(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said God is the greatest glory and warned believers against the temptation to deify earthly things and even to idolize our habits. Instead, he said, we should be looking beyond these things to the transcendent, to God the creator, whose glory never fades. The Pope’s words came during his homily at his Mass on Friday (13th November) celebrated at the Santa Marta residence.
Pope Francis reflected in his homily on God’s eternal glory and said there are two dangers that undermine believers: the temptation to deify our earthly things and even to idolize our habits, as if all this were lasting forever. Instead, he said, God is the greatest glory and this is made clear in the psalms where we read how “The heavens declare the Glory of God.” The problem, said the Pope, is that humans often bow down before things whose splendour is only a reflection that will be extinguished one day – or worse still they become devoted to even more fleeting pleasures.
Attached to the beauty of the here and now
Pope Francis warned about the “error” of many people who, he said, are incapable of looking beyond the beauty of earthly things towards the transcendent, describing this attitude as the idolatry of immanence.
“They are attached to this idolatry: they are astonished by the power and energy (of these things). They haven’t thought about how much greater is their sovereign because He created them, He who is the origin and the author of this beauty. It’s an idolatry to gaze at all these beautiful things without believing that they will fade away. And the fading too has its beauty… And this idolatry of being attached to the beauty of the here and now, without (a sense of) the transcendence, we all run the risk of having that. It’s the idolatry of immanence. We believe that these things are almost gods and they will last forever. We forget about that fading away.”
The other trap or idolatry into which many people fall, warned the Pope, is that of our daily habits which make our hearts deaf. He said Jesus illustrated this when he described the men and woman during the time of Noah or Sodom who ate and drank and got married without caring about anything else until the flood came or the Lord rained down burning sulphur.
“Everything is according to habit. Life is like that: We live in this way, without thinking about the end of this way of living. This too is an idolatry: to be attached to our habits, without thinking that this will come to an end. But the Church makes us look at the end of these things. Even our habits can be thought of as gods. The idolatry? Life is like this and we go forward in this way… And just as this beauty will finish in another (kind of) beauty, our habits will finish in an eternity, in another (kind of) habit. But there is God!”
Look at the glory that doesn’t fade
Pope Francis went on to urge his listeners to direct their gaze always beyond towards the one God who is beyond “the end of created things” so as not to repeat the fatal error of looking back, as Lot’s wife did. We must be certain, he stressed, that if life is beautiful then its end will be just as beautiful as well.
“We believers are not people who look back, who yield, but people who always go forward.” We must always go forward in this life, looking at the beautiful things and with the habits that we all have but without deifying them. They will end. Be they these small beauties, which reflect a bigger beauty, our own habits for surviving in the eternal song, contemplating the glory of God.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is donating to the parish church of Lampedusa a crucifix that was gifted to him by President Raul Castro of Cuba during the recent papal visit to the Caribbean island. Measuring over 3 metres high, the crucifix is crafted from wooden oars tied with ropes to symbolize the reality of migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean by boat. Lampedusa is an island off the coast of Sicily whose shores receive the majority of migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean sea by boat from Libya to Italy. The tiny island was also the first place in Italy that Pope Francis chose to visit after his election.
Pope Francis’ decision was announced by Cardinal Francesco Montenegro of Agrigento whose archdiocese includes Lampedusa. He made the announcement at Italy’s National Ecclesial Congress in Florence that was attended by the Pope on Tuesday.
On hearing of the Pope’s gift, the parish priest of Lampedusa Don Mimmo Zambito said the image of this crucifix symbolizes the mercy and humanity of Jesus Christ who triumphs over every conflict, knocking down walls and crossing borders.
The crucifix will be displayed in the Church of the Holy Cross in Agrigento for the local inauguration of the Jubilee Year of Mercy on December 11th and then will be taken on a pilgrimage across the archdiocese of Agrigento before taking up its final residence in the parish Church of Lampedusa.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Thursday thanked the Don Guanella Servants of Charity for their work in favour of the poor, the disabled and the sick.
The Pope’s words of gratitude came during a private audience with representatives of the Don Guanella family who are celebrating their patron, Our Lady of Divine Providence.
Listen to the report by Linda Bordoni :
In his address the Pope recalled the words of Don Guanella himself, the founder of the Congregation, whose birth centenary has just been marked.
He said that at the core of Don Guanella’s faith was his total trust in God, and he noted that Lord is sad when he sees that his children do not trust in him fully. God, he said, is pure love, providential love, and knows what is good for us so there is no reason for being wary or distant.
The Pope then commented on how we all need to look at the world with the eyes of hope and love.
Remarking on how our world is full of problems, poverty and injustice, Pope Francis said the greatest shortage we have is a shortage of charity, and to overcome this shortage we need people whose eyes have been renewed by love and by hope.
Finally, he said, we need to make haste because the poor are God’s most beloved children and he who gives to the poor, gives to God.
As Don Guanella said, he continued: “misery cannot wait” and we must not stop as long as there are poor people to assist.
Pope Francis concluded his discourse thanking those present for the good work they do and encouraging them to continue to do so without tiring.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis delivered a video message to the participants in the XVI Latin American Congress of Former Students of Jesuit Institutions, taking place in Guayaquil, Ecuador, from the 11 th to the 13 th of November.
In his remarks to those taking part, the Holy Father focused on the dynamic tension that the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius seek to develop in the soul of the subject who undertakes them – a tension that becomes a distinctive element in the charism of the Jesuit and a signal characteristic of the person formed by Jesuit education.
Click below to hear our report
Pope Francis explained that this tension is threefold: between heaven, earth, and the person experiencing it – a tension that, like electrical tension, makes it possible for power current to course and do its work in and through a medium that is properly attuned to it.
“This,” said Pope Francis, “is how the Church desires former Jesuit students to be: a tension created by the faith they profess in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – God, who sends His Son into the world – and this faith is to be in tension with what is happening in the world today.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis sent a message on Thursday (12th November) to the participants of a seminar jointly organized by the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross to discuss the theme: Vocation and mission of the Laity: Fifty years after the Decree: Apostolicam actuositatem. In his message which was addressed to Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the Pope recalled how the Second Vatican Council with its keynote documents led to a new way of looking at the vocation and mission of lay people within the Church and the World. He said the Council does not consider the laity as though they were members of a second tier, at the service of the hierarchy and merely carrying out their orders issued from high up but instead as Christ’s disciples who are called to animate every place and human activity in the world according to the spirit of the Gospel. In conclusion, Pope Francis wrote that he prayed that this seminar will encourage both pastors and lay faithful to live out and put into practice this Council teaching on the laity which, he said, was always a keen pastoral concern of St. John Paul II. (from Vatican Radio)…