joy to learn of the intense preparations that are taking place in view of this “blessed moment.”
Inviting all faithful to open their hearts to be able to receive God’s gifts, the Pope thanked all faithful for their prayers for him saying that he is in need of them as he is “a sinner amongst sinners”.
“In His name, I come to you with the joy of sharing the Gospel of hope and peace. May the Lord bless you and Our Lady protect you” he said.
(from Vatican Radio)…