(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday gave a special greeting to a group of children from Bosnia and Herzegovina who have been participating in a special programme to foster inter-community harmony by allowing children from different backgrounds to live together in a neutral setting, which in this case is Sicily.
Children from Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim backgrounds have been living with Sicilian host families from 19 December, and will return home on 21 January. The programme is sponsored by the Luciano Lama Association.
“Dear children, spending time together as brothers and sisters with your host families, you have the opportunity to grow in an atmosphere of hope,” – Pope Francis told them during his weekly General Audience – “Only in this way can you young Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims rescue the hope to live in a world which is more fraternal, just and peaceful; more sincere and more humane.”
He told them to always remain firm in faith and pray for the peace and unity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the whole world.
“I sincerely thank the host families for their example of love and Christian solidarity: Orphans should always be defended, protected and welcomed with love,” – The Pope concluded – “I assure you of my spiritual closeness and I cordially impart upon all of you my Apostolic Blessing.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said on Wednesday that Christian Unity and reconciliation are possible. He was speaking during his weekly General Audience in the Paul the VI hall where he also continued his catechesis on Christian hope.
Listen to Lydia O’Kane’s report
We look more ‘to that’ which unites us rather than that which ‘divides us”. Those were Pope Francis’ words on Wednesday during his weekly General Audience as he recalled this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Inviting Christians to pray for this week and also recalling his visit to Lund in Sweden to Commemorate the Reformation, the Pope said “we continue the journey together to deepen our communion and to give it more and more a ‘visible form.”
In Europe, the Holy Father stressed, this common faith in Christ is like a green thread of hope” adding that, “communion, unity and reconciliation ‘are possible.”
As Christians, he said, “we are responsible for ‘this message and we have to bear witness to it with our lives.”
The Pope made the comments while greeting an Ecumenical delegation from Germany.
Also during his audience and continuing his catechesis on Christian hope, Pope Francis reflected on the story of the prophet Jonah, who sought to flee from a difficult mission entrusted to him by the Lord.
He said that, “when the ship that Jonah had boarded was tossed by a storm, the pagan sailors asked him, as a man of God, to pray that they might escape sure death.
The Pope noted that, “the story reminds us of the link between hope and prayer.”
Anguish in the face of death, he added, “often makes us recognize our human frailty and our need to pray for salvation.”
The Holy Father explained that Jonah prays on behalf of the sailors and as a result, “the sailors come to acknowledge the true God.”
He also underlined that “as the paschal mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection makes clear, death itself can be, for each of us, an invitation to hope and an encounter in prayer with the God of our salvation.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis during his Wednesday General Audience continued his catecheseis on Christian hope and asked for prayers for this Week of Christian Unity.
Below find the Pope’s English language remarks
Dear Brothers and Sisters: In our continuing catechesis on Christian hope, we reflect today on the story of the prophet Jonah, who sought to flee from a difficult mission entrusted to him by the Lord. When the ship that Jonah had boarded was tossed by a storm, the pagan sailors asked him, as a man of God, to pray that they might escape sure death. This story reminds us of the link between hope and prayer. Anguish in the face of death often makes us recognize our human frailty and our need to pray for salvation. Jonah prays on behalf of the sailors, and, taking up once more his prophetic mission, shows himself ready to sacrifice his life for their sake. As a result, the sailors come to acknowledge the true God. As the paschal mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection makes clear, death itself can be, for each of us, an invitation to hope and an encounter in prayer with the God of our salvation.
Dear friends, today begins the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. In this same spirit of hope, and with gratitude for the progress already made in the ecumenical movement, I ask your prayers for this important intention.
(from Vatican Radio)…
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The funeral Mass of Cardinal Gilberto Agustoni took place in St Peters Basilica at 10am, 17th January. The Swiss Cardinal, who served as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura from 1992-1998, died on January 13, aged 94.
The funeral Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the former Vatican secretary of State and Dean of the College of Cardinals.
Greeting all those present on behalf of Pope Francis, Cardinal Sodano often likened Christian faith to light during his homily.
“In the first reading is Job, who already many centuries before Christ, professed his faith in the final resurrection say, ‘I know that my redeemer lives, and my eyes will behold him.'”
Touching on Saint Paul’s faith that Jesus will bring with him to God all those who have died, Cardinal Sodano then quoted the Gospel of Luke. “‘Be ready, dressed for action with your lamps burning,’ ready to open the door to the Lord, who comes to call us. This is the Christian vision of life and death, which we wish to profess, especially at the moment a loved one departs from this world. It was this faith which always guided our dear Cardinal Gilberto.”
He concluded with a further reflection on faith and light, comparing the “living flame of faith” in Dante’s Divine Comedy, with Jesus’ words “I came into the world as light, so that he who believes in me will not remain in darkness.” Once again, he assured the congregation that this light had illuminated and guided the life of Cardinal Agustino.
Gilberto Agustoni was born in Switzerland in 1922 and ordained a priest in 1946. He held a number of appointments in Rome, beginning in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, later becoming secretary of the Congregation for Clergy and finally Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura. Pope John Paul II made him a Cardinal in 1994.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Be courageous Christians, anchored in hope and capable of enduring dark moments. This was the forceful invitation of Pope Francis at the morning Mass on Tuesday at the Casa Santa Marta. Lazy Christians, on the other hand, are stationary, the Pope said, and for them, the Church is a good parking spot.
The life of a Christian is a “courageous life,” Pope Francis said in his homily, which he based on the reading from the Letter to the Hebrews. The zeal spoken of in the reading, the courage to go forward, ought to be our attitude toward life, like the attitude of those who train for victory in the arena. But the Letter also speaks of the laziness that is the opposite of courage. “Living in the fridge,” the Pope summarized, “so that everything stays the same”:
“Lazy Christians, Christians who do not have the will to go forward, Christians who don’t fight to make things change, new things, the things that would do good for everyone, if these things would change. They are lazy, “parked” Christians: they have found in the Church a good place to park. And when I say Christians, I’m talking about laity, priests, bishops… Everyone. But there are parked Christians! For them the Church is a parking place that protects life, and they go forward with all the insurance possible. But these stationary Christians, they make me think of something the grandparents told us as children: beware of still water, that which doesn’t flow, it is the first to go bad.”
Be anchored in hope, and able to endure in difficult moments
What makes Christians courageous is hope, while the “lazy Christians” don’t have hope, they are in retirement, the Pope said. It is beautiful to go into retirement after many years of work, but, he warned, “spending your whole life in retirement is ugly!” Hope, on the other hand, is the anchor that we cling to in order to keep fighting, even in difficult moments:
“This is today’s message: hope, that hope that doesn’t disappoint, that goes beyond. And he [the Author of the Letter to the Hebrews] says: a hope that ‘is a sure and firm anchor for our life.’ Hope is the anchor: We threw it, and we are clinging to the cord, but there, but going there. This is our hope. There’s no thinking: ‘Yes, but, there is heaven, ah, how beautiful, I’m staying…’ No. Hope is struggling, holding onto the rope, in order to arrive there. In the struggle of everyday, hope is a virtue of horizons, not of closure! Perhaps it is the virtue that is least understood, but it is the strongest. Hope: living in hope, living on hope, always looking forward with courage. ‘Yes, Father – anyone of you might say to me – but there are ugly moments, where everything seems dark, what should I do?’ Hold onto the rope, and endure.”
Parked Christians look only at themselves, they are selfish
“Life does not come to any of us wrapped up like a gift,” Pope Francis noted; rather, we need courage to go forward and to endure. Courageous Christians might make mistakes, “but we all make mistakes,” the Pope said. “Those who go forward make mistakes, while those who are stationary seem to not make mistakes.” And when “you can’t walk because everything is dark, everything is closed,” you need to endure, to persevere.
Finally, Pope Francis invited us to ask ourselves if we are closed Christians, or Christians of the horizons; and if in ugly moments we are capable of enduring, with the knowledge that hope does not disappoint – “Because I know,” he said, “that God does not disappoint”:
“Let us ask ourselves the question: How am I? How is my life of faith? Is it a life of horizons, of hope, of courage, of going forward; or a lukewarm life that doesn’t even know to endure ugly moments? And that the Lord might give us the grace, as we have requested in the Collect [Opening Prayer], to overcome our selfishness, because parked Christians, stationary Christians, are selfish. They look only at themselves, they don’t raise their heads to look at Him. May the Lord give us this grace.”
(from Vatican Radio)…