(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis met with participants in the Dominican General Chapter on Thursday ahead of his afternoon visit to Assisi, speaking to them about the need to incarnate the Gospel through preaching, witness, and charity. The audience with Pope Francis concludes the General Chapter marking 800 years since the founding of the Order of Preachers by St. Dominic. ****************************** Beginning with a joke about his day’s activities, Pope Francis laughingly said his day could be called “A Jesuit among Friars”, since it saw him meet with the spiritual children of the contemporaries St. Dominic and St. Francis. Putting jokes aside, the Holy Father got to the heart of the matter, speaking to the Dominicans gathered about the need to incarnate the Gospel through preaching, witness, and charity. He said it was God who inspired St. Dominic to found the Order of Preachers and put preaching at the heart of their mission, just as Jesus had taught his disciples. “It is the Word of God which burns from within and incites us to go out and proclaim Jesus Christ to all peoples. The Founding Father said, ‘First contemplate, and then teach’. Evangelized by God to evangelize. Without a deep personal union with Him, preaching may be very perfect, very rational, even admirable, but it will never touch the heart, which is what must change.” The Word of God also requires witness , he said. “Teachers faithful to the truth and worthy witnesses of the Gospel. The witness incarnates what is taught, makes it tangible, makes it call, and leaves no one indifferent. [The witness] adds to the truth the joy of the Gospel, aware of being loved by God and the object of His infinite mercy.” Lastly, charity is necessary for the preacher and witness. Referring to the early life of St. Dominic, the Pope said it was the living, suffering body of Christ which was inscribed in his entire existence. “It is the body of Christ, alive and suffering, which cries out to the preacher and does not leave him tranquil. The cry of the poor and discarded awakens and makes us understand the compassion which Jesus had for the people. […] It is in the encounter with the living body of Christ that we are evangelizers, that we recover the passion to be preachers and witnesses of His love, and that we free ourselves from the dangerous temptation, extremely actual today, of Gnosticism.” Preaching, witness, and charity. (from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) At the conclusion of his Wednesday General Audience , Pope Francis delivered his message for the upcoming Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro , urging Brazilians to work for a more just and safe country.
Listen to Devin Watkins’ report:
With the Olympic Games 2016 getting underway in Rio on Saturday, August 6th, Pope Francis told all those involved to ‘fight the good fight’ and finish the race together.
He said “in a world thirsting for peace, tolerance, and reconciliation”, the prize for all participants and spectators of the Games consisted in something much more precious than a medal.
Their prize, he said, is “the construction of a civilization in which solidarity reigns and is based upon the recognition that we are all members of the same human family, regardless of the differences of culture, skin color, or religion.”
The Holy Father also expressed his desire that all Brazilians, “who with their joy and characteristic hospitality have organized the ‘Feast of Sport’, … that this will be an opportunity to overcome difficult moments and commit themselves to working as a team to build a more just and safe country, betting all on a future full of hope and joy.”
A Vatican Radio English translation of Pope Francis’ message for the Olympics is below:
I would like to send an especially warm greeting to the Brazilian people, in particular to the city of Rio de Janeiro, which is hosting the athletes and passionate fans from all over the world on the occasion of the Olympics. In a world thirsting for peace, tolerance, and reconciliation, I hope that the spirit of the Olympic Games inspires all – participants and spectators – to “fight the good fight” and finish the race together (cf. 2 Tim 4,7-8), desiring to obtain as a prize, not a medal, but something much more precious: the construction of a civilization in which solidarity reigns and is based upon the recognition that we are all members of the same human family, regardless of the differences of culture, skin color, or religion. And for all Brazilians, who with their joy and characteristic hospitality have organized the ‘Feast of Sport’, I hope that this will be an opportunity to overcome difficult moments and commit themselves to working as a team to build a more just and safe country, betting all on a future full of hope and joy. May God bless you all!
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis met with a group of 65 child refugees from Syria and Eritrea on Wednesday during his General Audience.
The children are staying in the small town of Castelnuovo di Porto, located 25 kilometres north of Rome.
The children were wearing shirts saying “Grazie Papa Francesco” [Thank you, Pope Francis], and gave the Holy Father a large teddy bear. They also held up a sign saying “Our house is where peace resides.”
Pope Francis washed the feet of refugees from the Centre for Asylum Seekers at Castelnuovo di Porto on Holy Thursday in March.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis this week embarks on a short pilgrimage to mark the 8 th centenary of the “Pardon of Assisi,” a feast which commemorates the establishment of a plenary indulgence for all who pass through the chapel where the Franciscan order was founded.
During his Aug. 4 pilgrimage , the Pope will visit the Porziuncola – a small chapel, located inside the larger Basilica of St Mary of the Angels.
In an interview with Vatican Radio, Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, Fr Michael Anthony Perry, who will meet with the Holy Father during the pilgrimage, explained the meaning behind this feast .
Listen to Blandine Hugonnet’s interview with Fr Michael Perry, OFM:
“It was his own discovery of God forgiving him for his own sins,” he said. “And as he began to forgive himself and allowed God to forgive him, he found himself wanting to forgive others, and wanting to extend that to all people, even to his enemies.”
This message, which echoes out “from the Porziuncola,” Fr Perry said, invites “everyone to stop, take a moment, listen to God saying: I forgive you. I love you. Come back to me.”
The Franciscan priest added that while the significance of the message remains unchanged between the time of St Francis and today, what has changed is “our ability to heal or not to listen.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis renewed his condemnation of the holocaust on Wednesday, and decried once again the persistent violence in the world as a “piecemeal” world war. The Holy Father’s remarks came during the course of the General Audience on Wednesday – the first since suspending the weekly appointment with pilgrims and tourists for the month of July, and the first since his return from Poland and the 2016 edition of World Youth Day.
While in Poland, Pope Francis visited the extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where German National Socialists murdered a million European Jews (one in every six victims of Shoah perished at Auschwitz) as part of their programme of Jewish extermination.
“The great silence of the visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau,” said Pope Francis, “was more eloquent than any word spoken could have been. In that silence I listened: I felt the presence of all the souls who passed through that place; I felt the compassion, the mercy of God, which a few holy souls were been able to bring even into that abyss. In that great silence, I prayed for all the victims of violence and war: and there, in that place, I realized more than ever how precious is memory; not only as a record of past events, but as a warning, and a responsibility for today and tomorrow, that the seed of hatred and violence not be allowed to take root in the furrows of history.”
Click below to hear our report
Departing from his prepared text, Pope Francis went on to recall the countless people – men and women, young and old – who still today suffer as a result of war. “Looking upon that cruelty, in that concentration camp,” he said, “I thought immediately of the cruelties of today, which are similar: not as concentrated as in that place, but everywhere in the world; this world that is sick with cruelty, pain, war, hatred, sadness; and this is why I always ask you for the prayer: that the Lord give us peace.”
Pope Francis’ visit to Poland also coincided with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the historic visit of Pope Saint John Paul II following the fall of the Iron Curtain.
“Poland, Europe and the world have changed greatly since then, but the young continue to be a prophetic sign of hope for the future.” Describing the scene of hundreds of thousands of young people from every corner of the globe waving the flags of their respective countries, Pope Francis said that the young people formed a mosaic of fraternity and a joyful response to the challenge of the Gospel. “Poland, with its rich cultural and spiritual heritage,” he continued, “today reminds us that Europe has no future apart from its founding values, centred on the Christian vision of man and including the message of mercy expressed so eloquently in the last century by Saints John Paul and Faustina Kowalska.”
(from Vatican Radio)…