God is indeed waiting for you; he asks of you only the courage to go to him. How many times in my pastoral ministry have I heard it said, “father, I have many sins”? And I have always pleaded, “don’t be afraid, though to him, he is waiting for you, he will take care of everything.” We hear many offers from the world around us; but let us take up God’s offer instead: he is a caress of love. Even if we are sinners, we are what is closest to his heart.
– Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy
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January 21, 2021
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January 20, 2021
January 20, 2021
January 20, 2021
January 19, 2021
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January 18, 2021
Each one of us Christians is a branch of the one vine which is Jesus; and all of us together are called to bear the fruits of this common membership in Christ. #Prayer #ChristianUnity
#ChristianUnity can be achieved only as a fruit of #prayer. Jesus opened the way for us by praying. Our prayer for unity is thus a participation in the Lord’s prayer, who promised that any prayer said in His name would be heard by the Father.
The world’s faith depends on #ChristianUnity; in fact, the Lord asked that we be one “so the world might believe” (Jn 17:21). The world will not believe because of our convincing arguments, but because we have borne witness to that love that unites us and draws us near. #Prayer
After the Last Supper, Jesus prayed for His own, “that they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). This means that we are not able to achieve unity with our own strength. Above all, unity is a gift, it is a grace to be requested through #prayer. #ChristianUnity
Jesus invites us to abide in Him so as to bear much fruit (see Jn 15:5-9). Abiding in the Lord means finding the courage to step outside of ourselves to take care of others' needs and give a Christian witness in the world. #Prayer #UnityOfChristians
Today The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins. This year, the theme refers to Jesus’s counsel: “Abide in my love and you shall bear much fruit” (cf. Jn 15:5-9). #PrayTogether
Let us pray together for our brothers and sisters of Sulawesi, in Indonesia, hit by a strong earthquake. May the Lord console and sustain the efforts of all those who are engaged in bringing aid. Let us also pray for the victims of the airplane accident in Indonesia.
The design that God has for each one of us is always a design of love. And the greatest joy for every believer is to respond to that call, offering one’s entire being to the service of God and the brothers and sisters. #Angelus
We are always on a journey in life. Let us choose the path of God! We will discover that there are no unexpected events, no uphill path, and no night that cannot be faced with Jesus.
In each act of service, in every work of #mercy we perform, God manifests Himself; God sets His gaze upon the world.
God overcomes the world's evil by taking it upon himself. This is also how we can lift others up: not by judging, not by suggesting what to do, but by becoming neighbours, empathizing, sharing God's love.
In difficult and dark moments let us find the courage to say: "Blessed are you, Lord". Let us praise the Lord: this will be so good for us. #Prayer #GeneralAudience
We possess a great wealth that depends on what we are: the life we have received, the good within us, the indelible beauty God has given us by making us in his image. All these things make each of us precious in his eyes, each one of us is priceless and unique in history.
A society is all the more human to the degree that it cares effectively for its most frail and suffering members, in a spirit of fraternal love. vatican.va/content/f…
It is striking that the Lord spent most of his time on Earth living an ordinary life, without standing out. It is a beautiful message that reveals the greatness of daily life, the importance in God's eyes of every gesture and moment of life, even the most simple.
I am praying for the United States of America, shaken by the recent attack on Congress. I pray for those who lost their life. Violence is always self-destructive. I urge everyone to promote a culture of encounter and of care to construct the common good.
Today I could not celebrate Baptisms in the Sistine Chapel, as is customary. I am praying for all the children who at this time are receiving Baptism, the Christian identity, the grace of forgiveness and of redemption.
The Father says to each one of us, as He did to Jesus: “You are my beloved Son”. We are God's beloved children. This is our deepest identity. It is the first point of the spiritual life and we are reminded about it by Jesus first public gesture. #BaptismoftheLord
This is the great meaning of #Christmas: God becomes man so that we can become children of God.
Christmas is passing. But we must return to family life, to work, transformed, we must return glorifying and praising God for all that we have heard and seen. We must bring the good news to the world: Jesus is our saviour.
May the Child of Bethlehem help us, then, to be generous, supportive and helpful, especially towards those who are vulnerable, the sick, those unemployed or experiencing hardship.
I extend my affection to the brothers and sisters of the Oriental Churches, Catholic and Orthodox, who celebrate the Nativity of the Lord today. To them, I wish them a Holy Christmas in the light of Christ our peace and our hope!
Today we celebrate World Missionary Child Day. I thank all the children and boys and girls who are involved. I encourage you to be joyful witnesses of Jesus, seeking to always bring fraternity among your peers.
Like the Magi, we too are called to allow ourselves to be attracted, illuminated and converted by Christ: He is the journey of faith, through prayer and the contemplation of God’s works, which continually fill us with every new joy and wonder.
The first step towards an attitude of worship is to “lift up our eyes”. When we lift up our eyes to God, life’s problems do not go away, but we feel certain that the Lord grants us the strength to deal with them. vatican.va/content/f…
To worship the Lord, we first have to “lift up our eyes”: not to let ourselves be imprisoned by those imaginary spectres that stifle hope, knowing that the Lord is aware of our troubles, attentive to our prayers and not indifferent to the tears we shed.
In the Child Jesus, God shows Himself to be lovable, full of goodness and gentleness. We can truly love a God like that with all our hearts.
As he did in Bethlehem, so too with us, God loves to work wonders through our poverty. He placed the whole of our salvation in the manger of a stable. He is unafraid of our poverty, so let us allow his mercy to transform it completely!
Jesus is the eternal Word of God, who has always thought of us and wanted to communicate with us. #Angelus
Looking at the Nativity scene, we can become a little childlike and allow the wonder of the “marvellous” way in which God wanted to come into the world to be reborn in us. This will revive tenderness in us; and today we are in great need of tenderness!
#Peace can become a reality if we begin to be in peace with ourselves and with those who are near us, removing the obstacles that prevent us from taking care of those who find themselves in need and in indigence. #WorldPeaceDay vatican.va/content/f…
Holy Mother of God, to you we consecrate this New Year. You, who know how to cherish things in your heart, care for us, bless our time, and teach us to find time for God and for others. vatican.va/content/f…
The blessing and praise that the Lord loves the most is love of neighbour. We praise him for this, because we believe and we know that all the good that is accomplished day after day on earth, in the end, comes from him.
We thank God for for the good things that have taken place during the pandemic, for the many people who, without making noise, have tried to make the weight of this trial more bearable.
#Christmas is the feast of Love incarnate, born for us in Jesus Christ. He is the light of humanity shining in the darkness, giving meaning to human existence and all of history.
The Son of God comes down from heaven and comes to earth to bring us to heaven! This is what we need to meditate on, contemplate, what we need to reflect on during #Christmas.
The #prayer of thanksgiving begins by recognizing that we were thought of before we learned how to think; we were loved before we learned how to love. If we view life like this, then “thank you” becomes the driving force of our day. #GeneralAudience
Yesterday, an earthquake in Croatia caused victims and caused serious damage. I express my closeness to the wounded and to those who have been affected by the quake and I pray in particular for those who have lost their lives and for their families.
The Son of God was born an outcast, in order to tell us that every outcast is a child of God. He came into the world as each child comes into the world, weak and vulnerable, so that we can learn to accept our weaknesses with tender love.
While humanity’s ruin is that everyone goes their own way, in the nativity scene everyone converges upon Jesus, Prince of Peace in the night of the world. #Nativityscene
I have decided to declare a special year dedicated to the Family #Amorislaetitia, which will be inaugurated on the next Solemnity of Saint Joseph. Let us entrust this journey with families all over the world to the Holy Family of Nazareth.
We too can change evil into good each day. Loving actions change history: even the ones that are small, hidden, everyday. For God guides history through the humble courage of those who pray, love and forgive.
Saint Stephan is the first martyr, the first of a host of brothers and sisters who continue to bring the light into the darkness – while he was on the receiving end of the stones of hatred, reciprocated with words of forgiveness. He thus changed history.
In the past few days I have received Christmas greetings from Rome and other parts of the world. Since it is impossible to respond to everyone, I express my gratitude to everyone, especially for the gift of prayer, which I willingly reciprocate.
May Christmas be an opportunity for all of us to rediscover the family as a cradle of life and faith, a place of acceptance and love, dialogue, forgiveness, fraternal solidarity and shared joy, a source of peace for all humanity.
By his birth in the flesh, the Son of God consecrated familial love. My thoughts at this moment turn to families: to those who cannot come together today and to those forced to remain at home.
Every other person is my brother or my sister. In everyone, I see reflected the face of God, and in those who suffer, I see the Lord pleading for my help. I see him in the sick, the poor, the unemployed, the marginalized, the migrant and the refugee.
Thanks to this Child, all of us can speak to God and call him “Father”. We can all call one another brothers and sisters. We come from every continent, from every language and culture, with our own identities and differences, yet we are all brothers and sisters.
“To us a child is born” (Is 9:6). He came to save us! He tells us that pain and evil are not the final word. To become resigned to violence and injustice would be to reject the joy and hope of Christmas.
The birth of Jesus is the “newness” that enables us to be reborn each year and to find, in him, the strength needed to face every trial. #Christmas
To us a son is given. Jesus, you are the Child who makes me a child. You, my Saviour, teach me to serve. You who did not leave me alone, help me to comfort your brothers and sisters, for, from this night forward, all are my brothers and sisters. #Christmas
God came into the world as a child to make us children of God. What a magnificent gift! This day, God amazes us and says to each of us: “You are amazing”. #Christmas
God came among us in poverty and need, to tell us that in serving the poor, we will show our love for him. From this night onward, as a poet wrote, “God’s residence is next to mine, his furniture is love” (Emily Dickinson, Poems, XVII). #Christmas
Follow the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord - Midnight Mass - Saint Peter's Basilica at 19:30 (CET) vatican.va/content/f… pic.twitter.com/vv2B…
Christmas is the feast of God's love for us: the divine love that inspires, directs and corrects change, and defeats the human fear of leaving "safety" to cast us back onto the "mystery".
If the #pandemic has forced us to be more distant, Jesus, in the crib, shows us the way of tenderness to be close to each other, to be human. Let us follow this path. #Christmas #GeneralAudience
