(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis says that to ignore the poor is to despise God and that the Lord’s mercy for us is tightly connected to our own mercy for others.
Speaking on Wednesday morning at the weekly General Audience in St. Peter’s Square the Pope also decried the inequality and contradictions in the world as he reflected on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
He noted that the lives of these two people seem to run on parallel tracks; their living conditions are opposite and totally non-communicating: the rich man’s front door is always closed to the poor man who hopes to eat some leftovers from the rich man’s table. Every day the rich man – who wears luxurious clothes while Lazarus is covered with sores – fares sumptuously while Lazarus is starving.
This scene, the Pope said, reminds us of the harsh words of the Son of man during the final last judgment: “I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was […] naked and you did not clothe me” (Mt 25, 42).
“Lazarus represents the silent cry of the poor of all times and the contradictions of a world where vast wealth and resources are in the hands of few”.
Speaking of how the rich man pleaded with Abraham when he died claiming to be his son and to belong to the people of God, Francis pointed out that in life he showed no consideration for God but made himself the center of everything, “locked in his own world of luxury and waste”.
By excluding Lazarus, he explained, the rich man did not take the Lord or his law into account.
“To ignore the poor is to despise God!” he said.
And commenting on the second part of the parable, the Pope noted that after death the situation is reversed: “Lazarus is carried to heaven by the angels while the rich man falls into the torments of suffering”.
Now, he said, the rich man recognizes Lazarus and asks for help, while in life he pretended not to see him.
Pope Francis said Abraham refuses to heed the rich man’s pleas and explains that “good and evil have been distributed to compensate earthly injustice, and that “the door that separated the rich from the poor in life has been transformed into a deep abyss.”
“As long as Lazarus was lying in front of his house, there was the chance of salvation for the rich man, but now that they are both dead, the situation has become irreparable” he said.
The parable, the Pope said, is a clear warning: “God’s mercy for us is related to our mercy for our neighbor; […] If I do not open the doors of my heart to the poor, the door stays closed for God too. And this is terrible”.
At this point, the Pope continued, the rich man thinks of his brothers who are likely to meet the same fate and asks that Lazarus may return to the world to warn them. But Abraham points out that they must listen to Moses and to the prophets.
“To convert ourselves, we should not expect miraculous events, but open our hearts to the Word of God who calls us to love God and our neighbor” he said.
Pope Francis concluded saying that the Word of God can revive a withered heart and heal it of blindness, and that God’s saving message overturns the situations of this world by the triumph of His justice and mercy.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis invoked Saint Francis of Paola during his weekly General Audience on Wednesday. The Holy Father greeted devotees of the saint, who are marking the sixth centenary of his birth.
Saint Francis of Paula was born in Calabria in 1416, and as a young man entered the Franciscan Order. Seeking a more austere spirituality, he later founded the Hermits of Saint Francis of Assisi, which was afterward renamed the Minim friars.
After greeting the saint’s devotees, the Holy Father called on young people to “learn from Saint Francis of Paola that humility is a strength, not a weakness.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Anglican and Catholic theologians, meeting in Toronto, Canada this week, have agreed on the publication of their first ARCIC III document on the theme “Towards a Church fully reconciled”. The volume, which is likely to be published in the autumn, uses the ‘Receptive Ecumenism’ approach to look at the limitations within each communion and see how one Church can help the other grow towards the fullness of faith.
The third Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III) is holding its sixth annual meeting from May 11th to 19th, hosted by the Anglican sisters of St John the Divine in Toronto. The 18 members of the Commission have completed work on the first part of their mandate, exploring tensions between the local and Universal Church within the two communions, and are continuing discussions on a second volume, looking at how Anglicans and Catholics make difficult moral and ethical decisions.
To find out more about the meeting, Philippa Hitchen spoke with the two co-chairs, Archbishop David Moxon from New Zealand who heads Rome’s Anglican Centre and Catholic Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham in the UK .
Listen:
Archbishop David confirms the Commission is set to publish its first book, “Towards a Church fully reconciled” and is now working on its second volume on ecclesiology and ethics. He says it’s been “quite exciting to see already how user-friendly and readable it’ll be”. He notes the group has been very encouraged by feedback from local young Canadians from different cultural backgrounds who’ve helped to make it “a more third millennium book”.
Converted by each other
The Anglican co-chair says the book clearly states that we need to be “converted by each other”, showing each other “our wounds, our limitations, our weaknesses” in order to help each other to grow. He notes that there is still a long journey ahead towards the goal of organic union, but says the group is encouraged by the “inch-by-inch progress that we see around us”.
Receptive Ecumenism
Archbishop Bernard says that everyone in the Commission is “on board with the approach of this document which contrasts somewhat with the previous agreed statements of ARCIC’s first two phases”. He says the new approach uses the lens of Receptive Ecumenism, which allows Anglicans and Catholics “to look at the reality of life within each of our two communions, looking with a critical eye too at where we fall short”.
50th anniversary of ARCIC
Archbishop David speaks of the forthcoming 50th anniversary of the Anglican Centre and the setting up of the ARCIC group by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey. He notes that during the October 5th-7th celebration, 36 Anglican and Catholic bishops will pray together with Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby in the Rome church of St Gregorio al Celio. In pairs from different countries, they will be mandated and blessed “to go out and demonstrate partnerships that are possible” in mission and common worship, to show that “no one of us has got it all together, but together each one of us can share it all”.
Ecumenism in Canada
Archbishop Bernard also speaks of the very positive experience of the local Canadian Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission which has helped ensure that the reception process of ARCIC’s work “doesn’t remain there on the shelf” but allows people to engage with it and bring it into their daily lives.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has given an exclusive interview to the French Catholic La Croix newspaper. In the broad-ranging conversation with journalists Guillaume Goubert and Sébastien Maillard for La Croix , Pope Francis discussed matters ranging from healthy secularism and the right way to understand and live according to the Church’s universal missionary mandate, to the idea of Europe in relation to the migration crisis and the possibility of peaceful coexistence among Muslims and Christians.
He also addressed the clergy sex abuse crisis, offering considerations about an ongoing investigation – widely covered in France – involving the Archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, whose handling of the case of one pedophile priest in particular has been subject to scrutiny and criticism. La Croix has now published an English translation of the interview, available here .
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a telegram expressing his condolences for the death of Cardinal Giovanni Coppa, a long-serving diplomat and official of the Roman Curia. Cardinal Coppa was one of the chief Latinists of the II Vatican Council. He wrote several volumes on St. Ambrose of Milan, the Gospels, and the Fathers of the Church.
As Nuncio, he served in Czechloslovakia (later the Czech Republic).
In his telegram, addressed to the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Pope Francis remembers Cardinal Coppa as a dedicated and pastorally sensitive servant of the Church and the Papacy. “As Assessor of the Secretariat of State and as Delegate for the Pontifical Diplomatic Representations,” writes Pope Francis, “he showed pastoral wisdom and careful attention to the needs of others.” The Holy Father goes on to say, “When he was sent as Pontifical Representative to the Nunciature in Prague, he gave witness to a particularly intense and fruitful commitment to the spiritual good of that nation.”
The Holy Father concludes with promises of “fervent prayers of suffrage, so that, by the intercession of the Virgin Mary and of St. Ambrose, of whose works he was among the foremost students, the Lord might welcome the Cardinal – sorely missed – in joy and peace eternal,” and imparts his Apostolic Blessing on all those who share in suffering at the loss of so zealous a Pastor.
(from Vatican Radio)…